Guild Wars 2

I could see the initial color for 300 gold so as to make the PvE commanders have something, but I would hope they make the other colors purchasable with badges/ranks.

Addendum: Though mind you badges and ranks are just as redundant as gold now that EotM is the “go to” game mode.

Nokaru.7831:

If you cannot afford it yourself, then perhaps friends or guildmates of yours can chip in. That was how the first players obtained their tags in the early days of the game.

Some people don’t like begging people for gold like some sort of moocher. Especially when it’s only because Anet refuses to throw a bone to the WvW community.

For all those asking for the price to be changed into badges:

• Badges will never be a primary currency because of the achievement chest giveaways and EoTM k-train.
• There is no way to obtain badges through gems/gemstore.

You wanted different tag colours for WvW to help organise your maps better?

Now you can purchase them using more gold you could possibly ever obtain in two years of dedicated WvW playing!

... Apparently these tags are exclusive to PvE players or WvW guilds that receive funding from PvE players. 300 gold per colour is... Insane really.

I’d also recommend them to provide an alternative by making them purchasable with badges as well, but ArenaNet doesn’t seem too interested in making more use of badges...

Poster above me makes a fair point however. EotM karma trains have significantly de-valued Badges of Honor. My purposed solution? Implement Badges of Honor v2.0 (we can call them Badges of Glory or something), that can only be obtained in actual WvW (so, not in EotM, just to be clear on what actual WvW means), therefore have a more reliable predictable income rate and as a result can be tied to rewards more easily.

Badges of Honor should then stop dropping completely and only usable at a legacy badge vendor to turn in any you still have.

Can’t wait to see what other brilliant features are in store for WvW in the feature pack now that they’ve set the bar incredibly low.

Imo, I can’t see how you’d (practically) need more than 3 tags on a map.

1. Introduce specific colours for WvW commanders – blue > bronze > silver > etc.
2. Have these unlockable through WvW rank progression.
3. Have these payable for using badges.
4. If you must, make these only available in WvW.

WvW-specific commander icons tied to WvW progression and paid for using WvW currency.

Do it.

Hello Tyrians,

I am Humbrauck, a french player from Jade Sea, I should probably write all this in french on the french official forum, but I think I must do it here before.

Today, I want to speak with you about the update of commander tag. All I will write under is what ArenaNet feed me by feeding other peoples at GamesCom and on Reddit.

The price for a tag will be 300 gold, this is not a bad idea for me, who give more importance to this capacity, that’s what we hope for developpers, they well-balanced the game, our game.
Then we should get more colors on our tags. What a great idea to! We must use this to live best organized WvW matches! But, here is my first problem, why should I pay more just for one color ? People are not all going to buy two, three four… colors. So organization will be the same, just more colorfull.
And last point, I want to speak about refunding. I know ArenaNet will give refunding to player who buy 4 or more tags. You must refund players when you change price like that, we are all agree. But not lik this…

So what am I thinking to make it best ? Just two points, keeping philosophy of course.
• Put price for an other color lower (some will says, all colors for 300g no more money required, some other will say it must be a honor badges price -I am not here to judge of this, but you must do something.)
• Refund players of 100 gold for each tag they got. Or let those who just have one, two or three wuth their tag soul bound. I know the support is going to be charged of refunding, it mean you can change the rule if you want.

Why am I hoping you will do something and change the decision you take ? Because ArenaNet Staff is near of community. I am on European servers, I never see one of them in WvW, PvE, PvP… But since I read the MMO Manifest, since I look all they give for us (updates, events, social network investissement, etc) I know they can change a position (whatever, people are going to try after, thinking you will always change of statement) because they can see that’s some points of MMO Manifest are not matching with this changes.
Colin Johanson, you were saying “we will never put grinding, not vertical objectives”. I saw it when ascended is account bound, but not here. I don’t want to be obliged to swung thousand of sword just for my tag.

