Guild Wars 2

I would appreciate it if the tags would come down in PvE. I realize that tags are great for things like guild events, and WvW, but we don’t really need them for every event in every zone. However, I firmly believe that having commander tags in PVE does more harm than good.
The first thing it does is create zergs everywhere and events aren’t the fights they are designed to be, but a mob of players simply using auto attack. All you have to do is tag mobs and collect your loot the group will do the rest.
The second thing is that it creates trouble in zone between players. Sometimes this trouble is players getting yelled at because they aren’t on “Train” of events and the map is full, or they do events out of order. Sometimes it’s the commanders fighting with each other about who’s tag should be up and why the other should take it down. I hate to brake it to you commanders who do this, but your tags are the same size. :P
Thank you for your time I know this has been written before, but with mega servers I have personally have seen an increase in the issues above, and it is really hurting my gaming experience, and if that is the case I am sure there are others out there who feel the same.

The ability to turn off the tag would be a good idea.

Tags are quite handy for some high level events, tequatl and tree headed wurm, other than that it is most for people who dont get enough attention in real life and dont want to tag down, sad when you think about it

Regarding the train: This is in opinion the worts thing about the game, it robs people of the ability to think for themself and lock in a zombie like state, and they cant understand why they get butchered when they come high level events where minimal thinking is required.

Also with these new MegaSavingServer there are trains on every map, was quite happy that on Underworld there was only the Queensdale Fail Train, before this new server thing. This robs us people who did not like to run into a zerg whenever we turned a corner of our pleassure in the game, and the whole reason for bringing people into the maps are quite silly, if people liked packed map they could transfer to high populated train servers, no need to force this upon us who hate trains.

Calcanius.5048:

Tags are quite handy for some high level events, tequatl and tree headed wurm, other than that it is most for people who dont get enough attention in real life and dont want to tag down, sad when you think about it

Regarding the train: This is in opinion the worts thing about the game, it robs people of the ability to think for themself and lock in a zombie like state, and they cant understand why they get butchered when they come high level events where minimal thinking is required.

Also with these new MegaSavingServer there are trains on every map, was quite happy that on Underworld there was only the Queensdale Fail Train, before this new server thing. This robs us people who did not like to run into a zerg whenever we turned a corner of our pleassure in the game, and the whole reason for bringing people into the maps are quite silly, if people liked packed map they could transfer to high populated train servers, no need to force this upon us who hate trains.

Not like it matters anyway. The champ trains give crap for money now and you make like 1/2 silver per box+event after you sell the items from the box.

If anything the only way to make a profit from champ train is to have stupidly good luck from champ boxes and get the exotics (all be it most of them aren’t more than a few gold) out of them to sell on the TP.

I personally hate any rule that is created to promote a certain type of behavior and I think the suggestions above do just that – my opinion, of course! . Commanders are supposed to be of the mature type and bickering over who’s tag is active just shows you two immature commanders. No need to create a rule to do anything about it – just don’t follow them. I like to see Commanders on the map – by function, this is what they’re supposed to to – rally the troops (call it a zerg if you want but same thing) and attack a singular target. Why make a distinction between PvE and WvW?

Off topic but addressing Calcanius’s comment above: As for trains ruining someone else’s game, I don’t see it. The trains are specifically set to defeat a champion that is usually not soloable. Take the train away and you have a champ running around chasing low level characters anyway.

As for events and megaservers, I’m very happy I don’t either have to transfer permanently to another server or constantly have to find a server that is running events. Finally, for the first time since launch, I can just go to a zone and have a good chance at doing the event with enough people that it isn’t an automatic fail. Auto attacking? Not sure if that’s a concern – you are playing a game, you have a number of attack skills, and in this particular event with a lot of people, you may get away with auto attack. I’m sorry if this sounds harsh, but if you don’t want to auto attack, don’t auto attack. But please don’t petition for changes to the game to keep everyone else from auto attacking. Dungeons promote skilled playing, as long as you aren’t in a stack happy group. Also WvW. Events with lots of players – yeah, you’re one of many so it’s a bit easier.

Personally, I hope tags remain in PvE.

