Guild Wars 2

If everyone is a commander then nobody is. With commander being a one-time gold purchase, eventually (inevitably) you won’t be able to see the map for the sea of commander icons getting in the way.

“Commander” should be a guild research item creating an expendable buff. For example, 5000 influence, 2 day research, lasts 3 days. A modest guild can have 1 commander running all the time. Guilds with more income can handle several commanders.

But you can’t just go to the gem store with $500 and become a commander, or work the auction house for a couple months, or even just play the game normally and eventually come up with 100 gold and now you’re a commander until the end of time.

I suggest all commander books be disabled, able to be sold to vendors for 100 gold — money refunded.

Switch it to an expendable guild research item.

This will get MORE commanders on the field early on but we will avoid ever logging in and seeing 50 different “commanders” on the map.

Otherwise you might as well set the book price to 1 copper because the only difference between 1 copper and 100 gold is how long it takes everyone to have it.

Well, I have mixed opinions about this one.

First of all, I agree with Slamz that ArenaNet needs to look into the risk of oversaturation of commanders in the long-term. Also, that as it stands, there needs to be more Commanders right now in the WvW field. (Lack of organization right now with so few Commanders, if any.) The current structure is simply just not conducive for organization right now, until Commanders exist to form squads.

That being said, there are a lot of counters for this including have guild run parties where folks aren’t even really using chat anyway (ventrilo, teamspeak, skype, what have you).

Also, Slamz’s proposal doesn’t prevent an oversaturation of Commanders, as 5,000 influence is actually very easy to purchase (it’s 5 gold since you can purchase 1,000 influence at 1 gold a piece). Theoretically, anyone could form their own guild and pay 5 gold coins to get Commander status. What Slamz might not understand is that 5,000 influence is actually not a lot of influence for any guild that is active.

On top of that, I just simply don’t agree that Commander status should be limited to only the chosen ones of active guilds.

I think a better solution is to look into the possibility of creating a separate WvW experience line or achievement track based off of the participation of WvW events (i.e. defend or take over an outpost counts as an event) you participate in. Commander status should be achieved, and more importantly awarded to EXPERIENCED WvW players.

At the moment, I think 100 gold is sufficient enough for at least the next year to be enough of a barrier that only truly dedicated WvW players (or guilds) will have Commanders. (Keep in mind there is nothing stopping an active guild to ask 5 gold from 20 of its members in order to get to 100 gold for one Commander.)

Well first off, I doubt many people even want to comandeer the army. And if they’ll be running the icon and won’t do anything to help in WvW….well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it . Right now, our server has 1 icon, which we had from the start of 1st week…so other guilds don’t even want to bother spending 100g atm so I kinda doubt we’ll be seeing a flood of them anytime soon. Altho we could use at least 7 more (2 per map).

in six months you ll have identify who can be worth of following and who not, aside that, having more than one in the field is good, so you can split better the forces if you can organize it.

I’m not sure it’s worth 100g when you could simply use Mumble, Ventrilo, Teamspeak, or the in-game chat channels to coordinate your server.

If it seriously looks like it will be an issue, they can simply raise the price. No, it won’t be unfair to people who buy it later – you had the difference in gold available to you the entire time to do other things with such as invest in a particular market, whereas those who bought early did not have this capital for that entire time.

AceOfEden.5197:

Also, Slamz’s proposal doesn’t prevent an oversaturation of Commanders, as 5,000 influence is actually very easy to purchase (it’s 5 gold since you can purchase 1,000 influence at 1 gold a piece). Theoretically, anyone could form their own guild and pay 5 gold coins to get Commander status. What Slamz might not understand is that 5,000 influence is actually not a lot of influence for any guild that is active.

You missed the part where I said it should be a 3 day expendable. I have a guild with over 100 members (not multi-representing, but pure members) and 15,000 influence every 3 days to run 3 commanders would be a real dent in our other spending.

On top of that, I just simply don’t agree that Commander status should be limited to only the chosen ones of active guilds.

