Guild Wars 2

Yeah, I’m not keen on unlocking options based on WxP. All commanders should have all options available at all times.
WxP focusses on time played rather than inherent ability; while I know ArenaNet have adopted more time-based progression systems in PvE, I don’t think they have a place in any form of PvP. But I’m not a massive fan of WxP unlocked power benefits anyway.

I know that as an MMO developer, some of the things you feel you have to factor into game design are hooks that keep people playing and paying. But add too many of these things and you risk alienating your user base.

When the WxP progression system was initially introduced, it actively discouraged me from playing more than one character in WvW. And as an altaholic, I play for the variety switching professions offers. In the end, as more abilities were added further up the progression system, it contributed to my overall feeling of apathy towards GW2 as a whole and was a factor in me stopping playing completely.

Of course, you may use the fact that I don’t play any more as an excuse to dismiss my thoughts and suggestions, but I would hope you’d be wise enough to understand that what has put me off may very well put other players off.

If you introduce too much power progression into a competitive online game, you discourage newcomers as the barrier to entry over time grows higher.
Who wants to spend massive amounts of time playing at a sub-par level and getting continually stomped in order to just catch up and be on a level playing field?

I created a simple image for the following suggestions that have been made buy a few players.

Top left you can select which kind of tag you want to select General Commander tag (Current) or a Guild Commander tag.

On the top right and middle of the screen i added a supply counter instead of /supplyinfo

Please give me feedback on the image
http://i.imgur.com/7huXgtW.jpg

I’ve been a strong advocate of a better Commander and Squad system since the Beta weekend events. First and Foremost: A multi-group system should be flexible enough to meet the needs of ALL guilds and player gaming styles. Private/guild/public commander pin options should be implemented ASAP. My list…

Guild/Public Pin options: It’s just too confusing putting commander pins up when running private guild groups or events in WvW. It draws people away from those commanders trying to lead a public zerg. This is the #1 thing needed as multiple groups using Ctrl-T to coordinate is frustrating as heck.

Squad Assistants: If a guild/private system is introduced then having a commander leading AND inviting/managing a squad can be overwhelming. Allow commanders to assign assistants with permissions to /invite and /kick players from a squad.

Ctrl-T visible to everyone in squad: If a commander targets siege or players, everyone currently in the squad should see it and be able to assist. Overwrites group target or perhaps a separate keybind to assist.

Commander Chat color: Commander chat in a squad should be a different color than player chat in a squad. It should be easy to pick out the commander chat if lots of chatter in squad chat.

Commander only squad chat: Commander should be able to toggle chat on/off in a squad so only the commander can speak. At key times a commanders orders can be lost in the chatter of squad chat.

Chat Suppression: Limits need to be increased

Devon’s questions:

- I’d prefer seeing some short term changes made ASAP, foremost a public/guild only option.. WvW would be more dynamic with tools that allow smaller forces to coordinate better.

- I don’t like having a progression based system to gain commander abilities. If you go with the guild commander upgrade option it should be a one time shot and allow anyone in the guild to use at different times

- Private/guild changes would indeed have more people joining squads, currently almost no one does.

- I would NOT like to see commander pins visible to the enemy or show enemy commander pins on a map. Surprise and tactics are lost if everyone knows where each other are. This would NOT be healthy for WvW.

- Devon – The Commander and squad system is only useful for one thing atm. Leading or herding large numbers of players together. Unfortunately that’s not how many players enjoy playing. Allowing commanders to hide the pin except for players in the squad would allow EVERYONE to use it. A private/guild only option would allow more small or medium sized forces to organize better and you’d have a more dynamic battlefield. Even a single group able to have that visual commander pin to regroup makes a huge difference. I feel adding a few changes immediately is better than revamping the whole system.

Sub-commanders
Allow a commander to designate a member of their squad as a ‘sub-commander’.
This could be as simple as letting commanders put markers over the heads of their squad members. This would allow that squad member to act as a point of reference during confrontations (everyone go to STAR marker sub-comm.) or split the squad into smaller groups that act together.

DevonCarver.5370:

I think there are other things we could do, like provide a commander only channel that has no suppression but that people have to opt in to.

I believe this sounds like the best resolution. If you add in lieutenants (which I really like that idea) they should be able to speak in the channel too.

DevonCarver.5370:

That is why any full on rework of the squad system will be a large project. It is important to us that when we introduce new UI elements we have fully fleshed out their place in the rest of the game UI.

I think a full rework of the squad system is needed, and I would wait for it. However, if it’s decided to be reworked I would like to see a focused discussion on the squad system.

I vote for account bound tags.

Short term:

A lot of players said the most urgent problems with it. Basically make it possible to have a pink tag that is only visible to the guild :P

Long term:

Scrap the whole thing and speak with the PvE designers to create a fully fledged Raid UI. This would solve a lot of problems and also would make the system naturally usable in PvE. There is no content that requires it yet in PvE except maybe the Tequatl fight or some Guild puzzles. But you can always add new PvE content with Living Story.

Some of my thoughts, but you can check out other MMOs that support Raids for ideas.

1. Make a UI which displays all the players in the raid (squad). They are grouped into 5 player groups. Everyone can see who is in the raid and see the professions represented, etc. So we can configure the raid that groups 1-4 are melee and should follow the commander, while group 5 is mesmers, and groups 6-8 are ranged who should avoid contact with the enemy front line.
2. The raid leader is the commander, he can move people around between groups, invite/kick players, etc.
3. There can be open raids where the commander tag is visible on the map, everyone can join the way you can join currently to a squad. There can be closed raids where the commander can invite players, and the tag is only visible to raid members.
4. The commander can mark players or objects (door, cannon, ground) with markers, to help organize the raid. E.g.: Group 4 and 5 follow the player marked with yellow star to get some supply from the camp. Group 6 (all ranged) should attack the Arrow Cart marked with skull, while group 5 (all mesmers) go to the blue square and get into the portal to port the raid into garrison.
5. The commander can promote players to lieutenants who can help with organising groups, inviting players, marking objectives, doing supply checks, etc. So he can focus on combat while others help with the management of the raid.

Acquisition can be problematic as making raids should be core to the game the same way you can form groups now. Maybe you need to spend 100 gold to make open raids when your commander tag is visible to everyone.

DevonCarver.5370:

Summary of Day 1 of discussion:
With that out of the way, I have some more questions.
1) What is an acceptable amount of chat suppression for a commander? It’s important to realize that if the system remains as it currently does, with 100g for a tag, no chat suppression would mean that people can spend 100g to spam you with whatever they feel like. That’s not an acceptable solution. I think there are other things we could do, like provide a commander only channel that has no suppression but that people have to opt in to.