When you see a tagged player you know they’re experienced, and know what they’re doing. For players who don’t know events like the back of their hand, tagged players become beacons. Quite often in MMOs, GW2 being no exception, newer players are shunned from certain events creating a rather elitist experience. Tagged players can show newer players what to do, imparting knowledge and help, thus helping newer players become not so new.

I was genuinely surprised at the amount of effort these commanders put in to helping me personally. Tequatl was the first major event I took part in, and I really had no idea what was happening. A commander, in the middle of organising his area, spent several minutes messaging me with help.

Lovelocke.9286:

When you see a tagged player you know they’re experienced, and know what they’re doing. For players who don’t know events like the back of their hand, tagged players become beacons.

Not necessarily true on the experienced part. I know a few players who bought a tag/had someone buy it for them just to have it and are well just completely clueless when it comes to pretty much anything regarding events/missions/champ train/any thing that requires doing it a few times.

Lovelocke.9286:

When you see a tagged player you know they’re experienced, and know what they’re doing.

Not even remotely true.

Since the release of the Feature Pack, does anyone know if the Commander Tag is now account bound or still soulbound?

timmyf.1490:

Lovelocke.9286:

When you see a tagged player you know they’re experienced, and know what they’re doing.

Not even remotely true.

Agreed! 100%

Every one always assumes Tags mean this or tags mean that.

1) You do not ever “KNOW” what a Tag is up for!
2) You do not ever “KNOW” If the Tag owner is a pro / Hardcore / skilled / experienced….etc
3) Tag’s in PvE can be useful though are more a status symbol / guild recruiting advertisement than anything else
4) Knowing is half the battle….so ask and then you’ll know!

It would be nice is Commander Tags also had a one or two word description after them Like “Commander Timmyf: champ run” or “Commander Timmyf: World Events” or “Commander Timmyf: World Bosses” Just a thought….

anyone can buy a tag, it’s only a 100g and means nothing more than someone spent 100g. Yes there are some people who know what they are doing. With megaserver, it’s clear more people with tags are completely clueless. imo one out of every 10 may know what they are doing. the other 9 are just wannabe’s wanting to impress other noobs.

I bought mine, not to WvW, but to help teach people about events in their areas. I have plenty of experience and am quite mature about how I present myself as a commander. I frequently run champ trains and am happy to say that I’ve never found myself in an e-fight with another commander about their tag or who should be doing what. If someone wants to run with their tag out, it’s fine. Who are they hurting by showing it? You don’t have to pay attention to them or what they say in pve and there’s a block list if you don’t want to deal with them anyway.

The only things I don’t know or do are the Evolved Jungle Wurm and Tequatl. I just find them to be excessively annoying battles.

1. When my tag is up it’s because I’m doing an event or train with people who don’t know it.
2. I am
3. I don’t pimp my solo guild and my status symbol is knowledge
4. GI JOE!

As someone who presently bought a tag and only uses it as either a stand in for guildies or for helping my friends in dungeons (surprisingly they say it helps XD). I don’t think anyone else should tell me when a tag should be used or not. They are great tools for gathering people, especially in pve, regardless of purpose.

Yo, I bought a tag to mislead people to fall off edges in EotM. Don’t judge me!

Seth Moonshadow.2710:

It would be nice is Commander Tags also had a one or two word description after them Like “Commander Timmyf: champ run” or “Commander Timmyf: World Events” or “Commander Timmyf: World Bosses” Just a thought….

It’d be Commander Loki Karaoke and almost certainly because I’m running Guild Missions.

There have been many suggestions for this (and Anet has shown some interest) including 1) changing colors or shape or 2) allowing guild-only tag visibility.

I expect there to be Commander tag features added in the next feature patch later this year based on the interest shown by Anet plus lots of speculation on my part.

As far as I know the tags are soul bound. Became a commander, not for WvW, but for guild events, it was also quite helpful during the Marionette events as well as trains in Orr pre-megaserver. Originally bought it and stuck it on a lvl 30 Warrior, but already had 4k hrs in game with several 80’s. Of course, she’s now 80 and only pop my tag when needed. Never was a commander who popped their tag just to jabber in LA LOL

mjhungness.8059:

Off topic but addressing Calcanius’s comment above: As for trains ruining someone else’s game, I don’t see it. The trains are specifically set to defeat a champion that is usually not soloable. Take the train away and you have a champ running around chasing low level characters anyway.

