Guild Wars 2

Prior to my old post from a few hours ago i took some time to work everything out players asked here and some thing i trowed in for myself.

If you look at the images in this album it will give you a clear view of how it could look like (from my opinion)
http://imgur.com/a/O9WQP

• Supply Info & Squad/Player Info
  On the right side of the main screen image i added a ‘Supply Count’ & ‘Player Count’ this is a replacement for /squadinfo and /supplyinfo cause in the heat of battle you rather not want to type! (As extra i added a simple supply count on top that will show after your own supplies.)

• Create Squad
  On the left side of the main screen image you see the new and improved ‘create a squad’ here you can select if you rather be a General Commander which everybody can see, or you rather be a Guild Commander which only guild members see.
  As you can see on the left side you can select ‘General Commander’ or ‘Guild Commander’ by this you can decide who can see your tag or not.

• Colored Commander Tags
  You can also change to color if your tag if you bought the additional books for 10g each on the left side as well.

• Squad Boosts
  For players in a squad they get a extra 10% WXP boost this will make players join squads more and make more use of it. This is added on the bottom of the image.

• Team Warning (Raid Warning)
  I know this is a copy from other MMO’s but its same like the scarlet invasion give commander a change to use this in order to get people there attention. This can be seen in the middle of the image. Take in consideration that this can be abused so a good system has to be build for this.

• Simple Commander UI
  For players who rather not have all this fancy stuff they should be able to put it off in the options menu like Simple Party UI

Please give me feedback on anything you would like to add or see me to change. I will try my best with my limited photoshop skills ;D

DevonCarver.5370:

Summary of Day 1 of discussion: <snip>

I agree with most of the points at the top.
With removal of the suppression, if that is in regards to map chat I would say do not remove that. But if there is currently a suppression on squad chat I would say that should be removed, there should not be a suppression when communicating to people in your squad.(if there is already no suppression on squad, disregard the previous sentence)

DevonCarver.5370:

Summary of Day 1 of discussion:
2) How would it feel to have a system that gradually unlocked more commander <snip>

This actually sounds like it would be good, I know for my commander tag I spent $20 on a high Gem → Gold day. I feel that there are probably more that have done the same. But I think a commander should really stand out, they should stand out not by how much they spend to get the tag but by their dedication to WvW. I like the idea of having WvW points unlock the commander functionality. The tough part would be to find the right amount of needed points to make it so that unlocking all the commander functions would be tough but not tough enough that someone who plays 10-15 hours a week in WvW can not achieve.

I mostly use my tag for PvE, in which case I wonder if there should be a system to unlock functionality as well, but instead of points like WvW had. This is where I would use a monetary type system. Say for 10 Laurels you can unlock a certain function, or for 50 gold you can unlock the same function.

Commander functions should be something that is worked towards be it WvW points for WvW, or Gold/Laurels for PvE. If it stays the way it is and you pay the 100g to get the tag which then unlocks everything, there just is not enough separation to show what you have done towards having that tag. Going along with that if you unlock function X in WvW that function should also be available in PvE. So you would have two ways to unlock different functions either through WvW or PvE.

With this system the functionality I think it should stay on one character. This is a unique system that can show devotion to a character rather than an account. If the account wide tag goes into place I would say limit it to only the tag, the functionality should be worked towards.

That is all, first time posting on the CDI. I hope to contribute more in the future. Keep up the good work!

Thoughts on New Commander System

WvW Commander Overview

• Based on new WXP trait line
• New commander abilities
• Three tiers of commander: gold, silver, bronze

Commander Trait Line (very rough draft)

• 6 tiers with bronze at tier 1 silver at 3, gold at 5
• tier 2 ability, a skill to aid in offensive seiges
• tier 4 ability, a skill to aid in defensive seiges
• tier 6 ability, a skill to improve the movement of the squad

Squad Tier Sizes and Creation

• Gold commander ~40 player squad size, 1 per map
• Silver commander ~20 player squad size, 2 per map
• Bronze commander ~10 player squad size, unlimited per map
• Commander selects gold, silver, or bronze squad type when creating squad, if they are unlocked of course, and can change the squad type on the fly if needed.

Other Assorted Ideas for WvW Commander

• Skills do not affect the commander (to prevent potential abuse of squad creation), and are used through a new command rose (more on this below) interface that can be brought up with a key bind or placed and left open on the UI.

• How to deal with commander limits on gold and silver. Let commanders queue for gold and silver command spots. Create an option for players to mutiny against a gold or silver commander, say with 5 votes to start a mutiny, then a vote box opens for the whole squad and a majority needs to vote yes for successful mutiny. Revisit this topic if it becomes a huge problem, but players generally appreciate good commanders, or commanders that at least try when no one else will.

• Commander rep system. Players can thank a gold, silver, and / or bronze commander once per day. These votes count towards your rep. Successful mutinies should also be counted. Players can see a commander’s rep in the new squads inferance.

Guild Commander in WvW

• Researched through Art of War. Similar to to the WvW commander , and shows up on the WvW squads when in WvW, but cannot be joined by non-guild members. I think a 40 man limit would also be fair for the guild commander in WvW, so guilds do not become the new way to make a huge 1 commander zerg.

PvE Commander and Guild Commander in PvE

• No thoughts at this time, I’m sure the PvE players have much better ideas than I do

Other Improvements for Commander

• New WvW squads interface. Tag a page from Battlefield here, and just make it bigger. When you load into WvW, the squads menu automatically opens (so new players understand it), with a tick box to disable auto open. Here you see the squads and available spots in squads. Give commanders the ability to enter information about what they are doing if they want to create a squad to do something very specifically. Add an option to enter voice chat information for squad and automatically link to voice server if this is technically and legally possible.

• Players can only see the commander icon of the squad they are in, while commanders can see all commander icons.

• Increased reward for players in squad that complete objectives that the commander does

• High visibility client option for commanders, i.e. improved target (please, please?)

• Battlefield style command rose. The command should also have squad commands like stack on me, advance with me, fall back, and other common sense, frequently used commands, as well as the commander abilities. To use the command rose, have a keybind to toggle it open / close, and have it use the same keybinds for weapon and utility skills. This gives you 8 possible options, 5 commands (using the weapon skills keybind) and 3 skills (using the utility skill keybinds). Alternatively, you could place the command rose on the UI, and point and click it.

• Total squad supply count and a squad moral bar (total health of squad) so the commander can quickly ascertain what siege to deploy and if the squad is taking too much damage.

• Refund all commander tags

The problem with commander buffs is the same as with the guard line, it will lead to 5 commander groups roaming ruins. Offensive/defensive abilities are not needed either,
The commander system is needed to organize people in wvw and make game play fun for people who are being organized. It is not there to make a fun progression for commanders or a buff to them in a fight. At this point what we need is an effective way for groups to be coordinated across a specific map and hopefully also unblob game play to some degree. Forcing commanders to level a line will just lead to commander wxp trains. This is already a problem to a degree. I see commanders moving their groups to the worm and varg npcs when they should have responded to a tower being under attack, etc.

Dream In A Dream.7213:

The problem with commander buffs is the same as with the guard line, it will lead to 5 commander groups roaming ruins. Offensive/defensive abilities are not needed either,
The commander system is needed to organize people in wvw and make game play fun for people who are being organized. It is not there to make a fun progression for commanders or a buff to them in a fight. At this point what we need is an effective way for groups to be coordinated across a specific map and hopefully also unblob game play to some degree. Forcing commanders to level a line will just lead to commander wxp trains. This is already a problem to a degree. I see commanders moving their groups to the worm and varg npcs when they should have responded to a tower being under attack, etc.

