Guild Wars 2

Seriously ANet? 100g for a commander tag per character? That’s insane. It needs to be account wide and you need to fix it right away please. I don’t like being forced to stick with one character for WvW especially since I can earn Badges of Honor on any character.

This makes no sense at all.

The tag is not necessary in the least, you don’t need to purchase it. If you really need it on all characters then, like a legendary, its gonna take a long time.

This makes sense and shouldn’t be changed. It takes 120 hours to get to lvl 80 from the Dev’s 90-min/lvl estimation. And really only that character should be a commander.

This also allows Commanders to stealth into WvW if they don’t want to be a commander for one reason or another. Why someone would spend 100 gold and not use it, I have no idea. But they have the RIGHT to have a baby.

matiez.6498:

Why someone would spend 100 gold and not use it, I have no idea. But they have the RIGHT to have a baby.

I don’t use my tag when I’m not leading. It’s just that simple.

If you think that commander is not necessary for high level WvW, then you have no idea what you’re talking about. Try playing in the top tier for WvW and function without it.

100g is a massive investment, my guild all contributed to my commander tag and now I’m obligated to play the same profession in WvW every night because the tag is required for us to function properly. If Arenanet provided decent guild tools for coordination it wouldn’t be an issue, but as it stands the toolset for running coordinated guild WvW is absolutely terrible.

Never say someone ‘has no idea’ what their talking about. You sound oafish and ignorant when you do. Obviously, people with differing opinions know what they are talking about.

And I believe he/she meant that a certain PLAYER doesn’t need to be the leader all the time, not that WvW doesn’t need leaders at all.

Ok, offtopic and personal question…consider me a noob or whatever u want but WHAT IS UP with the kitten puns? Am i missing some kind of neo-meme?

LOL….brilliant.

ANET’s Feline Filtering System is so brilliant, that it is beginning to spill over onto other forums.

I almost sort of wished they denied that it was in place, so that people actually believed it was a thing.

I’ve started to replace my swears with kitten in real life. It’s fun trying to decode what people are saying lol.

You guys got the profanity filter down pat, now lets work on WvWvW fixes and some broken class mechanics.

CC Eva.6742:

Hi Rebound:

every time someone writes a word that is contained in our swearword filter system, the word is changed automatically to kitten.

Kittens are so yesteryear, quaggan’s have taken over their role

Quaggan’s can’t be trusted. Back on topic, IMO it should be Account Wide.

my guild fields 3 full groups most nights. we can’t afford commander manual and we find it’s usefulness dubious for our purposes anyways.

what we really could use, so we can play the game and not the ui that is, is proper raid group functionality.

20 slot raid group
map marking
target marking
raid assistants(probably not necessary with the current group invite functionality).

I am kitten and sick of kitten and I love kitten.

Seriously though for 100 gold why not make it account bound?

Does anyone really think because you have a blue icon above your head people will listen to you?

It really doesn’t help that much. Nor does it show you have any kind of tactical knowledge above anyone else.

If you earned it through achievements in PvP that would be one thing, but all it means is “Oh look on the map who had WAY to much time on their hands to grind gold”

Most commanders I saw in WvsW are loudmouths who don’t have a clue. Commander is something that should have been earned by proving your worth, not with gold. Any kid with attention seeking problems can buy the title, it’s pretty much worthless.

I’ve had way better experiences with non-commander with a clue leading than with loudmouth commanders.

Chris.7653:

Does anyone really think because you have a blue icon above your head people will listen to you?

It really doesn’t help that much. Nor does it show you have any kind of tactical knowledge above anyone else.

If you earned it through achievements in PvP that would be one thing, but all it means is “Oh look on the map who had WAY to much time on their hands to grind gold”

Exactly.

And Chris said it perfectly. OP, do you think I would listen to you just because you have some icon over your head and on the map? You better prove me that you’re worthy wearing that icon first, or all you’re going to do is end on my in game block list.

The OP never stated he would expect everyone to follow him. His only point was valid, about it being account bound.