So, to conclude, if you are plaers, you can agrreed my message using the function “+1” on this post and share reactions below.
And if you are those guys in Guild Wars 2 Team (with a big T) going to defend us, and show us an action of collaborative development !

For Tyria ! For our Community Spirit !

Have a nice game and a nice day,
—Humbrauck

This is the dumbest, greediest, most evil thing anet has managed to come up with. 300g for a color change for a feature that should have been in the game 2 years ago. Yeah, no thanks.

Jamais vu.5284:

Every color 300g.
Really?
REALLY??!

My reaction exactly. I was trying to compose something cynical or sarcastic about the whole situation, but… the situation is beyond words. Only a lot of felines.

edit: No wonder the devs feel uncomfortable discussing upcoming patches/changes. kittening kitten!

I made a hyperbole about what if tags suddenly went up to 300g…. and this crap happens.

Honestly, I think I should just buy one for lulz but I don’t know. >.>

An easy solution is WvW-specific commander icons (same colors as WvW levels) tied to WvW progression (blue > bronze>silver> gold etc) and paid for using WvW currency (badges – some gold if you must).

Dasken.5670:

or for us WvWers have the initial tag at 300g (standard light blue) and have the additional colors (even if WvW limited) at 50g + 2000 Badges or Honor.

There are PvE EOTM karma/badge farmers with way more badges than any of your dedicated regular WvW players right now.

Absolutely ridiculously expensive. They can only justify this if they greatly increase the rewards for wvw. Right now it’s pretty much a gold neutral endeavor (most gold people make they reinvest into siege/upgrades/food/ascended gear).

WvW rank up chests should contain at least 1g instead of 15-20 silver.
WvW rank up chests should containt at least 1 rare.
Both of these are legit since they are comparable rewards to pve.
Objective captures should scale gold reward with upgrade level. Eg. capture of a fully upgraded keep should give at least 1g.

Dear Anet. Where do I start.

1: You make all your WvW decisions for 2 years based on PvP.

2: You create a system that pulls people out of team based WvW, and turns into a place where people just ktrain until they are platinum level nubcakes.

3: you claim “fixes are coming soon” for, again…forever.

And when you MAKE THE FIXES, YOU CHARGE US FOR THEM? Seriously?

You guys bank on the whiny people on the forums just being a small part of the bla bla bla but let me tell you something, Commanders are already frustrated with this game and its bleh system of command. If the handful of good ones on each server say kitten it, it WILL effect your bottom line.

Maybe you dont care because your off developing my little pony the bloodthirsty adventures. It sure as hell feels that way.

How about doing something that doesnt frustrate your player base.

Joey.2769:

Only place we will all still see blue doritos will be WvW lol

Quoted for truth

I’m here to sign this as well. The news of individual colors as separate purchases gave me a case of cognitive dissonance. It defeats the purpose of having colored commander tags.

Having the option to choose what color you’re tagging up would at least help break the zerg up. One theoretical example would be Queens Jubilee. Imagine having six commanders with different colors. Each commander would yell in mapchat, saying “Green needs two more”, “Blue need four”, “Pink needs only one more,” etc. Another would be Jungle Wurm; each commander would yell out how much they need in numbers. Finally, the Marionette fight showed that mapchat can be used to organize a pick-up group. If it were implemented back then, it would have been easier to organize by yelling the color tag of the commander rather than typing in their name and, in turn, forcing people to hover over their tags to get their name.

For WvW, it would help out by splitting a zergball when it reaches capacity. If Blue Commander wants to be defensive, they can broadcast that in mapchat and refer to Red Commander as the aggressive commander. It can also be a color coded rule within the WvW community. Red commander is aggressive, blue is defensive, green is a guild run zerg, pink would be someone roaming or scouting.

Purchasing individual colors stifles ease of organization. Imagine a map where there are two commanders, and both commanders want to split up to cover more ground. But both commanders have the same colors as tags, and the whole thing reverts to the old ways.

