Guild Wars 2

I would LOVE a commander chat macro system

you get to program 5-10 chat statements and assign hotkeys to them so with the push of a single button you can say things like:

stack on my tag
drop a fire field and blast it
drop a veil moving out in 3
please build this asap
don’t take supply please run it from the camp

etc etc

What’s left in this CDI?

It seems like there’s widespread consensus on the major features the community would like to see in the Commander System, and the only real items left at disagreement is how to do handle acquisition/advancement.

Perhaps Devon/Izzy/etc could give a bit more direction about what points of discussion would give them better insights?

My ideas may have been posted before but here we go:

Short term easy to implement items:

1. Increase the range of /supplyinfo to 1200
This one is simple. Currently I have to ask players to stack on me for a supply count. Half of them do it on the first request, others don’t pay attention till I say it 4 times. Increasing the range to 1200 lets me poll the supply in my zerg and get a head count much more easily. If you’re afraid it will cause performance issues you can give it a cooldown. I only have to use it multiple times because my zerg is spread out anyway.

2. Increase range where ally dots are visible – I don’t know if you want to do this or not: Make it so that a commander while tagged up can see ally dots on the map at a larger range than normal. I think the current range is 2000. Make the cmdr range 10,000 or whole map wide. This would almost instantly alleviate all the other issues with commander tag visibility. You would be instantly able to see where every ally on the map is and it would help you explain where your numbers went after the last wipe. You see a large pile of dots on tower B when you fought the enemy zerg at tower A.

Longer term items:
I like an idea that was posted and I’ll repost it with my spin on it:

3. Tag visibility options: Give me the option to make my tag visible to Everyone, Just my Guild, Just my Squad, or Just my Party. Add a second option which lets me toggle whether it is visible to other commanders (have that On by default). A lot of guilds on my server avoid tagging up to avoid getting pick up groupers following their raid. When I’m trying to lead those PUGs I can’t tell where the other guilds are. It becomes frustrating when I see orange swords pop on an objective: I prepare to attack it, stack fire fields and rush in to find that o hey it’s friendly guild XXX. Having it so I can see their tag as a Cmdr but noone else can would let me plan around their plans.

4. The ability to designate Lieutenants, with the same visibility options as my tag. Sun Tsu describes leading a large army as the same thing as leading a small detachment in being just a matter of sub-dividing the army. Let me do that with my army.

5. Party Leader tags – Allow parties to designate a leader (or make it whoever formed the party. The leader’s tag is visible to the party members. When that party’s leader joins a commander squad the tag is then visible to the commander at all times. This would allow that commander to dispatch parties to locations.

6. Better squad UI: This comes in parts
- Ability to invite players within 1200 units into my squad
- Ability to manage my squad (kick players, move them into parties, designate lieutentants with the UI)
- Raid UI panel which shows the health and supply of players in my squad as well as total supply.
- Raidcall messages that tell when I place a marker on the map (kinda like the message that tells you where Scarlet’s minions are attacking)
- More raid markers. We currently have “attack” “defend” “move”. Give me “get supply”, “place catapults/trebuchets”, “place arrow carts”. Also allow more than one marker of a type at a time.
- The ability to see raid markers from other commanders. These would be visible to me and if i choose visible to my squad.

The UI upgrades would make life as a commander easier for me. Currently I have to just say it and hope for the best. With more markers I could plan out my attack on the map then execute it.

I’ve had a few more ideas:

• Siege throwing UI for commanders
• Colored tags should be unique in a map – req. color preset – everyone defaults to invisible color
• Put a tag on top of a commander’s thrown siege (only visible to squad maybe)
• Tag size adjustable by all players through UI for themselves

Since many seem to want commander rep, then it has to be possible for more commanders to be effective (requires a major overhaul). Therefore, to make squads and smaller groups more useful:

• Remove supply carrying and change it with fixed amount of time spent building a siege (ie: infinite supply) – The build time is less effective after 5 builds and a player cannot build after 10. That way, the same 5 players can build enough siege for two doors.
• Each camp supply depot resets build effectiveness for everyone
• Camps should also manufacture ammo for siege so they could only be fired a certain amount of times without having any camps and their reload time would be diminished according to how many camps are controlled.

Solstice.1097:

I would LOVE a commander chat macro system

you get to program 5-10 chat statements and assign hotkeys to them so with the push of a single button you can say things like:

stack on my tag
drop a fire field and blast it
drop a veil moving out in 3
please build this asap
don’t take supply please run it from the camp

etc etc

Why not going a little bit further, and add quick voice commands?
Press the “quick voice command” button, you get a wheel with options, or a list with numbers like in FPS games, pick the choice, the voice command is sent to your allies.

This could allow even prerecorded messages that enemies can hear, such as taunts. And work too in PvE and PvP with a different list of context-sensitive lines, so people can ‘talk’ to each other even when thy don’t share languages. “Capture the point!”, “Follow me!”, etc.

