Guild Wars 2

Exedore.6320:

As long as moving in a massive ball is the most effective strategy, people will continue to do that with or without an icon. With your idea, you’ll just have people constantly spamming in map chat “where’s the zerg?”. They get an answer, run to the ball, and it’s the same as previously, but far more annoying because people are clogging up /map and /team.

If you want to stop zerging, you have to make it not the best strategy.

It’s true that people might start to spam the map chat but if you have everyone in a squad you don’t really need to read the map chat because you can use the squad chat!

Also, a simple UI to join active commander squad would fix that problem.

Gudradain.3892:

Jyeoi.6027:

Pros use the free tag. Target.

This tag is unreliable. It wears off all the time from the leader for whatever reason. You waste time to re-put it on him. You can’t know how many supply your group have. You can’t see where you leader is on the map (except for your party members so you can sort of figure it…)

It’s just a cheap solution for a broken mechanic.

It works pretty well nonetheless. Combine this with party member dots on the map and you will have pretty good idea where blob is atm even if you stray. That’s a reality, not theory crafting. As of your last two comments, I’m not sure what do they have to do with anything.

1. Supply count is none of the concern to the zergling who uses target to keep up with zerg.
2. Being cheap or not bears no meaning if solution just works good enough. What’s important is that it will continue to work no matter if there are commander tags or not. That’s the argument against removing commander tags, it will not solve the problem.

Raids that run untagged and prefer to run on their own often have hard time tryiong to get rid of the “tail” for this exact reason.

Another thing is that there’s always orange swords that follow zergs even if they just kill some poor animal/veteran that got in their way. And map chat of course (there’s always a nice person who will answer your question on where’s the action at).

It makes sense to me to have one key commander for your world on each map because it helps with quick response. I play mainly EB. When the castle inner wall starts to go down, everybody needs to be there immediately. I just wish the commanders were better at organizing sub groups for defense. Some of them do but most can’t seem to delegate or even plan ahead more than 30 min.

Like I said. Pros.

If you are already not using the commander tag, why are you against change to it!?

Gudradain.3892:

If you are already not using the commander tag, why are you against change to it!?

Who said we don’t? Tags have their place. They make life for unorganized groups easier. They are useful when you need to manifest your raid location/direction quickly and precisely to ally raids. They help quickly gathering scattered forces when there’s a need for a focused defense/attack.

All this helps making life easier. If you get rid of it, it will be harder, but not at all impossible, and it will not solve the issue at hand.

Let me reflect your question to you: If you agree that getting rid of tag will not solve zerging, why do you advocate its removal?

Maybe.. I can see how some people when they join a map if they don’t see a commander they just leave, so it could possibly shrink some zergs. However, there are a few commanders on my server who don’t even turn on their tag half the time. They just say “regroup here” or “meet here”

Yaro.3251:

Let me reflect your question to you: If you agree that getting rid of tag will not solve zerging, why do you advocate its removal?

I agree that it`s impossible to spot zerging IF people absolutely want to zerg.

BUT, changing (not removing) the commander tag would indeed makes zerging in 1 big group harder and would instead favor multi-squads tactics.

DeadlySynz.3471:

Maybe.. I can see how some people when they join a map if they don’t see a commander they just leave, so it could possibly shrink some zergs. However, there are a few commanders on my server who don’t even turn on their tag half the time. They just say “regroup here” or “meet here”

The problem of “not seeing a commander on the map and leaving” could easily be fix if they simply had a UI on the side of your game window stating which commander are active and display useful information such as: commander name, guild tag, number in the squad, etc.

Then when you log in, you can see how many commander are on the map and how many players are active on that map. Then you can simply request to join the squad that you chose and you are done

Gudradain.3892:

LilMcGinley.3890:

Gudradain.3892:

Jyeoi.6027:

Pros use the free tag. Target.

This tag is unreliable. It wears off all the time from the leader for whatever reason. You waste time to re-put it on him. You can’t know how many supply your group have. You can’t see where you leader is on the map (except for your party members so you can sort of figure it…)

It’s just a cheap solution for a broken mechanic.

It’s very reliable actually. Watch some GvG videos and you’ll see that it works perfectly fine.

GvG is not WvW and the context is different.

Haha… you funny. Following a targeted played is the same whether in LA, a GvG, or roaming in WvW.

Topics like this appear almost weekly. Anet simply don’t care and are planning no changes to the commander system.

LilMcGinley.3890:

Gudradain.3892:

LilMcGinley.3890:

Gudradain.3892:

Jyeoi.6027:

Pros use the free tag. Target.

This tag is unreliable. It wears off all the time from the leader for whatever reason. You waste time to re-put it on him. You can’t know how many supply your group have. You can’t see where you leader is on the map (except for your party members so you can sort of figure it…)

It’s just a cheap solution for a broken mechanic.

It’s very reliable actually. Watch some GvG videos and you’ll see that it works perfectly fine.

GvG is not WvW and the context is different.

Haha… you funny. Following a targeted played is the same whether in LA, a GvG, or roaming in WvW.

You missed the point… Following a targeted player is not the problem. The problem is targeting that players and the ability to see him on the map. While both of these problems can be fixed, the solutions are only work around that are no where as good as a functional squad system.

Yeah, because zergs never existed in RvR games before the invention of a commander tag.

If anything, the tags need more functionality.
Guild visible only tag so the entire zerg doesn’t follow you.
Different colors would be nice so you could have something like “get on the red tag if you want to defend the north part of the map and get on the green tag if you want to kill dolyaks”.

And the group limit in WvW is just awful.

Keep the current system for public zergs. Just add the option for commanders to “flag private” the squad so only those currently in the squad can see the icon.