The primary reason for any guild to invest in the commander book, is to exceed the 5 man group limit. It is not a matter of getting a blue icon over your head. It is not a matter of bragging or automatically qualifying as a WvW general. It isn’t even a matter of having too much time on their hands.

Most of those people are getting that book so they can get past the incredibly low group # cap, and begin to organize people. Hell, it doesn’t even have to be the commander calling the shots… as long as he/she can be there to get the group together.

On the other hand, if that person is attempting to lead in WvW, the only way they’ll get respect is by leading effectively. That is earned. And if the commander icon helps to coordinate the map? Working as intended.

Back on topic: I would love for this to be account bound. I had already come to the conclusion I’d be stuck on one character while playing WvW… but it would be very nice to be able to change that up. Sure, I could go on another character… but the second my guild joins the map, I would have to switch to my commander character in order to start up the group.

How about we just get rid of the universal commander icon all together, and we make it the guild emblem – so people will quit arguing about who should and should not get it and whether you are or aren’t a noob for having one, or how much skill is required to call yourself a commander. Have each guild’s emblem show up for whoever they designate – call it a guild rally point, and implement the commander features etc..

Personally, I love that idea. Although the universal commander icon is useful for independent players within the zerg.

But giving each guild that ability (maybe through influence upgrades?) would be amazing.

The way commanders function currently they’re imo pretty useless anyways. Organised groups are better run by guilds, for which a different guild grouping functionality would be more appropriate in adition to voice / guildchat / multiple smaller groups. For all the rest you can just as well use /m chat.
You’ll never get the whole map to work together on a meta strategy anyways and all that the commander icon does is create a big zerg.
I also agree with Korrigan that the (very few on live, some more during BWE’s) commanders I’ve met really aren’t worth their title and if anything would rather trigger me to rebel against them than to cooperate.

Should be account bound in the current implementation. It’s the person who is the commander, not the character, after all. Whether he knows what he’s doing or not, having a blue icon does help. People tend to swarm to it which means the blue icon holder has some amount of control over the zerg. And when you have some control over the zerg, then it benefits the server. Nothing is worse than having people scattered around the map, dunning around like headless chicken, killing trees, mobs, grubs and banging the head against SM. Following a blue icon at least gives them purpose, momentum, and some kind of primitive organization. That’s what I’ve seen so far in WvW, am not pulling this from a hat.

Chris.7653:

Does anyone really think because you have a blue icon above your head people will listen to you?

In my experience, most will. You see, you seem to believe, wrongly, that people like to make their own decisions or won’t listen to someone with what looks like an authority tag.

Well, I hate to break it to you, but the majority of people actually like being sheeps and being lead, and they do so more willingly when they see the blue shield on the map because most of them have absolutely no clue otherwise.

having it account bound should be the least of your worry’s, first of all they need to improve on what the commander actually is and give it a real raid setup because as of right now you’re paying to have your name on the map and to feel more superior to other players

The moderator got my hopes up for an official response to this. An official answer is needed for this. Why are Commander Icons not account bound? You buy the book, it flips the switch for your account to always have the option.

Like titles, achievements.

RamzaBehoulve.5640:

Chris.7653:

Does anyone really think because you have a blue icon above your head people will listen to you?

In my experience, most will. You see, you seem to believe, wrongly, that people like to make their own decisions or won’t listen to someone with what looks like an authority tag.

Well, I hate to break it to you, but the majority of people actually like being sheeps and being lead, and they do so more willingly when they see the blue shield on the map because most of them have absolutely no clue otherwise.

They follow the zerg yes but all I’ve seen so far if folks step up in mapchat to call next targets and try to develop an overall strategy, it only triggers more discussion because others disagree.
Also there’s hardly ever a commander around on my server (I’m on FS, the #2 ranked EU server so no it doesn’t require a commander either to do well).

This time next year, 100g will be nothing and everyone will have a commanders tag

Look guys, you can argue all you want about wheter commanders are needed or not, but you are missing the point of thread ENTIRELY.

Currently there is absolutely no reason for commander to be character-bound.

