Guild Wars 2

UPDATED
To recap:
-Commander tags should have several colors available to be selected by commanders
-Additional colors should be able to be unlocked via some method (be it POSITIVE feedback or events)

Proposal Method 3.) Positive Reinforcement
Rather than making a negative method via downvotes to discourage bad commanding, I realized we should do it the true ArenaNet way. A system that would rely on a system to encourage GOOD commanding. What I propose is this, when a tagged commander successfully completes an event (probably group event or higher in PvE to discourage excess tagging), takes a camp, a tower, or even so much as takes guard post, they gain a stacking non-combat buff called momentum (for now). Each stack of momentum, is given to all players near the commander within a generous range. Now what momentum should be is essentially the birthday booster buff, split into a bunch of stacks. As the commander successfully completes events or takes/defends objectives in WvW, the stacks of magic find, gathering efficiency, world exp, and exp gain grow until capping at a reasonable percentage. The buff would remain on the commander and their squad as long as the commander did not release to waypoint after dying (or D/C or tag down). This provides a bit of forgiveness should the commander somehow manage to die, but have his squad save him. As a final touch, I would recommend making any tagged commander following within the radius of another tagged commander, unable to build the new momentum buff, and unable to receive its benefits until tagging down. This way momentum would encourage groups to be efficient and use a single commander, but not affect two commanders with momentum crossing each others paths (as infrequent as that might be)

Well, there is my updated, no negativity edition to encourage better commanders. Have at it you cynics!

Below are my initial proposals, before I added the in the feedback. I left it here for context

So with the latest QoL Patch from Anet I figure I would make a proposal on the eventual changes to the commander system before it actually goes through. In my opinion, there are two effective methods that will add commander differentiation and assure commander quality. Both are simple systems that rely on color.

Solution 1.) Customized commanders

In the customized Commander system, commanders unlock additional colors for their tags through player feedback. A commander under this system is appraised by right clicking their portrait while their tag is active. You can either like the commander, dislike them or don’t vote. At the daily reset, these votes are tallied, and a set sum of positive votes will work toward unlocking a color. Unlocked colors can then be applied to the tag, making it easier to differentiate a commanders purpose or location on the map. If a commander has a set sum of negative votes they are relegated to a predetermined color for the next 24 hours until the next reset. This will inform players that a commander has trolled, been inefficient, or was just irrationally disliked. 3 days of poor player feedback will disable tagging up for the rest of the week. This will ensure that players wont tag frivolously, but will make a conscious decision when they want to tag.

Solution 2.) All commanders are different colors
With this system you don’t unlock colors by amassing positive feedback, instead commanders are automatically assigned a basic unique tag color upon tagging up. My proposed feedback system would instead be seen directly through color tone. Negative votes would slowly fade and tarnish the tag, making it darker and grimier until it disappears. Positive feedback would gradually lighten the tags color until it shines vibrantly.

If either one of these solutions is chosen I have one additional proposal.
-Make a commander tags appear next to the commanders name in map chat when tagged.

These systems along with the previously suggested increased supply check range and account bound tags, would greatly improve the utility of commander tags. I sincerely hope Anet can make these systems work as they continue to improve this game. Feel free to suggest improvements to my system all.

You might try the “hover” feature where you hover your mouse above a Commander’s sigil and read the name that pops up as a “tool tip”.

With the ammount of trolls in this game i would rather not take the first option.
Especially with the language filter, about 60% will not read what you write anyway because they don´t know how turn that off or are just intolerant of different languages used. Some say a bad commander is one that does not write in the chat. This way you would get a lot of negative votes just because of that filter.

Also are you reffering to PvE only or WvW only commanders or are you taking it into consideration that some do both?
How about just let the commander itself choose what to do and decide for him/herself on the color?
It would help a lot especially in WvW when there is more than one commander on a map for whatever reason.

The thing with the map chat at least is a good idea.

Suggestions for new colors: yellow, green, red and of course for Chiiwii pink

Colors, sure. Giving power to players to up/downvote a commander? No, thank you.

I think you’re relying too much on the ability of non-commanders to vote objectively, and if such a tool were available to rate commanders, that same tool should be available to rate all players. There are probably more bad players than bad commanders; fair’s fair.

If you want a rating system, it should be determined by the game mechanics, i.e. number of objectives captured in a week, average number of other players present during said captures, etc. Multiple commanders capturing the same objective would probably have to split the rating (to avoid “boosting”), but anything to correlate a commander’s effectiveness independent of player opinion or bias would be a better option.

