Guild Wars 2

I just lead my first Dragon Stand lane, and after a run with no failed events, not a single issue at the Blight Tree and fairly clean dragon kill (we lost two islands >.<) I get abuse from a squad member.

Does this happen to other commanders?

I’m don’t have a commander tag, but I know by all means you’re not alone. Just Right-Click > Report > Verbal Abuse. Then probably Right Click > Block if they’re bad enough too. Just pity these idiots.

They tend to only do it for one of two reasons:

1) They crave attention.

2) They were jealous that they were too late in tagging up themselves.

A third reason if something fails:

3) To cover their own backs early, and pin failure on other people rather than sharing the blame.

Just pity these people. They’re not worth worrying about.

You can block and report, if you so desire.

Good luck.

I did engage with them at first but then reported/blocked. Cannot reason with some people.

yes it happens. dont tolerate it.

side note, losing 2 islands is not a clean kill and is prolly why they said something, but it isnt any commanders fault. there are 100 other people who prolly arent paying attention or dont know the fight who are to blame for that. and posting copypasta instructions into map chat is prolly the best way to make sure people know what to do and is the best thing you can do as a commander trying to lead a map to success. but one can only herd cats so much.

I don’t get it a lot, but I have gotten it. Usually, it’s because something didn’t go as smoothly as they wanted it to. Getting it when everything goes well is crazy insane, but that’s gamers on the net for ya.

People love to be critics when they’re not the ones doing the work. Report and ignore.

Yup- makes me want to tag down and let them get on with it.
I was in a dragon stand pushing a south lane and asked for more people (we had 24) mostly thief’s for some reason (idk why) – DPS was low, lacking might fury and all the general good stuff you need for a mini Zerg.

Had been calling out for about 40 mins in map chat for a few more to south (knowing a map holds 120 people – that’s about 30-40/lane). Nobody came – it was no suprise we were the last to the tower gate. Other squads were there 20 mins in advance

No one from north/mid came to help – remember South is the hardest lane (especially if you squad comp is not great).

Towers started – managed to get the boss down and around 1 lap when the Zerg exploded (too many squishy) with very low dps. Preservers came up – people didn’t listen to exit the room.

At this point as commander of a lane and being actively ignored for 1.2hr+ – it’s time to de-tag. I needed sleep it was midnight my time (was 20 mins left on the clock).

The absue gets thrown my way – when I know a good dragon stand completes the whole map in 30-40 mins !

It’s funny commanders are there to help explain and lead.
We cannot do everything – we need help, people to listen and co-operate.

If no one wants to work together or go AFK, then there is no point in trying.
No-one likes failures especially when they blame it on a commander and there are 120+ people in a map.

Learn more to work together – HoT requires it !

I have talked to a few other commanders in game and this seems a common occurrence. Happily most players are great and I will not allow this to hamper my game play.

@insanemaniac.2456 I agree, it was not great when the islands went down. I did inform the squad which islands we were to safe guard, but beyond giving directions/information its down to the individuals to act or not.
The chap complained about my grammar of all things. He whispered to me and I quote, ‘Learn to ’’right’ english better.’ That did cheer me up somewhat, I have to say.

TPMN.1483:

….It’s funny commanders are there to help explain and lead.
We cannot do everything – we need help, people to listen and co-operate.
……
Learn more to work together – HoT requires it !

Could not agree more.

Well, not much to me, but I’ve seen tags get too much crap for no real reason. Too much left and right. It’s very unfortunate as we’d have more people willing to lead if they didn’t get run out by someone that contributes nothing anyways.

Zerglings can decide to work on their own if they don’t like it.

Just imagine a little, insecure dog yapping at you, and realize that it’s honestly no different. By the end of the day you will still have done your job, 95% of people on the map are going to leave with their loot and happy while trying to poke away at Noxious Pods, and the malcontent will still be an idiot. Don’t let a few minutes of that crap bring you down.

I used to be adamant at not letting those people get their way, but I realized that a lot of people are so pathetic that they need to gain these small “wins” to give their lives validation. In that case, I don’t mind being gracious.

The internet is pretty much the worst thing to happen to humans, atrocities and disasters aside. I feel bad for anyone born after about 1985. Never got to experience nice people.

Fluffball.8307:

The internet is pretty much the worst thing to happen to humans, atrocities and disasters aside. I feel bad for anyone born after about 1985. Never got to experience nice people.