I think it’d be easiest to remove suppression for the squad chat channel. When there are multiple commanders on the map, they are giving commands to whoever is with them. This can get confusing and can clog up the team/map chats with different orders. It’d be better if commanders were encouraged to use squads more.

DevonCarver.5370:

Summary of Day 1 of discussion:

1) There are a lot of people that would like to see more colors and/or more shapes for the commander icons.

2) People are arguing for commanders to be able to hide their tags from everyone and only have them be visible to select groups.

I would like to touch those 2 points and my suggestion includes them both inside.

I think that there should be an option to OPT in which will allow 3rd option to hide/unhide tag – there should be an option not restricted by hide/unhide that will allow different commanders who use “invisible tag” (visible only to their squad/guild) to see each other.

This option should be in place for the reason where there are many closed guild raids.

Guild Raid “A” Guild Raid “B” & Guild Raid “C”.

They’re all on the same map and to make their raid more efficient they split up to separate raids or raid only with their guild.

Currently separate raids who don’t tag cannot see each other which cause coordination and communication problems.

But if there is “invisible tag” which is invisible to non-squad/non-guild players but visible to other commander on the map who use the “invisible tag” option will help them coordinate and communicate better and be more efficient.

Most of Guild have their own guild voice chat even with a community voice chat we have in our server its real pain.

If there is such an option that where the colorization thing hits in – so Guild Raid “A” commander can be ORANGE,Guild Raid “B” commander can be WHITE & Guild Raid “C” can be PINK or w/e other colors are better system wise to use.

Additional to that different “invisible tag” commander should be able to set waypoints using flags or other map markers.

Example: I’m ‘A’ and i set flag to NE camp so ‘B’ can focus other side of the map and put a marker to a tower that will hit and create distraction for ‘C’ who will run ninja attempt to Garrison using Water-gate.

I think that the system, by and large, works pretty well right now. Most of the changes we need would come in the form of functionality rather than increased “power” or communication.

1. The option to change commander tag colour. This is not a vanity option, but is a functionality improvement. With different colours you could have a commander running defence, another running offence and still allow room for smaller guild groups to run sniping teams. When Im commanding, I would rather people stay with me rather than running off and following any other commander that tags up, but thats their decision, not mine.

2. Increased range on the /supplyinfo command. I can call for people to stack on me when Im on Teamspeak, but not everybody uses it. Even when the call is made in text chat, people still stand too far away. Give us a range of roughly 800-1000.

3. We do not need a breakdown of who has supply and how much of it. Break the command down into a more simplistic report, such as:

“250 supply in range.
7 people have 0 supply”

Giving us the report on a by character basis is unnecessary, as I only want to know how much I have available to build siege and when I need to go on a supply run.

5. In addition to the /supplyinfo command, give us an additional UI element that refreshes the amount of supply around the commander. To avoid any additional strain on the servers or clients, have this update roughly once every 10 seconds, leaving the commander with the option to use /supplyinfo if they need a more immediate update. Obviously, this UI element should be enabled only in WvW and not PVE events.

4. Make tags account bound. With WvW exp becoming account bound, it gives us the option to play different characters in WvW if we wish to do so. However the lack of a commander tag means we have to go back to our mains if we want/need to tag up. Alternatively, I wouldnt mind paying a reduced price (say 10g?) available to any account that already has an existing commander character.

I also want to shoot down a couple of ideas that have been raised in this thread:

Commander ratings – A new commander deciding to tag up should not be punished for doing so. A commander on a poorly performing server that tags up during primetime should not be punished for doing so. A commander should earn respect based on what they are doing at that very moment. A normally well respected commander that is performing poorly should expect for their zerg to leave him. An unknown commander performing well should expect their zerg to grow.

Server wide broadcasts – Worst idea Ive heard in a while. Open to all kinds of abuse and basically unnecessary anyway.

DevonCarver.5370:

With that out of the way, I have some more questions.
1) What is an acceptable amount of chat suppression for a commander? It’s important to realize that if the system remains as it currently does, with 100g for a tag, no chat suppression would mean that people can spend 100g to spam you with whatever they feel like. That’s not an acceptable solution. I think there are other things we could do, like provide a commander only channel that has no suppression but that people have to opt in to.

I would argue that chat suppression is an anti-social measure in what is supposed to be a social game. Add and option to temporarily suppress chat on our own screen, which coupled with the already existing permanent ignore function should address all the spam issues. A simple checkbox “suppress similar messages from the same player” would do. I can right-click and select ignore myself, you dont have to do it for me.

The problem is as it stands, getting blocked from chat forces everyone to use a third party program (VoIP) if they want to follow a commander or they get shunned by the group. According to your own rules, VoIP should be a ban for those using it since it is a 3rd party program that gives a significant advantage to players using it. That is why I suggest implementing commander macros and an /announce function for the squad, to make sure that VoIP is not a significant gameplay advantage anymore.

For those reasons, I believe a server-side 5 second suppression is more than enough in /map and in /say and /team it should be 2 seconds.

If you want more ideas about Raidlike UI, you could take a look at some of WoW’s user generated addons. Some interesting ideas can be found there.

I’m against UI clutter on screen, but a raidframe for commanders to put together groups (when you’re in the commander squad) and assign different colored dots for each group could be pretty effective for organisation. Currently only your party uses a different color on the map.

On my phone but figured I’d chime in with one suggestion I would find invaluable. I LOVE the suggestions coming out from everyone.

The ability to drop pins/banners that signal for a specific action to happen at that location. Example being

Asking all mesmers to stack. Melee to stack. People with supply.

The only way I can see that working is to open up a banner creation system. Whereby we type in what we want stacking on that banner.

As a side note, I would love a side menu to select siege from without having to open up my massive bag which fills my screen. I know it’s nothing to do with the commander system, however it interferes witn every aspect of it when having to get siege out. I’ll write more of a specific list tomorrow at the PC

SpiceTrader.1859:

DevonCarver.5370:

Summary of Day 1 of discussion:
With that out of the way, I have some more questions.
1) What is an acceptable amount of chat suppression for a commander? It’s important to realize that if the system remains as it currently does, with 100g for a tag, no chat suppression would mean that people can spend 100g to spam you with whatever they feel like. That’s not an acceptable solution. I think there are other things we could do, like provide a commander only channel that has no suppression but that people have to opt in to.

