Guild Wars 2

I believe the Commander tag has become an abundant and confusing pile of blue arrows with the introduction of Mega Servers. Just today, I was doing the Modnirr event, and no less that 12 commander tags were spamming my screen.

I feel that a solution for this should be in order: the Commander tier update.
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What is it?

This update will ensure that real commanders will stand out. Anyone can buy a commander tag if they acquire enough gold, but not everyone is meant to be followed and listened too. Some commanders aren’t that good is the plain truth. This update will work as a kind of filter.
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How does it work?

From the update on, each commander will be right-clickable from the mini-map itself. You can then opt to “Respect” this commander, or “Denounce”. Respecting a commander will make sure that a commander is being aknowledged when an event went good, thanks to the leadership and decision-making of this commander. A respect is unique to a person and can be given daily, so no more than 1 respect a day can be given by any person. Denouncing a commander will remove a Respect point, and will give the commander an idea that it is not doing that good.

Once a commander has achieved a certain amount of Respect, it can choose to update its commander tag.

Keep in mind that the Respect count of a commander will be personal only. For good measure, a commander should be able to see how many Respect and Denounce points it has received on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.
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What are the upgrades?

Similiar to our tiers, a commander will “tier up” as well. Having received a certain amount of Respect, it can choose wether to tier up or not.

Blue being the Fine tier;
Green being the Masterwork tier;
Yellow being the Rare tier;
Orange being the Exotic tier;
Red being the Ascended tier;
and Purple being the Legendary tier.

I believe that these 6 tiers will give a lot of people a very good idea of the worth of a general. Caring in mind that a good general will get the Legendary tier in short notice, while a lesser abled Commander will remain in the confinements of the Fine or Masterwork tier.
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What are the negatives?

Well, there are a few negatives.
1) Elitism. This may cause issues, but I feel that a commander with too much ego will get denounced more easily. This will tone down its rank forcably, making sure he or she will think through the reason of this.

2) Favouritism. A fine commander will have a little chance of taking it up to a rare or exotic commander. However, I do believe that for everything there is a time and place. If you notice that a good commander is taking the lead, then perhaps it is a good idea to tone down, see how he is doing, and learning from this. This makes sure that 2 things happen; 1 – the commander that is inferior will learn from the superior one and 2 – less commander tag spam on the map.
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Hopefully I’ve been able to convince some of you that this update would be beneficial. Please keep it respectful, and if need be, I’ll update the main post to accomodate to new idea’s or suggestions. Thank you!

And you’re forgetting the 3rd negative, which is abuse.

You could have two PvE guilds doing guild missions competing against one another. Drama shortly follows.

Guild A, which could be full of baddies, asks all guildies to ‘denounce’ the other commander. Furthermore they may make it a guild requirement for everyone to ‘respect’ their commanders everyday.

At that point the system loses all integrity.

I would suggest a system where there is no way to ‘denounce’ a commander. Every commander instead has the ability to move forward/up in ranks.

edit: forgetting, not ignoring, sorry

How do they gain ranks? By having players join their squad. Any events/kills completed while under the commander’s squad results in commander points which unlock better perks, such as more varied commander icon designs.

Does this mean that commanders with more zerglings will get rewarded more so than those that run with a few people? Sure, but I think that is fair considering how much more difficult it is to control an entire zerg.

Honestly, I would be happy if they just implemented a way to change tag color so that different groups trying to complete different objectives within the same map can differentiate themselves from others. I tag up for different guild events because the icon is easy to read on the map, not because I want to confuse a troop into following me. A color-coded system or some way to indicate what you are doing while tagged so others can see it (side from shouting across map chat) would be great.

Additionally, I think it would be awesome if there was a favorites list or something – aside from simply adding a commander to your friends list – that would alert you in some way when you were on the map with a favorited, tagged up commander, or may just change the commander icon for you personally depending on which commander “list” you add them to. Yes, some commanders are great and others are just terrible, but keep in mind, too, that some commander actions/decisions that you don’t personally like might be an action someone else agrees with or enjoys. If it was a personalized system, then that would allow each individual to keep track of their personal favorite commanders and find them on maps, even in “tag spam.” Bonus points if an individual option could add culling/ignoring of tags not “favorited.” There’s a lot less chance for abuse in a personalized system than an open ranking system, too.