Commander is player title, not character title. And wheter said player is skilled in commanding or not, is entirely different story.

Thing is, as of now, it is very hard to get those 100g all by yourself. I dare to say if you have life and don’t want to spend gems on it, it’s nigh-impossible.

Now imagine my situation – I’m in a big guild that decided I should get a commander badge for ease of organization. I’ve got it on one character and well… I’m stuck on it. I can’t play any alts, because I’m expected to use that badge in WvW and rightfuly so! And I want to!

Let’s recap:

1) Commander is player-based rank. There is nothing character-based in it. Level scaling makes level 11 characters just as viable commanders as level 80. Yes, they bring more stuff to the table on individual level, but commander isn’t there for combat skills at all.

2) Commander is most of the time guild-bought title. This responsibility locks a commander into one single character. And not everyone wants to play one main and not touch anything else. That’s just cruel.

3) There is no issue of having “more” commanders as you can only play one character per account at any given time.

4) There is no issue of commanders being unrecognized. If you want to be easily recognized, you make a character with similar name. If people are afraid that commanders can make alts and troll around – you can always check their account name.

5) There is no issue of privacy – commander badge is toggleable.

I’ve no idea why it isn’t account-wide already, it’s just weird.

Can you imagine wanting to roll an alt after your guild chipped in on your commander? What are you going to do? Earn those 100g by yourself? Ask them to chip in again just because you want an alt? Sheesh.

Can we have a dev word on this? I believe a lot of commanders in my situation are already saving for alt comm badges, but maybe there is yet hope?

CC Eva.6742:

Hi Rebound:

every time someone writes a word that is contained in our swearword filter system, the word is changed automatically to kitten.

I like how Anet is good at answering issues that don’t matter.

Anyways… Back to the real issue. Yes this needs to be account wide so no one is forced to play a single character. It’ ridiculous to expect people to pay 100g for every character, and is inefficient. This should be something given from an achievement rather then buying it. This way only experienced WvWvW players would have the icon.

RamzaBehoulve.5640:

Chris.7653:

Does anyone really think because you have a blue icon above your head people will listen to you?

In my experience, most will. You see, you seem to believe, wrongly, that people like to make their own decisions or won’t listen to someone with what looks like an authority tag.

Well, I hate to break it to you, but the majority of people actually like being sheeps and being lead, and they do so more willingly when they see the blue shield on the map because most of them have absolutely no clue otherwise.

I hate to break it to you as well my friend, but people will follow the most green dots they see on the map, not what someone that has a blue shield says.

We understand you like to be lead and thats great but the majority simply will not listen to you because you have a blue icon, they will just follow the big group of people.

Hilarious side note, that statement holds true in some weird circumstances. I literally watched an entire zerg run off a cliff and die, some 20 – 30 people died. When I finished laughing so hard I cried, it made me think back to the old days when my mom used to ask “Well if your friends jumped off a cliff would you?!”.

Chris.7653:

RamzaBehoulve.5640:

Chris.7653:

Does anyone really think because you have a blue icon above your head people will listen to you?

In my experience, most will. You see, you seem to believe, wrongly, that people like to make their own decisions or won’t listen to someone with what looks like an authority tag.

Well, I hate to break it to you, but the majority of people actually like being sheeps and being lead, and they do so more willingly when they see the blue shield on the map because most of them have absolutely no clue otherwise.

I hate to break it to you as well my friend, but people will follow the most green dots they see on the map, not what someone that has a blue shield says.

We understand you like to be lead and thats great but the majority simply will not listen to you because you have a blue icon, they will just follow the big group of people.

Hilarious side note, that statement holds true in some weird circumstances. I literally watched an entire zerg run off a cliff and die, some 20 – 30 people died. When I finished laughing so hard I cried, it made me think back to the old days when my mom used to ask “Well if your friends jumped off a cliff would you?!”.

How is this relevant to commander being account-wide though?

SgtCrise.7034:

Chris.7653:

RamzaBehoulve.5640:

Chris.7653:

Does anyone really think because you have a blue icon above your head people will listen to you?