And I want to hear my human elementalist calling enemies “Cowards” with Nolan North’s voice. That’ll be awesome.

DevonCarver.5370:

Would the commander system be functional enough with more markers, guild only tags, less suppression, better supplyinfo, and possibly additional marker shapes?

I would take that. deal. done. ty

DevonCarver.5370:

Perhaps the largest question I still have, how would everyone feel if the only changes to commander were the smaller scale ones? The other stuff is super interesting and has a lot of promise, but is also a major task and one I can’t make any guarantees about. I suppose the crux of the question is how priority is the rest of the stuff, if the smaller bits are taken care of? Would the commander system be functional enough with more markers, guild only tags, less suppression, better supplyinfo, and possibly additional marker shapes?

I don’t understand why it has to be either/or. I mean why can’t you do whatever simple changes like tag color and the others you mentioned now. And then work on the harder stuff as a project longer term.

Why does making simple changes now preclude making larger changes down the road?

DevonCarver.5370:

Perhaps the largest question I still have, how would everyone feel if the only changes to commander were the smaller scale ones? The other stuff is super interesting and has a lot of promise, but is also a major task and one I can’t make any guarantees about. I suppose the crux of the question is how priority is the rest of the stuff, if the smaller bits are taken care of? Would the commander system be functional enough with more markers, guild only tags, less suppression, better supplyinfo, and possibly additional marker shapes?

Add the ability to Join Squad by typing in the commander’s name to this functionality and that would be perfect for me. Most especially if the Guild Only tag works for everyone who is a member of the guild, whether they are currently representing or not. That would ROCK!

A small and easy change now is infinitely more welcome than waiting months or longer for a full overhaul, and there is no reason the two need be mutually exclusive.

Most of what I would expect has been mentioned here and YES the tag would be more useful with the lower reach stuff sure. I’d say that acquisition via guild unlocks and being able to have different tag shapes / colours are probably the most useful of that list from our pov.

The end goal from my pov on this will be to provide us with a tool that allows us to manage a large group and without that “raid frame” for player and group management these lower reach suggestions don’t really approach the goal of making the commander tag useful in lots of situations to manage large groups of players across a decent distance. They still essentially mean I have to have 30 players on me to know whats going on with them, I can’t send a 5 man group off to do something knowing their composition and whats happening to them without having them on comms directly.

more markers, guild only tags, less suppression, better supply info, and possibly additional marker shapes?

DevonCarver.5370:

A summary of the last few pages:

1) It seems to be consensus that a system allowing commander unlocks for WXP wouldn’t be a good move.

2) A lot of people are interested in a sub-commander or lieutenant system of some sort. One that would allow for greater coordination and delegation.

3) There seems to be a general divide between people proposing a system far more complex than the current commander system and people who just want the system to have more clarity.

People have also been answering Izzy’s questions with a pretty wide variety of experiences.

One thing that is coming up with some frequency is the idea of separating PvE commanders from WvW ones. It’s our goal to not have diverging systems like that. We’d rather build one system that can work for both areas of the game for the sake of clarity. So, that’s another constraint to consider, that we’d be making changes in the best interests of both and not changes that separate them out into unique systems.

I have a couple of other things I’d like to mention. I don’t think we’d want to focus the commander on the guild system. It could be that I’m wrong about that, but it feels restricting to say you can’t be a commander, or a full-fledged one, unless you are in a guild of a certain size. How would people feel if, instead, there were some additional unlocks you could get as a guild commander that only displayed to people in your guild? Maybe if you are in guild only mode on your tag you have some additional tools?

Perhaps the largest question I still have, how would everyone feel if the only changes to commander were the smaller scale ones? The other stuff is super interesting and has a lot of promise, but is also a major task and one I can’t make any guarantees about. I suppose the crux of the question is how priority is the rest of the stuff, if the smaller bits are taken care of? Would the commander system be functional enough with more markers, guild only tags, less suppression, better supplyinfo, and possibly additional marker shapes?

I think the small changes that you listed must be made and asap, to foster growth of wvw and keep it from loosing players. However you still need to release a decent raid interface. What we have now is laughable and is one of the things I hear people complain about when they leave this game. I understand that your pipeline is currently full with other overhauls. And to be fair I would prefer a quick fix here and to get templates sooner than the rework of commander interface.

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?

Just a note from a purely wvw perspective. Talking about how big a squad should be. The potential changes being made here if squad management comes into the picture really presents the possibility of pushing grouping in wvw away from 60,70,80+ people on one player towards smaller squads based on having a reasonable number of players visible on a squad and group management window or overlay.

Just a thought as I always like to encourage players not to ball massive numbers in one place as much as possible

and yep erm 30 seems reasonable for a squad tbh (purely personal answer)

DevonCarver.5370:

Would the commander system be functional enough with more markers, guild only tags, less suppression, better supplyinfo, and possibly additional marker shapes?

Yes please, but I’ll doubtless be outvoted by the ….players… on the forum.