I think it’d be easiest to remove suppression for the squad chat channel. When there are multiple commanders on the map, they are giving commands to whoever is with them. This can get confusing and can clog up the team/map chats with different orders. It’d be better if commanders were encouraged to use squads more.

But not everyone can join a squad so it makes VoIP an obligation, might as well do nothing. The idea I had when I first suggested it was to make it so VoIP isn’t as significant an advantage as it is now based on what they said about 3rd party programs.

I still think in-game VoIP is the best long-term comms solution for ArenaNet, with proximity and global channels a la ARMA 2 /3.
But that’s a discussion for another day.

DevonCarver.5370:

Any change that requires significant UI, especially any new UI functionality, is a long term change. Not only does it take time to design the UI and settle on it’s appearance, it takes time to build the functionality. That is why any full on rework of the squad system will be a large project. It is important to us that when we introduce new UI elements we have fully fleshed out their place in the rest of the game UI.

Definitely makes sense that it would be a huge undertaking and I hope it is something that is on your radar nonetheless. Although it doesn’t have to be introduced necessarily through the commander system (it kind of makes sense though to develop it this way), a UI focused around the total amount players can formally group with would be a welcome addition. Could even be something as simple as X / Y members alive displayed, X / Y in range, etc, etc. doesn’t have to initially be a full visual of each member (maybe that would cut back on the effort regarding a UI overhaul).

Either way, glad the commander system is being worked on; I remember being very excited when hearing about it and sorely dissapointed when testing it during beta. It really can and should be more useful and there are a lot of good suggestions on here that you’re gathering thus far. Good luck!

No to a special WXP line for commanding. New commanders are already at a large disadvantage in terms of a lack of player support in the field and it would not help them to have a restricted set of tools as compared to other commanders; we want to make it easier for them, not harder. An exception to this would be spending a bulk amount of WXP to unlock the ability to use your tag within WVW, and then having the full featureset available to you as a one-time “purchase”.

Having each icon on the map be a different color and/or shape and waiting on any other significant change to the commander system would be awesome in my book.

A clever player can already find the enemy commander by looking for players with the buff icon, and commanders already tend to be focused down in high-level play. With that in mind, some kind of skill allowing players to find enemy commanders would make a difficult situation even harder. I’m inclined to say it would be a bad idea unless greatly limited in scope in some way.

Cake.4920:

One more thing: no matter what you do, there’s no way to weed out bad commanders from becoming commanders. No wxp rank, achievement, money needed, badges, etc. will stop a bad player from becoming commander.

i think this is why it is important to make commanders stay character bound so people know who the bad commanders are.

gidorah.4960:

i think this is why it is important to make commanders stay character bound so people know who the bad commanders are.

The bad commanders could still buy more icons and the good commanders would have to buy more icons too. Either way they are a good or a bad commander, I would rather have a good commander have the freedom to change between roles that are needed then have to worry about bad commanders having “extra icons” either way he’ll reestablish himself as a bad commander on that other character.

DevonCarver.5370:

2) How would it feel to have a system that gradually unlocked more commander abilities and icons, but that required dedication to WvW? Let’s say we added a commander line to the ability panel and you unlocked it with WvW ability points. What is the right starting price for that? 100 points? more? If that happens, does it make sense for the system to remain character based? Would requiring commanders to spend their WXP in this way limit them to the point that they didn’t want to do it? What if you still acquired the current tag by spending 100g, but you upgraded to new shapes via the WXP system?

i’m not sure i like this or at least not without it being easier to access. my favorite commander recently started playing again and has 10 world ranks because he was very active at the beginning of wvw but quit before world ranks where introduced.

Chidori.9483:

gidorah.4960:

i think this is why it is important to make commanders stay character bound so people know who the bad commanders are.

The bad commanders could still buy more icons and the good commanders would have to buy more icons too. Either way they are a good or a bad commander, I would rather have a good commander have the freedom to change between roles that are needed then have to worry about bad commanders having “extra icons” either way he’ll reestablish himself as a bad commander on that other character.

how many times will servers have to learn the bad commanders new names when they can just make an alt how often do i need to learn the good commanders alts? there really should be a way to identify commanders by the name the majority of the server knows them even if they are on an alt. most of the good commanders i know have 3 or 4 characters with commander tags anyway they can already switch roles whenever they want.

Alcyone.8695:

No to a special WXP line for commanding. New commanders are already at a large disadvantage in terms of a lack of player support in the field and it would not help them to have a restricted set of tools as compared to other commanders; we want to make it easier for them, not harder.

100% agreeed. We shouldn’t be trying to do anything that will limit/handicap a new commander. It’s hard enough when you pop the icon and have evryone flock to you. If you don’t have all the tools how can you be expected to lead properly? May as well give the new leaders a fair chance at getting things right the first time. Everyone has to start somewhere right?

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Thanks for all the responses : )

I’ve always felt the commander system had a lot of room to grow mainly it does a good job of giving people something to follow but that’s about it.

Agreed.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

I know there are a lot of suggestions about a whole commander system with points, ranks, ect.. and I think that could be neat but one of our big goals is deep systems and as few of them as possible, as having a lot of small shallow systems all over the game can make it hard to maintain and keep up to date. Some examples are we could just roll the whole commander system into the Guild System and make new ranks and abilities part of guild upgrades. Another way to simplify this would be turn commander into WvW abilities and have a few lines that focus on commanding/following. (Granted this approch does make things more messy for PvE commanders). Just a few examples of how to design in a more simplistic way by folding this into another system, and some of the discussions and debates we have internally every time we go to improve/update a system.

With regards to the above, have you considered doing both?

By ‘doing both’ I mean splitting the commander tag / system into 2 separate systems. One for when you are in a borderland and one for general PvE.

Perhaps the PvE commander tag could be tied to the guild system or laurels + <x> or something, while the WvW commander tag could be tied to badges of honor + <x>.

Maybe slightly reducing the cost of each since you would need to purchase both tags to retain the current functionality. Each system could then be tailored to its content.

As to the question of short term or rebuild from scratch. My vote would be for rebuilding. At the end of this discussion decide what exactly is going into the system, how to best implement it and then make it happen. If possible keeping the players somewhat informed about the process in some way, like a ‘dev diary’ so to speak would be great.

I bought my commander’s tag a long time ago mostly as an experiment to try to recreate alliance chat, which did actually work to some degree, but didn’t work well— too messy to get people into the group and too difficult to keep the group going long-term.

I have never used my tag in WvW — only for guild outtings in PvE. I don’t want to have to earn a tag in WvW unless there is also some other method of obtaining a PvE tag.