I thought of that first point already and specifically stated that any commander skills would not affect the commander. The idea of having more commanders with potentially one large, two medium, and many small squads is exactly that, to get rid of these 60+ player blobs and make it far easier to get small groups doing more things in a more intuitive way than having a bunch of blue tacos on the map.

Kikkah.2306:

Prior to my old post from a few hours ago i took some time to work everything out players asked here and some thing i trowed in for myself.

If you look at the images in this album it will give you a clear view of how it could look like (from my opinion)
http://imgur.com/a/O9WQP

• Supply Info & Squad/Player Info
  On the right side of the main screen image i added a ‘Supply Count’ & ‘Player Count’ this is a replacement for /squadinfo and /supplyinfo cause in the heat of battle you rather not want to type! (As extra i added a simple supply count on top that will show after your own supplies.)

• Create Squad
  On the left side of the main screen image you see the new and improved ‘create a squad’ here you can select if you rather be a General Commander which everybody can see, or you rather be a Guild Commander which only guild members see.
  As you can see on the left side you can select ‘General Commander’ or ‘Guild Commander’ by this you can decide who can see your tag or not.

• Colored Commander Tags
  You can also change to color if your tag if you bought the additional books for 10g each on the left side as well.

• Squad Boosts
  For players in a squad they get a extra 10% WXP boost this will make players join squads more and make more use of it. This is added on the bottom of the image.

• Team Warning (Raid Warning)
  I know this is a copy from other MMO’s but its same like the scarlet invasion give commander a change to use this in order to get people there attention. This can be seen in the middle of the image. Take in consideration that this can be abused so a good system has to be build for this.

• Simple Commander UI
  For players who rather not have all this fancy stuff they should be able to put it off in the options menu like Simple Party UI

Please give me feedback on anything you would like to add or see me to change. I will try my best with my limited photoshop skills ;D

This a great simple way to do it. I do think that we should watch amount of commander icons on the map. Its currently clattered at times, and with all the different colors it will be a headache reading a map.

Can you perhaps do a bit of an edit and try different shapes for the commander tags?
Maybe use the ones from spvp minimap.

I think, mini map identification seems to be the biggest request. Different colors on tags, or perhaps the currently represented guild emblem should display. In time perhaps y’ll can add other stuff to it.

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 dislike the idea of diverting WXP from other things just to get commander abilities that we should have in the first place (like colors and shapes or the ability to be seen only by guildies). Now, if you want to give abilities that yield some sort of squad-wide combat or siege advantage in exchange for (large amounts of) WXP, that sounds workable. This would have the added advantage of encouraging people to join squads, also helping to solve the chat suppression problem.

Yes, there should be some sort of system to distinguish experienced commanders from inexperienced, but it seems counter productive to encourage commanders to spend their WXP points on appearing to be an experienced commander when it would actually make them less able to contribute (since they will be lacking siege masteries, etc.)

Also, your list seems spot on.

Changing color is obviously the easiest no-brainer, we just have to ask ourselves if the colors should have meaning. I.E. do we pick whatever color we want and let the players decide how to best purpose it, or do we assign meanings to the colors, i.e. red = offense, blue = defense, green = float, etc.

1. As far as commander progression – it cannot be something that requires your tag to be on in order to earn it, or we’ll have every tag on the map up trying to earn abilities. A commander progression system should not be something that can be ‘farmed’ either. Since the entire point of a commander is based on leading other people, any commander progression should require the support of other people and especially other commanders. I think a great way to achieve this would be for each commander tag purchase to come with a consumable. If you use this one-time consumable while in a squad (not your own) it gives an allegiance point to that commander. As commanders earn these allegiance points, they can earn expanded titles, and eventually even become a Legendary Commander. Higher-rank Commanders can unlock the ability to change tag colors, appoint Generals, additional map functionality like setting rally points that can be seen on everyone’s mini-map, see R.I. timers in-game on the map without the use of 3rd party programs, and more.

2. Ability to follow non-commanders for all – Add the UI ability to choose ANY friendly player and ‘follow’ them. Even if they are not a commander, if you set follow on it will add a personal map-wide icon to that player. Guilds and roaming groups can use this to run tag-less without having to resort to the targeting system. There will be no need for “guild tags” etc. Just a basic follow mechanic that most MMOs I’ve played had from the start (they even had character auto-follow as in literally follow the person if they were close enough to you until LOS was broken or movement interrupted)

3. One functionality that I would love to see is the ability to put specific objective waypoints or even “send” your tag on the map. Example commander needs Danelon capped but doesn’t want to take the whole squad/zerg there – s/he could click on it on the map and give it some sort of indicator that players could see the commander needs this objective. The ability to “send” your tag would be an example if say you want everyone to rally at SMC but you are at the keep merchant clearing your inventory. You send your tag to SMC for people to start rallying while you finish your business and catch up.

4. The ability to see your own tag would be nice. People often forget they have theirs on.

5. No chat suppression – I don’t understand why people need this, nor why it would be viewed a problem, as /team chat already is immune to suppression.

The system needs a big overhaul and many of the ideas here are fantastic but I would shoot for a smaller, easier to develop and quicker to roll out first pass. IMO guild tags and tiered multi-color commander tags would be a great start.

Thorn.1703:

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

If that would happen, guild groups would go back to running tagless and all the hard work ANET would put in commander tags would go to waist.

DevonCarver.5370:

[…]

1. Chat suppression seems to kick in more often when just inserting chat links alone with no other text.
It also seems to accumulate for a long time. A player may be linking a location every 3 minutes for over an hour and get suppressed after a really long time as if they had done that within a few minutes..
The time it takes to take over a location varies from less than 2 minutes to fights of over 15.
There’s no need to write a lot within a little time, but there may need to keep regular and constant linking.
So chat suppression should be more ‘forgetful’ with commanders. Do not let them spam location chat links within a short time, but let them put chat links regularly.

2) I’d rather have a system in which all or most abilities are available from the start, but using them becomes more comfortable, cheaper and/or frequent with progress.
Also, commander is not merely a WvW thing, specially since large scale world events like Scarlet invasions and Tequatl were introduced. So even within the WvW section of the forums PvE commanders must be kept in mind.
Some things a commander would be able to do in WvW would not work in PvE, so they should get some things they can do only in PvE considering what a commander may need there, and a way to increase/unlock those abilities too.

Commander is mostly about leading. Using one’s head to direct others, not about the character’s combat capabilities, so since the player’s head is the same across characters, so should commander progress.

Players should not have to choose between improving the character combat capabilities and their commander capabilities.

Something like a commander rank, if it were to be added, should increase naturally with the player’s career. Be successful as a commander in PvE, the rank goes up for PvE, be successful leading in WvW, the rank goes up in WvW.

As for the cost, it should still be account-bound, or at least have a much smaller cost for each additional character, but more importantly, it should require certain experience in the content for which commander is unlocked.

A guy who has never participated on taking stonemist or never was in a successful Tequal encounter should not be thinking on leading other players to victory without some experience first.

GUILD COMMANDER TAGS omg please! Currently my guild doesn’t do the large scale map zerg stuff so we have to give them a “ghetto tag” which is just giving them a target in each party. Unfortunately we cannot see this on the minimap which results in people getting lost. This tag would of course be invisible to everyone outside of the guild and could be bought with influence as well rather than gold. Also, if people outside the guild want to run with the person that has a guild tag up (which they cannot see) then they could have the ability to type something like /follow [Enter Name Here] and then they’d be able to see it. Or you could give the person with a guild tag the ability to add people rather than them joining on to prevent maps form doing that and then avoiding paying the 100g. Also this adding ability could be made something that people of a certain rank in the guild are able to add so people like officers could do it as to not flood the commander with more work. If you change ANYTHING please please please make it guild tags. They’re definitely needed among skill groups.