IMO All of that “Captain” nonsense is completely unnecessary and would likely be redundant.

As I mentioned earlier, I think the main thing is the ability for ONLY your squad to see your tag.

DevonCarver.5370:

Would the commander system be functional enough with more markers, guild only tags, less suppression, better supplyinfo, and possibly additional marker shapes?

Yes, with two additions:

• The commander map markers need to actually work in WvW. (I’ve tried using them and they only worked in PvE)
• Raise the maximum squad size.

I think there is only three changes I’d like to see

The first of these being one largely demanded, and that is, that Supply Info needs a bit of a broader range, it gets a little frustrating trying to gather people on top of your tag, just to check the supply, and if the players around you don’t listen, or are scattered, you could have missed 10-60+ supply that could have been accounted for.

Second the other largely requested one, Allow them to perhaps customize your tag, even use some preset ones, and give a few colors to play around with, it gives some more simple depth to the tag. Like you have your scouts this color or symbol, or even help differentiate for commanders that are commonly around. Someone hits a Borderland, and they’d know that a certain commander may be there, given the familiar looking tag being present.

Third, and this is one I’d LOVE, and that is an invisibility system, cause I can’t count the times I’d like to run just as our guild group, and having it so that only guildies would see. And I mean I think this one is big, because it can further contribute to being able to play around with Guild vs Guild without disturbing the rest of the map and pulling in others, or being left undisturbed to run as a tight knit group that could and might be hindered by addition of players outside of voice coms, and or improperly geared for the group dynamic.

DevonCarver.5370:

Would the commander system be functional enough with more markers, guild only tags, less suppression, better supplyinfo, and possibly additional marker shapes?

I think this would add so much more functionality than in its current state and would be a much welcome change for the WvW community. This also adds so much more diversity in terms of tactics and would really create a much more dynamic flow of play. This would allow multiple, much more organized groups, to accomplish different goals simultaneously. I think these things are basic enough that the added functionality would go a long way in keeping people happy until the bigger additions can come into play.

DevonCarver.5370:

Perhaps the largest question I still have, how would everyone feel if the only changes to commander were the smaller scale ones? The other stuff is super interesting and has a lot of promise, but is also a major task and one I can’t make any guarantees about. I suppose the crux of the question is how priority is the rest of the stuff, if the smaller bits are taken care of? Would the commander system be functional enough with more markers, guild only tags, less suppression, better supplyinfo, and possibly additional marker shapes?

More markers, less suppression better supplyinfo and more marker shapes/colors would be a godsend. I guarantee you we would make great use of that. It would make a world of difference in both WvW and PvE.

WvW: Just having different color tags would be great because we could coordinate between different groups. Defense teams / Offense Teams / roaming groups / etc.

PvE: Having multiple tags would help with even things as simple as guild missions. Most of the Guild Challenge missions, for example would benefit greatly from this. Even things like LS events would be helpful if we knew what each commander was doing based on color / a little bit of text above the marker.

TL;DR – Small stuff good! Do big stuff later!

DevonCarver.5370:

Would the commander system be functional enough with more markers, guild only tags, less suppression, better supplyinfo, and possibly additional marker shapes?

This would be a good start. I would add a higher cap for the squad size. A command like /siegeinfo to scan blueprints around me would be a nice perk but I can live without for a while.

I assume some things could be tested in the beta of Edge of the Mists like less suppression or more markers. I guess the beta phase will still last a longer time.

adubb.2453:

WvW: Just having different color tags would be great because we could coordinate between different groups. Defense teams / Offense Teams / roaming groups / etc.

This would make things much easier if I could assign special tasks to certain subunits led by a players with a different shaped sign. I could even assign certain supply camps to certain subunits to speed up the acquisition of supply without endless discussions which players have to go to which camp. The palayres would just have to follow their assigned sign like red star or red triangle.

I feel that on the issue of obtaining a commander icon there would be a few solutions which would be benefitial:

For both WvW and PvE-
Commander Icons should be purchased as a guild upgrade. By doing this, it would ensure that the only people commanding are those who have earned influence in either WvW or PvE to get the icon. Then, it would be important to make the icons different in some way (perhaps color) or tied to a specific guild (perhaps through a guild specific icon on the mini map).

WvW specific commander icon-
To obtain this one, you take the item that was generated from the guild upgrade and place it in the Mystic Forge with Badges to convert to a WvW commander icon. This would ensure that the person with a commander icon in WvW is part of an active guild and has at least a modicum of WvW experience.

PvE specific icon-
To obtain this one, you take the item generated from the guild upgrade and place it in the mystic forge with an item from PvE in order to obtain the item as a PvE specific icon.

Here is my question:

What is wrong with the Raid Leader system in WoW that precludes GW2 from adopting it? That system is at least 5 years old (I think it’s closer to 10) and worked extremely well.