Things I would like to see:

Join Squad button like the Join Party button — type in the commander’s name and be placed into their squad even if you are not on the same map.

An option to make the tag only visible to guild members, or people who are a part of the squad.

An option to kick people from the squad at the commander’s sole discretion

Different tag colors/icons

It would really, really rock if gold dots showed on the map for squad members the way that blue dots show for party members. If this were the case the commander could ask for a small team to split to a separate objective, and be able to see when the positions on the map.

Account-wide Commander status would be great, but if that is the case the mouse-over should the account name and not character name. If I find someone that I love to follow I want to recognize them at a glance — same for people that I hate to follow.

DevonCarver.5370:

How would it feel to have a system that gradually unlocked more commander abilities and icons, but that required dedication to WvW?

As a PvE commander, who accrues very little WxP, I’d be extremely displeased, since we’d have kitten to perform our kitten herding.

DevonCarver.5370:

What is an acceptable amount of chat suppression for a commander?

To /d? none. people elected to be there.
To /s? a fair amount higher than now, since you’re commanding the local troops.
To /m? perhaps a moderate raise, but only in maps, not in town.

To some degree, however, I would ask John Smith to model if spending 100g for more lenient chat suppression would be cost effective for gold sellers. However, there’s little reason to not make the manual L80 anymore. This, however, goes WAY off topic for the CDI.

Blackarps.1974:

… If you leave a map, you should automatically be dropped from your previous squad.

This would be horrible from a Guild Leader’s perspective — more than one map is used for Treks and Bounties. Keeping the players in one squad so they can call out when an objective is completed is very helpful, especially for Treks.

I don’t think commander spamming is a big concern, assuming we’d still have the individual ability to ignore them. If someone decides to troll, everyone ignores them and then they can’t lead at all anymore. I suspect most servers already have commanders for whom this is done, I know mine does.

I don’t want more channels to have to keep track of in chat. map chat and team chat are already pretty redundant. If you could add a voice chat functionality, that would be useful, but I realize also probably very difficult.

I do think some tutorial for squad functions, for both members and commanders, would be useful. A WvW version of the PvP tutorial, maybe? Could cover commander stuff as well as supply, siege, etc.

RE: Commander trait line tied to WXP

I think that a hybrid approach to this should be taken. A good point was made by Devon when he/she (sorry I have both male and female friends with that name so no offense meant) mentioned that adding a trait line for that in the WXP system could limit a commander to spending points in a line to the exclusion of others.

What I think should happen is that at a set rank you automatically get points allotted to that trait-line. So for example at r50 you can change your color to red, etc. This way you don’t force people to spend in a trait line and take away from wvw abilities that they will want.

To deal with the PvE side of this I think those abilities should be allowed in PvE without the rank requirement. In that context you don’t necessarily need someone as experienced at the content since commanding in PvE in the current system really is more of a rally here symbol than anything else.

TLDR; In WvW in order to get special commander abilities use the trait line but only in so far as it is tied to rank, and doesn’t take away from the points you have to spend on other abilities. In PvE automatically allow all of the abilities that apply to PvE (color/shape changes) without any requirement.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

My point wasn’t that we don’t want large fights we love large fights but we want a mix of large and small fights, different tactics and tools for players to use to approach any battle or situation. I think the commander tool could help solve these problems in all situations.

This.

There are some really bad ideas in this thread. Everybody seems to want the commanders to have a great increase in functionality, even to the point of some ridiculous requests for better rewards for being in his squad and following like a good drone. This will not end well.

WvWvW used to have such incredible depth. You could always zerg, surely, but you could also roam, scout, join a havoc squad, defend, whatever. While most of those things are still possible, they are on the decline. Roaming or being in a small squad is a death sentence the minute a zerg steamrolls the area. There is no real reward in WvWvW for skill, just for following the tag like a mindless drone. WvWvW has already turned into a mindless champion train farm like that in Frostgorge Sound.

The zerg has turned into a blob, and WvWvW has turned into Blob vs Blob vs Blob. There are fewer defenders, roamers and havoc squads than ever before. Anybody doing any of thes things will be screamed at for not following the commander. We’ve all seen the rage in team chat at those who dare to do their own thing. The depth of the game has been lost in a great part due to the blob, and the commander is what creates the blob.

The blob does not refresh siege, build defensive siege, or upgrade towers. The blob even makes most of those defensive upgrades pointless. It does not hunt for mesmers in captured towers and keeps. Those individuals who do this will be left by the blob to a certain death as they later try to make it back. The blob is a karma and loot train which only moves from point to point capturing towers and camps and keeps in an endless cycle. The blob rewards mindless conformity rather than rewarding skill and individuality. The blob allows the casual pve’er to get greater rewards than the hardcore wvw’er who does care about the depth of the game and will defend, roam, and refresh siege.

Commanding today is all about personal glory and the desire to stroke ones ego. What is truly missing in every commander I have seen is the most common and sought after trait in real world commanders: responsibility.

I would like to see the commander system reworked to reward responsibility, and punish the lack thereof. Rewards should be given for doing responsible things, like refreshing or building defensive siege. The commander system should support the creation of multiple groups as opposed to a single blob. The karma and loot train should not be rewarded for destroying the depth that was WvWvW.

My suggestions for doing this:

• Limit the credit for taking objectives to a set number of people – not just everybody in the circle. call it a max of 10 people for a camp, 20 for a tower, and 30 for a keep. Have inclusion in the reward be either random or based upon skill usage during the taking of the objective. This way a zerg of 80 people means that a majority won’t be rewarded for being mindless drones. That will encourage them to stop being such, to do something productive. This will preserve the integrity and the depth of the game rather than destroying it.

• Make blueprints account only and raise their price. Making them trade-able was a serious mistake which basically made them a non-factor in the game. Throwing down siege should mean something. It should represent a commitment to take or defend an objective. Established defensive siege should hurt if it is allowed to disappear due to neglect. Armies of dozens of Omega Golems should simply not exist.

• Allow commanders to assign Lieutenants and give them a temporary smaller tag, color coded to represent their assigned activities. This allows a commander to break up a blob into useful components to bring some of the strategy back into the game.

• Add a seperate communication channel and seperate markers for commanders to communicate with lieutenants

• Include squad functionality for lieutenants.

Honestly, there is so much promise in this game mode, that it would be an utter shame to have it reduced further into the karma train mentality that it is quickly becoming.