Have you ever done an event before the Zerg gets there? I did the Dredge Commissar (before the mega server) right before the Zerg got there. People got all kinds of crazy and mad, not just at me, but some of my guildies on the train. Didn’t matter I wasn’t following the train, and it didn’t matter I had just way pointed in. It would be the equivalent of telling a bunch of Bliebers that you signed the petition to have him deported.

timmyf.1490:

It’d be Commander Loki Karaoke and almost certainly because I’m running Guild Missions.

There have been many suggestions for this (and Anet has shown some interest) including 1) changing colors or shape or 2) allowing guild-only tag visibility.

I expect there to be Commander tag features added in the next feature patch later this year based on the interest shown by Anet plus lots of speculation on my part.

My bad

That’s cool! I think a guild only option would be nice also, though as an option for sure.

Do you have a link to anything that shows Anet’s interest?

Thanks dkspins.4670 for the info.
I hope Anet considers changing it to account bound. Since raising 100g is not an “easy” task, and they did say they want all our achievements to be able to be shared amongst all characters. Personally I consider earning 100g an achievement worthy of sharing across all my characters.

Seth Moonshadow.2710:

Do you have a link to anything that shows Anet’s interest?

There was a whole CDI on Commander tags. I didn’t follow it closely, but it’s a safe assumption they were asking because they were intending to overhaul it. Or update it, at least.

Seth Moonshadow.2710:

timmyf.1490:

It’d be Commander Loki Karaoke and almost certainly because I’m running Guild Missions.

There have been many suggestions for this (and Anet has shown some interest) including 1) changing colors or shape or 2) allowing guild-only tag visibility.

I expect there to be Commander tag features added in the next feature patch later this year based on the interest shown by Anet plus lots of speculation on my part.

My bad

That’s cool! I think a guild only option would be nice also, though as an option for sure.

Do you have a link to anything that shows Anet’s interest?

Thanks dkspins.4670 for the info.
I hope Anet considers changing it to account bound. Since raising 100g is not an “easy” task, and they did say they want all our achievements to be able to be shared amongst all characters. Personally I consider earning 100g an achievement worthy of sharing across all my characters.

While I for one would like commander tags to be account bound.

The problem is that you would have more of exactly what the OP is upset about. More tags being useless. The overall playerbase wants less not more commander tags. The interesting thing is that there are actually more tags then people see I would wager that the majority of tag holders do not tag often.

ArenaNet has already made changes to require Badges of Honor to buy the commander tag.

Lovelocke.9286:

When you see a tagged player you know they’re experienced, and know what they’re doing.

I too had to laugh at that statement. Having 100g to blow on a (potential) status symbol is NOT a prerequisite for experience, skill or tactical thought. That is not to say really good Commanders do not exist but the tag is in no way an indicator of ability.

I (and many other players) would welcome some sort of Commander Ranking system (I know it has been discussed in several threads here) so you could somehow see the tags and get an idea of their actual ability. How to pull that off fairly is another issue.

timmyf,

What is CDI? Thanks for the info anyway

anzenketh.3759:

While I for one would like commander tags to be account bound.

The problem is that you would have more of exactly what the OP is upset about. More tags being useless. The overall playerbase wants less not more commander tags. The interesting thing is that there are actually more tags then people see I would wager that the majority of tag holders do not tag often.

ArenaNet has already made changes to require Badges of Honor to buy the commander tag.

I disagree, having an account bound Commander tag does not mean there will be more of anything other than the choice of characters a Commander has to use it with. It does not mean there will be more “of exactly what the OP is upset about”.

Brother Grimm.5176:

Lovelocke.9286:

When you see a tagged player you know they’re experienced, and know what they’re doing.

I too had to laugh at that statement. Having 100g to blow on a (potential) status symbol is NOT a prerequisite for experience, skill or tactical thought. That is not to say really good Commanders do not exist but the tag is in no way an indicator of ability.

I (and many other players) would welcome some sort of Commander Ranking system (I know it has been discussed in several threads here) so you could somehow see the tags and get an idea of their actual ability. How to pull that off fairly is another issue.