The Raid Leader system in WoW provided:
– raid leaders (aka commanders)
– raid assistants (aka lieutenants)
– multiple target markers for assigning priority/actions
– on-screen message overlays for providing clear, concise directions

If you had this system in GW2, you would eliminate many of the problems in WvW and PVE and PVP to boot!

DevonCarver.5370:

Johje Holan.4607:

Why does making simple changes now preclude making larger changes down the road?

It does not, but it’s important to understand what down the road might mean. It could be a few months or it could be much longer. Any changes would be prioritized in terms of what the entire company is working on. If we don’t think those changes are the best use of resources, it could be a long time. And part of determining that is figuring out how well the system works as it stands. We have finite resources in terms of people and we put them to work on whatever most benefits the game as a whole. That is why I want a gauge of how important it is to you.

The smaller things are the most important.

Getting additional colors would have a gigantic impact on coordination possibilities and would also allow the meta to have more than 1 huge clump in the higher tiers.

If you just put in additional colors tommorrow the rest of the stuff could be left for months as everything else I’ve seen have been fairly ineffectual in terms of improvement- they would be nice, but not necessary.

Symbols would be good for color blind players, but if colors are faster then get them patched asap and put symbols in as a close second.

DevonCarver.5370:

I suppose the crux of the question is how priority is the rest of the stuff, if the smaller bits are taken care of? Would the commander system be functional enough with more markers, guild only tags, less suppression, better supplyinfo, and possibly additional marker shapes?

Yes and No.
Yes: those changes would be huge QoL wins, and allow us to make better use of the system, more often (though frankly, I think the system already meets the bar of “functional enough”).

No: a lot of the suggestions that have been made focus around WvW issues that aren’t directly commander related (e.g. siege deployment troubles/griefing). They don’t have to be addressed through the commander system, but they do need something done.

As a Commander my self the only thing that is bothering me is that i do not have the possibility to assign my group on to smaller squads. It would be nice for a start to have that option.

Lets say for example i have 60/70 persons that are following me. I would like to have the possibility to assign small groups(20 Persons/Squad) with “Squad-leaders” that i can follow on the map what they are doing(similar to tPvP map, where you can see the classes icons. But only the “Squad-Leader” icon). That would help a lot with the coordination.

Regards

Seed

Thedenofsin.7340:

Here is my question:

What is wrong with the Raid Leader system in WoW that precludes GW2 from adopting it? That system is at least 5 years old (I think it’s closer to 10) and worked extremely well.

The Raid Leader system in WoW provided:
– raid leaders (aka commanders)
– raid assistants (aka lieutenants)
– multiple target markers for assigning priority/actions
– on-screen message overlays for providing clear, concise directions

If you had this system in GW2, you would eliminate many of the problems in WvW and PVE and PVP to boot!

Heavily due to the UI, and game differences, that Raid Leader system in WoW is primarily used for PvE content, and more specifically raid for more easy access to see your tanks and know what every role is filled by which person.

GW2 I think would suffer if such a system was implemented because they are too mismatched for each other.

Screenager.7804:

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?

Just a note from a purely wvw perspective. Talking about how big a squad should be. The potential changes being made here if squad management comes into the picture really presents the possibility of pushing grouping in wvw away from 60,70,80+ people on one player towards smaller squads based on having a reasonable number of players visible on a squad and group management window or overlay.

Just a thought as I always like to encourage players not to ball massive numbers in one place as much as possible

and yep erm 30 seems reasonable for a squad tbh (purely personal answer)

I’m in agreement with Screenager on this one.

The element that I feel most people aren’t considering when they ask for 50+ people in a Commander’s squad is the UI.

First off, I don’t think Anet wants to design a fully flexible UI frame that can fit up to 50 people and grow/shrink in size based on the number of players in the frame and customizations by the user. I sure as hell know I’d hate to design such a thing in a game that’s designed on field awareness and watching your opponent, as opposed to staring at bars and panels. Seriously, a 50 person UI frame would have to cover a 4th of the screen to be large enough to see, display each player, and actually present meaningful information.

Now…imagine some of the suggestions of “Oh, you should be able to have the whole map in your squad!” Ideas like these don’t think about the future. There would be no possible way to make a UI frame to support that.

To prevent UI clutter, I too would have to limit a squad at 30 people. Squads that are coordinating together can communicate via the Commander chat tab. Commanders could have the option of granting privilege to Lieutenants to also post in this tab. Anyone would have visibility into the tab, but only Commanders and Lieutenants have speaking privileges. The tab could be added as a filtered selection to appear in the Main chat tab as well (or any tab the user desires).

DevonCarver.5370:

Perhaps the largest question I still have, how would everyone feel if the only changes to commander were the smaller scale ones? The other stuff is super interesting and has a lot of promise, but is also a major task and one I can’t make any guarantees about. I suppose the crux of the question is how priority is the rest of the stuff, if the smaller bits are taken care of? Would the commander system be functional enough with more markers, guild only tags, less suppression, better supplyinfo, and possibly additional marker shapes?