Soren.9316:

Alcyone.8695:

No to a special WXP line for commanding. New commanders are already at a large disadvantage in terms of a lack of player support in the field and it would not help them to have a restricted set of tools as compared to other commanders; we want to make it easier for them, not harder.

100% agreeed. We shouldn’t be trying to do anything that will limit/handicap a new commander. It’s hard enough when you pop the icon and have evryone flock to you. If you don’t have all the tools how can you be expected to lead properly? May as well give the new leaders a fair chance at getting things right the first time. Everyone has to start somewhere right?

“Starting somewhere” can and should be at the bottom.

The thing is right now commanders are nearly toothless. They get a map marker and some intel on allies (supply carried). We have the possibility of giving people Tools with actual mechanical value and bite, but to do so there would have to be appropriate costs. Right now commander tags are one of the closest brushes the game has with Pay2Win. Instead of having a time play in WvW or skill displayed to make it on stage to even attempt being a commander its “Do you have gold/did you buy gems?”

This ‘all or nothing’ attitude is fine for what we have now (because ‘all’ is virtually ‘nothing’…) but if we start to add things like group buffs, increased survivability in friendly zergs, reduced costs for upgrading siege equipment, and other things that actually set a commander apart for building and directing squads, we benefit from some sort of progression scheme, and progression fueled by something other than Gold.

Everything we have now can stay purchased with the 100g commander book. The possibilities open up from there for those commanders willing to invest in more.

Great to see the tags in collaborative development and I am keen to contribute!

I like the idea of small changes happening soon and feel the current commander system can be very easily improved with the “more colour choices” option everyone is keen on. Even if we got just three colours that would still give us an amazing improvement in our organizational ability (heck, 2 would allow for offense/defence or mainzerg/subgroup).

I too am not keen with enemies seeing our buff as it is starting to get me focused and its becoming a real pain.

So yes, more colours please and that change alone would make eternal battlegrounds especially a hundred times more interesting and less blobby.

DevonCarver.5370:

1) What is an acceptable amount of chat suppression for a commander? It’s important to realize that if the system remains as it currently does, with 100g for a tag, no chat suppression would mean that people can spend 100g to spam you with whatever they feel like. That’s not an acceptable solution. I think there are other things we could do, like provide a commander only channel that has no suppression but that people have to opt in to.

I think an opt-in solution would be useless. If you’re PUG commanding (which, if you’re getting chat suppression and aren’t using voice comm, you probably are), then you can’t rely on random people knowing (or remembering) to opt-in to hearing you.

DevonCarver.5370:

2) How would it feel to have a system that gradually unlocked more commander abilities and icons, but that required dedication to WvW? Let’s say we added a commander line to the ability panel and you unlocked it with WvW ability points. What is the right starting price for that? 100 points? more? If that happens, does it make sense for the system to remain character based? Would requiring commanders to spend their WXP in this way limit them to the point that they didn’t want to do it? What if you still acquired the current tag by spending 100g, but you upgraded to new shapes via the WXP system?

I’m okay with a WXP requirement for commander; for WvW commanding, it would be a significantly better barrier to entry than 100g (I agree with others that it’s not ideal, but it’s definitely better). But if features are tiered, the public, map visible tag should be the last one, not the first. As others have mentioned, new commanders shouldn’t be lacking important management features. I don’t think adding a disincentive to acquiring them would be positive either (through the opportunity cost of WXP that could be spent for other bonuses). I do think it would be okay (neat, even) to have additional tiers that provide bonuses to the commander or squad, though (like Nike suggested on page 3).

I do like the idea of a tiered approach, though. 100G is a steep price to pay if you just want to lead a 10 man guild group. A lower barrier for a guild/squad only tag would be rather nice. And even without a gold cost at all, a significant WXP cost would still hurt a lot if you’re only commanding occasionally.

I just found something I’ve had in a txt for some time, as I was never happy enough with what I got to post it as a suggestion so I guess it’s now or never. I changed some things, and I’m still not happy about everything, but here it goes. Sorry for the long posts. I hope there’s at least some ideas for consideration in here.

Unlocking commander:

1. Account bound. At most, it could require level 80 or a small extra fee to be able to create a squad with a character once commander is unlocked for the account.
2. Easier and cheaper when it’s just for one’s guild. Like a guild unlock under “Art of War”.
3. For non-guild commanders:
   • Separate between PvE and WvW.
   • Showing their badge for everyone on the map other than guildies would require a certain degree of content experience. Just getting currencies would not be enough for that.
   • Requirements would include success in WvW or open world PvE events. Both in quantity and diversity. At least one event of each type for WvW, at least one of each world boss event and some for PvE, and having at least a minimum number of successes.

• Here’s an example:
  - Guild researches “Commander emblem”. A permission in guild rooster allows showing a basic guild commander emblem only guildies can see.
  - PvE costs (e.g. 50 gold + 250K karma) paid & PvE requirements met: Player can set commander badge in PvE open world with any character for all in map to see.
  - WvW costs (e.g. 50 gold + 500 badges of honor) paid & WvW requirements met: Can set commander badge in WvW with any character for all in map to see.

Commander rank

• Commander rank is a mere reference to indicate the commander’s experience. It doesn’t have to be some new exp bar. It could be calculated based on the player’s statistics, WvW rank, achievements, etc.
• There should be at least 3 ranks (newbie, regular, veteran), but there could be more.
• Commander rank could be viewed in a commander tab in the Hero panel with a section for WvW and another for PvE. Each sections shows rank progress and a small list of statistics relevant to the task. This panel and stats is visible even when the account hasn’t unlocked commander yet.
  • Alternatively, it could be a general purpose stats tab with several pages to show account, profession, character and commander stats.
• The ranks and their benefits would be account bound, but separate between PvE and WvW. A guy may be a genius on taking stonemist but suck at convincing people to spread for a scarlet invasion.
• There could be a leeway of time before the addition to give people time to get the requirements while they can still show their badges, so nobody loses commander right away.
• Optionally, rank could also take into consideration how many people have the account blocked or added as a contact too, to give player a way to ‘rate’ commanders. If they block them, they’ll miss their zergs, so only those they don’t want to see would be blocked.

Commander skills.