Truth right there. Absolute truth.

As for wanna-be “hardcore” players mocking commanders who don’t do things EXACTLY as their all knowing self would do.. report and block. The only thing they are good for is converting oxygen to CO2 for the plants to use. They are not worth your time or attention.

Fluffball.8307:

The internet is pretty much the worst thing to happen to humans, atrocities and disasters aside. I feel bad for anyone born after about 1985. Never got to experience nice people.

… on the other hand, thanks to some very supportive online communities, I’ve found the internet to be a much nicer and supportive place to me than the real world.

Sartharina.3542:

Fluffball.8307:

The internet is pretty much the worst thing to happen to humans, atrocities and disasters aside. I feel bad for anyone born after about 1985. Never got to experience nice people.

… on the other hand, thanks to some very supportive online communities, I’ve found the internet to be a much nicer and supportive place to me than the real world.

Yay. Good!

My experiences have been miserable, this is one of 2 non-news sites I visit after 20 some years of learning the hard way how awful people are. (In a non-emo way, I’m not damaged or anything.)

I’ve gotten players being stubborn, but I haven’t received abuse of any kind. Then again, I’m a fairly take-charge guy.

I’ve mostly not had problems. Just twice, I think. Once when I was leading the zerg, which is pretty much just run non stop to where the next preserver spawns, kill it, keep running, NO time to type or wait for folks to catch up. You’re simply a marker so everyone knows where to be. So when a zerg fell apart as everyone got strung out, someone snerked in map about the useless commander. Never mind the mass of people that didn’t keep running!

The other time was when I as a taxi leader asked people to wp when the map reset rather than use up time rezzing. Being a Reaper I didn’t need to WP, I was just in shroud and ran off after a quick glance to see that everyone in my squad was in my map. I got long (not nasty) commentary from someone who thought I was Doing It Wrong because someone could end up in a different map if they wp’d and not be able to rejoion. I still don’t quite see how that would happen since when you wp you end up in the same map you started in and anyone I could rez would de facto already be in my map, which is the target map for the taxi to move to. /scratches head in puzzlement

From my experience its usually other commanders that always think they can do better, but don’t..

Commander tags should be earned not bought..

Yeah. Always from a person who dose not have a tag. I always say, “you tag up then if your so pro” they never do. When they continue I just tell them to go buy a tag and block/report.

Dante.1508:

Commander tags should be earned not bought..

I’m inclined to agree but I have no idea how. I had no respect for pve commanders until Marionette (where I nearly bought a tag) and later LS1 chapters. I can see the point with TT and the LS2 and HoT maps and have followed some decent commanders with that content so its all evened out.

All you commanders out there, no matter what I think you’ll never hear from me because I’ve never put my money where my mouth is, and you wouldn’t even if I had because I’m nice

I just used my tag to mark event locations when I ran across them for a daily and someone got mad and called me names. It happens no matter what you do. Sometimes you can turn it around for some fun though.

In EotM one guy kept backseat commanding saying “you didn’t get scorp form?! What a idiot commander!”. I was leveling a new lvl4 and took scorp form and just ran with the zerg goin “yeah, bunch of n00bs. Y’all don’t stand a chance without me! I learned from the best backseat commander NA! I have scorp form!”. Then every time we killed a tower lord I was like “phew, good thing I’m in scorp or else we NEVER would’ve capped that!”. Or if I saw an enemy zerg coming I’d be like “Zerg inc! Don’t worry guys I got dis!” “SCORP!” then inevitably get run over. Then back at spawn be like “OK guys, it didn’t look like it, but they must’ve all had scorp form cuz they murdered me…”. Then when we were blasting through a wall our commander was like “Alright, Hamato (I was on a Hamato character) you know what to do!”. I was like “YEAH SCORP!”. As just one scorp I only made a few dents so I said “uuuh… I could use some help from some catas… XD”. And everyone seemed to have a good time with that. Except the backseat guy who I guess left.

So, sometimes you can turn it around and make it fun again.

EOTM – lol – A few months ago I had the misfortune of encountering the same backseat commander three times in one week. Unbelievable. He spent the entire time he was on the map all three times screaming at me for making my own decisions and not following his instructions.

I said nothing in return. Not one single word. He became so frustrated with my lack of response that he began going on about how I wasn’t even on the server I was on, that I was really a spy for one of the other servers, that I had hacked my account and stolen it from someone else, etc, etc.