I would rank Guild Only tags as the single biggest low hanging fruit on the tree.

Past that, I don’t think you’re really solving some core issues:
- There’s no real advantage to having all the people join a squad.
- Everything that happens in this game with any amount of coordination has a hard reliance on VoIP. Consider: I doubt Tequatl 2.0 has been defeated with less than 90% participation in VoIP.

I would suggest making the goal of the commander system be that people could effectively organize and compete in large scale content (be it WvW, Teq2, Guild Missions), without reliance on external tools just as VoIP.

I would be very happy seeing the smaller, easier changes. I see those being 1) New tag colors and shapes 2) Ability to be seen by limited number of players (guild, squad, party, etc.) 3) Increasing supplyinfo range.

DevonCarver.5370:

A summary of the last few pages:

2) A lot of people are interested in a sub-commander or lieutenant system of some sort. One that would allow for greater coordination and delegation.

Different color tags and/or multiple tag shapes would address this completely. Each world would come up with their own standards.

I have a couple of other things I’d like to mention. I don’t think we’d want to focus the commander on the guild system. It could be that I’m wrong about that, but it feels restricting to say you can’t be a commander, or a full-fledged one, unless you are in a guild of a certain size. How would people feel if, instead, there were some additional unlocks you could get as a guild commander that only displayed to people in your guild? Maybe if you are in guild only mode on your tag you have some additional tools?

This is a fair idea and would give guilds something more to unlock/achieve. However, I would be quite satisfied with adding an Open/Closed Squad feature. Say… default it to an open Squad. If the Commander feels his squad is full, then they can close squad and then the tag will only be visible to those who joined the squad. Plus any additional features you want to add.

Perhaps the largest question I still have, how would everyone feel if the only changes to commander were the smaller scale ones?

Any improvements is better than no improvements. The sooner the better too. I’ll take bit by bit over waiting for everything.

The other stuff is super interesting and has a lot of promise, but is also a major task and one I can’t make any guarantees about. I suppose the crux of the question is how priority is the rest of the stuff, if the smaller bits are taken care of? Would the commander system be functional enough with more markers, guild only tags, less suppression, better supplyinfo, and possibly additional marker shapes?

Yes. This quality of life improvement is a very long overdue change. Now if only we could search the TP for light, medium, or heavy armor instead of having so sort through crap I can’t wear… oh well that’s a topic for another day.

How for my short bullet list of Commander wish list.

• Choose Commander Tag Colors (I’ll settle for 3, but 6-8 would be nice)
• Be able to make an open Squad for all to join or switch to closed squad to hide tag from all except those who joined when it was open. Guild only tag is acceptable to me.
  *Make /supplyinfo have a range of 800-1200 or so.
  *How about /squadinfo for list of names/classes nearby?
• MAKE IT ACCOUNT BOUND! I’m broke :’( I made the mistake of putting my tag on my ele and now I cannot command on my Guardian or Warrior. If I leave the map to change characters the queue monster gets me.
• Make the Commander tag FAR more visible in heavy combat. Any kind of intense fight and many people lose track of the tag. It’s honestly safer to just put a target on the Commander as that is easier to see in the fray. That really shouldn’t be the case.
• Carefully consider making Commander waypoints visible to non squad members.

I’ll take adding 1-2 features every 2 weeks. How about starting with expanding /supplyinfo to 1000 on Dec 10th

any chance one of the guild unlocks could be using the guild banner instead of the blue dorito on the minimap

Malchior.5042:

Screenager.7804:

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?

Just a note from a purely wvw perspective. Talking about how big a squad should be. The potential changes being made here if squad management comes into the picture really presents the possibility of pushing grouping in wvw away from 60,70,80+ people on one player towards smaller squads based on having a reasonable number of players visible on a squad and group management window or overlay.

Just a thought as I always like to encourage players not to ball massive numbers in one place as much as possible

and yep erm 30 seems reasonable for a squad tbh (purely personal answer)

I’m in agreement with Screenager on this one.

The element that I feel most people aren’t considering when they ask for 50+ people in a Commander’s squad is the UI.

First off, I don’t think Anet wants to design a fully flexible UI frame that can fit up to 50 people and grow/shrink in size based on the number of players in the frame and customizations by the user. I sure as hell know I’d hate to design such a thing in a game that’s designed on field awareness and watching your opponent, as opposed to staring at bars and panels. Seriously, a 50 person UI frame would have to cover a 4th of the screen to be large enough to see, display each player, and actually present meaningful information.

Now…imagine some of the suggestions of “Oh, you should be able to have the whole map in your squad!” Ideas like these don’t think about the future. There would be no possible way to make a UI frame to support that.

To prevent UI clutter, I too would have to limit a squad at 30 people. Squads that are coordinating together can communicate via the Commander chat tab. Commanders could have the option of granting privilege to Lieutenants to also post in this tab. Anyone would have visibility into the tab, but only Commanders and Lieutenants have speaking privileges. The tab could be added as a filtered selection to appear in the Main chat tab as well (or any tab the user desires).