• Commanders would have a few unique skills.
• Commanders get all skills from the get-go. They don’t need to get a higher WvW rank or pay anything to unlock them.
• There would be ways to improve the skills.
  • For example, higher commander rank could make them a bit easier to use by reducing prices and cooldowns slightly but not much more than 20% difference between max rank and lowest rank.
• These would appear in a small panel that can be shown with a key shortcut and clicking a button in the party panel. Create/Disband/Join squad would be merged into the same button (it “join” when selecting a commander), the button to show the commander ability panel would be next to it. This is a floating panel that remembers its location on screen and has a small gear icon with options such as orientation (vertical/horizontal) and size.
• Supplyinfo and squadinfo would be among the WvW commander skills in the panel, but their chat commands would stay.
• A WvW commander could be able to have abilities that help a little in WvW, but not too much, and not too often, like lying down an emergency supply pallet with 100 supplies, once every 8-6 hours, for 250-200 medals of honor for others to get quick supplies, with a cooldown for any commanders present in the event.
• A PvE commander could be able to do things more oriented towards Open world PvE. For example, paying 5-4 gold every 8-6 hours to “overload” a waypoint and make it free for 15 minutes for any character over the level of the area, to have an easier time gathering people in one spot to do something. When players open a map and see a shiny blue waypoint, they’ll know somethin’s cookin’ there… or someone is wasting a lot of gold to annoy people.
• Some skills could be shared, though. An example of shared skill would be a “/massinvite” or /inviteall skill/command that lets them invite anyone around or even in the entire map to join their squad. With a cooldown, of course.

Continues →

The commander emblem.

• The commander emblem should have 3 parts:
  • Color. A commander should be able to chose a color for their emblem, so people can say things like “follow red commander to take on [Location]!, all 3 yellow commanders go get supplies at different camps, the rest come with blue to roam!”.
  • Rank. The top part of the emblems would show the commander’s rank.
  • Task/Custom. Under the rank, there’s the task/custom part of the icon. Commanders can set it to “auto” so the icon shows different things depending on what they are doing (e.g.: Rook while in a tower event, flag while in a sentry event, horned head in a boss group event, gate in an open world dungeon, etc) or manually pick an icon among the event ones and a small list of other icons.
• Emblems are visible across maps for members of the squad and guild, but only for them.
• Blocking a commander’s account would hide their emblem.

Squads.

• Squads should work a bit like small temporary guilds of 2-100 members.
• Commanders can choose in the options gear icon in the squad panel who can see their emblem and join their squad: “Guild members”, “friends”, “guildies and friends”, or “all”. The default is “guild members and friends”. This setting is saved between squads as they are disbanded and created.
  • “All” requires unlock.
• Being in different maps will not remove you from the squad.
• Commander can set the map dots so their squad members appear in a different color, or to just see their squad’s dots (this makes map dots appear in PvE for squad members).
• Commanders get a small list in an additional tab in their contacts panel, with all players in their squad.
• The list has their professions, supply and WvW ranks, and gets refreshed once in a while. The squadinfo or the “refresh” button in this list will force its update. But it has a cooldown.
• At the top of this list there’s a few buttons for options such as kicking people from the squad, and assigning tasks.
• Commanders can assign “tasks” to people on the list very quickly. They can do so by clicking a button with the task icon, and clicking individual entries or draging in the list, then right click or click the button again to stop asiging that task as if they were ‘painting’ over them. Click on “attack”, “dolyak”, click or drag over 5 guys, click on the map, right click or click the button again to finish, ding, they get a “Your commander wants you to cut the enemy supplies” message.

Sub-squads.

• Sub-squads are way for more experienced players to delegate to other people while keeping tabs on what they do.
• Commanders can control who can set themselves as sub-commanders in their squad in a small list with checkboxes accessed from the squad list options gear icon:
  • “Manual” (only the commander can set them as subcommanders), “friends”, “party members”, “guild members” and “freely”. “Friends”, “party members” and “guild members” can be enabled at the same, but “manual” and “freely” disable the others.
  • When set to “freely”, any commander that gets into the squad while displaying their emblem, or that enables their emblem while in the squad, becomes a sub-commander.
• Commanders can set anyone as sub-commanders even if those players didn’t unlock commander themselves. And unset anyone even if they have commander.
• People in a sub-commander squad will appear nested under the sub-commander’s name, when the sub-commanders stops being a sub-commander or leave the squad, players go back to the Commander’s squad. They can join a sub-squad the same way they can join a commander: right click bagde, chat name or portrait, then click Join Squad.
• Commanders can control who goes into which sub-squad by selecting and dragging their names in the squad list.
  • Sub-squads are limited to 30 people.
• Sub-commanders share squad chat with their commander.
• Sub-commanders can’t have sub-commanders themselves. Setting someone as sub-commander while in a sub-quad makes them sub-commanders of the squad instead.
• Only people in a squad can see its sub-commander’s icons.
• The rank part of icons does not appear for sub-commanders, only the task part and the color.
• When commanders assign colors and tasks to sub-commanders, they not only get the task message, they also get a matching task icon. Giving a task to a sub-commander also gives the task to their sub-squad.
  • Overriding tasks assigned by a commander depend on the join settings (e.g. With “manual” only the commander can set them).
• Commanders can drag sub-commander icons to locations in a map to indicate them were to go. After doing that, the sub-commander gets a red map marker there that only they can see and goes away after leaving the area or getting there, much like the ones NPCs give to players when they ask for directions in cities.

DevonCarver.5370:

With that out of the way, I have some more questions.
1) What is an acceptable amount of chat suppression for a commander? It’s important to realize that if the system remains as it currently does, with 100g for a tag, no chat suppression would mean that people can spend 100g to spam you with whatever they feel like. That’s not an acceptable solution. I think there are other things we could do, like provide a commander only channel that has no suppression but that people have to opt in to.

2) How would it feel to have a system that gradually unlocked more commander abilities and icons, but that required dedication to WvW? Let’s say we added a commander line to the ability panel and you unlocked it with WvW ability points. What is the right starting price for that? 100 points? more? If that happens, does it make sense for the system to remain character based? Would requiring commanders to spend their WXP in this way limit them to the point that they didn’t want to do it? What if you still acquired the current tag by spending 100g, but you upgraded to new shapes via the WXP system?

1. I think most people agree there needs to be a limit. However the limit needs to be tripled at least for commanders as they frequently have to repeat invites to VoiP and guild leaders often recruit in WvW for WvW-focused guilds.

2. The proposal has merit, but then it fails to address potential changes for PvE commanders who might wish additional icons (monster icon for champ farming, cross swords for chained events or meta events, etc).
The concern I have for this system for WvW as it’s explained is that people will want to focus their commanders in different ways. If you get a choice of icon at ~50 WXP that would be ok, but the element of choice is crucial. Especially since defensive commanders will typically have a lowered rate of WXP income over offensive ones. Perhaps differing trait lines?