Another suggestion is to give someone with a tag the ability to talk more in map chat before they’re suppressed for spamming. I know that’s happened a couple of times to other commanders and it’s very frustrating.

Thank you Anet for looking into this, I really hope more people suggest guild tags =D

there’s a lot that needs to be done to the commander system to make it useful. right now, it’s just a waste of 100g, because it’s just a dorito with a supply check. as a result, right now there are very few commanders, and countless hoards of zergmanders. there’s a lot more that goes into WvW than just grouping up into a giant blob and just facemashing against anything in your path. the commander system needs to account for that, or no matter what changes come in, it will functionally remain exactly how it is currently.

starting with the tag itself, it needs several options. party/guild/squad/map was mentioned earlier, and that sounds like the ideal designations. furthermore, different colors were also mentioned, and those are crucial for running multiple tags on the map. guilds should have a way to unlock replacing the tag with their guild logo. these options should be able to be selected from dropdown menus when you hit P to create a squad initially.

chat suppression is devastatingly detrimental, so that needs to go. it pretty much cripples a commander that isn’t using a third party VOIP program.

for the squad system, an overhaul is needed. it’s a complete waste right now, and as such, no one bothers to use it anymore. here’s what it needs. it needs a small raid frame, listing the sqaud members’ names, classes, supply count, and level. the squad members need to have little yellow dots on the minimap at all times, just like the little blue dots for party members. the raid frame needs to be broken down into 6 groups of 5 players, with each group able to be custom named in the UI. so you have your hammer train, your utility team, your melee damage dealers, your ranged damage dealers, your scouts, and even your sentries in the towers and keeps all in one handy dandy UI, with their locations all known to you. furthermore, up at the top center of your screen, next to your own supply count, needs to be the total supply count of your squad.

the functions themselves need adjusted as well. /supplyinfo needs a MUCH larger radius, as well as being able to target people individually and check their supply level as well. the map tools need to be able to be used via the minimap, just like pinging and the personal waypoints. if i have to open the map up, and pick an icon from a drop down menu, i’m effectively blinded to anything going on around me. have the icons appear on the panel on the right side of the minimap. that way i can just pick one, and place it through the minimap, and be done in less than a second.

there’s more. when it comes to siege, a commander should have more control over it. now, you could have them being the only ones able to place it, but that would mean that a map would be crippled without a commander around, and that the commander would have set up every single bit of defense on the map. which would place entirely too much burden on the commander. however, troll siege is a major annoyance. to deal with that, a commander should be able to flag a piece of siege to be able to be broken down for half the supplies it took to build it. it will help deal with troll siege, and yes, they’ll also use that ability to break down siege they built on purpose. just put a failsafe onto it, where 10 people have to confirm the flag, so troll commanders can’t just run around breaking down useful defenses. sure, it will result in the zerg getting a bit more supply, since they’ll be able to get back half of what they used, but they can spend that supply to build defenses, or they would need to take less from the camps, so those who are building the defenses are able to do so.

also, there needs to be a better process to get it than to just fork over 100 gold. personally, i think there should be a tutorial that acts as a test based on the strategies and tactics used in WvW, with failure being a very real possibility. but anything is better than just buying leadership.

for right now, though, simply making it possible to have different color icons, and a way to have the icon only visible for your squad members, would be a major improvement, and hold people over while you work on a complete fix.

I made a very long time ago a huge suggestion regarding the Commander System and in general also the complete Guild System, making also the Guild System as a whole thign together with it more rewarding, interesing and a kind of long term goal that guild members should reach together to improve together their WvW experience/fun they will receive, while playing together WvW.

Please take a look at this very old suggestion of mine:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Guilds-Version-2-0/first#post1554531

As you can see, its from February..I know,alot of it sure was way too op, but when you read I, I’m sure you’ll quickly get the idea about what i was suggesting.
Simply said, give the Commanders more Power at their Handy, let them perform special unique thing,s that only THEY can do to have much more important influence on the battlefields and let them really be like commanders at war, which constantly ive out strategetic commands to plan their tactics out.

WvW needs alot more strategy influences, let this game mode become more like WAR and war ist not jst only zergs clashing into zergs.
War is about strategy and who has the saying in the war – so military hierarchies with the commanders at the highest point that have the most biggest influence on the battle field to let great things happen on the battle field, like lettign some tank devisions appear that players can use in the environment to have basically some different mobile environmental siege weapons, besides the golems, which might be faster, but maybe have lesser health or weaker defense, but therefore again like the charr tanks in the personal stoy naturally far more RANGE and could be useful against other siege weapons (damage bonus against sieges to destroy easier trebuchest with them ect.)

I always dreamt about WvW like beign some kind of awesome fantasy war simulation basically Less like just a Zerg Fest.
Please give WvW more Strategy andthigns, that give you the impression, that you are in some kind of WAR between worlds…

This includes also class specific WvW Traits, that WvW finally needs besides maxing all of the current WvW Traits first to have also 10 tiers like the first two guard killing related WvW traitlines. Classes in WvW need special roles into that players can develop with their classes in WvW to better play out those roles in WvW and have special tasks there that can help your server to get some advantages over the enemy worlds…

thiefs for example should become able to work like real infiltratory, by stealthing through enemy entrances, being able to sabotage enemy siege weapons and to spy on enemy chat to gather up maybe luckily some important enemy information, while they can’t see you and don’r know, that they get spyed out by you.
Thats for me a “role” to fulfill as a thief, while playing WvW and the same counts also for all other classes.

Please take your time to read carefully the whole suggestion through.
its alot of stuff, that could potentially improve WvW and the game as a whole thing greatly

DevonCarver.5370:

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

Short Term: Double the current threshold for WvW only and we see how it goes…

Long Term: tie it to a re-done squad system. If x players joined your squad, spam protection is turned off.

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?

Please no vanity stuff attached to commanders. If something is added then because of function and nothing else.

Putting additional requirements for tagging up in WvW (eg. you have to trait for it before you can use it in WvW) is acceptable though. 100 points? Why not. Sounds reasonable. No objections.

Soulbound or Account bound commander tag? Players do not follow character, they follow a player. Therefore I really like to see a commander tag to become account bound.

WilliamDaBloody.2591:

Soulbound or Account bound commander tag? Players do not follow character, they follow a player. Therefore I really like to see a commander tag to become account bound.

people don’t always know a commanders alt’s

gidorah.4960:

WilliamDaBloody.2591:

Soulbound or Account bound commander tag? Players do not follow character, they follow a player. Therefore I really like to see a commander tag to become account bound.

people don’t always know a commanders alt’s

I know their account names minus the numbers and I followed the ones that know what theyre doing (friend list)

LostBalloon.6423:

Thorn.1703:

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

If that would happen, guild groups would go back to running tagless and all the hard work ANET would put in commander tags would go to waist.

Waist or waste? that is the question!

gidorah.4960:

WilliamDaBloody.2591:

Soulbound or Account bound commander tag? Players do not follow character, they follow a player. Therefore I really like to see a commander tag to become account bound.

people don’t always know a commanders alt’s

If I add them to my friends list, it doesnt matter which character theyre playing, I can see if theyre online or not and where they are. There are a few commanders I follow around and theyve been added to my friends list for that reason. Likewise, I know Ive been added to a few friends lists by people who wish to follow me when Im commanding in WvW.