Thareen.5471:

With the ammount of trolls in this game i would rather not take the first option.
Especially with the language filter, about 60% will not read what you write anyway because they don´t know how turn that off or are just intolerant of different languages used. Some say a bad commander is one that does not write in the chat. This way you would get a lot of negative votes just because of that filter.

Also are you reffering to PvE only or WvW only commanders or are you taking it into consideration that some do both?
How about just let the commander itself choose what to do and decide for him/herself on the color?
It would help a lot especially in WvW when there is more than one commander on a map for whatever reason.

The thing with the map chat at least is a good idea.

Suggestions for new colors: yellow, green, red and of course for Chiiwii pink

The first method is actually intended for commanders to chose their own colors. Additional colors with more “prestige” would be unlocked by consistently high reviews. Additionally, the negative colors and eventual inability to tag are temporary inconveniences. So a great commander might get nuked in his reviews one day, yet still be able to achieve the “highest” rank of commander color if players like what he does most days. Also, the method would allow players to discourage multiple tags when players deem them unnecessary, like a guild run Tequatl or three headed Wurm.

As for the tooltip suggestion, its good, but by making it so you have to have the commander targeted it ensures negative reviews aren’t pouring in from players who aren’t even with you. Though it might be a necessary evil depending on how many “troll” commanders there are.

Sounds almost like you don´t know that there are some awesome commanders out there that organize more than just one zerg, party or whatever at the same time and in case of WvW on more than one map with the help of a program called teamspeak. Being a good commander is more than just running from one gate/boss to the next or winning a zergfight.
Also that feature with the positive votes can be cheated easily. Especially if you are in a big guild or something like that.
Do not give players the ability to vote ingame on another person.
As for the unnecessary tags, usualy just asking them nicely does the trick.
If that does not work just bring your members/followers to just join your squad.

Taj Tiger.2630:

Colors, sure. Giving power to players to up/downvote a commander? No, thank you.

I think you’re relying too much on the ability of non-commanders to vote objectively, and if such a tool were available to rate commanders, that same tool should be available to rate all players. There are probably more bad players than bad commanders; fair’s fair.

If you want a rating system, it should be determined by the game mechanics, i.e. number of objectives captured in a week, average number of other players present during said captures, etc. Multiple commanders capturing the same objective would probably have to split the rating (to avoid “boosting”), but anything to correlate a commander’s effectiveness independent of player opinion or bias would be a better option.

Hmm. this is a fair point. But where you like the objectivity of controlled ranking, I see it failing to address the potential for bad commanders still trolling. Perhaps specific colors could only be unlocked in WvW? Regardless, I would like some sort of system in place to discourage ineffective commanders. If good commanders got consistently caught in the crossfire it would have to be changed, but in my opinion, I think any commander worth their salt would end up with more upvotes at the end of a day than downvotes resulting in a net gain. Net gain at reset would require a negative number to merit a penalty tag, so any commander supported by his guild, friends, and comrades would be unlikely to face the wrath of the community and fair weather players. As such commanders and their value would be determined by the players and the integrity of the system is as only as good as those who would value it. I suppose its effectiveness depends on how understanding your average player is.

Wow, that’s really over thinking it. Just make Pins dyeable as we have plenty of colors available. That’s all we need to have a great QoL improvement in WvW.

Cerai.9741:

I suppose its effectiveness depends on how understanding your average player is.

Sorry but i really can´t hold it back at this point anymore.
The average player leaves the impression that he/she does not know what the word dodge means, what a combofield is let alone might or speed stacking, stacking in general and how to use more skills then just pressing 1 and moving around the character from time to time like on the champfarm trains. I won´t even go into deeper things like how to join a squad or how to use teamspeak.
Go to gw2 reddit and post something important and/or informative and just watch the downvotes crushing your post. Post something about how to dye your armor and you get 500 upvotes in one day.
You really want those players vote on how good you command?

Plus, you may forget that there are also a lot of really good commanders out there with a very small guild and only doing an awesome defense on the borderlands with only a handful of people on a server with a terribly small nightshift.
You won´t get much loot there, so in the eye of the average visitor there he is not a good commander. Do a farmtrain there and he is ubercool.
This would reflect onto the votes.

Taj Tiger.2630:

Colors, sure. Giving power to players to up/downvote a commander? No, thank you.

How about this: give the commander badge more flair depending on the number of players in his or her squad, with a small or non-existent squad granting the current badge.

Feedback on the commander’s performance is thus limited to joining their squad, or not being in the squad. Negative feedback, and thus trolling the commander, is not possible, since all you can do is not be in that commander’s squad. This also puts all commanders on equal footing, since they’ll start with a squad size of 0 when they activate their tags.

