Guild Wars 2

If you’re a commander, I ask you sit through and read what I have typed. It will only take a few minutes of your time.

A good commander can shift the tide of WvW to their server’s favor. The tag doesn’t denote good commanding skills, it only goes to show who has the money to buy a tag. Everyone knows this. And I have seen several good commanders coming from my server – which is commendable for a server that is almost always outnumbered 3 to 1.

Just a few days ago, with some good tactical strategy, our server rose to second place and took a decent lead against an opposing server. It was pretty darn impressive, seeing how we had been stuck with third for days, and managed to switch places in only a few hours. Everyone was intent to keep it that way until the end of the week.

But instead of working together and pushing to keep second place, drama and arguing broke out, resulting in a ‘punishment’ to the entire server(how this resulted I don’t understand). The result: we lost what we gained faster than the time it took to get it.

Being a commander is difficult. It’s not a skill you can pick up right away, and it’s not a skill you can learn without dropping the gold for the tag. Those following the tag and insulting commanders put pressure and strife for everyone on the map. It only makes everything worse.

But a commander also has to know how to handle people like this. The commander carries the responsibility of the server winning. It’s totally understandable if someone needs a break to get fresh air – in the end, it’s only a game. Go and live your life outside of GW2. But I would not expect to see commanders to purposely turn their back on an entire WvW community and issue a ‘punishment’ to the whole server as a result. Frankly, I am personally disappointed with how my server has handled this situation. Commanders do not possess such power, no matter what money, guild, influence, or whatever else they may have.

Commanders aren’t above the people they command – without a zerg there’s nothing but a nice easy target. They’re there to lead the zerg. A zerg without direction will just disperse and get picked off one by one. The end result is the opponent winning and everyone on your side losing.

If you’re a commander, don’t let yourself get provoked. And don’t answer with retaliation of any sort. It will solve nothing. It won’t fix anything. Those that come to WvW to win and have fun will be the only ones that suffer due to your actions. The backlash of purposely allowing an opposing server to win, goes against the integrity of a commander. Those that insult and ridicule probably don’t even care enough to contribute, and just want to prove their ego. This is the worst kind of people and are best to be ignored.

I’m not going to name what server I witnessed this from, nor the person(s) who were involved. I wanted to say my piece, and I hope all commanders on any server will take this to consideration. Maybe one day I’ll actually put in the effort to gather the gold and get a tag of my own.

Or…. If you are not tagged up and think you can do better, tag up. Nothing worse than a back seat driver…..

Commanding a large group of people is hard work. If I’m tagged up and start getting nonconstructive flak from the people I’m leading, then you bet your kitten I’m untagging and running a guild group instead. If you have suggestions, phrase them that way. I respond in kind. If you’re insulting me, why should I put up with that?

Hello Atrophied,

There will always be detractors no matter how you lead, even if you are best commander in any game there will be that 1% who don’t agree and voice it out. This is a game, not army.

Put them on /ignore. Seriously. It works and it’s wonderful.

No point disappointing 99% of the silent majority who support and love you. If you decide to leave WvW because of the 1% it’s your ego talking, not your head. Becareful, there’s a life lesson in there somewhere.

FW

Atrophied.8725:

Commanding a large group of people is hard work. If I’m tagged up and start getting nonconstructive flak from the people I’m leading, then you bet your kitten I’m untagging and running a guild group instead. If you have suggestions, phrase them that way. I respond in kind. If you’re insulting me, why should I put up with that?

I assume you are talking about CD and EB. EB received some transfers last night, hence the high PPT we maintained.

Arikyali.5804:

which is commendable for a server that is almost always outnumbered 3 to 1.

The absolute worst trait in a commander is blaming everything on numbers.

“We are outnumbered 3 to 1”
“I need more numbers on my sigil”
“Everyone rally on me”

These are great quotes for discovering what commanders I will never follow. A good commander would sludge through his / her responsibilities regardless if he / she has nobody or 50 players with him / her.

As a commander, I say “get on me” once.
If I get less than 5 people I just tag down. They can keep running unorganized and wiping to camp cappers for all I care. I just go in TS, find another commander and follow.

Forcing people to follow you will never work and is most likely why your commanders failed.

Commanders are natural targets, because of their tag and because they are leading. As a result they become the brunt of all abuse—players sending them whispers or map chat, insults, hair brain advice, complaints they are doing it wrong etc. Most commanders just play through all this. Commanders are people too, just like you, if you want them to stand up then you need to support them, even defend them when you see them being denigrated.

Commanders get better over time but, many armchair commander types are eager to harp on what they perceive as immediate faults although none step up to lead themselves.

Here is a suggestion—If you see a commander make a mistake and it really kitten es you off just don’t follow him. I guarantee that others are telling him if you are not. If you see a commander do well or you have fun following him let him know. When you log off or take a break tell him he did a good job. If a commander thinks people like following him he will be more likely to log on and continue getting better.

I’ve been commanding for almost 10 months now. I’ve realized some things that pertain to this whole discussion.

First: numbers matter. If you’re actually out numbered 3 to 1 you’re not getting far.

