Guild Wars 2

Should be the ability to purchase it once you attain Politics V, along with the 100g cost.

This means you either spent an extreme amount of gold to buy influence for your guild, or you have a large enough guild to warrant the Commander status.

As for retro action, give back 100g to the people who already purchased it.

I have to agree. Too many credit card commanders who aren’t good at leading and just want attention.

Commander status should be bought with influence points through the guild and should be voted for by the guild members themselves on who gets the title.

I.e. Commander status costs 2,000,000 Influence Points and whoever gets it must be resolved by the people in the guild themselves

This basically means that the guild and its members has been there long enough to accumulate the huge amount of influence points. This also encourages bigger united guilds as opposed to smaller scattered guilds.

Commander status should be bought with influence points through the guild and should be voted for by the guild members themselves on who gets the title.
I.e. Commander status costs 2,000,000 Influence Points and whoever gets it must be resolved by the people in the guild themselves
This basically means that the guild and its members has been there long enough to accumulate the huge amount of influence points. This also encourages bigger united guilds as opposed to smaller scattered guilds.

The right to buy it would cost influence, similar to how you buy guild armor/weapons. How much that cost will probably be in line with other level V permanent upgrades (deep cove is the only one I think, and it’s 30,000)

You’re kidding me right?

Just for a Squad Chat and up to 25 people involved? Also from a guild? What about the players who have a lot of friends and like to put together small groups in WvW and take up the leadership role?

I am in a guild, but in WvW I spend more time creating small groups from the ground up and trying to run them at times. I run a support build as well.

Influence annoys me to no end because the larger the guild, the more advantage they get in WvW. Remember the Ruin Guild? They had literally everything you could possibly get…

As far as commander goes, the funny thing is that a player can pay 100g but guess what! Sooner or later no one outside of new players will listen to the commander while the more advanced commanders will become known by the community.

You’re kidding me right?
Just for a Squad Chat and up to 25 people involved? Also from a guild? What about the players who have a lot of friends and like to put together small groups in WvW and take up the leadership role?
I am in a guild, but in WvW I spend more time creating small groups from the ground up and trying to run them at times. I run a support build as well.
Influence annoys me to no end because the larger the guild, the more advantage they get in WvW. Remember the Ruin Guild? They had literally everything you could possibly get…
As far as commander goes, the funny thing is that a player can pay 100g but guess what! Sooner or later no one outside of new players will listen to the commander while the more advanced commanders will become known by the community.

larger guilds have a larger influence on WvW, by far. If they don’t care about WvW, they won’t get politics level 5, plain and simple.

What about the worlds without those massive guilds? Are you saying low pop servers aren’t allowed to have commanders? No, just make it cost badges.

You don’t have to follow/listen to Commanders you feel are bad.

Rhongomyniad.5081:

You don’t have to follow/listen to Commanders you feel are bad.

Well that gets rid of 99% of the commanders I’ve seen. Good to know. lol

I thought one of the puposes (IMO the main pupose) to commander icons is to orginize the zergs. and why does being in a large guild suddenly make you fit to do that? I was the leader of a small friends guild until it fell apart. now It’s a one man guild. does this make me somehow less fit to lead in WVW then some PVE commander whos taken it into his head to pop into WVW?

Fortunately it only makes up 0.01% of Commanders I know =D

Joining a squad of a Commander you are following erases all other icons from your map. Akso in small groups you can ctrl + T (target) whomever you decide on leading for easy Command and control without the whole map seeing – I know mtself and others on my server have begun doing this, especially for covert action.

At the end of the day though, it is your choice whether to follow or lead, with or without the icon. Generally though I think the community will weed out bad Commanders.

I’m from a carebear guild of 200+ players, only 20+ of us actually play WvW. Your method would allow us to sell guild spots to commanders who need it.

I actually like it.

Personally, I think the entire commander system needs to be reworked with a few vital changes to make it actually worth having in the game. I am a commander myself, so this is speaking from experience.