All 3 times, eventually people in my group would start making fun of him. Lots of jokes. They called me the “Spy Commander” etc, making fun of his accusations. He finally left the map.

So, yeah, sometimes you can even say nothing at all and still win.

Celtic Lady.3729:

EOTM – lol – A few months ago I had the misfortune of encountering the same backseat commander three times in one week. Unbelievable. He spent the entire time he was on the map all three times screaming at me for making my own decisions and not following his instructions.

I said nothing in return. Not one single word. He became so frustrated with my lack of response that he began going on about how I wasn’t even on the server I was on, that I was really a spy for one of the other servers, that I had hacked my account and stolen it from someone else, etc, etc.

All 3 times, eventually people in my group would start making fun of him. Lots of jokes. They called me the “Spy Commander” etc, making fun of his accusations. He finally left the map.

So, yeah, sometimes you can even say nothing at all and still win.

Yeah I wasn’t commanding in my example just a li’l zergling. You don’t have to be a commander to make a difference!

Wait… someone was rude to you on the internet for no reason? That never happened to anyone, should call the internet police!

/endsarcasm

Do we really need to open a topic every time someone is not playing nice with the dolls?

Fornax.7928:

(we lost two islands >.<)

In the most runs the islands get divided between the squads. Was one or both of these islands among the 3 islands you were responsible for?

Fornax.7928:

I have talked to a few other commanders in game and this seems a common occurrence.

Luckily I never had that problem.

Fornax.7928:

Happily most players are great and I will not allow this to hamper my game play.

This

Fornax.7928:

but beyond giving directions/information its down to the individuals to act or not.

A good commander should not only give directions/information, he should act. If you see that one of your islands hast to few people. Go there, your tag will bring other to that island too. That’s one of the reasons why the islands get divided between the squads, so you can see the coverage of the islands with the dots on your minimap.

This thread sounds like you are new to commanding and you lack a little bit off experiences. But even if you did a few mistakes that’s no reason to insult you. How should a new commander ever get experienced if he get insulted for every mistake he do?

Fluffball.8307:

The internet is pretty much the worst thing to happen to humans, atrocities and disasters aside. I feel bad for anyone born after about 1985. Never got to experience nice people.

I’d say after about 1990, actually. I was born in 1985 and I’m having to remind myself daily that there’s millions of people who didn’t have an internet free childhood like I did where you actually had to be held accountable for what you said to people as you couldn’t hide behind a screen while doing it. When I left 6th Form in 2002, computers were only just starting to be used to type up coursework with teachers suggesting that we look the odd thing up online.

Back on topic though, I don’t avoid commanding so I don’t get crap from people, I just avoid popping my tag for metas that I don’t know very well (not saying you don’t know DS, OP, it’s clear from your post that you do). I was in DS last night and we had a good run until Mordy got down to 1% health or so after two burns, then everyone tried to go for that last 1%, mass wipe, map couldn’t recover and we failed. Second time in a week that’s happened to me. I didn’t give my commanders crap but there was a lot of salt in map chat. The mob mentality takes over, then gets angry with itself.

To me, as long as the meta succeeded, who the hell cares how clean the run was as long as people learn from it? There’s always going to be new people, the number of which will vary from one event attempt to the other. To this day I’ve still not done Nuhoch Lane in TD because I worry about causing the whole meta to fail as I’ve never done it before. I don’t tag up in HoT because I don’t want to lead people astray and then be accused of everything under the sun from being ‘bad’ at the game to having performed indecent acts on their mother’s sister’s husband’s uncle’s goat. It’s just hassle I don’t need when gaming is an escape from crap that’s going on IRL and people who get that uptight forget that it’s a bloody game, not their lives or the end of the world. Sadly childhoods spent on the internet don’t teach proportional reactions to things.

Celtic Lady.3729:

EOTM – lol – A few months ago I had the misfortune of encountering the same backseat commander three times in one week. Unbelievable. He spent the entire time he was on the map all three times screaming at me for making my own decisions and not following his instructions.

I said nothing in return. Not one single word. He became so frustrated with my lack of response that he began going on about how I wasn’t even on the server I was on, that I was really a spy for one of the other servers, that I had hacked my account and stolen it from someone else, etc, etc.