Good points.

But we can still play around with some of these ideas.

What about a limited visibility system.

commander sees all of his/her sub commanders on the map.
sub commanders can see 2 groups in their ui.

This way 10 player squad will be effective on its own and a commander can see their position on the map.

Another way to do it is to have a group lead assigned in each group. This group lead is visible on commander’s map. Have squad limited to say 6 groups.

In the end you still need voip to coordinate well, and it might be ok to keep the current system but with a few changes. But hey we can dream:D

On the idea of commander progression:

Firstly, I agree with many other posters that having progression be directly related to a single game mode when commanders serve a purpose in two game modes is a bad idea. However, you could, perhaps, have a progression system that rewards commanders based on the mode they’re playing all the same.

Consider:

- Commander book unlocks a basic tag and several colours
- Completing events of specific types while commanding unlocks new tags. For example, completing PvE group events unlocks a tag that looks like the PvE event boss icon, attacking a specific objective a lot in WvW unlocks a tag based on the objective, and defending objectives unlocks a tag that looks like a shield
- Completing group or WvW assault/defend events while commanding in general also adds progression towards new colours and patterns for the base tag/commander-placed waypoints/new abilities or whatever.

The unlockable icons will confirm to other players that this commander is working towards specific event types, while the colour progression indicates a certain level of experience as a commander. Additionally, there’s progression uniquely available in PvE.

Solstice.1097:

A small and easy change now is infinitely more welcome than waiting months or longer for a full overhaul, and there is no reason the two need be mutually exclusive.

Sure. If it’s a single small change that isn’t undone by the overhaul, doing both seems obvious.

If we’re instead talking about a series of small changes that is nearly as much total work as the overhaul, and which would be completely invalidated by said overhaul… not so much.

Edit; Here’s an unrelated idea:

If the commander calls a target (ctrl+t), it’s marked in some way, and treated as a champion in terms of tag-targeting for players in their squad.

That would be a powerful, dangerous tool that would absolutely encourage people to join squads.

DevonCarver.5370:

Would the commander system be functional enough with more markers, guild only tags, less suppression, better supplyinfo, and possibly additional marker shapes?

I would take that, the more markers imo need to be in game world not just on map eg beams of light or something

DevonCarver.5370:

One thing that is coming up with some frequency is the idea of separating PvE commanders from WvW ones. It’s our goal to not have diverging systems like that. We’d rather build one system that can work for both areas of the game for the sake of clarity. So, that’s another constraint to consider, that we’d be making changes in the best interests of both and not changes that separate them out into unique systems.

As a player who has a Commander tag originally bought purely for PvE purposes (leading guild missions, LS event support/focus for players, etc) I wouldn’t like to see the tag I have separated from the same tag in WvW. In as much as, although I only use the tag in PvE at the moment I am playing more and more WvW and I would like to think that in future I would feel confident enough to use my tag to help my server in WvW.

I would understand and probably agree if part of the long term system involved earning a certain WvW rank before a tag could be deployed in WvW – nothing huge, but just some indication that you’d at least been in WvW before you popped your tag on the map and started shouting stuff out. But I’ll leave feedback on that aspect to those who’ve spent much more time in WvW than I have.

DevonCarver.5370:

How would people feel if, instead, there were some additional unlocks you could get as a guild commander that only displayed to people in your guild? Maybe if you are in guild only mode on your tag you have some additional tools?

Any additional tools you could give to those of us who run guilds would be much appreciated – please note these don’t have to be connected to a commander tag, much needs doing in this realm (moving on….)

DevonCarver.5370:

Perhaps the largest question I still have, how would everyone feel if the only changes to commander were the smaller scale ones?

Even the suggested small changes, such as commander tag colours, etc would benefit me as a PvE commander at this time and I’d also benefit second-hand from their deployment in WvW as I spend more and more time there.

The smaller fixes would go a long way towards making commanders more useful.

For guild stuff, how about a guild unlock instead? i.e. don’t restrict commander to being a guild thing, but instead make the “Guild-Only” commander tag be a permission (probably requiring max-rank Politics and Art of War) that guilds can research and then enable for officers of a certain rank? That way guilds can have commanders with guild-only visible tags and guild-relevant features (e.g. all nearby guild-members automatically considered “in your squad”, etc.), without needing to buy the 100g “general” commander pin.

DevonCarver.5370:

Would the commander system be functional enough with more markers, guild only tags, less suppression, better supplyinfo, and possibly additional marker shapes?

What you suggested above would certianly be a welcome short-term fix. Just a slight issue with guild only tag as opposed to private (hidden pin) option.

We often run guild only forces, but occasionally invite non-guild members for multiple group havoc forces. People shouldn’t be forced to leave a guild and join yours, just so they can run under your pin. Making a private option allows for guild only, or guild with some friends. If players enjoy running smaller size forces consisting of a few groups, it shouldn’t exclude non- guild members.