I’m trying to think of reasons why this current model was chosen:

One reason I can think of is guilds would be purchasing these for their designated commanders. Guild A is designated as the Blue commanders guild, whereas Guild B is designated as Red commanders guild. If this is the case, then they should have the commander tag purchasable by Influence.

This is a gold sink in the wrong place guys.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

Fudge.9527:

Are we seriously getting charged for a functionality improvement?

Different colors weren’t requested for cosmetic reasons, these aren’t like quaggan backpacks.

Yep. Hey, it’s “Aren’t-charging-enough-Yet” we’re talking about here.

goldenwing.8473:

Can we really assume that the new colored tags are specifically designed for WvW, instead of being added for PvE? I mean, it’s important to keep the PuGs for The Wurm following the correct tag, never mind ensuring no one other than select players can see their leader for Guild Missions.

Specifically designed for WvW or not, ArenaNet can create an opportunity out of it if they’re willing. It’s about thinking outside the box and saying,

“Hey, things have gotten pretty bad with the WvW community. How about we scrap the idea of increasing the commander tag cost to 300g as well as having to purchase a separate compendium for each color. Instead, let’s just allow players to change the color at will with a single purchase. Then we add gem store items that allow you to change the icon’s appearance and profit from it that way.”

Tags were originally conceived as an aid to WvW. It’s great that players were creative enough to leverage their use in PvE, too. But having been initially tied to WvW and the WvW community requesting this addition since beta, it’s now something of a slap in the face to both increase the cost 300% and require a new purchase for each additional color.

Leave it to ArenaNet to take a good idea and then mess it up. Word comes out that colored tags are finally going to be added to the game and it looks like they’re taking 2 steps forward. Then they go and milk it for more gold and they take 2 steps back again. Of course, they’ll take the tact of, “Hey, we gave you what you asked for: colored commander tags. What more do you want, you ingrates?!?” Clueless.

/shakes head

I agree with your concerns, however, I still want to point out that I don’t think this was designed with WvW players in mind: (which btw, I’m not saying is ok). There’s a pattern of concept implementation without totally understanding the player experience or understanding consequences.

Agree with the /shakes head (been doing that since Nov 2012).

goldenwing.8473:

@Nutz and Kraag Deadsoul: was just trying to point out that even though WvW players believe tags are for WvW, we cannot assume that the changes are related to WvW, since PvE also benefits. Given the cost structure of the changes, do you really think these were aimed specifically at WvW? I’m not putting this one in the WvW bucket just yet (given currently stated implementation.)

What about buying the tag for 300g, with the ability to choose which colour you want, and then every additional colour you wish can be unlocked for, for example, 1000 Badges of Honor each

Anet absolutely needs to change this before it goes live.

This shows how out of touch arenaNet is with their own playerbase/community.

I’m expecting more cashgrabs like these to be announced for WvW over the next few weeks.

Thread on general forum.

Page 2 for the couple of posts outlining the real issue with WvW.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Commander-tags-will-become-account-bound/first

Against all odds, the level of incompetence and inability to understand what features players actually want has gone up another notch.

Would it be too much to ask of arenanet to simply refund current commanders their commander compendium back? This way those of us who’ve had our commander badges since launch when 100g could buy many many precursors/supported the game in early development could simply choose whichever colour we wanted for our account?

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

Zepher.7803:

buy colored tags…..wow, that is just rude and makes no sense, so this idea has to be a joke.

Big mistake on their part. Given how they’ve soured their relationship with the WvW community, the better option would have been to allow us to choose what color we want when we want without having to pay extra gold for it. A fence mending gesture, if you will.

Then they should add the ability to change the icon used for the tag. Make that the means of monetizing the tags by putting it on the gem store (“This week only in the gem store: 20% off the pink Quaggan commander tag icon! Get YOUR’s today!!!”).