Point is, we can see if somebody is on their alt.

Something I haven’t seen mentioned yet is cross map commander chat/visibility. Being able to see which (if any) commanders are on any given map and having the ability to communicate with them would be amazing.

Kikkah.2306:

Prior to my old post from a few hours ago i took some time to work everything out players asked here and some thing i trowed in for myself.

If you look at the images in this album it will give you a clear view of how it could look like (from my opinion)
http://imgur.com/a/O9WQP

• Supply Info & Squad/Player Info
  On the right side of the main screen image i added a ‘Supply Count’ & ‘Player Count’ this is a replacement for /squadinfo and /supplyinfo cause in the heat of battle you rather not want to type! (As extra i added a simple supply count on top that will show after your own supplies.)

• Create Squad
  On the left side of the main screen image you see the new and improved ‘create a squad’ here you can select if you rather be a General Commander which everybody can see, or you rather be a Guild Commander which only guild members see.
  As you can see on the left side you can select ‘General Commander’ or ‘Guild Commander’ by this you can decide who can see your tag or not.

• Colored Commander Tags
  You can also change to color if your tag if you bought the additional books for 10g each on the left side as well.

• Squad Boosts
  For players in a squad they get a extra 10% WXP boost this will make players join squads more and make more use of it. This is added on the bottom of the image.

• Team Warning (Raid Warning)
  I know this is a copy from other MMO’s but its same like the scarlet invasion give commander a change to use this in order to get people there attention. This can be seen in the middle of the image. Take in consideration that this can be abused so a good system has to be build for this.

• Simple Commander UI
  For players who rather not have all this fancy stuff they should be able to put it off in the options menu like Simple Party UI

Please give me feedback on anything you would like to add or see me to change. I will try my best with my limited photoshop skills ;D

I agree with about every point you make there, except for one. Being charged per color is simply not needed. After paying 100 gold you should have the color options by default.

My reasoning is this. In WvW or PVE the ability to assign different colors to different commanders makes everything run smoother, and will increase players experience with the game.

Over all the most consistent requests are:

Make commander tags Account bound. Commanders often bring different classes for different roles in an event. Personally I have already spent 200 gold on tags, and for someone that spends the majority of their time in WvW that is a fairly large cash sink.

In WvW enemy players should not be able to identify you as a commander simply by clicking on you and looking at your buff bar. Personally I do not think you should be able to see any personal information about the enemy player. Their buffs, Class or that big KILL ME commander icon. The only information you should see is Server Invader / Defender [guild]

Color or Icon options. Allow players to designate a commanders roll and make it easier for those in the event to identify the commander of a given task. If Icons will take a lot of work put that in the down the road section, but Color options at the very least would be a massive boon to the commanders and the community as a whole.

Much larger /supplyinfo range… or better yet a small window that shows the number of players in your squad and how much combined supply they have.

Changing the color of the squad members on the mini map to match the color of the commanders icon they are following. This would be another huge boon for commanders and player alike.

Allow commanders to designate Public, Squad or Guild visibility of their commander tag. Each of those options has its place, and would allow guild groups to do their own thing and not disrupt other commanders by drawing players away from them.

I rarely hit up the forums and/or post about things but this topic has piqued my interest. I’ve skimmed through some of the comments and I’d say there are quite a few ideas that I do like but currently I do feel that everyone speaking forth is primarily worried about WvW.

Sadly to say though, I do wish that the community does not push to separate PvE and WvW commanders and it’s ability entirely. As far as I can recall, there is a level of fairness that Anet provides even if we don’t agree. I, for one, have the commander’s seal and I don’t play a part in any guild. I’d like to remain transparent until needed if that makes sense. I understand that a tree of skills may be obtained for guild but it should not affect or exceed global commander abilities.

A few of my suggestions include:

1- Commander’s Icon – The community had stated that they wish to see multi-colored icons. I would second this as well but with each different colors it would include the range in which players would be able to see the icon. For instance, if I’m a squad leader for a recon group, I’d only like to see 5-10 people max following me and not distract from the main zerg. The visibility would be minimal and promotes a chain of command. If I’m a defending commander, the visibility range for my icon would be increased due to the fact that I need to protect viable camps and towers. And then of course, full map visibility for main zerg for general purposes. (SHORT TERM GOAL)

2- Commander User Interface – As of currently, purchasing a commander’s seal is just a shiny blue dorito above your head. Once a commander’s seal has be bought, a new UI should appear in a separate tab in the Character screen with skill selections. (LONG TERM GOAL)

3- Commander Abilities- A commander’s ability should be limited. Give a person too much power and they’ll wreck havock on themselves and those around them. Any ability given should be learned through the new UI. Since PvE and WvW both uses the same leveling system and both can obtain Skill Points I would suggest using that to obtain commander abilities. Here might be some useful abilties:

1. Commander’s Might – Gain +5 to all stats. Personal. 100 SP.
2. Commander’s Presence – Those in squad will gain +250 vitality. Passive. Does not include commander. 100 SP.
3. Commander’s Shield – Those in squad will gain -3% incoming damage. Passive. Does not include commander. 100 SP.
4. Supply Info – Increased supply info range. 100 SP.
5. Squad Limit – Increase the limit of squads by 50. 100 SP.
6. Commander Icon – Upgrade that lets a user chooses different icons. 100 SP.

Please do note that only Presence or Shield could be active at a given time. Because of these passive abilities more players will be willing to join a squad for perks. These abilities would be viable both in PvE and WvW. I’m pretty sure I could come up with more if I thought about it. The reason why I would stake each ability at 100 points is the fact that you’re going to have to grind for them. (LONG TERM GOAL)

4- Map chat – Honestly, I believe only commanders should be allowed to use the TEAM chat in PvE, PvP, and WvW to reduce confusion. This would emphasis that a commander(s) is speaking map-wide to either issue orders and/or relay information. The squad chat command would then ideal have no suppression limits as he or she will be most likely to be communicating mainly through that channel. Realistically speaking, having an ability with ON-SCREEN text such as the Scarlet Invasion is way out of our leagues. An ability such as that is equivalent to that of a GM’s. However, if you wish to implement such a feature, I can only see it as being a GEM store item. At cost, 800 gems to purchase (1) ONE ticket that gives you a new command to do on screen text that lasts for 30 minutes. Granted, this command can only be used by anyone that have purchased the commander’s seal with or without them actually needing to have their commander’s icon on. (SHORT TERM GOAL)

5- Guild Commanders – I do like this idea but I don’t want it to intefere with other guilds / world commanders. People have stated that it could be a new addition to the Art of War trait lines and I would agree. A guild could upgrade this ability and queue up to 10 Guild Commander “banners”. Anyone with the ability to activate upgrades could become a temporary guild commander for 30 minutes. Such guild commanders will then only be visible to guild members and have a very very small and limited passive ability. (LONG TERM GOAL)

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?

If you really want to have a gradual-unlock system, I’d rather see abilities unlocked as part of the Guild system as opposed to WXP. As a guild progresses up the War tree, they can unlock more abilities for commanders representing their guild. What’s more, I think it’s a better gauge of whether or not someone is actually a “leader.” If their own guild doesn’t back them up, then why should everyone else just because of a 100g bauble?

You could add a permission to the guild menu that enables these guild-based unlocks according to rank, so that there’s control over who gets the abilities (again, to mitigate the “they don’t know what they’re doing, but they had 100g” concern). Nothing too fancy, just a “Enable Commander Functionality” checkbox would suffice.