I agree with the sentiment that gold should not be the currency used to acquire Commander tags. I think that a Commander tag should be purchased through a combination of two forms of in-game currency – Guild Influence and Badges of Honour. The guild should purchase a level V upgrade allowing them to purchase Commander tags, much like guild armorer and weapon-smith. That would then open a merchat that sells the Commander tag for Badges of Honour – preferably an amount of Badges that increases dependent on how many commanders a guild already has.

By using this method of buying Commander tags, you are limiting the tags to guilds that have enough Influence and members to warrant a tag, and the members within said guilds who are heavily active in World vs World. While not a perfect solution, it does mean that attaining a Commander tag would require more than just a credit card.

Following on from this, I would change the ways a Commander tag can be used. In particular, an option to turn a Commander tag on so it is visible only to guild members and/or friends would be a great feature. This would make organising things on a guild level much easier to do and mean your guild can go sort of incognito on the battlefield if needed.

Some changes I think should be implemented, though not as high of a priority, would be a Commander rating system. This would be a means through which players can give a commander positive, or negative, ratings in WvW – meaning other players have a better idea of whether or not they are worth following. I would also like to see more incentives for a player to join a Commander’s squad – boons of some description, extra loot, more dots on the map – anything which means that players actually use the Squad function. Possibly even a system through which Commanders can reward players who join their squad.

Anywho, that’s my 2 cents. Take it or leave it. :P

lower the gold cost and make it also cost badges.

I like the rating system Naerin mentioned!

This would add a community eval to Commanders. Making it guild specific I fear will limit the ability of smaller guilds who do not focus on WvW but wish to have ad hoc events with their own Commanders from participating.

Off the top of my head though there will need to be some thought to ensure the rating system isn’t ’abused’ - eg cliques forming etc.

Ultimately in the current system I feel developing a culture of simply not following bad Commanders will nullify any poor judgement they wish to impose.

Tying badges of honor to the icon might not work to me as not all Commanders focus on killing - allowing the squad to do that, instead spending time communicating at each new objective and planning the next few courses of action. Perhaps a pre req on terms of objectives completed? (However then nearly the whole Zerg might qualify).

The system is flawed, yes – if you don’t use it correctly.
You get your server to work together. You get your commanders to talk and get things moving in ONE direction. When get you get on a WvW map – JOIN the commander (who you like) squad – get your guild mates to join too. The Commander icon was meant to be spammed across the map. Yes eventually there will be 100’s of commanders – One for each guild but you have to learn which commanders are good – and which commanders are bad.

This, in my opinion, should be how it is:

Imagine, your commanders are organized – They log into WvW and join predefined coms with the other say 4 commanders on the map. There is ONLY those 5 in there. They jump to their map, and get their squad together. Say, each commander has 25 people in his squad – each commander is communicating via voice and relaying the plan (through /squad) to the people in his squad on what their duties are. ALL of this is done without /team or /map. Why? Because they are using /squad – the members of this squad know their duty. For those 125 people (5commanders 25per squad) the only thing that matters is WHAT their commander says. Map chat has no meaning.

As time goes on, a brand new Credit card commander joins the map, looking all cool with his blue tag and says “everyone follow me to Stonemist!” No one follows him. Your map commanders PM this guy and try to get him on board (either by turning off his tag and joining a squad OR by creating a new squad and working with the other commanders). If the commander turns out to be a kitten (we all know that type right?) then the commanders advise their respective squads, the people in the squads take note, and life moves on.

(…and as a pug zerg player you learn WHICH commanders are good and which commanders you should stay away from. Soon enough those bad commanders will turn off the tag and fade into the background because they don’t like playing alone.)