In my experience, most will. You see, you seem to believe, wrongly, that people like to make their own decisions or won’t listen to someone with what looks like an authority tag.

Well, I hate to break it to you, but the majority of people actually like being sheeps and being lead, and they do so more willingly when they see the blue shield on the map because most of them have absolutely no clue otherwise.

I hate to break it to you as well my friend, but people will follow the most green dots they see on the map, not what someone that has a blue shield says.

We understand you like to be lead and thats great but the majority simply will not listen to you because you have a blue icon, they will just follow the big group of people.

Hilarious side note, that statement holds true in some weird circumstances. I literally watched an entire zerg run off a cliff and die, some 20 – 30 people died. When I finished laughing so hard I cried, it made me think back to the old days when my mom used to ask “Well if your friends jumped off a cliff would you?!”.

How is this relevant to commander being account-wide though?

Please read the post, as you can see it is in response to his message.

It is not your job to police these forums, kindly use the report button located in the lower right corner of this post if you believe I am in the wrong.

Other than that if you post (like you did) all you have done is further contribute to the problem you are commenting on by creating not only your post off topic, but my reply and any others who reply to it.

Thank you

Oh for heaven’s sake.. That icon is good for regrouping so if that commander knows what he’s doing then he can get a zerg right off the bat and flank their enemies effectively. They should change that Commander into General or another low tier and make a Commander a red Icon from which a General would choose when they reach the borderlands.

Or otherwise they’ll just change the Commander Training Journal into WvW-walking-waypoint-training-journal. They can still listen to other people where to go because they can see them on the map. A “KING” still needs a strategist for their army. If there’s a better person to command then those “commanders” can listen and coordinate with them.

Put my vote towards account bound instead of character bound. I shouldn’t be locked into one character for WvW (or large organized PvE events for that matter) because of this book.

I have earned it IMO – and rather annoyed that is character based, I never have any time to level my other chars, its WvW all day on my lvl 80 thief then maybe every other week half an hour or so on my lvl 2 Engi…

I was about the 10th person on my server to get commander, though I have worked extensively every single day leading without it…

People respect me now for that I’m not making this up or anything, and my guild alone couldn’t afford it so the local random people donated, I think at least 40% of the fund came from them, and at least 300 people donated altogether.

Because of this I get rather annoyed sometimes when random players show up with commander, expecting to be treated like God when no one has heard head nor tail of them beforehand ever.

Also the ones with no experience really annoy me, for example, a guy came into Borderlands today, he had commander and a large amount of Guildies, never seen before, and he pretty much ignored all efforts of communication, half the people followed him, and when he got inside garrison he started everyone attacking the door to get back outside complete facepalm – after this he was pushed back to Woodhaven because he didn’t check the map whilst all of users calling a 30 man Zerg behind him…
Then he and his Guildies ported back out and left us to clean up his mess, which we couldn’t, and went to ‘save’ a tower my Guildies had been fortifying for hours, that was never going to fall, then ofc the enemies from Woodhaven moved to Bay got to the innner doors, and he came again, saying how awesome he was for saving bay, even though it was his fault in the first place.

After this though Bay was still under attack, he decided to hit Godslore and then Woodhaven, though the enemies were right next to him and blatantly on the map – we were held down at Redbriar – and then he got kittened off at us because he had ‘saved bay like 10 times and we were all useless’ screaming this along with swear words into chat in caps lock.

Before me and my soldiers and ppl who came with me from ebg came, we had absolutely nothing in the Borderlands, and by the time he came we had 2 keeps 2 towers and supply camps, and he came and got it all lost. Then when I left to help EBG he retool the keep and said I was a fool and bad luck, reportedly, because as soon as I left they took back a keep – this was countered by someone saying I was the only reason we had the keep in the first place, which made me feel better.
It is truly a dark day on Underworld Server since the rise of Sabio, Eternal Noob.

The moral of the story is, please please make Commander for experienced or WvW achievements, something like that… Monetary system is turning out such noobs it’s not even funny.