This would also help those who use the Commander tags outside of WvW. If abilities become tied to WXP, then those who use Commander tags for PvE exclusively get the short end of that stick.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Seems like people really enjoy answering questions so I’ll throw out a few more.

How big do you expect a squad to be?
What kind of content is a PvE commander most useful?
Is money a good enough gate for commander tags?

1. 80ish is estimated to be the biggest blob I’ve seen.
2. Community events like mining runs (daily at 7pm UK time this week starting from Paggas Waypoint – see you there!), raiding southsun Karka Queen, multiple-map epic exploration zergs, Scarlet Invasions, Living World events, etc etc.
3. Well, Badges of Honour make more sense, as you would have to have done some WvW before becoming a commander… but IMO it’s too late to change that now.

With the last 2 in mind, it may be wise to split the commander tag for PvE from the tag for WvW.

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?

for aesthetics? sure. let us unlock a star or some other customized icon, let us choose a color off the color wheel… or 2… sounds excellent. make it cost wxp. if you make it 2 different lines that start off cheap (shapes and colors, say) we can get 3-4 different tags on the map for nearly negligible additional cost (and that covers the bulk of situations)… and the shapes/colors at the end of the line can be a prestige factor in addition to allowing us to have like 25 or 36 or 49 or 100 unique tags on the field at any time.

but i strongly feel that the entire commander UI and functionality or whatever should come as a lump sum.

how it comes isnt even as important, thru a guild unlock, wxp unlock, gold unlock, karma unlock… whatever i can grind that out. just give me everything at once so i dont have to consider what functionalities are actually important vs what are useless for the commanding situations i put myself into. because at the moment, for the situations i want to put myself into… im better off dropping tag at almost all times, mostly so i dont absorb pugs from the zerg… and it hurts my 6th guildmate who cant join my party. it hurts the 1-2 guys helping me prep a keep defense, because most of the best siege placement is in strange, out-of-the-way places and having a tag is a pointer. it hurts our zergs offenses because i dont want to tag up and confuse players when i say “i need 20 supply on me for this AC that will wreck their defenses before they realize whats happening… but dont everyone come over here or theyll see were up to something”.

in fact, itd be nice to have a wxp line that changes the tooltip of the commander icon… “scout”, “siegemaster”, and “defender” are interesting prefixes that i would definitely get use out of if i had the option instead of “commander rikkity” when i hover on the minimap.

…i wrote more then i meant to…

edit:

Seems like people really enjoy answering questions so I’ll throw out a few more.

How big do you expect a squad to be?
What kind of content is a PvE commander most useful?
Is money a good enough gate for commander tags?

6+, just bigger than a party.

anything in the open world… teq, guild missions, co-op map exploration, living story, and temple events spring to mind.

…it used to be, for the 1st 6 months. it still is in lower tiers for wvw. i dont think it is in higher tiers or in pve.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Seems like people really enjoy answering questions so I’ll throw out a few more.

How big do you expect a squad to be?
What kind of content is a PvE commander most useful?
Is money a good enough gate for commander tags?

The size of a squad?
I think the cap should be 60 or 80. This size allows subunits 3-4 subunits with 20 players if needed.

Content for PvE commander?
I am thinking about Tequatl or certain guild missions where you have to organise/coordinate larger number of players to reach the goal. Also future large-group content with a high degree of coordination as prerequisite would require a commander.

Money as a gate?
I would prefer a kind of meta achievement or tiers of different meta achievements over sheer money as gate/qualification. Money or badges are not good gauges to qualify good commanders. It simply shows your ability to hoard enough currencies in a certain time. It is like buying a driving license with money without lectures and examination. Certain achievements to fulfill would teach the future commanders certain lectures about important aspects in WvW. But it is too late now. Too many people have already the blue sign.

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? Would requiring commanders to spend their WXP in this way limit them to the point that they didn’t want to do it?

Active and successful commanders are involved in all the large fights, defenses, and offense and attain large amounts of WXP. I don’t see a WXP requirement as being limiting any more than choosing current trait lines is.

Darketower.5218:

If you really want to have a gradual-unlock system, I’d rather see abilities unlocked as part of the Guild system as opposed to WXP. As a guild progresses up the War tree, they can unlock more abilities for commanders representing their guild. What’s more, I think it’s a better gauge of whether or not someone is actually a “leader.” If their own guild doesn’t back them up, then why should everyone else just because of a 100g bauble?

That would restrict a robust commander system to people who are in larger guilds. Which has nothing to do with the ability to command or not. Someone could be in a 10 man guild and be an excellent commander. Or maybe when they’re with their guild they run guildies only, only tagging up during off hours. This is already a very common occurrence in WvW.

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?

Yes, yes, yes! I love this idea.

Would requiring commanders to spend their WXP in this way limit them to the point that they didn’t want to do it?

I think making the tag WXP dependant will not discourage Commanders from buying it because it is a specialisation, just like being a Trebber, Oil Specialist (snicker) or Ram Man (or lady). Commanders don’t need to do those other things, so they have the points free to put in Commanding.

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?

100 sounds reasonable. You could probably charge twice that.

does it make sense for the system to remain character based?

Not now that WXP isn’t character based (but I was against that change).

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

I imagine that if this were the deal, most commanders would stick with the original shape. I believe that WvW is more about minmaxing than cosmetics.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

How often do people actually join squads and use the features that are there? (4 different way point markers, /supplyinfo). What would make you join squads more?

/supplyinfo gets used frequently. /squadinfo… not so much. Squads usually only get joined when there are multiple active commanders on the map working on different objectives.

I feel like there are two major reasons why I don’t join squads. Firstly, you lose information: when in a squad you can’t see the movements of other commanders. Secondly, the entire map usually acts like one squad already. If there’s only one commander around and the entire map is following him… there’s literally no benefit to joining a squad. Except /squadinfo, but /supplyinfo is more useful, because the commander wants to know about nearby supply, not supply that might be halfway across the map.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

How much is spies a problem with commander system?

It’s almost impossible to say for sure. I’ve followed commanders who became convinced a spy was watching their tag, and tagged down because of it. I’ve followed one commander, briefly, who seemed to have suspiciously-good information about enemy movements. But both of those could have been coincidence, or even a good thief.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Should the commander icon be shown above the commanders head to the commander?

I’m not a commander so I can’t really answer this question, but the only reason I can see for that is that once in a while a commander won’t be certain if their tag is up. Some sort of indication of that could be nice, I suppose, but having the blue dorito on your screen 24/7 would probably be annoying.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Should we allow a WvW upgrade to see enemy commanders (not on the map just on screen) ?

No. The information is already there if you look (it shows up as a buff) but making it more obvious would really just promote not using the commander system. A well-organized group can just all target the leader and follow him without a tag, and I got the feeling from this discusion that you were trying to encourage use of the squad/commander features, not discourage it.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

How big do you expect a squad to be?

Oh, that’s an interesting one. Somewhere around 50 seems to be the largest reasonable squad (though I’ve seen a few ‘unreasonable’ ones in this current matchup). Generally I hope for 30-40 in a squad I join. But it seems to work well with smaller numbers as well.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

What kind of content is a PvE commander most useful?

Guild missions (where you have to divide into groups) is nice, and Tequatl.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Is money a good enough gate for commander tags?

No. Something indicating WvW skill or experience might work. Or something showing the backing of a significant number of people, if we want to be PvE-friendly.

I stated my preference for Commander tags in WvW long ago but will do so again here in a shortened version.