Second: When you’re out numbered you have to rely on the quality of your troops. Are they staying on the tag well? Do they have proper builds (uplevels in random garbage are not properly built, but uplevels in full “Hearty” are)? Are they all getting into teamspeak? Are they keeping bloodthirst for squirrels from getting the best of em? The answer to this question is quick: Are they eternal battleground pugs? If yes you can’t rely on their quality. If they’re guild it depends on your guild’s culture. Your hardcore WvW guild will be better built than a PvX guild.

If you fail at getting numbers and fail at getting quality you won’t be able to win any fights. This leads to the third part.

Third: Can you evade the enemy zergs? You’ll be constantly PVDoor. You’ll fight so long as the enemy resistance is minimal. You can’t linger in any location for longer than 3 minutes. Are your pugs in with following your strategy of evasion? This means they’ll have to be quick to waypoint, stay relatively well on the tag and above all be FAST.

Barring 3: yea. If you call for “everyone get on my tag” and you don’t even get the time of day there’s no point tagging up. You’re just a kitten with a shiny name plate on the minimap at that point. I’ve tried to do strategies to wipe the opposing server when we’re out numbered but I need our server’s players to do it. If they’re just gonna kitten at the spawn camp spot then I’ll tag down. They punish themselves.

I used to tag up often before leagues. After leagues started though I just don’t even bother anymore. We are always facing servers with a huge player/coverage advantage now. Every Night since league started no matter who is commanding we slowly lose everything in our bl and eb. Sometimes if were really really lucky we can hold them off at our eb keep and just back cap everything over and over. Old gliko system was better. Ya we faced a lot of the same servers over and over but they were good matches. Not the stupid blowouts we have had every week of league.

Thanks for your post.. Cant describe how i had to read this. Dindnt look at it the way you described it . from the view of the few who are loyal and do their job and best to follow you. Leaving because of some clowns only hurts the loyal.

Cheers Boet

I think a big part of this is due to the new player influx from leagues and league cheevs. There were maybe ~10-15 commanders that I would see several times a week and now I rarely see any of them (YBer here).

A handful of times I did see them, there would be bickering in chat on “why are you doing this”, “that was stupid”, etc. Occasionally I find them detagged, running with their guilds. I think that those that had played wvw more from the beginning have learned that, yes you will lose. How badly you could lose over and over again is just not something the new players were used to and a vocal few lash out. For a lot of these servers, mindset has to be that I’m fighting Teq with 10 people. Of course, they also aren’t as used to fighting tactics, style, … carrying suppy at all times, etc. Having an unknown quality of fighting force, you really just end up PVDooing as lioka mentioned.

These reasons (among others that people have offered up) does seem to have resulted in a lot less visible commanders. Considering much of ANet’s advice for people new to wvw for leagues has been “get in there and follow a commander”, this is a bit disheartening.

That said, I certainly agree with most of the commanders post here – it’s just really hard with the circumstances and by and large not worth it (as it won’t be fun for you). People have requested various solutions to this, but to stay close to topic, do you think having the ability to have different kinds of tag functionality could be useful here? (guild tag only visible to guildies, ‘pug’ tag visible to all, etc)

As Chuck Z posted above with a greatly out manned force defeat seams imminent. Slower if you fight hard but still in time you lose. I have commanded for close to 10 months. I wasn’t the most frequent commander but for the last 30 days I have lead forces almost every night. Some times I sigil sometimes I don’t. Looking at the OP comments of " The commander carries the responsibility of the server winning." I have to strongly disagree specifically because of FanWong’s comment " This is a game, not army."

In this game a Commander has no authority. They can direct but they cannot order. They can suggest and cajole, shout beg or whatever other method of communication you please but without actual control and authority the responsibility for victory is not the commanders. It is shared among the population. This is a game, there is freedom, even if i find myself frustrated by a lack of organization I know that that freedom is part of the draw for people to enjoy the game.

The sigiled commander is responsible to do the best with what they have available at the time. I sigil when my guild is with me. I have some authority over them. They will listen and execute my directions. The population in their freedom and personal wisdom may be fickle or less responsive but a well built force that is trained, loyal and confident can make a huge impact on the ease of command and in victory.

OP- "Commanders aren’t above the people they command – without a zerg there’s nothing but a nice easy target. " I disagree here as well. You say Commanders aren’t above the people they command then you heap the responsibility for victory on their shoulders, Which is it? Your just another guy or your the servers savior / excuse?
“They’re there to lead the zerg.” – this comment , wow just wow. You think that command can be condensed to “lead the zerg” really? You have to know how wrong that is and all of the reasons.

You are not Kerrigan you cannot control the zerg.

This being said. Outnumbered means nothing if you have quality players.

I commanded since moth 3 in WvW. I stopped about 3 months before leagues with 50/50 between arguing with those 1%s and other half wanting to let other comms get xp leading while I did more work behind the scenes with guild groups of 5-15.

Coming back with leagues to command. I have found that ignoring the bs and chatter to be the best thing you can do. Try to communicate clearly and give people time to actually follow and you will see a change in how this happen.

I would say the best commanders understand how much power they really have in outcomes of the matches. I think some of the newer and less experienced commanders don’t realize they are make or break.

Also winning isn’t just a matter of a numerical score that measures number of players on the maps more than anything. Everyone can tell when they are winning battles that may not change the artificial score that much. It feels great to win.