I had a guildie with blue lvl 40 trinkets saving gold and karma for his commander tag and legendary weapon. ~1150 AP
That’s just sad… =/

This is another long standing problem that’s been around since launch – I say that because it’s something people had brought up many times. So it makes another one of those things I’m surprised Anet hasn’t “fixed”/addressed while I was away from the game for almost a year.

The old(er) request was for a option toggle to show the tags or not on each client side. Similar to most other map options.

I’ll throw my support behind it again – add toggle to hide commander tags. I find it annoying looking for something and the commander tag is hiding the icon for the item(s) I’m seeking.

I’ve once ran dungeon with a pug with tag.

A longbow ranger.
In a dungeon.
With a tag.

We only use our tags for guild bounties so its easier for people to figure out where the mark is if someone with a tag is already there, we have 3 tags and sometimes 4, it depends who’s online.

People with tags are sometimes not experienced so don’t assume that. Perhaps a solution would be to turn off tags in your options like you can player instruments.

The commander emblem need a few things to work better…

For example:

- Their accessibility must be behind skill, experience, and seniority, not just gold.
- They must be account wide.
- They must indicate levels experience in content (e.g: Lower half of the emblem being a symbol of ‘commander rank’).
- They must be unlocked separately and have separate ‘commander rank’ progress in PvE and WvW.
- They must be customizable, letting commanders pick colors and icons for tasks (e.g.: Upper half of the emblem being an icon indicating things like “Ruins”, “Roaming”, “Towers”, “Champions”, “World boss”, “Exploration”, “Map completion”, “Dailies” or “Reactors”).
- Commanders must be able to choose who can see their tag (guildies, friends, their world, …)
- Players must be able to hide commander tags if they don’t want to see them.
- Blocking a particular commander should also hide their tag even while a “hide all commander tags” option is disabled.
- It should not be possible to show them in places where they are pointless. Namely PvP and 1…5-player instances.
- Commanders must be able to have in their squad all players in a map, and appoint sub-commanders to give them tasks like “Guard the turrents” in Tequatl or “5 Go with this subcommander get that camp” in WvW.

As for zerg ruining people’s enjoyment. I can think of few solutions, and commander tags being removed is not one of them, because people just spam chat asking about where the zerg is, and make things even worse.

To prevent so many zergs, you need to go to the root of the problem, and that’s that people can zerg, and that it works too well.

You’ll need things like the 50-player limit in Watchknights (which are undesirable unless you have more than one event at the same time as they leave people out), or smaller map sizes.
Or things like longer cooldowns in rewards so people do go in cycles killing the same 4 things in the same map and instead spread. As people have different schedules, they’d naturally spread if they can’t get full rewards from the same event within a week, and instead have to go to other event. But that would also require improving rewards, and adding map icons indicating which events are in reward cooldown for you.

Lovelocke.9286:

Personally, I hope tags remain in PvE.

When you see a tagged player you know they’re experienced, and know what they’re doing.
*snip

Actually it does not mean they are experienced. It means they used 100g on a blue thing over their head.- nothing more -nothing less.
It could be a great leader, with the wisdom of ages, and a commanding voice…. ehm- typing- . Excellent knowledge of an encounter and the patience to handle the usual verbal abuse you face if you fail. (or just have a different plan then others)

Or it could mean that the player is unable to communicate in English to an English group. . Has it on while doing a solo JP. they could have less than 1500 Achi points.
Never seen the event before – or know how to activate it…..

aka.. it means nothing in it self.

when the game was just released i always assumed that commander was a transmorph tonic to change in the april fools commander, when i found out it’s just an overly expensive tag i dismissed it immediately.
it’s a blue arrow on the map, there is nothing special about that.
if it was only gained when you did every world boss at least 5X i could understand that you earned it but 100G is for some ppl a day’s walk….even less for the hardcore farmers.

Actually commanders tags are necessary for their event system simply because they didn’t code their map properly.

Most games with an open world event system has some kind of map telegraph system that tells players who look on the map for the zone they are in where these events are happening and what is happening so that players can move over to that area.