There’s no database alterations to make (tracking individual player’s liked and disliked commanders, for example). However, the size of the squad channel would need to be sent to the client, which would consume a few more bytes of bandwidth, or about 300 bytes for a full map of 150 players assuming this information fits in 2 bytes and needs to be sent regardless of commander status.

Additionally, players joining and leaving a squad could cause the badge to momentarily flash, shinier for joining, darker for leaving. If that effect is left up for a moment, and allowed to stack, then commanders with huge influxes of players, or huge departures can be immediately seen.

Cerai.9741:

So with the latest QoL Patch from Anet I figure I would make a proposal on the eventual changes to the commander system before it actually goes through. In my opinion, there are two effective methods that will add commander differentiation and assure commander quality. Both are simple systems that rely on color.

Solution 1.) Customized commanders

In the customized Commander system, commanders unlock additional colors for their tags through player feedback. A commander under this system is appraised by right clicking their portrait while their tag is active. You can either like the commander, dislike them or don’t vote. At the daily reset, these votes are tallied, and a set sum of positive votes will work toward unlocking a color. Unlocked colors can then be applied to the tag, making it easier to differentiate a commanders purpose or location on the map. If a commander has a set sum of negative votes they are relegated to a predetermined color for the next 24 hours until the next reset. This will inform players that a commander has trolled, been inefficient, or was just irrationally disliked. 3 days of poor player feedback will disable tagging up for the rest of the week. This will ensure that players wont tag frivolously, but will make a conscious decision when they want to tag.

Solution 2.) All commanders are different colors
With this system you don’t unlock colors by amassing positive feedback, instead commanders are automatically assigned a basic unique tag color upon tagging up. My proposed feedback system would instead be seen directly through color tone. Negative votes would slowly fade and tarnish the tag, making it darker and grimier until it disappears. Positive feedback would gradually lighten the tags color until it shines vibrantly.

If either one of these solutions is chosen I have one additional proposal.
-Make a commander tags appear next to the commanders name in map chat when tagged.

These systems along with the previously suggested increased supply check range and account bound tags, would greatly improve the utility of commander tags. I sincerely hope Anet can make these systems work as they continue to improve this game. Feel free to suggest improvements to my system all.

This is not necessary the truely good commanders are well known on their servers. The also have massive followings 10-20 guilds. If you don’t know the good from the bad then you must not WvW a lotto know the good from the bad. Ultimately a commander can be judged by there decisions on the battle field as well. Do they bum rush do they set unrealistic goals do they waste resources. As a player you should be able to tell which commanders you fallow and which you don’t. Also alot of wvw is guild centered with roaming guild groups who choose not to use a tag at all and still do fine against the massive zergs.

First allow me to clarify, I am not new to WvW and I am fully aware that frequent players know the good commanders by name and that TS is used to organize multiple groups at any one time. The addition of colors/flair on tags are meant to make it so a player can look at a screenshot of their WvW map see three tags, and know exactly whats going on by the tags alone, no hovering, no TS. Being able to differentiate a KNT zerg from a ONS zerg by a tag color alone is a useful addition. Furthermore, it allows the hectic mega server open world content to coordinate better on bosses like Teq and the triple trouble wurm. When four commanders are ranging Tequatl and a 5th is in melee, it helps to be able to spot the commander who isn’t being an idiot for the cleanses.

Regardless, you all have made it abundantly clear that negative feedback is not the way to provide incentive for good commanding. Allow me to adjust my proposal accordingly. I will edit my initial post to include this proposed method shortly.

To recap:
-Commander tags should have several colors available to be selected by commanders
-Additional colors should be able to be unlocked via some method (be it POSITIVE feedback or events)

Proposal Method 3.) Positive Reinforcement
Rather than making a negative method via downvotes to discourage bad commanding, I realized we should do it the true ArenaNet way. A system that would rely on a system to encourage GOOD commanding. What I propose is this, when a tagged commander successfully completes an event (probably group event or higher in PvE to discourage excess tagging), takes a camp, a tower, or even so much as takes guard post, they gain a stacking non-combat buff called momentum (for now). Each stack of momentum, is given to all players near the commander within a generous range. Now what momentum should be is essentially the birthday booster buff, split into a bunch of stacks. As the commander successfully completes events or takes/defends objectives in WvW, the stacks of magic find, gathering efficiency, world exp, and exp gain grow until capping at a reasonable percentage. The buff would remain on the commander and their squad as long as the commander did not release to waypoint after dying (or D/C or tag down). This provides a bit of forgiveness should the commander somehow manage to die, but have his squad save him. As a final touch, I would recommend making any tagged commander following within the radius of another tagged commander, unable to build the new momentum buff, and unable to receive its benefits until tagging down. This way momentum would encourage groups to be efficient and use a single commander, but not affect two commanders with momentum crossing each others paths (as infrequent as that might be)

Well, there is my updated, no negativity edition to encourage better commanders. Have at it you cynics!