Having a private (hidden pin) allows for smaller forces that can be used by everyone, both guild or mixed groups, without attracting a zerg if they are running more than 5 people. It can also help create closer bonds by allowing smaller guilds to field combined groups and still keep it small.

DevonCarver.5370:

1) It seems to be consensus that a system allowing commander unlocks for WXP wouldn’t be a good move.

((Sigh))

And I’d like to still have Battle Presence (a trait that ONLY heals others) on my Guardian without it cutting into my DPS trait assignments… But that’s not a good design choice for the game.

Diversity comes from equitable trade-offs.

Buying powers/functionality for gold has no meaningful trade-off.

Hell, spending wxp is about the least demanding set of choices in the game since the number you can get isn’t capped.

I dunno. Maybe it should stay a shallow little system off in a corner fueled by gold since we wouldn’t want to upset anyone by them having to make actual choices between Commander benefits and the Flame Ram skill…

I think the UI needs an overhaul before we start getting into things like Lt/Jr commanders and the like.

Things like tag colors, mouse-over for unit count/supply count(meaning I could quickly mouse-over commanders on the map and see where I want to go/who needs more help or supplies), multi-targeting, etc would all be nice introductions.

Solstice.1097:

A small and easy change now is infinitely more welcome than waiting months or longer for a full overhaul, and there is no reason the two need be mutually exclusive.

Then listen more closely: There IS a reason.

If they make small changes, then the Commander System passes from ‘ok’ to ‘mostly good’ and IT WILL NOT GET ATTENTION AGAIN until all other ‘ok-or-worse’ matters have been addressed.

Finite resources. Problem triage.

Singular window of opportunity.

DevonCarver.5370:

Perhaps the largest question I still have, how would everyone feel if the only changes to commander were the smaller scale ones? The other stuff is super interesting and has a lot of promise, but is also a major task and one I can’t make any guarantees about. I suppose the crux of the question is how priority is the rest of the stuff, if the smaller bits are taken care of? Would the commander system be functional enough with more markers, guild only tags, less suppression, better supplyinfo, and possibly additional marker shapes?

To be quite frank this would unacceptable IMHO. You should implement those quick wins and assure us that you are working on the more complex changes.

For a major mmo not to have a functioning raid group style UI at launch is unacceptable, let alone a year down the line. And this when you appear to be devoting large resources to stuff nobody has asked for.

So if I may, it seems like it would be beneficial to have something other than “Commander” to denote a WvW character specializing in something.

When I hop into WvW, ignoring my experience, it seems like I have two options:
1. Roam
2. Zerg

And that’s kinda lame.

Suppose instead that I wanted to help out my server by keeping siege weapons maintained that have been deployed in odd locations (such as the stuff people throw down in the towers). Perhaps you could add a Siege Engineer title, which would be marked with a much smaller gear icon and also visible on the map (but only to commanders, and not interactable with). This gives the commander an instant map-view of who’s maintaining siege, and the really creative ones could use this as a way to send other information to the commander, conveying two meanings at once. very Bene Gesseret, that is.

Suppose also that there might be a sub-tag labeled Scout, and players who activate it would only be visible to the commander on the map, but they would automatically ping the map when coming into contact with an enemy commander with his or her pin up. thieves who have near-perma stealth (I know you’re trying to eliminate perma stealth, so I’ll keep that in mind) would be able to locate enemy zergs, and report on their location while focusing completely on staying alive – which is cool, that’s what you want. This gives your server (assuming you’re the scout or have a good one on your team) a huge advantage knowing where the enemy zerg is, and gives them the ability to confront the zerg or avoid it. It also gives enemy roamers a big target to aim for while roaming. How cool is that? I dunno, I just picture giving commanders more information on scouts and siege would be a great upgrade to the system, and only the really good ones would be able to make best use of it.

Barring the introduction of something like that, I’d say it would be nice to have Commanders set a short, 25 character description next to their tag on the map, so they could create their own titles (within reason). Then you could set your tag to say “scout” or “repair” or “run yaks need S” or “QUIT DRAINING GARRISON” or just “GET IN TS”.

Food for thought.

Nike.2631:

DevonCarver.5370:

1) It seems to be consensus that a system allowing commander unlocks for WXP wouldn’t be a good move.

((Sigh))

And I’d like to still have Battle Presence (a trait that ONLY heals others) on my Guardian without it cutting into my DPS trait assignments… But that’s not a good design choice for the game.

Diversity comes from equitable trade-offs.

Buying powers/functionality for gold has no meaningful trade-off.

Hell, spending wxp is about the least demanding set of choices in the game since the number you can get isn’t capped.

I dunno. Maybe it should stay a shallow little system off in a corner fueled by gold since we wouldn’t want to upset anyone by them having to make actual choices between Commander benefits and the Flame Ram skill…

I agree with you in that it would be interesting to allow commanders to have a WXP funded trait line, similar to those for Flame Ram mastery or Catapult mastery, etc. Or to have abilities beyond what is currently available. Or in some way make it a more functional tool.