I am glad that the commander skill book is ONLY 100g (personally does not bother me if there was a badge requirement or a ‘time spent in wv3’ requirement – all I do is pvp so meh) if the bar were higher we might miss out on some good commanders. We even had one commander on our server – we pretty much promised him we would not make fun of him for doing Gems → gold to get his. WHY? because he is a good commander – we needed the icon.

TL;DR: Get organized. Use the tools provided properly. Don’t follow/encourage bad commanders. Join commander Squads. Use Squad chat. (cuts down on spies too :P)

Commander Subtle from Yaksbend.

Putting everyone who uses it incorrectly in the same listing as people who use it for it’s intention simply because you had a bad experience seems kind of silly to me..

As a Commander I usually turn it off if we’re making moves that involve a level of subterfuge that the blue icon might disrupt, or if I’m not in WvW; it really is that easy. It can be just clicked off.

On Fort Aspenwood the other Commanders and I have spent every night we’ve taken our guilds into WvW getting ready in whispers to each other, some of the other Commanders have come on Unlimited’s TeamSpeak to ask what map and with how many? Whether we wanted one of the other guilds to come with us, or our thoughts on what to hit hard and what to let slide for the point gain in the long run.

I think the complaints about Commanders are situational, but following some simple common sense rules should set you straight. IF you have a blue icon and you don’t plan on making use of the group willing to follow you via the organization you have at your fingertips, turn it off.

If you see a Commander being trollsy and refusing to turn it off, ignore him and move with a different group. I find it hard to believe there’s only 1 Commander per map.

Leadership has little or nothing to do with title or authority. Similarly, the commander pin has little or nothing to do with guilds.

I don’t dispute the power of enablers on influence but enablers are not a requirement for influence.

It’s intention is to be guild based, otherwise it wouldn’t cost 100g. Commanders should be guild elect (GUILD wars) and supported.

Besides how it works now (terribly), this topic is just about how it’s obtained.

Its too late in the game to even discuss this, the bads have their creditcardcommander badge, and you aint getting it off them.

Psy.6153:

Its too late in the game to even discuss this, the bads have their creditcardcommander badge, and you aint getting it off them.

give them a refund of 100g.

Disen.8620:

Commander status should be bought with influence points through the guild and should be voted for by the guild members themselves on who gets the title.

I.e. Commander status costs 2,000,000 Influence Points and whoever gets it must be resolved by the people in the guild themselves

This basically means that the guild and its members has been there long enough to accumulate the huge amount of influence points. This also encourages bigger united guilds as opposed to smaller scattered guilds.

Sorry, but just because you’re in a small guild SHOULD NOT be a reason a player cannot get the Commander Title. Guild size has nothing to do with leadership and most large guilds are just random zergs. While I agree 100 gold flat out isn’t the best solution, forcing it to be a guild matter is ridiculous and stupid. Influence has NOTHING to do with leadership – NOTHING.

I would much rather see requirements such as:

1. Must take over 200 towers/keeps.
2. Must have X amount of hours in WvW maps.
3. Must have 1000 kills.
4. Cost 100 gold.

Those four combined would be better than anything that has to do with guilds, etc.

Daedalus.3954:

If you see a Commander being trollsy and refusing to turn it off, ignore him and move with a different group. I find it hard to believe there’s only 1 Commander per map.

actually, in ferg’s crossing… there are often 0 commander tags

having 2+ at all times in each map is a concept that would make my brain explode. i follow whatever commander i see because theyre such a rare commodity. at least until i have an opinion of them.

ferg’s! where the last queue i saw was at match reset 3 weeks ago! and it was only like 10 mins! and only on 1 map! always play, never wait!

Subtle.4596:

The system is flawed, yes – if you don’t use it correctly.
You get your server to work together. You get your commanders to talk and get things moving in ONE direction. When get you get on a WvW map – JOIN the commander (who you like) squad – get your guild mates to join too. The Commander icon was meant to be spammed across the map. Yes eventually there will be 100’s of commanders – One for each guild but you have to learn which commanders are good – and which commanders are bad.