Although I see where you’re going with the idea of achieving Commander status through WvW participation, you haven’t changed the underlying problem of “everyone will be a commander eventually”.

The only way to fix that is to make it something temporary. Maybe anyone can form a squad at any time but you don’t show up on the map unless 10 people have joined your squad.

Or maybe the book costs 50 silver but only lasts 3 days.

Or, my idea, maybe the book costs 5000 influence but only lasts 3 days.

One way or another, it needs to be more readily available than 100 gold but it also needs to be more temporary than “now you have it for the rest of your life”.

At 100 golds, I’m pretty sure people will favor gears, skins (think cultural armors) and shinny stuff (legendary weapons) over a commander icon. Even for medium guilds like mine (90+ members), we are considering at most 1 or 2 commanders.

I think the Commander rank should be guild exclusive. The rank is a bought upgrade through Art of War. The rank can then be gifted to an individual player in a guild (for 24-hour or whatever)

In WvW this person will be visible to everyone who is currently representing the guild.

This also fixes the issue with group size- which makes organising a guild of WvW players extremely annoying at the moment.

There’s a hard limit on how many commanders there can be at any time. 2.

The commander and squad system is for large forces. There is simply no mechanic for small to medium size forces to coordinate in WvW. If you are running with a force larger than 5 people it can be very frustrating. Some larger guilds will be using the commander feature simply because they need a way for more than 5 people to actually group together in WvW. Running around with 3-4 groups of 5 people right now in WvW is stupid… it’s hard to organize without some sort of grouping system,

There needs to be a grouping system similar to the “Warband” from Warhammer Online. A grouping system for up to 20 players that shows everyone’s location on the map with a uniquely colored icon. It should have a raid fame showing players health with a separate chat channel.

Often people in our guild are not always doing WvW, and using the guild chat channel for WvW coordination is not always effective. The only solution seems to be to create a new temporary multi-guild just to have a private chat channel for multiple groups. I want any influence gained to go to my primary guild, not a temporary one we had to create just so more than 5 people have a channel to communicate to each other. We also shouldn’t be forced to use a 3rd party voice program to coordinate.

There needs to be some kind of in game grouping system similar to the Warband for groups over 5 people, but not large enough to require commanders and squads. Either add a new raid grouping system and/or make the commander a public/private toggle.

It is already ok as it is. Only max 6 commanders display on a map, and those displayed are those with biggest squads.

Also, i for my guild look to buy like 4-5 commanders, since need to have them as the guild leader is not always offline, and officers leading at current time should always have it on.

I dont care if there are 100 “commanders” runing on the map – only those with actual forces will be displayed, and people will soon learn who to follow anyway by names.

No they won’t, because you can only have 5 active commanders on a map at any given time. And who gets to be active goes by seniority.

funny post. one guy says 2 commander at a time one guy says 5 one says 6 lol

There should be no more then 2 commanders per map. I dont know what the max number is, as is shown most people don’t either lol

But I do agree that the number should be limited as far as zones go. Not so much from the confusion too many will create, but also in the fact that basically anyone can be a commander, and from what I’ve seen in these opening weeks about 99% of the people trying to bark out comments in zone chat really do not get the basics of WvW play

Every time i get on WvW there is someone running the show all ready. Why would I try and change the plan that everyone is all ready following. If no one is leading then sure take up the role but other wise i just follow the army.

mangarrage.1062:

funny post. one guy says 2 commander at a time one guy says 5 one says 6 lol

There should be no more then 2 commanders per map. I dont know what the max number is, as is shown most people don’t either lol

But I do agree that the number should be limited as far as zones go. Not so much from the confusion too many will create, but also in the fact that basically anyone can be a commander, and from what I’ve seen in these opening weeks about 99% of the people trying to bark out comments in zone chat really do not get the basics of WvW play

You have no idea and your post should not be taken seriously. Commander is here not to just lead the “pugs”, but for guilds to gather own players and coordinate actions together to see who is where.