However, from what I am gathering from those that are against it, it seems like the Commander Tag is useful only as a way to create a squad and then lead it. Adding colors and shapes and then expanding upon the squad system seem to be the most prevalent desires and are consistent with this way of thinking.

Multiple colors/shapes, wider “/supplyinfo”, and a guild-only visibility option would already be a huge improvement to tags. Perhaps better than guild-only would be some kind of squad only visibility where entrance into the squad requires approval, so that players from multiple guilds can create ad-hoc havoc squads. But with 5 guilds to play with, we can probably make guild-only visibility work.

Lieutenants and such would be nice, but players could probably hack together a reasonable approximation of that kind of system with just multiple colors/shaped tags, and I wouldn’t want to hold up basic things like tag coloring to get something complicated.

The only other smallish thing I would plead for is account wide tags. Character bound tags are, like character bound wxp, a system that makes it hard for a player to have variety.

Devon, why does commanding being tied to a guild require you to be in a guild of more than one? I still think the guild method is the best option. It’s cheap for a player to make a guild and they can just set it up themselves alone to command if they wanted to. Are you concerned people would be forced to rep their guild of one instead of their main guild because their main guild won’t allow them to command? Perhaps that’s for the good of the whole server… perhaps they should find another guild?

I just can’t think of any drawback to the guild system…

DevonCarver.5370:

Johje Holan.4607:

Why does making simple changes now preclude making larger changes down the road?

It does not, but it’s important to understand what down the road might mean. It could be a few months or it could be much longer. Any changes would be prioritized in terms of what the entire company is working on. If we don’t think those changes are the best use of resources, it could be a long time. And part of determining that is figuring out how well the system works as it stands. We have finite resources in terms of people and we put them to work on whatever most benefits the game as a whole. That is why I want a gauge of how important it is to you.

Is there a way to do a survey or poll at the end of the week on some of the more contentious ideas to find out what people actually agree is needed? There are so many ideas, some that I like intermixed with some that I do not. I can’t upvote a post that I agree with only half the ideas. And I don’t reply and agree with everything that I like that people have suggested. What is the best method to convey our support or dislike of ideas others have brought up? How are you determining if something is important?

Let people buy commander books with guild influence and merits, aside from gold. That way big guilds can get their commanders for “free”, and future commanders don’t need to invest so much gold.

Those small improvements [default system for multi-colored tags; guild only tags; squad only tags; no map suppression, enlarged supply check radius] would be welcomed and certainly enough to tie us over!
What a difference those would make!!

~~ I don’t know of many ppl that actually join squads. The reason is that, while it may make it easier to follow said commander, it then takes away from your understanding of what’s going on across the map as a whole. It also makes it difficult to coordinate multiple groups for sake of tactics. Map awareness is really important in WvW & we really should keep it in peoples faces.

~~ Spies are a HUGE problem. At the very least, you need to fix the ability for enemies to join your squad….

~~ Seeing the enemy commander is totally unnecessary. I’d like to see the exact opposite (buff bar icon removed)

~~ I think that a WXP line for commanders would be an awesome addition. But, it shouldn’t be overdone.
It should simply show that a person has played wvw a bit before they get a tag (which should remain purchasable at 100g & maybe throw in a fee of 500 badges), and then the rest should simply be for some extra perks.
So maybe, “unlock ability to buy commander tag” at say 50 wxp points. Then, just some nice little perks to finish off the line, but nothing overly game changing.
Commander tags should NOT be tied to guilds. I know many ppl who have successfully commanded wvw while guildless & that option should still remain open to people if that’s their playstyle.

I know that I personally enjoy working towards those goals and appreciate that you have implemented them. Gives a sense of accomplishment & helps me feel like I have more to contribute to gameplay

~~ For the issue of chat suppression. It definitely needs to be fixed. If someone starts spamming or harassing, that’s what the Report System is for… Maybe enhance the report system with a cpl more options that apply directly to WvW, and let us bark orders freely in chat

These are just a few very simple changes that i think would make a difference.

Ability to choose the color of your commander tag.
Ability to set the distance your tag will be displayed: globally, or within whatever distance; 3000, 5,000, 10,000, etc.

Possibly make it so your guild members can always see your tag globally by default when they set their tags display distance. Players want to know where their guild mates are at anyway., and regular players can see the tag if they are in the general vacinity. This would be useful for guilds that usually run around in havoc groups or a 2nd group. and wouldnt take too many people away from the main force.

I think you definitely need a global commander for people to gather around because not everyone is running around in a gigantic one guild zerg. However, you also need a way to distinguish between havoc groups. i think having a way to set your tag display distance would be useful for havoc commanders and it would still be hard for spies to keep track, since they have to be following within range to see the tag anyway.

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