This, in my opinion, should be how it is:

Imagine, your commanders are organized – They log into WvW and join predefined coms with the other say 4 commanders on the map. There is ONLY those 5 in there. They jump to their map, and get their squad together. Say, each commander has 25 people in his squad – each commander is communicating via voice and relaying the plan (through /squad) to the people in his squad on what their duties are. ALL of this is done without /team or /map. Why? Because they are using /squad – the members of this squad know their duty. For those 125 people (5commanders 25per squad) the only thing that matters is WHAT their commander says. Map chat has no meaning.

As time goes on, a brand new Credit card commander joins the map, looking all cool with his blue tag and says “everyone follow me to Stonemist!” No one follows him. Your map commanders PM this guy and try to get him on board (either by turning off his tag and joining a squad OR by creating a new squad and working with the other commanders). If the commander turns out to be a kitten (we all know that type right?) then the commanders advise their respective squads, the people in the squads take note, and life moves on.

(…and as a pug zerg player you learn WHICH commanders are good and which commanders you should stay away from. Soon enough those bad commanders will turn off the tag and fade into the background because they don’t like playing alone.)

I am glad that the commander skill book is ONLY 100g (personally does not bother me if there was a badge requirement or a ‘time spent in wv3’ requirement – all I do is pvp so meh) if the bar were higher we might miss out on some good commanders. We even had one commander on our server – we pretty much promised him we would not make fun of him for doing Gems -> gold to get his. WHY? because he is a good commander – we needed the icon.

TL;DR: Get organized. Use the tools provided properly. Don’t follow/encourage bad commanders. Join commander Squads. Use Squad chat. (cuts down on spies too :P)

Commander Subtle from Yaksbend.

Daedalus.3954:

Putting everyone who uses it incorrectly in the same listing as people who use it for it’s intention simply because you had a bad experience seems kind of silly to me..

As a Commander I usually turn it off if we’re making moves that involve a level of subterfuge that the blue icon might disrupt, or if I’m not in WvW; it really is that easy. It can be just clicked off.

On Fort Aspenwood the other Commanders and I have spent every night we’ve taken our guilds into WvW getting ready in whispers to each other, some of the other Commanders have come on Unlimited’s TeamSpeak to ask what map and with how many? Whether we wanted one of the other guilds to come with us, or our thoughts on what to hit hard and what to let slide for the point gain in the long run.

I think the complaints about Commanders are situational, but following some simple common sense rules should set you straight. IF you have a blue icon and you don’t plan on making use of the group willing to follow you via the organization you have at your fingertips, turn it off.

If you see a Commander being trollsy and refusing to turn it off, ignore him and move with a different group. I find it hard to believe there’s only 1 Commander per map.

Quoted for truth. Totally agree!

As one of the IRON commanders from Deslation I have to say: It currently works great on our server. All commanders on a map just work with each other, most of us are on comms with each other every day, we know who does what best, we know who we can trust with specific tasks and so on. We coordinate our commanders in the guild to take shifts, we work of each other and everyone in the guild helps out with suggestions on our general strategy when there is some down-time where we just fortify or run supplies.

The best thing of all: People that are not in IRON or one of the allied guilds are now actually joining our v-com quite frequently. We try to relay all information abou what we are doing and also WHY we are doing it (as long as there is time to type this out) to everyone on /map or /team, so people learn tactics and adapt to similar situations more quickly in the future.

It works: We are very successfull in working together with other commanders, working with people not in the guild. The whole server has understood we need commanders and they have figured out that what IRON (and our allies) does works. The guild designates guild-officers, those officers (if they are WvW officers) then buy their commander-title (if they don’t have the gold to do so, they will be crowd funded by guildies). This is how it should be, no one becomes officer because he bought a commander title for himself.

I wouldn’t mind having other requirements for the commander-title as well, but I don’t thing its needed.

- Bloodsteel