If 6 guilds from my alliance will be on amap with own groups, i expect to see 6 commander icons to see who is where and waht they are doing to plan accordingly.

in 6 months from now commander will be a pointless rank, and i won’t waste 100g for it even if i got given the money and i assume most people won’t buy it.

Look’s like this sorted itself out pretty well, people only follow Commanders that are good and the ones that aren’t are usually told to turn it off. Not everyone is fit to be a Commander, it’s just another responsibility that you can’t kitten up on otherwise prepare to hear the pug rage.

I dont want a commander icon, i have the gold but i just like it more to follow others and help them out.

I don’t see the problem. I already have a list of commanders I wont follow because they have habit of leading groups to their death, while they stand around looking confused, or better yet run because they don’t want to die.

And I have a list of commanders I would jump into the middle of a zerg trying to save, because I have seen them do the same.

And all those in between. I don’t see how that will change in 6 months.

Wryscher this thread is 6 months old, we’re now 6 months further and stil not everyone has a commanders badge :p

I may have the gold but I won’t waste my gold on a Commander icon. I’m not up for the task and I know its pressure. I’ve seen a lot of frustration when pugs don’t follow the commander. Yes, bad commanders will be blissfully ignored. Average commanders will be asked to turned off their icons as to concentrate the force on a map.

100 gold is what you pay for commitment, like when you pay for a driving license. Everyone can drive, but not all can drive a community/school bus.

Well I think the best course of action from ArenaNet would be to give commanders the option to sell back their tag. I bought a tag to try my hand at commanding. I found out that I dont like it and am not very good at it. I think alot of people just want to try it and then get bored quickly. Its stressful and you need to completely change the way you play. You have to think for the Zerg and think about yourself at the same time.

Say there is that many commanders with their tags on… over a short period of time people will learn who the competent commanders are and are not. Already there is commanders on my server when I see their tag I don’t pay much attention to it and follow along with another commander instead. I believe i’m not the only one doing this as these commanders don’t often have many people behind them very long if at all.

There are already a lot of bad commanders out there but no one can lead if people are not willing to follow.

I don’t want a commander icon. I don’t want random people following me around. I prefer small groups anyways. Some of the best groups I’ve been in didn’t have a commander.

In 6 months I still won’t have 100 gold. I spend too much on repairs and siege equipment!

Allegedly there’s a limit on how many tags will display now, so that solved that.

I’ve heard different numbers on what the limit is but I don’t think I’ve seen more than 6. I believe after that it sorts based on who has the most followers.

Although the core of my original post did come to pass:
Everyone who does PvE semi-regularly has 100g in their pocket if they want it. Nothing stops Joe Noobie from being a commander. Even if nobody is following him, I still have to mouseover all the commander icons to see where the “real” commanders are, versus the random people who had 100g in their pocket and decided they wanted to be on the map.

Anyone with a hundred gold can sport a tag. But hold a zerg together consistently day in and day out? The system, or rather the players, quickly learn which commander they prefer.

But I wonder if there ought to be some sort of color progression in the tags..that keep count of successful encounters and show players the most experienced commanders on the field?

…I remember reading this thread a LONG time ago.
I think it is an ok system and has worked well.
It even comes in handy in PVE coordinating guild events. Even though you get all the map chat rage about how a commander is not needed in PvE.
More often than not the commander pin is turned on and off a lot.
On bigger servers it is turned off sometimes so you don’t get every random following you when you are doing smaller missions. Or turn it back on to try to collect a few more bodies for a bigger one.
It is a great gold sink. I know people who have the pin on their alts too!

If they just allowed commanders to hide the pin AND still retain all the functions of the squad system…. it would be some much better. Smaller forces could still use the C&S system without flooding the map with pins and taking away from those commanders that are leading the zone.