I would like to see WvWvW Commander tags tied into their experience in WvWvW. Different colors or shapes would denote more experienced Commanders which would be based off of how many Objectives they have captured, how many enemy kills, camp captures, etc. You know all that stuff that is already tracked as achievements.

This gets away from the Commander who purchases his badge and immediately starts barking orders on the field when many do not even have a clue what they are doing at that point. As a Commander earns his “bars” so to speak he can command a larger group size, has more options to view supply, mark objectives, etc. The current “blue dorito” is sufficient for PvE where for the most part it acts as a rally point on the map but within WvW you tend to want to follow the more successful Commanders and ignore some of the other doritos until they get a bit of seasoning under their belts.

If a Commander can garner the support of the troops and lead them without demeaning them then they will gain the support over time to move up in rank. Believe me there are some people out there that should never have bought a tag to the point where I cringe when they “tag up” and start calling for everyone to “stack on me” to take a camp while a tower or keep is being attacked.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Seems like people really enjoy answering questions so I’ll throw out a few more.

How big do you expect a squad to be?
What kind of content is a PvE commander most useful?
Is money a good enough gate for commander tags?

if a commander has the functions to be able to assign everyone where he wants them to be, then the full queue should be the limit. if the squad consists solely of their zerg, then it’s fine at the 30 it’s at now.

PvE commanders are most useful for farming champ trains.

money is a horrible gate for commanders. i can go farm PvE and buy a tag without having a clue about even the basics of WvW. i can go farm PvE and buy a tag, only to use it to troll people. money has zero bearing on the knowledge and leadership abilities needed to be a good commander. money only measures how good someone can farm PvE or buy gold. furthermore, ranks aren’t a good measure either, because all that measures is how well someone can follow a dorito and spam 1. it doesn’t measure their knowledge or leadership ability. a tutorial, with a test to cover strategy and tactics that players can fail, is a much better way to go. the key, however, is that the test has to actually cover strategy, and that a player CAN fail. don’t hold anyone’s hands and coddle them. if they can’t do the job, they shouldn’t be allowed to do it. it’s just that simple. read the Art of War, it takes about an hour to get through. those are the concepts that need to be known. anyone can get everyone in the queue to assimilate into a giant wad of flesh to facemash against anything in their path. not everyone should be leading, however. “distract where they’re strong, attack where they’re weak” is an extremely useful strategy that rarely ever gets used, in favor of “spam 1, get loot bags!!” because there’s a lot of people with tags that never needed to learn anything about strategy. if they ARE required to understand strategy before being able to lead, strategy will become an importance facet of the game. right now, it’s not. it’s just blobs blowing themselves up, before trying to blow the other blob up.

Phantom.8130:

“distract where they’re strong, attack where they’re weak” is an extremely useful strategy that rarely ever gets used

Well, I know our commanders usually do this.

Phantom.8130:

, in favor of “spam 1, get loot bags!!” because there’s a lot of people with tags that never needed to learn anything about strategy.

This is part of the same strategy. Please listen to the commander, Bond. Commander Bond, geddit? It’s not very good.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Seems like people really enjoy answering questions so I’ll throw out a few more.

How big do you expect a squad to be?
If you give it a proper raid ui then no more than 30. If it stays as it is then that could be increased.

Is money a good enough gate for commander tags?
No, WXP would be a way to extend functionality, maybe see if some sort of ranking systrem could be applied.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

How big do you expect a squad to be?

I’ve been part of Guild Missions with 60-70 people.
Currently, it’s only manageable by having a special guild just for the missions, so you can just see who has orange nametags, and use guild chat to coordinate.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

What kind of content is a PvE commander most useful?

Guild Missions (Except Treks)

Living Story Events where you need lots of people (Jubilee, Invasions, Tower of Nightmares)

Guild Events where you are trying to bring more than 5 people.

Larger world events like Teq…. if anyone ever did it.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Is money a good enough gate for commander tags?

No. It’s almost a bad one. Today I was in a dungeon with two people flashing their tags. I asked why people felt compelled to show it in a dungeon, to which one person responded “I paid my 100g, I want to show it off.” Thus, it’s almost viewed as a fashion accessory by many people.

Leben.5647:

gidorah.4960:

WilliamDaBloody.2591:

Soulbound or Account bound commander tag? Players do not follow character, they follow a player. Therefore I really like to see a commander tag to become account bound.

people don’t always know a commanders alt’s

If I add them to my friends list, it doesnt matter which character theyre playing, I can see if theyre online or not and where they are. There are a few commanders I follow around and theyve been added to my friends list for that reason. Likewise, I know Ive been added to a few friends lists by people who wish to follow me when Im commanding in WvW.

Point is, we can see if somebody is on their alt.

i use my friends list for friends not commanders i am still stuck trying to figure out who the good and bad commanders are despite me knowing their characters with the tags.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Seems like people really enjoy answering questions so I’ll throw out a few more.

How big do you expect a squad to be?

• I’d say it needs to be at least 45, but to get anyone in it’ll need some more utility which will understandably take very long to develop.

What kind of content is a PvE commander most useful?

• (some) World Events, Tequatl, Guild Missions, Champ Train, Guild Events

Is money a good enough gate for commander tags?

• Depends on if a distinction will be made for Pve and WvW commanders.
  PvE: Yea, sure.
  WvW: Not at all. There needs to be a minimum rank (but not based on buying with Wxp trait points!) Maybe even a BoH requirement, but that’s not as important.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Seems like people really enjoy answering questions so I’ll throw out a few more.

How big do you expect a squad to be?
What kind of content is a PvE commander most useful?
Is money a good enough gate for commander tags?

I am going to answer it from my point of view and my experiences. Going to answer #3 first, then #2, then #1.

#3: I was the first commander of my original WvW guild on Kaineng. We all collaborated to farm the cash, put it to the guild chest, with the intention that once it’s 100g, a commander tome is bought. Took a few weeks, but we got it.(This was a few weeks back in the first month or two of launch, mind you). Community(guild) vote on which of the two people looking to command would get it. It felt like a proper gateway back then because 100g was a lot.

I say back then because as time went on, the influx of money was easier. Not to mention all the RMT gold going around then(I had guildmates getting hundreds of gold from RMT and getting commander tomes. Their gateway of entry was nil compared to mine, just some cash.

Taking this into consideration, I feel that cash is a STILL a good barrier of entry. It keeps most of the unexperienced players from picking it up too early in their time of playing. However, anyone with half a brain knows how to get money easily and get as many commander tomes as they want if they have the cash to back it up.

To combat the issue I have, with RMT gold buyers getting commander tomes anytime they wish, there should also be some kind of time-consuming sidequest to turn a bought tome into a usable tome. A sidequest that doesn’t have to do with farming materials, but completing a chain of events. At least a half hour to do on average. This would make it more annoying for anyone buying their way to get the tome, while also making it feel epic(All dependent on the quest story obviously) for those who get the tome the way I did. RMT people can’t stand waiting or having to do things they can’t buy(Know from experience with those guildmates who bought).

#2: I have used the Commander Tag legitimately in PvE once, and it was amazingly useful for that one time I did.

It was for the Halloween quest line a year ago for the backpiece. I led a quest train for many people, guildies and non guildies, to go get the parts in one shot. I used my commander tag to keep everyone on track, together, and informed for each person(As they joined my squad too). It worked flawlessly to keep people on track and to know where I am and what to follow. Just about nobody got lost or sidetracked because of it. For this kind of quest, where I need to travel across Tyria, it was fantastic for me. I have never really had to legitimately use it again like that except on rare occasions to rally people to kill a dragon or something when I was the first to show up, but even then it was superfluous to just yelling in chat.