If they were a little more creative with their monetization schemes, they wouldn’t have to resort to nickle-and-diming us for the commander tags. Instead, give a freebie, generate good will, then add in a gem store purchase tied to the freebie and watch as players flock to buy it. It’s not a pay-to-win; it’s purely cosmetic.

I have to wait and see but if players have to purchase additional colors then …yeah that’s a huge middle finger, especially if no functionality was added to the commander squad system(private raids, more squad info etc).

I’m with you on the gem shop tag skins, I’m sure the Quaggan tag or the Super Adventure Box or Gods of Tyria or even a golden loot bag themed tag would sell, GW2 has a deep pool of skin ideas in general. They could even sell siege skins using some of the above themes that you can activate like finishers. Would be hilarious watching a Super Adventure Box Golem rush.

I was really happy to hear that the commander tag becomes account bound, because i think a lot of people can actually make a use out of it, like me having a tag on my thief, which i would never play as a commander in WvW.

The colors are also really helpful for playing WvW together as a community and bring probably more diversity into the WvW tactics with different groups running for different targets.

But the different colors should be a free feature to all of us having a commander tag. I mean, it has nothing to do with personal style like a legendary, which should really be a effort for everyone of us . It is helpful for the community of players and shouldn’t be sold individual.

I’ll stick with blue. Thank you very much.

I’ll stick with blue. Thank you very much.

If badges of honor can’t be used to replace or at least subsidize the use of gold for these different color tags we will have actual confirmation that Anet in fact gives literally zero kittens about WvW players.

ANet: I might give you $1 USD for an alternate commander pin color. I’ll never give you $42.

1 g costs 0.14 USD to buy through gems.

300 * 0.14 = 42

Zepher.7803:

buy colored tags…..wow, that is just rude and makes no sense, so this idea has to be a joke.

IKR this looks like being yet another case of anet taking a good suggestion and completely kittening it up in implementation. Never mind the fact that it takes them close to a year to do something that was supposed to be a quick win.

Surely the whole point of having different colours is so people don’t get confused who they’re supposed to be following around. Making someone pay another 300g just to have a different colour completely negates the ability for people to switch colours to suit the situation and who else is on the map.

Biggest utter fail in design history ever!

Colors should be a stock feature of commander tags, not extra purchases. These aren’t like extra armor skins – tag colors should be an organizational tool.

If commanders would be easily able to choose their tag colors, I could see the WvW community ending up with general standards like: blue for the zerg, green for havoc groups, red for guild groups, etc. In similar manner I could see PvE commanders using colors to distinguish and organize different groups during guild missions, Tequatl, the 3 wums, and so on.

Putting these colors behind anything more than a trival cost just puts an absurd barrier in front of using this feature for its only useful purpose. Excessive costs only punish the people who least deserve it – those commanders who would use colored tags to help others by better organizing things.

morrolan.9608:

Zepher.7803:

buy colored tags…..wow, that is just rude and makes no sense, so this idea has to be a joke.

IKR this looks like being yet another case of anet taking a good suggestion and completely kittening it up in implementation. Never mind the fact that it takes them close to a year to do something that was supposed to be a quick win.

If it comes out in the manner they just said its going to be a huge fail nobody will be able to afford. It seems their only intention is to keep people farming instead of playing.

You cant disguise something that cost 1500g as a “feature”. Is GW2 really just a “pay or farm to win” game now?

ConfusedDave.4271:

Making someone pay another 300g just to have a different colour completely negates the ability for people to switch colours to suit the situation and who else is on the map.

The majority of players willing to purchase the alternate colors will be players we don’t want to obey as commanders.

ConfusedDave.4271:

Surely the whole point of having different colours is so people don’t get confused who they’re supposed to be following around. Making someone pay another 300g just to have a different colour completely negates the ability for people to switch colours to suit the situation and who else is on the map.

Biggest utter fail in design history ever!

For 300g that tag is better be something else than just a photoshop hue change.