All 3 times, eventually people in my group would start making fun of him. Lots of jokes. They called me the “Spy Commander” etc, making fun of his accusations. He finally left the map.

So, yeah, sometimes you can even say nothing at all and still win.

I’d be willing to bet I know exactly who you are talking about. and your lucky, this guy does this EVERY day, all day. He’s MO is to complained/berate tags until they detag so he can tag, and even then he continues to berate everyone as every little problem that arises is not his fault but everyone elses and will rage-detag, but stay on the map to berate everyone. the map becomes so toxic. The guy needs a serious time out from Anet…

And you guys want Marionette back. guh

Fluffball.8307:

The internet is pretty much the worst thing to happen to humans, atrocities and disasters aside. I feel bad for anyone born after about 1985. Never got to experience nice people.

It is only up to you.. If you don’t meet nice people since 1985 something’s going terribly wrong, maybe coming from your side. . ? Maybe it’s this “I am 40-year old and the internet is full with kids” sort of attitude despite you never know who’s on the other side of the wire that your experiences are bad? Maybe the OP has been abused by someone born before 1985 and gets positive responses by 17-year old players right now?

You, as older player (IIRC you were married and thus adult enough) you should be more positive about your surroundings instead of just shrugging the shoulders and blame “dem internet pplz”. I have met so many cool people in GW2 than in any other game and one was born 1994, the other one 1996. The general population is nice, at least in PvE. Maybe the situation are heated and they choose the not-so nice words, but hey, this ain’t a game about picking flowers..

Stay positive!

Zedek.8932:

You, as older player (IIRC you were married and thus adult enough) you should be more positive about your surroundings instead of just shrugging the shoulders and blame “dem internet pplz”.

I don’t really follow what you’re saying. Because the internet has hundreds of millions of users, I can’t, like… be a force of good. I’m not going to go on YT and spread love amongst thousands of racist comments. I simply don’t use the internet for anything other than this website and news/business now, and I can’t see a scenario where I’d want to subject myself to a daily dose of unbridled hatred.

Edit: Oh you expanded on your post, it’s more clear now.

mulzi.8273:

Celtic Lady.3729:

EOTM – lol – A few months ago I had the misfortune of encountering the same backseat commander three times in one week. Unbelievable. He spent the entire time he was on the map all three times screaming at me for making my own decisions and not following his instructions.

I said nothing in return. Not one single word. He became so frustrated with my lack of response that he began going on about how I wasn’t even on the server I was on, that I was really a spy for one of the other servers, that I had hacked my account and stolen it from someone else, etc, etc.

All 3 times, eventually people in my group would start making fun of him. Lots of jokes. They called me the “Spy Commander” etc, making fun of his accusations. He finally left the map.

So, yeah, sometimes you can even say nothing at all and still win.

I’d be willing to bet I know exactly who you are talking about. and your lucky, this guy does this EVERY day, all day. He’s MO is to complained/berate tags until they detag so he can tag, and even then he continues to berate everyone as every little problem that arises is not his fault but everyone elses and will rage-detag, but stay on the map to berate everyone. the map becomes so toxic. The guy needs a serious time out from Anet…

Yeah, sounds like the exact same guy. I haven’t been in EOTM for a while now, so didn’t know if he was still around. Too bad for everyone else if he is.

On the quality of internet individuals, it seems roughly equal to what I see anyways. But the internet allows you to communicate with people you’d never get to ever normally, and thus certain backgrounds and perspectives you’ve probably rarely come across.

This is amazing sometimes, and terrible other times.

And yea backseat commanders are the worst. I always invite them to do better; would be better for myself to relax. Unfortunately, so many get run off by these people and that negatively impacts the zerg who would have had a better time.

Anyhow, I really would suggest to everyone to bring up criticism and feedback after the next task is completed. When you try doing it in mid-fight, it can really be too much information and people tend to respond more defensively/aggressively in the heat of the moment. If you type or say whatever’s on the tip of your tongue, you’ll just say a lot of crap.

I got abuse while commanding EotM, SW, DS, AB, TD and even gorram hp trains, and for the stupidest of reasons. Can’t always please everyone and some people are just jerks. Just ignore and move on. Meh.

zenleto.6179:

Dante.1508:

Commander tags should be earned not bought..

I’m inclined to agree but I have no idea how. I had no respect for pve commanders until Marionette (where I nearly bought a tag) and later LS1 chapters. I can see the point with TT and the LS2 and HoT maps and have followed some decent commanders with that content so its all evened out.