I agree with Vol, abuse would be a pretty obvious issue with the ability to denounce or respect a commander.

The idea of gaining ranks by having people in a squad completing objectives is a great idea! Good commanders gain fast command ranks for leading their squads well; bad commanders gain slowly for what they do accomplish; and no popularity contest involved! (think planetside’s Command rank system)

Command Authority

“Denounce” is a non-starter, due to abuse potential, as mentioned above.

An achievement system for commanders would probably be better than a voting system, since it would require more than just drumming up political popularity. Not that popularity isn’t important for commanders, but the best commanders are popular because of their performance, not how many babies they kiss.

WvW rank is a pretty obvious choice for giving commanders different-colored “doritos”, but would reward individuals who flip sentries the same way as commanders who routinely flip keeps.

A more refined achievement system that places more weight on significant strategic accomplishments would probably be best for assessing who really are the better commanders. Factoring squad size into it would help weed out “solo commanders” and emphasize leadership.

Meanwhile, an achievement system for identifying non-WvW commanders who organize and lead large-scale PvE events would be a nice touch as well, with perhaps a different icon for PvE versus WvW (selectable by the commander, with colors determined according to each different achievement level) given the different skill sets.

Necessary for all of this would be an increase in the squad size cap, which is currently too small and should allow as many players as possible (i.e., up to the map limit for a team) to join a commander’s squad.

Interface improvements to make it easier and more obvious to join a commander’s squad would also be helpful. Not that it’s hard now, but rather that many players don’t even know about squads at all, and it would be nice if the game made them less of a mystery.

Having something on the interface to show players a commander is recruiting would be nice, although it would have to be visible without being obtrusive, and allow for multiple commanders recruiting at the same time. The LFG tool should allow for this, but seems to only support 5-player groups, which is silly in a WvW context. It should also support squads, and maybe the icon could flash when a commander is recruiting in a WvW map.

Definitely room for improvement in the system, though, whatever form it may take.

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Edit to add: The idea of allowing commanders to change their tag colors at will is a great one. Being able to tell who’s who by icon color would help reduce confusion when multiple commanders are running around, as they so often are. Commander “rank” could be distinguished by different icons instead of color, with higher ranks having more “pips” and “flair” to set them apart. Whatever the method, it would be good for everyone if the best commanders were easier to to identify and received formal recognition in the game.

you can just use /join squad on the commander tag of choice and only that tag will be visible on the map… this already exists in the game.

Aah, perfect opportunity to bring up a year old picture… I really should make another update to it, the slider I later figured would be quite hostile to color blind peeps so a drop down with “Blue”, “Red”, “Purple” etc is probably better. Both next to each other so that it say “Blue” “Dolyak” or something. Better design overall. But I digress.

OP wants 12 colored Tags instead of 12 Blues spamming his screen.

lol

seabhac.5346:

you can just use /join squad on the commander tag of choice and only that tag will be visible on the map… this already exists in the game.

Ahh I’ve never tried that! Is it possible to make it so we don’t see others tags without a squad?

100% support for rainbow tags though!

Vol.7601:

And you’re forgetting the 3rd negative, which is abuse.

You could have two PvE guilds doing guild missions competing against one another. Drama shortly follows.

Guild A, which could be full of baddies, asks all guildies to ‘denounce’ the other commander. Furthermore they may make it a guild requirement for everyone to ‘respect’ their commanders everyday.

At that point the system loses all integrity.

I would suggest a system where there is no way to ‘denounce’ a commander. Every commander instead has the ability to move forward/up in ranks.

edit: forgetting, not ignoring, sorry

How do they gain ranks? By having players join their squad. Any events/kills completed while under the commander’s squad results in commander points which unlock better perks, such as more varied commander icon designs.

Does this mean that commanders with more zerglings will get rewarded more so than those that run with a few people? Sure, but I think that is fair considering how much more difficult it is to control an entire zerg.

This I would agree with, the only thing I’d add is a color change to the tag as each commanders gain ranks, that will make it easy to tell who is a seasoned leader, who is climbing the ladder, and who is just starting out, adding the automatic color change to the icon design unlocks.

I can’t speak for anyone but myself on this one, but I had no clue what the commander tag did/didn’t do when I bought mine. It was a pure vanity buy, but my goal was for my guild, rather for me to putz around in WvW or just to have it up in PVE because I’m awesome like that.