WvW comanders are already stabilized and we know who they are, but every one can be a PVE commander, so many already! lol

This won´t be a problem, after 1/2 weeks after buying commander and using it people realize their reputation is at stake, so people naturally turn it off when they don´t think it is worth it. In some cases they still don´t, but with time they will.
In SFR happens more the opposite, we have commanders but no1 wants to lead through chat, because it is harsh to lead pugs through it. So in WvW it won´t be a problem. As for PvE idc.

What I find silly is going into Lion’s Arch and seeing a kitten ton of commander tags popped on players I’ve never seen on the field in WvW. They are a joke and I’d hazard to say, don’t even realize it.

The good news is that they stay in LA, so I’m not wading through pointless commanders in WvW beyond those I choose to not follow.

Ilesyt.7084:

Wryscher this thread is 6 months old, we’re now 6 months further and stil not everyone has a commanders badge :p

Ha! That is what I get for not paying more attention.

I don’t think so, not everyone wants the hassle.

Nah, no need for it at all. Don’t like noob zerglings, certainly don’t want a bunch following me around, would be an absolute waste of gold for a buff I’d NEVER activate.

The biggest problem for me is finding people who want to take control of a situation that is unravelling fast. Nobody wants to be “that guy” holding the hot potato of shame that is making a series of bad decisions ending in a total collapse in morale.

But making mistakes is a part of the learning process. When I came up in this game, people weren’t nearly as unforgiving as they are now towards fledgling commanders.

I used to start small in dead borderlands, rope up the 2 or 3 people that were getting spawn camped and we would go out the side entrance. We would do supply cap, yak ganking, recon or interference (fake contesting everything, watching the hapless guards come running and timing how long it takes them to react).

In the beginning things are simple, because you can’t do a whole lot when massively outmanned with only 3 people. Crucially, you have nothing to lose either. I talk to my party members in party chat and ask them to put the target reticle over my head. I relay my position and direction of travel in map chat.

As you go around doing stuff like this, more players join up and things get more complicated. Now you have enough supply on the move to take towers and later on keeps. You can split and engage large enemy forces whereas before you didn’t have to worry about battle micro, you just had to avoid enemy players altogether. Things are alot more complicated now, when you directly influence nearly a hundred people and micromanage an entire borderland but you build up to that. Even dumping a situation as complex as that on another experienced commander is enough to make their eyes bulge.

But as you are building up to that, each time you will stumble, hit a wall, make a mistake and learn to try something different next time. I don’t think its inaccurate to say that I learnt how to do the right things by getting it wrong a thousand times first.

So I respect anyone for trying. Its a rough gig to take over when things are about to turn bad and a hundred players direct their dissatisfaction towards you. Its the kind of negative attitude that makes you not want to turn your icon at all, or bail the hell out before things go south. But you only get good by sticking through the bad times and seeing your team through them too.

Theres a bit of a dilemma now. Without new blood taking on positions of responsibility and being fearless and creative, you have people who are self conscious to a fault. Alot of people paralysed for fear of screwing up and reliance on a few known players who are expected to handle the organizational bits. I think its a very serious problem.

I wish more people would turn on their icons, give it a shot and make some mistakes. I’d help you out. A hundred others would mock you, but I’ll help you out. How many commanders on your server have burnt out completely? I’ve lost count of the ones on mine except I can say authoritatively at this point that I am one of them.

Oh, I know what I could do with a commander tag since I would never activate it in WvW – activate it in LA for absolutely no reason so I can look cool. /sarcasm

LA commanders are ALMOST as annoying as horrible WvW commanders. Yeah, that’s great, I’m glad you have your blue dorito, you’re not special.

How about we get a cheaper guild-only version of commander, or better yet, just let us be able to see all guildies on the map (perhaps with a different color than party members)?

Six months later I still hardly see more than 2 blue doritos in the same map.

I was expecting this:

Since the Commander tag is the only external way of showing a rank in WvW, I think the problem starts there. (I am not even getting into ability of Commanders right now).