I have to burst this bubble again (take a look at my signature, the new colors i would have unlocked in less then a day). We also like to work often enough with different commanders in close proximity to each other also in wvw, not only on tequatl, this is where the squad comes in play. Having two good organized public squads working hand in hand one with melee and one with range can even get some guildzergs into trouble (proved that^^ ).
The proposed boon would engourage more of these dreadful farming zergs in wvw and we actually try to get people away from that practice.

For a defensive commander however such a boon would actually make sense, because most people avoid the defensive because of the lack of loot and wxp.

Thareen.5471:

I have to burst this bubble again (take a look at my signature, the new colors i would have unlocked in less then a day). We also like to work often enough with different commanders in close proximity to each other also in wvw, not only on tequatl, this is where the squad comes in play. Having two good organized public squads working hand in hand one with melee and one with range can even get some guildzergs into trouble (proved that^^ ).
The proposed boon would engourage more of these dreadful farming zergs in wvw and we actually try to get people away from that practice.

For a defensive commander however such a boon would actually make sense, because most people avoid the defensive because of the lack of loot and wxp.

I am aware that many commanders would unlock the new colors very quickly, in fact, they don’t NEED to be locked as its a form of cosmetic progression that the rank and file do not get. If Anet went full bore they could easily create a full commander ranking system that unlocked specific colors, passive buffs, and benefits for a squad. I find that however, would increase the number of players who would feel its unfair commanders actually HAVE so much extra progression for the low cost of 100g. That said, I included the minor level of “unlock colors, by doing stuff” in my proposal because its easy fun. Yeah, any good commander could unlock all of them in a week but this proposal isn’t REALLY for adding a ranking to commanders. Sure, you could have a color unlock for completed X many defense events in WvW. A commander who was particularly dedicated to defense could run with that tag and people could see visually he has spent a fair amount of time defending. Heck, maybe players would see the “prestige” behind it, but that’s hardly the point. The point of the system is diverse looking commanders, the color progression is just for kicks. If Anet wants to make a true commander progression system it will need a lot more than colors. As for WvW farming zergs, its still quite possible to have the multiple commanders for different purposes be effective with the proposed momentum buff. It all depends on said buffs range. If you are splitting your group for catas and trebs you needn’t worry. Furthermore, if the commander really truly needs to tag up in close range to the established commander (lets say within 2000 range to keep your example of a range stack relevant) it would just be the second commander who would be opting out of the buff, and only while he is tagged. A commander who is willing to to do what is necessary (in this case temporarily sacrificing a non combat buff) is a good WvW commander and every commander I know would do that without hesitation. Its just a buff, sure it would be nice, but if the situation calls for a split group to take Garrison a second commander tagging is a minor issue. As commanders, we put ourselves on the line every time we tag up. I personally like to think that a commander is there to help the people (our subordinates if you will) do what needs to be done. If a noble sacrifice is needed, who better than a commander? Commanders choose their course the moment they tag (and more often than not, before that) if my being useful requires me to tag up and lose a boost to magic find, so be it. Its no different than any time someone fails to join in on capturing the lord room, because they were out fighting the enemy so that the cap would succeed.

Give commanders the ability to choose their own color when they tag on by default; no voting system, earning system, etc. The tag is there to help facilitate other players’ enjoyment of the game by giving them a driver to follow. We need the system to be made more player friendly and it needs to be done with a minimal amount of obstacles.

I’m 100% in favor of giving commanders the ability to change their icon’s color. I’m 100% against any kind of feedback or voting system. There are too many trolls in the game as it is; giving them one more method by which they can be trolly is not a good idea. Heck, there are players who would down vote good commanders simply out of spite and jealousy. So a big “NO” to any kind of player-driven voting system.

As to your momentum buffs, that’s an intriguing idea. Also, your suggestion of making the commander icon appear next to the text chat name of a commander currently flagged on is a good one.

If Anet ever introduces a system for the commander to earn something by doing it, then it would probably look like the new traits. Kill Karka, Grenth, cap SM bla bla.
I don´t trust them with that stuff anymore.

Like i initially said… well just read Kraags post, we have basicly the same views on that one.

Yeah. Kraag’s post sums up my (adjusted) findings rather nicely. Hopefully, whatever Anet opts to do will keep that easily accessible design that can benefit all players more readily.