#1: There should be no limit to a squad. Knowing having no limit probably wouldn’t fly with the back end, it should be as large as possible. Like, at LEAST 100, if not more. You want to be inclusive as a commander to as many people as possible, public or guild, and more is always better. I might have once hit the squad cap back in the day, but I rarely did(And if I did on other occasions in wvw, I just was never able to notice).

What I expect from a command role is:
1 – Establish roles
11 – A commander named [ MASTER ] to divide impacts when there are too many . Manage Coordination when [ COMMANDER ] is busy in fights .
12 – Heads of Groups [ LT ] to display the secondary attacks but nevertheless crucial goals .
13 – Designate scouts [ SCOUT ] icon that appears on the map and with this designation would perk of xp each MCM past ICT (it is possible to designate a status and location ( easy programming).
2 – Establish Goals
Further management of the card with a point instead of reporting ill-defined , creating point of issue on the map like that the guys in the squad a few seconds can read the objectives .
3 – Management of private commandments
Allow private squads guild (although I ’m usually a PU LEAD) I think the closed lead could also help large guilds number .
4 – Tagged commander should be linked to account

DevonCarver.5370:

Okay, so before we get too far into this discussion, here is something else to think about:
Would you rather see us make some number of small improvements in the short term and larger changes long term or just tear the whole thing down and start from scratch?

To be a bit more specific, we could probably do something like multicolor markers without too much work, although it is not a given, but that would likely be the extent of things for a long period of time.

Devon,

I think, that in the long run, it would be simpler for you and better for server communities, if you kept the current systems for PvE (with small improvements) and then built a new WvW Commander Tag from scratch.

I believe that this would allow you to put in a few simple enhancements to tide people over while you work on the new tag, to avoid a large amount of pressure and tons of forum threads asking about it. It would also give a valid reason for not doing mass refunds of gold.

I think that a new system for WvW would benefit each server, because you could focus on WvW-specific abilities to simplify commanding. You could also make it merit based in some way, so that only capable, dedicated people are getting the tags. This could maximize server potential and minimize the drama that accompanies an unqualified commander making poor decisions for the server as a whole. People would then have more faith in their Commanders, as they would know that they actually earned their tag and didn’t just buy it or have it bought for them.

Sorry if it has already been mentioned, but I think hiding the commander buff from enemies is a bad idea.

I know it disproportionately hurts commanders of small groups, but finding the commander of a zerg ball and assassinating the commander is not easy and seems like a legitimate tactic for beating bigger zergs.

WvW tactics and skill would suffer if enemies lost the ability to see commander tags.

A few people have had the right ideas. As someone mentioned earlier, there is no need for load of colors or shapes.

SHORT TERM FIX

1.

Gold Tag: Small strike team Captain upto 10 people (2 parties)

Red Tag: Squad commander, upto 30 people consists of upto 3 strike teams (6 parties)

Blue Tag: Main map General/Commander Consists of upto 3 Squads (18 parties)

Green Tag: Guild groups, can consist of the same amount as a Blue Main map commander, but only applicable/visible to member of the Guild you are currently representing.

Colored tags are purchasable NOT earned through rank, earning individual colors through rank, will put off people wanting to take up being/learning to be a commander and turn things into a popularity contest

2. Commander alert system.

3. Improved Supply info/range.

4. Account Bound.

5. Secrecy Chat Channel: for commanders only, which will be able to contact commanders on different maps in order to call for short term back up.

6. Chat Suppression: Not removed completely or it WILL get abused/trolled, but improved alot. although doing the above i mentioned with the tags and squads should eliminate excessive use of other channels apart from squad etc.

7. Ability to make tag invisible to select groups.

LONG TERM FIX

1. A new UI window: Something similar to the guild roster (could also be located there) with multiple party windows, with a drag and drop scenario, to organize parties and class composition. This would also fall in nicely with the Gold/Red/Blue Tag scenario I mentioned in point 1 of the short term fixes.
this is an essential long term goal since you introduced the AoE buffs prioritizing party members, and party organisation is the key to having a strong survivable force behind u.

2. Maybe I could have put this in short term fixes: able to do everything for for squad as u can do for your party, for example: Call targets (to focus damage), see every squad member on map (blue dots) etc etc.

*3. The ability to invite members to squad, AoE invite within range depending on your limit as per your color Tag.

4. Rank Structure of a Blue icon General I have provided an img of how I would like it to work, notice I have placed prices in regards to acquirement, Gold Icons are pretty cheap since they you need more of them and less people under your control. This would also encourage strike teams and roaming.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Seems like people really enjoy answering questions so I’ll throw out a few more.

How big do you expect a squad to be?
What kind of content is a PvE commander most useful?
Is money a good enough gate for commander tags?

I like questions too! They help me stay focused. It’s like a freaking tree with all these branches of though in this brain of mine.

Size.

• It depends. Really experienced commanders can give directions to several parties and even other commander squads. Guildies may want to have small squads so they don’t get orange swords.
  The best option would be being able to have commanders that can ‘command’ other commanders. And being able to divide squads in smaller sub-squads.
  There should not be minimum size for big squads, and the maximum should be the max size of the map, so the most experienced commanders can direct other players for things like full-map conquests in WvW, or spreading people during Scarlet invasions.
  As for sub-squads, I think 30 would do fine. For example, a sub-squad in charge of taking on a tower could have 24 attacking, and 6 going for supplies to set defenses as soon as the others finish.
  This would allow a lot of freedom and versatility of how players can structure their squads.

PvE

• For open world big-scale content. At this oment, the 3 best spots for commanders to shine are Tequatl, Scarlet invasions and inside the Nightmare tower. I can’t count how many times I’ve herded people all the way up. They would never stop to heal anybody in the third level if I didn’t set a water field and refused to advance until everyone is up and walking. But they sure do listen when you explain to them the quirks of a boss and they see that less people goes down and everyone advances. If it wasn’t for everyone farming in Queensdale, I would probably guide people through mini-dungeons more often.
• Guilds. For guilds, commanders are usually beacons. To guide others to where a bounty boss is, to show them where everyone is in guild puzzle, or their WvW zerg/squad… That’s why for them you don’t need experience as much as a mere permission in the rank roster. Guilds can manage themselves pretty well on that.
  It’s true that there’s very experienced players that set themselves as commanders in things like puzzles and guild challenges or let others join their quild zerg. But that helps mostly when there’s people outside the guild around. Many guilds invite others to join their guild missions, and their commanders guide other players. But then it becomes more “open world commanding” and less “guild commanding”.

Gate/Price

• For guilds, it could be even free, or have a mere merit and influence cost. Unlock it under “art of war”, set the permission in the rank edit panel, players with ranks with the permision can show guild emblem, and their guildies can see it. But only their guildies. Easy and fast, let guilds manage the rest.
• For open world, Definitely not. Both in WvW and PvE, there should be some sort of way to prove that the account has had experience with the content. Having a commander tag should tell other players: “I did this before, I know how this goes, you can trust me”. For WvW, not even badges of honor would do, as you can get them without doing any WvW at all thanks to achievement rewards. Fortunately, we have all these WvW achievements keeping track of how many times an account has participated in WvW content all sorts of WvW content. Those are better suited as a gate.
  For PvE, maybe there should be some sort of achievement that goes up as you do open world content to keep track of that, along the already existing Boss achievements.
  Once experience with the content has been proven, currencies are fine to unlock access to the commander eature, but it should be account bound, or at least a big fee for the account as a smaller one for each extra character.