The commander tag is the only thing that is actually allowing for better communication on this. Until Anet updates their ui to a modern standard we’re going to need those tags whether people like the OP likes them or not.

Ghetto tag is best tag.

In addition to 100 gold, a Commander Tag now costs 250 Badges of Honor. (They also seem to be still character bound – according to the wiki, the mouse-hover tooltip on the manual in the vendor list gives no useful info of this kind.) Badges of Honor are earnable in WvW, but also come in Achievement Chests. So at this point, it seems like you need at least a little familiarity and experience with the game to buy one. This is better, but still no guarantee that a Commander is worthy of the tag that they’re displaying. Unless my math is wrong, it only takes 1000 AP to get 250 Badges of Honor. And even so, a player’s AP may indicate game experience, but not the ability to actually command.
That said, I’ve seen many good and worthy commanders, who are a credit to the tag. As well as commanders just wandering the map tagged-up apparently just to be seen.(or whatever) I’ve also seen many people who organized and/or helped out at events, or mentored new players, and in other ways should have qualified for a commander tag.
I see no reason for Commander Tags to be character bound. I really wish they’d change it to account bound.(It’s the same player, no matter which character they’re using.) I would like it if tags had to be earned.(And even split between PvE and WvW.) But I suspect a process to “earn” or “qualify” for a tag would be hard to make fair and would not be practical for Anet to implement.
I think it would be nice if players had the option to filter Commander Tags out of their map display if they wanted. It might be useful to link it to whether or not they have “Squad Chat” checked to be displayed in their chat box.
What it all boils down to is, some people will be good and make proper use of their tags and the associated tools, some people will waste their commander status, and some people will abuse it, or use it to be disruptive or cause trouble. Much like life, we have to deal with unpleasant or undesirable circumstances.

There are problems with the megaservers, but this is not it. There are maps with champ trains on them, but it’s not every single map, at least not that I’ve seen. I highly doubt every map has a train, I’ve still seen plenty without that much population.

Tags can be helpful for gathering people to a group event, and is usually what happens. Cursed Shore tends to have tags running around letting people know which events, especially group events, are up. It’d be hard to do Grenth otherwise (it’s still hard and needs work done).

And if two commanders are arguing who should be tagged, let them. Ego fights are entertaining, and no matter who wins, they both lose. I usually see commanders getting along well enough, so I feel lucky when I get to watch them act like children.

I wish there was some way to filter who could purchase the tags.

Sick of getting stuck in WvW with the commander who decides we’re going through 3 gates instead of 1, and getting ganked by the opposing zergs consistently because they know our commander is too incompetent to know the map or to call stacks.

Wouldn’t bug me if they would take good advice when it is given. But they’re generally too dense.

Makes me wonder how my server is 1st for WvWvW in our grouping.

The game already has some of the thing you want in this thread.

1- Commander tags can be turned off and on at any time.

2- Press M to bring up map and left click on the commanders tag click join squad the commander you want to follow and it allow you to only to see that commander tag. (Blocking out all the other tags on the map)

3- Because someone has a commander tag it does not mean they know what they are doing. Some do, Some don’t, and some are just trolls.

4- Commander tag is only worth it if people listen and stay on the commander. Most people just want a tag so they know the general area to be in and they do what ever they want regardless what the commander wants done etc. It comes with allot of responsibility at the same time tons of people crying all the time why did you do a instead of b etc.

Commander tag colors have been talked about before and some rumors have said its been worked on. Wait-n-see!!!

I don´t care about all of these changes, but i want that option to disable all tags on my map. It´s annoying to have blocked every possible commander i have ever seen and still being bothered by their tags on my map. Those things cover up far to much, started from nodes, PoIs, WP or even your group mates. If you really want them to be visible at all times, then at least make their tags secondary in proirity. That way The tag would HAVE to hide behind any group dots, PoIs, WP, Nodes or anything.
But at the moment i just try to stay away from them.
And yes i know that this may seem like an injustice to many commanders, but you have far to many trolls and attention seekers in your rows. Once that is sorted out i may be able to be convinced to change my view on it.

Name.9625:

I don´t care about all of these changes, but i want that option to disable all tags on my map.

If you read my post item #2 you know how to disable commander tags all but one at least instead of blocking each commander you come across.