There really isn’t any tutorials that’s readily apparent to newbs. I even thought the ‘puddles’ that come from legendary weapons were path tracking options for a commander and red text in map chat was a commander channel. So, I bought mine thinking I’d have these options available for our guild runs, to be a focal point.

Yep…utter clueless newb with disposable income (at the time.) You get a generic blue chevron above your head for 100g…totally not worth it. Haha.

On occasion, I’ll throw it up, if another commander prompts or if there is a world event that needs a focal point on the screen. Otherwise, there isn’t any point to it.

Even having it, I’ve always felt that it’s not the chevron that you’re following, it’s the leadership under it. You can quickly ascertain who is leading and who is just running around.

I do like the idea of different colors, though. Seeing several blue tags on the mini-map can be rather confusing. Not sure about the ranking part…seems convoluted and potential for abuse/trickery.

I’d love to get a refund on it, if it were possible.

Vol.7601:

And you’re forgetting the 3rd negative, which is abuse.

You could have two PvE guilds doing guild missions competing against one another. Drama shortly follows.

Guild A, which could be full of baddies, asks all guildies to ‘denounce’ the other commander. Furthermore they may make it a guild requirement for everyone to ‘respect’ their commanders everyday.

At that point the system loses all integrity.

I would suggest a system where there is no way to ‘denounce’ a commander. Every commander instead has the ability to move forward/up in ranks.

edit: forgetting, not ignoring, sorry

How do they gain ranks? By having players join their squad. Any events/kills completed while under the commander’s squad results in commander points which unlock better perks, such as more varied commander icon designs.

Does this mean that commanders with more zerglings will get rewarded more so than those that run with a few people? Sure, but I think that is fair considering how much more difficult it is to control an entire zerg.

And if we’re talking abuse why not mention :

People asking friends for respect while never tagging up unless it’s to get that respect – farming it slowly with no chance of denounce.

People paying for respect using gold they earned.

People making this type of suggestion seem to want customized commander tags, but rather than arguing directly for it, are instead couching it in terms of rewarding good leadership. Customized tags are not a good way to encourage good leadership, and attempts to coerce it seem predisposed to systems open to abuse.

How about this instead for tag customization:

• commander tags color the same way minimap dots do. In increasing priority: light green for allies, gold for same guild, blue for same party, team colors in spectator mode.
• commander tags customize by guild unlock, similar to guild emblem. The cheapest would be the guild emblem (probably simplified, because icon), more expensive would allow the commander to choose or even design it.

Then a system can be designed to increase the ease in which good commanders attract players, and in which players find good commanders.

Vol.7601:

I would suggest a system where there is no way to ‘denounce’ a commander. Every commander instead has the ability to move forward/up in ranks.

edit: forgetting, not ignoring, sorry

How do they gain ranks? By having players join their squad. Any events/kills completed while under the commander’s squad results in commander points which unlock better perks, such as more varied commander icon designs.

Does this mean that commanders with more zerglings will get rewarded more so than those that run with a few people? Sure, but I think that is fair considering how much more difficult it is to control an entire zerg.

This is pretty similar to something I suggested in a previous thread on the subject of commander tags.

No permanent ranks, no achievements, no special abilities. Just a way of communicating just a few pieces of information: how large a commander’s squad is at the moment, and how quickly that squad is gaining or losing members. From this, players in a map can determine which tag is better on their own.

Just another thread where people are trying to say who does and does not have the right to be a commander.

Join the squad of the commander you like and get over it already. kitten it all we have a system in place that automatically ignores “tags” if you’re in a squad. Use it.

Hopefully they can implement a toggle that removes all tags from the map someday.. .but until then you need to stop your whining over this. Nobody here can decide who is or isn’t “worthy” of being a commander.

This seems kind of childish. If you don’t like a commander go to another map or group. It would be nice if there were different color tags so if 2 commanders were on the map you could keep track of the one your following.

There’s only two Commander suggestions I would support:

1. Commander tags are account-wide.

2. You can change the colour of your tag from a palette, enabling more coordination on maps where there are multiple commanders.

It only takes about 10 minutes to recognise that a commander doesn’t know what they’re doing. Sometimes less.

I would love to see an option added to block commander tags so that they are not visible on my screen.