I probably sound like a spoilt, snobbish, and kitteny person ATM, but seriously its demoralising when someone comes along and spoils your hardwon work.

There needs to be massive gold sinks in this game to encourage people to buy gems and trade it for gold. GW2 is a great game, but unfortunately it will always be crippled because of this fact.

If you bought the game this is what you should have expected, if you complain about this then you didn’t research the game enough before you purchased, in which case – deal with it.

you keep saying you are in a big guild, big guilds can EASILY make 100g for a commander tag.

50 people 2g each = 100G 1-4hrs grind per guild member easily gets you the money you need for commander.

100+ members guild can EASILY make 100G with SILVERS. Run a couple of dungeons are you are done.

Seriously, just because you want a shinny zerg-tag across all your characters because you think 100G is too much in a “big” guild you should reconsider the way you play the game.

I personally would remove the “kitten” commander title altogether and add real support for raid sized groups in WvW instead.

To be honest, I was planning to get one of my guildies funded for the title first, a guy who leads a squad in EvE online and knows what he’s doing when it comes to tactics and keeping a cool head. But I pretty much gave up when I saw the average quality of the average commander in game. As said somewhere between my last post and this one, in a year, we’ll have armies of commanders in WvW, it will mean nothing at all.
I want the ability to make a large sized guild and more group. I don’t give a chicken about the commander rank, specially considering how overpriced it is, for the same price my guild can acquire thousands of siege engines and/or keep upgrades.

It just doesn’t make sense to have a feature that most guilds need if they want to group more than 5 people together to cost 100gp per character. It should be account bound and should cost NOTHING.

Make a “Guild commander” instead, a transferable buff/banner/flag you can assign to anyone in the guild, but only one can be active at any given time. It could be a guild upgrade but it needs to be flexible.

If a certain person or people in the guild aren’t able to log in… your guild has to suffer. It just doesn’t make any sense, it’s like they are trying to make it as hard as possible to run with your guild.

@Ahmrill

I really don’t understand why a guild needs commander tag, don’t you have voice communication?

IMO Commander Icon is helpful to rally randoms at the map, especially on EB. Other than that it’s not useful at all.

I completely agree on this issue, commander books should be account bound. I kinda get the gist of having a guild work together to get the funds for the book for 1 person, but what if that 1 person has all they want from the game? We loose our commander because he/she is playing another character now and have to spend more for another book?

Anet please take a look at the pricing of the commander book and make it either a little less expensive or account bound.

Please remember that all are tokens are account wide and everything else in wvw is shareable, why not make the commander book?

Ahmril – I completely agree, even a banner, etc…

Gemma Madock of Anvil Rock Defenders <ANV>

I find the Commander Icon helpful in WvW. (PvE is a different conversation.) I don’t see why it should be character bound; it doesn’t seem like the best alternative for the purpose it serves. It’s not really about the character you’re playing at that moment that makes you a good commander; it’s the player behind it – their leadership, tactical, and organizing capabilities.

I also don’t quite understand why its tied to a gold purchase instead of an alternative currency that proves your actual merit. There are a lot of good Commanders out there, who maybe had help from their guild to get the icon, and then there are a lot of bad Commanders out there that purchased it via gem conversions, or maybe vice versa. The problem is, the icon itself doesn’t tell you what quality of Commander you’re dealing with.

Divorcing it from a gold purchase (which is much easier to obtain through PvE) and tying it to something that denotes WvW leadership quality would make the Commander icon more (1) merit indicative, (2) prestigious, and (3) desirable.

Maybe some insane amount of influence garnered from WvW? The game already tracks this for guild purposes, and when you’re grouped with other guildies, that influence is exponentially increased – so in that way, your guildies can actually help you get the title. This is just a half-baked idea I’m throwing out there as maybe a vein of thought to explore.

2 copper.