Hard to believe this is what they decided. Even though I’ve never had 300g in my 2 years playing GW2, I could see raising the price some (300g seems steep to me still), but for each different color is outrageous.

How about just not making them account bound and reducing the price to 100g?

This would already make more sense and be “reasonable”, specially for us that play 95% of the time only on 1 character.

And 300g for a color is almost an insult for people who have been playing a game mode neglected for a year.

Straegen.2938:

ANet: Always finding a controversial way to give the players what they asked for in a way that neither satisfies or solves a problem.

Favorite quote of the day.

Having to pay for each color separately completely defeats the purpose of why the community wanted colored tags to begin with. It will still be impossible to change tag color on the fly to coordinate. I don’t understand how anyone could think this was possibly a good idea.

I would like to add my feedback here, even though I’m not a commander.

What was asked for during the CDI was a simple usability improvement. Commanders should be able to change color depending on the situation. Servers groups can negotiate between themselves what the colors mean e.g., Red = Attack group, Blue = Defense group, whatever.

This seemingly simple change has been hijacked into a massive gold sink. I don’t think it’s fair for the commanders, and actually hinders the original intent behind having colors in the first place!

I imagine that if this goes ahead, commanders will need to carefully negotiate between each other what colors each person buys. They will also be cornered into playing a particular role (based on the color) unless they spend the gold to buy all the tags which seems unfeasible.

The above complexity can be completely avoided if you just implement the change in the mindset of a usability improvement (that should have been there from the beginning) rather than a gold sink opportunity.

No commander tags are for WvW only!

Anet have officially confirmed this by placing the change to the compendium in the WvW section of the patch notes!

As such I think we should demand the tags be changed to be WvW use only and disable then for PvE!!!
That or they can put the patch note in the general polish bit and stop trying to fools people into thinking WvW got an update!

Baron.8407:

What was asked for during the CDI was a simple usability improvement. Commanders should be able to change color depending on the situation.

“Sure thing! This exciting new feature will cost you $42 per color. Trollface.jpg” — ArenaNet

Devon, this is a wrong direction for the commander interface. As other people said here the different colors are useful for map organization and communication on a wvw map. Putting such a high gold cost on the color selection is taking away from the benefit it brings, as it limits the option to people with a lot of gold, rather than commanders that are part of wvw community and coordinate with each other.
the cost of 300g for the tag itself is fine if its account bound now, but the colors as well as guild/map toggle for visibility should be free. At least make it free on wvw maps.
As someone already said, release extra color skins and shapes for the tags in gem store or something, but make color selection free.

Buying colored tags would be just silly.

What if the two commanders on a map had both bought the same color? It would defeat the whole purpose.

Maybe I’m being too sensible, but you’d think the ability to change colours on the fly would be the way to go. So if there was a red commander and a blue commander already, you could change your tag to green.

Xillllix.3485:

And 300g for a color is almost an insult for people who have been playing a game mode neglected for a year.

Almost? It’s waaay beyond that point. Let me be figurative here: It’s to the point where after years of ignoring us they suddenly come to us, start mocking us, then knock us out with a punch, start kicking us and at the moment they are urinating on us. That’s how it feels like.

Best thing people can do is voice their concerns, enough people complained about the possibility of perplexity runes making it into spvp and it changed their minds.

Wanderer.3248:

Maybe I’m being too sensible, but you’d think the ability to change colours on the fly would be the way to go. So if there was a red commander and a blue commander already, you could change your tag to green.

Yes, you can! This exciting new ability is yours for only $42 per color! Trollface.jpg

PVE commanders will have rainbows of pretty colors that they can pop at the bank in LA, while WvW commanders will be stuck with blue.

Virtute.8251:

ConfusedDave.4271:

Making someone pay another 300g just to have a different colour completely negates the ability for people to switch colours to suit the situation and who else is on the map.

The majority of players willing to purchase the alternate colors will be players we don’t want to obey as commanders.

This.