All you commanders out there, no matter what I think you’ll never hear from me because I’ve never put my money where my mouth is, and you wouldn’t even if I had because I’m nice

I’m no Commander i’ve never tried never wanted to be one, but i also never kitten others out when they are doing what i’m not.

My opinion is you play wvw you earn it as you do it, Rank up etc like a real army, as you group with others and complete wvw events learn tactics etc you master your commander tag, to me that would exclude those that tag up for vanity and stupidity imo.

It wouldn’t be difficult to make commander tags hooked into achievements and hard grouped leadership rolls etc.

But commander is what it is at this time.

I have to wonder that, when some people get abuse, it’s because of their management style. The multicolor dorito doesn’t excuse a lack of politeness.

In my experience it’s the players 90% more often than the commanders.
Sure you get some bad commanders but it’s not the norm. Takes quite a lot of nerve to be the person who decides to lead up to a whole map in something. Takes nothing to be an kitten.

Did a completely successful Triple Trouble the other day. Could have been tidier at Cobalt, beach wasn’t cleaned early enough, finished it with a minute to spare as opposed to 5 minutes. The number of people that pointed that out was crazy. Could have, should have, I’d have done it differently.. and also “blah blah other guild does it better”. Can’t win with people like that, just have to ignore and move on.

A lot of commanders over-complicate things or think because they have a tag, there is only one way to do things.

I’ve been randomly commanding all over Tyria over the years and honestly can’t remember getting any significant abuse. People are always glad when someone tags up to attract a crowd for an event.

Seems to me these ‘keyboard commanders’ are just players upset at their ownselves being unwilling to spend the gold on ‘just a tag’.

Just ignore them, they always go away.

I wouldn’t say abused… more like taken for granted.

They expect you to lead them to rewards. If things get difficult they don’t follow you though. At the times I needed cooperation the most I’m instead wrangling kittens into a pen. Numbers are even and we can beat them with cooperation and yet there you are TROLLING ME with your actions. The worst form of this is when my own guildies are the ones doing the trolling. I expect that from pugs not from guild mates. We then lose and they wonder why I wasn’t able to win. GEE I WONDER.

The backseat drivers are the worst. You got the tag and the blame but they can’t shut up about their strategy rather than try to trust you. If you think your strategy is so awesome then tag up and implement it.

I had someone backseat driving for someone else. “This guy’s strategy is good you should do it” never mind what of any plans I have myself. Maybe i’m not ready to use the mesmer in the keep or I’m trying to position the enemy forces to maximize that strategy success. Maybe i just want the fights (recently that’s how im driving when i tag up). I say this to backseat drivers: you think that strategy is so good you tag up and implement it.

I need cooperation when I’m driving. I don’t need a million strategies from people too cowardly to tag themselves. You don’t even need a kitten tag to drive. Just strategize in chat “hey i’m taking speldan and could use some help”. I need people on the tag and following the orders. I’m not giving them just to be “hey i’m better than you cause i have a tag.” I’m giving them to implement a strategy that in my opinion has the best chance of success. It has zero chance of success if everyone’s doing their own thing and ignoring or worse trolling the commander.

Don’t take your commander for granted. Don’t go following him for the loot and then go kitten all when he’s not up to your standard of efficiency. The commander serves as the focus point for your map and drives the strategy needed for it. If you think you can do it better then DO IT. TAG UP! In PvE wear the apple tag. In WvW just run strategy in team chat. The commander is only as effective as the people following him. If he’s not being effective maybe it’s not him.

Yeah it happens, but after a while you hear pretty much everything and you just ignore it.
It’s not bothering me anymore … acctually it didn’t bother me at beggining.

So just ignore or block them

Or people that cry in map chat,

Yep this map fail, no one listens blah blah blah

And then you finish map with time to spare.

As a commander you become the target of folks who have differing opinions. Don’t take it personally.

When I get abusive chatter while commanding I simply block the offender and, if they are in my part/squad, kick them. I also make it clear to everyone, via chat, that I’m in the game to have some fun. So, if they have some other agenda or don’t like what I’m doing they are free to go do whatever is fun for them.

The game’s big enough for all of us to do what we enjoy.

Don’t feed the trolls or waste your time getting caught up in others’ drama.

Have fun out there!