Guild Wars 2

Before anyone starts a flame war over it there is a method to my madness rather than just showing off. What I like doing in PVE is helping new players, but they may not even notice me because of downleveling. So not only might some wonder about the commander tag (or may know it means ‘someone who probably knows a little bit’) but it allows me to say something like ‘if anyone needs help look for the red icon on your map’ in map chat.

So, does anyone thing this was a good idea or not? If not, do you have any better suggestions?

If you want to use it for PvE and are also interested in farming i would suggest you learn how to lead different trains/events that’s why i bought it. You then also get the gold back pretty quickly!

I’ve caught a guild-spawned Karka Queen a couple of times where the entire guild thinks it’s funny to tag on, which makes other players on the map tag on, and suddenly there is an epic storm of commander tags (usually red or purple) covering the mini-map.

Anyway, I think it’s fine, and pretty common. I bought one for PvE too. Just remember to tag off when you’re not using it.

I think it’s a good idea as long as you’re prepared for the fact that some people will simply see a tag and run/WP to it expecting at least a group event, potentially something bigger, many of them won’t look at chat before or after turning up and will simply follow you waiting for it to start. (And the rare one or two will blame you for their wasted time/silver when they realise that’s not the case.)

Maybe start by offering help, or answering questions and then turn the tag on when you need to show someone where to go.

Yes, it makes sense. I don’t see anything wrong with that :P
Well, others who join the map might be confused and think there’s some kind of event near your tag, but that’s the only problem I see that might happen.

I use my tag in both PvE and WvW all the time. It helps organize people. That’s it’s main function and it’s useful no matter where you are.

Slion.9364:

If you want to use it for PvE and are also interested in farming i would suggest you learn how to lead different trains/events that’s why i bought it. You then also get the gold back pretty quickly!

I have no interest in farming. That is the worst kind of grind I can think of.

Three hundred gold sounds like a lot but it really is not, it is around US $30 depending on the market. I just bought $35 of gems and converted 300 gold of it. If anet sold a better tag (maybe one that simply says ‘help’ or something) I would have bought that but they do not.

I do not plan on using it in wvw or any region I am not too familiar with in the near future. To do that I feel would be dishonest and once someone reaches a certain point in the game anyway it is not like they will have a lot of questions.

Getting a lot of people together would not be a bad thing though. Assuming a large group I could bring them to events they would die at pretty quickly if faced by themselves.

Davey.7029:

Yes, it makes sense. I don’t see anything wrong with that :P
Well, others who join the map might be confused and think there’s some kind of event near your tag, but that’s the only problem I see that might happen.

Thanks. Yes, that is the problem, I do not want to be spamming map chat constantly,

A commander tag is useful in a few places in PvE in addition to leading farm trains, but especially buying it for this is a bit wasted, in my opinion.

It could be used to show someone on the map a certain location: if someone asks and you are by chance on that location, turn the tag on and write in map chat: “at the red tag”. Also good for showing an event location for the daily event achievement.
I also sometimes tag up at Tequatl, if nobody else does. The crowd demands 3 or 4 tags and scatters if there are no tags – even if the commanders don’t need to do any actual commanding. They’re just standing there.
To organize some of the guild missions it is nice to have a few tags to show some of the positions.

I admit is is a huge overkill but anet does not have a good way of saying you are there to answer questions for new users and help them with stuff.

This was easily the best 100g (at the time) I spent in the game. Tag up for events and people just flock to you. This has great use in the pve environment and if you enjoy helping people at all this is a good investment. You will rarely be alone and you will sometimes even get thanked by the nicer players. Tagging up is often very rewarding.

I did find the Caledon wurm funny tonight: 4 commander tags already so I stood down. I turned it on a few minutes before the pre started though to attract people to that area (initially there were just 2 of us).

Menadena.7482:

Before anyone starts a flame war over it there is a method to my madness rather than just showing off. What I like doing in PVE is helping new players, but they may not even notice me because of downleveling. So not only might some wonder about the commander tag (or may know it means ‘someone who probably knows a little bit’) but it allows me to say something like ‘if anyone needs help look for the red icon on your map’ in map chat.

So, does anyone thing this was a good idea or not? If not, do you have any better suggestions?

I play mostly PvE and I think that’s actually very useful and helpful Really helps to concentrate players where they’re needed most, also you know who to look at for useful /say comments and instructions. I often log into a map and can tell right away where the action or train is, which I find very useful, so thank you

No problem. I was annoyed at what I saw last night: 4 commanders tagged up for the caledon wurm (when usually there are only 1 or 2 of us tagged in that map) so I detagged. I did tag up again when I moved to a pre area but that was so I could show people where to go and get some of them there. I will give them the benefit of the doubt that maybe they forgot it was on as there is no good reason to have 4 tags on top of each other.

In addition to helping there is something else I want to try: leading new people to doing slightly higher level content. Mobs that would overrun them by themselves but show them they are okay when they are in a group. It will give them the message that not soloing this game is a good thing when you can not do something by yourself.

Sounds like a solid idea. I’ve thought about it myself as we are a smaller guild looking to build. A lot of our recruits are low level and new to the game.

Question though, how many different colored tags are there?

4 colors – Red, Blue, Yellow, and Purple. It used to be just blue, when the tag cost 100g, and was only on one character at the time. When they raised the cost to 300g, it was made account wide and with the other 3 colors.