I made 100 gold by myself by extensively playing the trading post. I’ve already equipped myself with full exotic gear with spare money so I decided to get commander since I do not plan on getting a legendary. Despite my lack of strategic wvwvw knowledge, I am learning & trying my best. I would like to agree with the OP but if every character on your account could be using it, it would just be too common when this is something anet wants to be hard to get.

@ Kazim

Using a 3rd party voice communication to make up for blatant features lacking in the game is not a viable solution. We do use vent, and that doesn’t stop people from getting separated and all attacking different targets. We’ve had 4 guild groups running together and it was extremely frustrating.

- With 4 different parties we were forced to use guild chat… but not everyone in the guild was doing WvW. Guild chat was being spammed with both banter, PvE questions and WvW talk… NOT effective.

- We couldn’t see people in the other parties, people got split and couldn’t support each other…. NOT effective.

We need a NEW raid system for up to 20 people so guilds can do activities together and it needs to be FREE. If you want to lead in WvW or have more than 20 people you can get the commander book. But the current system makes grouping with friends and guild members….. NOT effective!

Ahmrill said it right there…

We use our VoIP server constantly for WvW. We require people to be on there. In past games maybe you could call a kill target easily by name… can’t do that in WvW though! "Kill the Norn Mesmer from the guild “TAG” first." Doesn’t work at all, because there are no names, and TBH, the UI makes it difficult to select that target from a crowd of 20 enemies.

Between not being able to mark your kill targets for your entire group, and people not being able to see rest of the group on the map, it is horribly inefficient. Sure I can ctrl+T a target and know 4 other people will be on it… but what about the other 2 or 3 groups?

The sad part is, I really do not see a reason for having a 5 man group limit. What is the point to doing this? Why prevent guilds from being more social? Does it make sense to force an entire map into one chat, while there are several different attacks or defenses going on at any given time?

So yes… if Anet is set on this commander system, they need to implement an actual ‘raid’ functionality to it. If they don’t want to do that, at least give guilds the option to create larger groups. I’m getting very tired of having to split up into multiple groups.

SWTOR had a similar limit on Warzones (5 people). For us, that really tainted a large portion of the game for us. We would have 10 to 20 people wanting to do warzones, and we were forced to split up into 5 man groups… you could never do stuff together as a guild.

Lets hope that Anet decides to encourage the social feature in this game. Please raise the group caps so that guilds can actually get everyone together, so we can fight effectively like we have in past games.

Thanks.

Despite my frustration towards the group cap issue… I absolutely love WvW. Props to Anet for creating some of the best WPvP I’ve seen in a long time. Our guild can’t get enough of it… just please give us the option to get into one group

Fastforward a few months from now. How annoying is it going to be with 1 too many blue icons all over your map?

the commanders on borlis pass are cute because they don’t do losing matches and don’t do anything when they are in wvw except run from flipped point to flipped point faster than the enemies render and don’t even bother to use siege on doors.

did i mention we only have commanders from zerg guilds who spend wvw sessions spamming map chat about the score or how we are so good that we’re winning against the two lowest ranked servers then spend the next match whining about how unfair it is that we’re getting stomped?

“play the game not the ui” if i my 15 man guild wvw groups didn’t spend so much time fighting the ui because of lack of proper raid groups, we would have more fun playing the game.

we neither want nor need 35 randoms following us around just to have teh ability to see each other on the map if someone gets lost or joins late.

Look guys, your hate toward commanders is cool and all that jazz.

And even partially justified, hell, I dislike how commander rank is handled by now in almost every way.

But the thread subject is to allow people who ALREADY have a commander badge use it when on an alt.

It’s as simple as that, and there is no reason for it not being there.

Hell, dungeon tokens are account-wide. Bank is account-wide. A LOT of stuff is account-wide.

Right now I see no real arguments against OP, past “commander are bad people, let’s punish them”.

And I’m sorry, if you think that current situation makes WvW somehow have less commanders, well. No. Commanders are just stuck on their mains, that’s all it accomplishes.

We seriously need a dev word on this. It’s not the first thread, and it’s an issue that touches not only the commanders, but also people that are looking forward to be lead by commanders.

Can we get on subject please?