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 advocate double the number of posts before being suppressed in zone chat and local chat/say for tag-up Commanders. With NO suppression in their own squad channel.

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 keen on a Commander skill, but I still think that some of the other measures of WvW accomplishment have a lot to offer. Gaining new tag symbols based on some aggregates of WvW achievements still seems like it would allow specialized commanders to distinguish themselves (“Siegemaster”, “Raider”, “Home Guard”) and to create player goals beyond “must get enough wxp…”

I also think if we have tags that “show to squad only” and “show to entire map” as separate functions we can use those to distinguish beginning commanders from veteran warleaders. All commanders need to be able to have their squads see them on map, but do all commanders need to contribute to Dorito-spam?

I think the initial “squad leader” commander should cost about 20 wxp – its a modest commitment but it also indicates you’ve at least been around a few fights. Looking at a simpler progression that I was tinkering with before~

Level 1 (20 wxp). Can form squads of up to 20 players with full Commander UI. Gains squad chat channel w/ no suppression. Can activate squad-only map tag. Can ping supply total carried by squad members.
Level 2 (20 wxp). 5% wxp bonus for squad members within 2000 (non-stacking 30 second buff, pulses once every 15 seconds)
Level 3 (20 wxp). 10% out of combat run speed bonus for squad members within 2000 (non-stacking 30 second buff, pulses once every 15 seconds)
Level 4 (40 wxp). Can form squads of up to 40 players. Gains Commanders Only chat channel. Can activate public map tag.
Level 5 (40 wxp). wxp bonus increases to 10%.
Level 6 (40 wxp). out of combat run speed bonus increases to 20%.

That gives you 20 points to buy in and start leading squads, with 100 points to be a full ‘map commander’.

I also wanted to say that while I’d like to see commanders radiate some buffs, I believe those buffs should serve to encourage squad cohesion (wxp to encourage joining squad, out of combat speed to reduce stragglers as you move overland) and not to tip the balance of a fight (no direct damage or defense buffs).

abiyde.5064:

Sorry if it has already been mentioned, but I think hiding the commander buff from enemies is a bad idea.

I know it disproportionately hurts commanders of small groups, but finding the commander of a zerg ball and assassinating the commander is not easy and seems like a legitimate tactic for beating bigger zergs.

WvW tactics and skill would suffer if enemies lost the ability to see commander tags.

Skillful assassination becomes more important as Commanders gain effectiveness (even with just a couple new colors and tag symbols).

Having that kind of counter-play will be even more import than it is now.

Kikkah.2306:

Prior to my old post from a few hours ago i took some time to work everything out players asked here and some thing I threw in for myself.

Ok, first off I want to say those mock ups look great! .

• Team Warning (Raid Warning)
  I know this is a copy from other MMO’s but its same like the scarlet invasion give commander a change to use this in order to get people there attention. This can be seen in the middle of the image. Take in consideration that this can be abused so a good system has to be build for this.

Allowing commanders to type into “billboard text” is a GREAT idea either for squad members, or in some sort of localized area about the same size as a /say. I’d probably put it in a 45 second cooldown to avoid malicious or accidental spamming (and to give a little tension to the decision when to blow your big in-your-face command opportunity…).

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Seems like people really enjoy answering questions so I’ll throw out a few more.

How big do you expect a squad to be?
What kind of content is a PvE commander most useful?
Is money a good enough gate for commander tags?

I would expect squads to be large enough to account for the amount of people that run a typical guild puzzle/challenge. For my guild that seems to be around 50 people. That would like sync well with the max number of people I see with a commander in WvW. There can be more people in rare instances, but not usually. 50 likely covers 95% of all cases.

I use my tag a lot in PvE. I use it when there is a boss or mob in which you want folks on a map to find you in order to assist with killing the boss or mob to get awards and/or make progress (like in the nightmare tower). Additionally, we always use 1-3 commanders for our weekly guild missions depending on how many groups we need. For example, on the Quagaan escort mission we use 4 commanders and split into 4 squads so everyone knows who to follow when those Quagaans take erratic and suicidal paths to their destination.

Gold kept me from getting a tag for 10 months until I cracked the code on how to make some easy money on the TP from other players. I wanted to be a commander for a long time before that so I found gold to be an excellent gate for me personally. Our guild did donate money to some players to get tags early on, but we had a lot of them leave and so the next few that stepped up were self funded.

I’m not even remotely ashamed of saying this: Commander tags are a customization opportunity that I would be willing to throw down a lot of money for if monetized. Given that a skin for a tag that could be seen by anyone on a map, they would be a hugely significant graphical cosmetic. I would easily value it more than an armor skin and be willing to pay more than an armor skin for one.

If you switched commander into a trait mastery, a skin of this sort for legacy commanders would be a pretty gosh darn good refund per tag.

I see a lot of ideas here that seem pretty complicated. They’re good but I think a simpler solution is out there.

I think the easiest system is one that players are already familiar with, specifically, chat codes. Interacting with a chat code linked to someone’s squad could be used to join it, and this simple mechanic makes a lot of organization possible, and also removes the need for stuff like guild based tags.

Simply put, give commanders the option to show their tags to everyone, or only people in their squad. Then make squad join be based off of seeing and clicking a chatcode. Let commanders be in other squads simultaneously. You can also see the tags of commanders you’re following.

== deeper and boring explanation below==
1. Give the commander access to a linkable chat code, anyone who gets the link can join the squad. e.g., [Join Squad: Commander John Doe]

2. Allow players to be in more than one squad. (I realize that this could be a fundamental rewrite issue right here.)

3. Only allow commanders and commanders that they are following to link their squad code.

4. Give players 2 squad view options: 1. Show all visible commanders . 2. Show only commander groups I am following. (Default 1, switches to 2 if you join a squad, can just be set back afterward if you want.)

5. Give commanders 4 squad show options: 1. Show my tag to everyone. 2. Show my tag to people in my squad, and people following them. 3. Show my tag only to people in my squad. 4. Don’t show my tag to anyone, even if I lead a squad. (Default 1, switches to the option of a commander you follow.)

6. If a commander is following another squad, anyone who follows him will also see the squad he is following.
== end tl;dr ==

From the end users perspective, this is easy. You click on a chat code. Boom. Done. Finished. Doesn’t need any explanation at all for someone who can read a chat code. No complicated steps required.

From the commander’s perspective, it’s a little more complicated, but very customizable. Main commanders could give out the code to everyone, and then select subcommanders that everyone could see, or for a less messy view, the commander could give out his code only to the subcommanders, who would be the primary tags joined on; this would hide breakoff groups from one another, but not the main group. It would also discourage players from running in one huge ball against the commander’s wishes.

This is insanely easy for anyone to use or set up, makes spying more difficult if you really want it to be, reduces griefing, and sets up the ability to use subcommanders (who could just have a different looking tag) with a minimum of hassle.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

A lot of awesome ideas here.

Here are some questions I’ve been wondering about.

How often do people actually join squads and use the features that are there? (4 different way point markers, /supplyinfo). What would make you join squads more?

How much is spies a problem with commander system?

Should the commander icon be shown above the commanders head to the commander?

Should we allow a WvW upgrade to see enemy commanders (not on the map just on screen) ?

1. Not often at all, now if we could see squad members on the map you are on in a different color blobs, and map wide, it would be a different story.

2. Can’t comment on this

3. I am fine with it.

4. Could be interesting, but since you can chat when dead, and respawn instantly, it would not really add the gameplay element of removing the enemy leader from the fight.