I would like to see a few different ranks. I mean, anyone without is basically a Private. I would like to see, at the very least, Corporal and Sergeant and have those, maybe, be given by the Commander (Commander hands out the Sergeant tags, Sergeants hand out the Corporal). Something like max 2 sergeants and 8 Corporals.

This will help with flow and organization of battles, etc. Each rank should have their own communication channels for their “squad”. The rank should also be shown when they type in the chat box, at least while they have it active, maybe a special color or something.

Just thinking out loud here. Have not put a ton of thought into it yet.

What about people without guilds? You can be a good WvW commander without having any serious guild.

As many people said, this has a very easy, and natural solution. People will follow commanders they like. New players might get confused, and follow a random commander, but if they don’t like that commander, they’ll switch to another. On my server there are quite a few commanders, but sometimes you see a few running around by themselves because everyone is going to a more known, respected commander. The tag in the end means nothing in the log run. People follow the commanders because the commanders are fun and do well. So there is really no reason to change how they are now.

I see no good way to change it now that won’t fix the “gold” sink issue. If you make it influence, people can still just farm the gold for influence. If you make it with achievements, you then have to ask: what achievements would be worth it to get which would qualify someone as a commander? (Especially since to get the WvW titles is nearly impossible over a short time). Plus, there are people who successfully use commander tags to do some PvE things (they’re actually fairly helpful in guild missions!).

Respect is earned, not bought.

Anyone can buy a tag, yes. However, it takes respect for a server to follow that tag. If you’re worthy of the tag, the server’s loyalty will show you.

PS: Being a commander is not all fun and games. In fact, I wish more people had access to the tag, just so that I can take a break from my long WvW shifts sometimes. The bad commanders eventually just keep their tag off, not wanting to deal with the problems it brings them.

PPS: I am a commander of about 2-3 active people in my guild, but I command for the server’s sake(Eredon Terrace). When I put the tag up, the server’s needs come before mine. I can honestly say my server trusts me as a whole, so I am one of those ‘Commanders without a serious guild’. I avoid the major guilds to avoid guild drama so I can focus on WvW(Used to be the commander in a large guild). It pays off being outside the guild drama-ring sometimes.

to say everyone would be over-exaggerating i guess … many perhaps, but not to the extend of everyone…

i for one not sure if i would want 1…..

Besetment.9187:

How many commanders on your server have burnt out completely? I’ve lost count of the ones on mine except I can say authoritatively at this point that I am one of them.

No commander should think they have to win the whole week or else. Excepting very rare close matches, it is out of their control. They should just focus on winning the map, or even lone fights they are in, while they are on, and building the trust of the people that follow them so everyone can have an enjoyable time while they are playing, and not worry so much about catching up for what happens when then are off.

I think far too often commanders feel they have to keep playing till everything is perfect. Too often it never gets perfect and then they’ll just quit the map after a particularly bad defeat, or when they feel no one is listening, which actually leaves things in an even worse place. Not least for the commander, who has now left with a bitter feeling, instead of just knowing they did what they could while on, and passed things on at the first sign they felt fatigue.

JemL.3501:

in six months you ll have identify who can be worth of following and who not, aside that, having more than one in the field is good, so you can split better the forces if you can organize it.

Word for word.

I would like for them to have more than one tag.

For example, how about some guild tags on the field? So that guilds working in squads could stick with their leader more easily.

Or ..what about the ability to change the color of the commander tag? Then we could strategically follow the green one instead of the blue one quickly without having to hover over the tag for the name.

I do think we need a middle ground tag, a squad leader that a commander can assign per play session, but doesn’t last beyond that.

Then he can delineate smaller tasks and still have a leader for that group. Assign Bob a squad leader to go take a camp and bring back supply to build some trebs, or whatever. These smaller groups can then be integrated in and out of a larger force as necessary, without the confusion of another full commander on the map, pulling randoms away from a principal objective.

Did Ahmrill.7512 posted already? He’s always in those threads about commander’s UI.

Actually 6 months from now everyone will be playing that other game with 3way pvp. I just read the new info and its amazing. everything an ex daoc player could want