Additional Thoughts: Acknowledging that a UI overhaul is quite an undertaking, perhaps simplified measures can be implemented?
A simple (15/123) players/supply display in or next to your own supply indicator would meet the needs of most commanders.
Likewise we understand that a real-time tracking of this would be taxing on server resources so perhaps an active polling (activate with /supplyinfo, amount of supply is tracked for 5 minutes at a rate of one poll every 6 seconds?)

Please no commander wxp lines, etc. Its just a tool and should be used by the community to organize. It shouldn’t be some sort of personal progression!
Otherwise you will introduce commander wxp trains and such. Look at what a commander tag is for. Its there to make organization of groups easier. It should help organize group game play that is not a blob gameplay! So no buffs to commander/squad stats please.

Its like saying that you need to pay 10g to be able to group with people. Its not helpful.
We need to make it so each person can choose what commanders they want to see, and which ones they want to put on ignore. But yes guys, slow down with your progression ideas, the commander option should not be a part of a progression based system. It should just be a QOL feature.

I like the idea of the tag being public / guild & commanders / guild only for visibility options.

To answer a dev question, the only time people actually join squad is to avoid confusion from troll tags or when 2+ commanders are in the same general area.
To answer another question, the spying on commander tags is way too easy and can break the game. It is as simple as having a 2nd account where you delete your only lvl 1 character and create a new one on the server you wish to spy on (no transfer fees). Then place it in the map at spawn and you now know where enemy commanders are.

When it comes to suggestions about new stuff, I do not think commander tags should be a popularity contests. It’s just to easy of a system to abuse (specially since each server’s WvW community is in the minority compared to actual server population).

Though I would like to see a tag (either assigned by commander or that people can acquire – preferably assigned) for small man groups (havoc). As it can give the commander valuable information.

EDIT: I would also like to see the commander be able to right click a name in chat box and be able to assign a “scout” icon over someone’s head that only he can see (and be able to remove it using the map). Too often i see commanders think they have a scout in a location looking out for the enemy only to lose an objective to realize the person did a ninja logoff. I think it would help any server’s community in general. I think people should be able to self assign scout status when in the commander’s squad. (with a way to manage trolling of course)

EDIT 2: The option to always have the supply in a certain radius of our tag displayed to us without having to stop and /supplyinfo. & increase the radius of the supply check, right now everyone has to be super stacked right on top of you.

Chidori.9483:

DevonCarver.5370:

What if you still acquired the current tag by spending 100g, but you upgraded to new shapes via the WXP system?

I’m not sure I like the idea of a abilities and icon unlock system to be honest. To be a good commander all tools should be available to them. New commanders would be at a disadvantage, and I think it would be difficult to be able to level up after other commanders have the new toys, players would want to follow only the “experienced” commanders.

To be a commander is to be a leader, the tools that come with the commander tag should be bought with the 100g, to be a good commander is to build your reputation, not an xp bar.

100% in agreement with what Chidori has said.

Being a commander is not about earning tools to lead, it’s taking the initiative to lead in the first place. Even commanders who are new, bad, inexperienced (take your pick), when these people tag up in WvW, they choose to be recognized as an individual that is willing to lead the masses. The different methods, tactics, personality, and even level of skill of each commander can be questioned by players, but noone can question the commander’s initiative to accomplish a task in WvW.

i’d say, like mentioned before in this thread, that the need for differenting between tags (color coded) is paramount.

I also sincerely believe that giving the commander a flat out 10% buff to Vitality, Healing Power and Toughness along with -25% condition duration should be added at the expense of making each WvW map limited in the number of commanders. As an example, say 8 commanders. This means you can have several guild groups with the tag up, yet you can’t muster a zerg of players that just want to abuse the buff. The reason i think there should be a buff, is because the commander, in a WvW setting is a highly valued target, and if found within the zerg, will be the center of attention. It would also help less tankier professions like mesmer, thief and elementalist to better survive on the frontlines without having to sacrifice every bit of utility and dps in order to tank.

Nike.2631:

This ‘all or nothing’ attitude is fine for what we have now (because ‘all’ is virtually ‘nothing’…) but if we start to add things like group buffs, increased survivability in friendly zergs, reduced costs for upgrading siege equipment, and other things that actually set a commander apart for building and directing squads, we benefit from some sort of progression scheme, and progression fueled by something other than Gold.

Please God, never let anything like this happen! This would be horrendous for the game!

I really don’t see the need for a WXP system to commanding at all. If you move the system over entirely to a guild focused system, so a guild chooses a commander and the player can then choose to command the server or the guild would solve all of the problems. Especially if you allow players to ignore a specific player’s commander tag or even the commander tags of an entire guild.

Now if you want to make a commander section for WXP progress that allowed further improvement on the commander system, that’s different. I don’t see the need in having WXP be a prerequisite to even being a commander in the first place though.

This game really needs to start pushing for more emphasis on guilds and move away from individual achievement.

Aye.8392:

Nike.2631:

This ‘all or nothing’ attitude is fine for what we have now (because ‘all’ is virtually ‘nothing’…) but if we start to add things like group buffs, increased survivability in friendly zergs, reduced costs for upgrading siege equipment, and other things that actually set a commander apart for building and directing squads, we benefit from some sort of progression scheme, and progression fueled by something other than Gold.

Please God, never let anything like this happen! This would be horrendous for the game!

Please God, never let anything like this happen! This would be horrendous for the game! I second.

Aye.8392:

Nike.2631:

This ‘all or nothing’ attitude is fine for what we have now (because ‘all’ is virtually ‘nothing’…) but if we start to add things like group buffs, increased survivability in friendly zergs, reduced costs for upgrading siege equipment, and other things that actually set a commander apart for building and directing squads, we benefit from some sort of progression scheme, and progression fueled by something other than Gold.

Please God, never let anything like this happen! This would be horrendous for the game!

Why? Why is it ok to have hundreds upon hundreds of points of wpx options for DPS, more DPS, and EVEN MORE DPS and not for command/support roles?

The basic functionality can be unlocked by the first pip – BAMM! Commanders as we know them now.

LostBalloon.6423:

Aye.8392:

Nike.2631:

This ‘all or nothing’ attitude is fine for what we have now (because ‘all’ is virtually ‘nothing’…) but if we start to add things like group buffs, increased survivability in friendly zergs, reduced costs for upgrading siege equipment, and other things that actually set a commander apart for building and directing squads, we benefit from some sort of progression scheme, and progression fueled by something other than Gold.

Please God, never let anything like this happen! This would be horrendous for the game!

Please God, never let anything like this happen! This would be horrendous for the game! I second.

It would be helpful to actually indicate why this would be so horrendous, otherwise it just seems rather exaggerated. I would actually like to know too since I thought it sounded like a boon to a good commander.

I understand some commanders wishing the public or private option, that would be nice, but color coding would help in that regard to a degree. Map commander, guild commander, havoc commander, etc… would also help communication across maps to all players in WvW. Players popping on a map asking for a zerg, would be able to see what commanders are focusing on. Then it would be a players choice to follow the commander they want.

An added bonus for joining a squad would probably make more players do so, but commanders earning there tags or tools they can use as a commander should be available to all commanders. I believe picking commanders you wish to follow does come by trial and error. Some you gain respect for and some you run from . Account wide commander tags would be great for those that do get bored playing one profession/ character all the time. Maybe when you hover over a commander their acct name could show instead of character name ( not sure how difficult something like this would be to do).

I do feel that only your server/ map should be able to see who is commanding, be able to join squad, but not other servers.

Being able to see who is in your squad or how many would be extremely helpful. As well as the supply info radius.

Seeing your own tag would be helpful for commanders. I have often done a guild event then pop into WvW and forget I was tagged up for guild mission.

Great suggestions everyone… hope we see some helpful changes for commanders soon.

- We need a guild-specific commander tag.
- They should not be overly difficult to obtain. It should be a one-time build like other guild upgrades, and a checkbox should be added so only certain ranks can access it.
- A new squad option should be added under the current create squad option for guild commanding. If you have created a guild squad, the regular squad creation button should be disabled, or should toggle your guild squad off if it’s clicked.
- The tag color needs to be different if it’s a guild commander. It needs to contrast from all the main colors such as red (enemies), green (allies), and gold (guild). Maybe a bright purple or something.
- This may be obvious, but only people repping your guild should be able to see the tag.

Prysin.8542:

i’d say, like mentioned before in this thread, that the need for differenting between tags (color coded) is paramount.

I also sincerely believe that giving the commander a flat out 10% buff to Vitality, Healing Power and Toughness along with -25% condition duration should be added at the expense of making each WvW map limited in the number of commanders. As an example, say 8 commanders. This means you can have several guild groups with the tag up, yet you can’t muster a zerg of players that just want to abuse the buff. The reason i think there should be a buff, is because the commander, in a WvW setting is a highly valued target, and if found within the zerg, will be the center of attention. It would also help less tankier professions like mesmer, thief and elementalist to better survive on the frontlines without having to sacrifice every bit of utility and dps in order to tank.

Aye.8392:

Nike.2631:

This ‘all or nothing’ attitude is fine for what we have now (because ‘all’ is virtually ‘nothing’…) but if we start to add things like group buffs, increased survivability in friendly zergs, reduced costs for upgrading siege equipment, and other things that actually set a commander apart for building and directing squads, we benefit from some sort of progression scheme, and progression fueled by something other than Gold.

Please God, never let anything like this happen! This would be horrendous for the game!

I’m in agreement with Prysin on this one. Commanders are by no means any more powerful in terms of stats or player skill than some random PuG found out in the field, and it should remain that way.

The strength of a commander comes with the ability to lead by example, not through artificial enhancements like buffs or stat increases. I would be extremely confused and disappointed if any kind of “power or stat increase” were granted to Commanders, either in the existing system or the development of future systems.

With that in mind, I’ll just state that I’m strongly against the idea of implementing Commander perks for current WvW Ability Points. In fact, I’m against any kind of time-based requirement/progression through the use of WvW rank and XP. Good commanders exhibit themselves through their personality, optimism, and tactics.

• One player above mentioned the automatic gain of “Commander Perks” when a player reaches WvW rank X, Y, and Z. If some sort of time-based progression system was considered necessary for Arenanet’s plans for Commander improvements, something similar to automatic perks that increase the Flexibility of the commander, and not his overall power would be acceptable in my eyes.

Atherakhia.4086:

I really don’t see the need for a WXP system to commanding at all. If you move the system over entirely to a guild focused system, so a guild chooses a commander and the player can then choose to command the server or the guild would solve all of the problems. Especially if you allow players to ignore a specific player’s commander tag or even the commander tags of an entire guild.

Now if you want to make a commander section for WXP progress that allowed further improvement on the commander system, that’s different. I don’t see the need in having WXP be a prerequisite to even being a commander in the first place though.

This game really needs to start pushing for more emphasis on guilds and move away from individual achievement.

I don’t agree that it should be exclusive to guilds. It would be too much emphasis on guilds. I don’t need a good commander to be in a guild, especially a guild large enough to “buy” the commander tags.

I agree that Wxp should not be required to be a commander. I think that once you are a commander it is a feasible way of expounding upon commander abilities specifically designed for WvW.

I think a few options could be used to better the use of commanders. The sub commander is a good idea but that has been discussed already.

Regarding the scout point tree, I think the ability should not be to see them on the map, but just within targeting range. Different tiers might be like:
-Tier 1: Shows enemy commander icons within sight every 20 seconds for one second.
-Tier 2: 15 seconds
-Tier 3: 10 seconds
-Tier 4: 5 seconds
-Tier 5: Constantly

That would work with the timer of WvW ticks, every X seconds of it, it would send a ping of the commanders across the map, and anyone with that trait line would see it. You’re the programmers sooo yeah :P

I think having a tab in the Y page (friends) for commanders would be useful. If I like said commander I would add him to my favorites, and when hes online, it would say where he is, and what BL (not just WvW)

Another thing you could consider would be a set of buttons that the commander could bind to his… lets say num pad. One for rally (which would have a visual display for people in his squad only), one for a squad wide target, one for stop attacking, one for build, etc… Preferably have visual queues for this (again only for his squad) since voice coms take care of the audio aspect.

2) How would it feel to have a system that gradually unlocked more commander abilities and icons, but that required dedication to WvW? Let’s say we added a commander line to the ability panel and you unlocked it with WvW ability points. What is the right starting price for that? 100 points? more? If that happens, does it make sense for the system to remain character based? Would requiring commanders to spend their WXP in this way limit them to the point that they didn’t want to do it? What if you still acquired the current tag by spending 100g, but you upgraded to new shapes via the WXP system?

I would not be opposed to having various advantages thorough the WXP system, but they should be WvW buff based, not things like color/icon shifting. Those functions are important for PvE as well. When brainstorming systems, think to yourself “would this function have any value outside of the WvW maps?” If the answer is yes, then don’t lock it behind WXP. If the answer is “no” then knock yourself out.