I guarantee that you will have a more dynamic battlefield with medium sized private/guild forces while still having a public zerg for solo and random people to join. Have tools for ALL squad sizes and types and let the players choose what works best for them.

Dawdler.8521:

Clockradio.3257:

Real guilds only use commander tags when they want pugs… Running tagless and with everyone in a party solves all the problems in this thread…

That may be true, but have you ever run in a 30+ man guilds vs just as many enemies? Just try to follow the commander in combat. It aint easy. Not impossible sure, but its so easy to loose him even when marked as a target because the red circle sort of drowns in the sea of red tags. The commander tag helps ALOT in this situation… Unfortunetly the average PUG does not as the enemy res on that level 20 berserker ranger that thought he was all cool trying to run with the big boys. I’m not really for guilds “hiding” themselves, but I do see a need for it.

So to recap the menu, rather than just having a “Create Squad” button, should have:
- A text box where you can type in a short description (maybe 20 letter)
- “Public” tickbox (default ticked), where public shows to all on the server and unchecked it shows only to the current group the Commander is in and Guild
- Dropdown menu with primary/secondary colors (red, yellow, blue, green, orange, violet)
- (OPTIONAL EXTRAVAGANCA) Dropdown menu with a choice of shapes (dorito, upside down dorito, whatever, maybe 5 of them)

And that would suddenly make those 100g alot more worth it for everyone.

Ok this Dawdler guy gets it. I’d be quite happy with those changes. There NEEDS to be some kind of private or guild grouping system to coordinate better without expected to lead a zerg. Can you run multiple group forces together without putting the commander pin up…. yes,but it feels clunky and inadequate.

Add this

How do you join the squad if you don’t know if there is a squad (tag) there? Also what about guilds that run more then 30 people? Are the others not allowed to join in on the squad? So punish guilds that have a large player base?

Zikory.6871:

How do you join the squad if you don’t know if there is a squad (tag) there? Also what about guilds that run more then 30 people? Are the others not allowed to join in on the squad? So punish guilds that have a large player base?

- UI to see the active commanders even if you don’t see them on the map
- Create 2 squads for your big guild.

Or show all the commander tags, both public and private. Private or guild only commander’s could show as a different color than a public one. Be nice to have a tool tip when you hover over a pin showing: public/private, number of players currently in the squad and perhaps a short 20 character description of what the squad is doing.

description IE: “guild only”; “Havoc force”; “Taking towers”; etc.

I don’t think we need to “eliminate” public zergs as there is a place and need for them at times. We simply need to have viable alternatives to group up which will help reduce the size of the zergs and spread the fighting over the map more. Private squads would help do this.

It would be a start, but not be enough. The game still favors zerging. If a server wants to win they just have 4 pins run along side one another. The pins need to come with buffs that benefit up to 40 players. And those buffs can be only active if there are not pins in proximity. And this buff would have to work so that even if the pins did meet up for a small duration, they would still be active for a duration of time before deactivating.

Again: you may take away few tools, but if players wants to blob, they’ll find a way to do so unless you make them unable to stay physically close to each other.

Leave tags alone, the solution is elsewhere.

AndrewSX.3794:

Again: you may take away few tools, but if players wants to blob, they’ll find a way to do so unless you make them unable to stay physically close to each other.

The only things that would work perfectly and destroy blob in a matter of second is friendly fire between different squads…

Well, it would indeed be easy to implements AND would force people to join squad AND to not form a big blob.

Siege should never do damage to your team (for obvious reason)
Friendly fire need to do reduce damage compare to when you attack enemies (10%?)

Do you want to go to that extreme?

AndrewSX.3794:

Again: you may take away few tools, but if players wants to blob, they’ll find a way to do so unless you make them unable to stay physically close to each other.

Leave tags alone, the solution is elsewhere.

The original suggestion would require substantially more tools, not less.

You’re assuming that zergs are not part of the design intentions of World vs World gameplay. The whole point of WvW is to have large-scale epic battles for casual players.

Either way, you won’t stop people from zerging. People will zerg if there’s no commander icon just like they do in every other MMO. They’ll even zerg when the rewards are severely diminished for doing so like they did in DAoC. It’s a silly goal anyway. If you don’t want to zerg, then don’t. There will be other people who aren’t zerging around even if most are zerging. If you’re on a T1 server, transfer. There. Solved zerging for ya.

Wrong, all this means is now large guild zergs will rule and that is it period. The commander tag gives a PUG and smaller guilds a chance to do something.

Get over it, this game is about army size nothing will change that but to limit the amount of people per man per server.

Jyeoi.6027:

Pros use the free tag. Target.

Gudradain.3892:

It’s a cheap solution for a broken mechanic.

+1

I’m more annoyed when there are more than 2-3 commanders per map…each map should have a commander tag limit at a given time

Nah. The best solution to fix this problem would be making holding towers/keeps worth more than capturing them.

And I mean on the personal reward level, not the realm point level. I dare to say that 90% of WvW players don’t give a rat’s behind about the realm score as long as they keep getting exp/karma/gold from capturing camp after tower after keep and letting them fall 10 seconds after they leave so they can recapture them again.

Oh my god a Dev was looking at this forum recently! Do you think they will notice this thread?

From the shear amount of posts I’ve made on the current inadequate grouping system in GW2…. I don’t know how they could have missed them.

The basic ability to group with the amount of people we want and the WAY we want should be a fundamental feature of GW2. This should be a top priority for WvW IMO.

We NEED a flexible grouping system for all players and guilds…. instead of being forced to zerg or run a single group. Any other attempts to run separate multiple groups together will never be as effective as an IN-GAME grouping system.

kelman.9451:

Wrong, all this means is now large guild zergs will rule and that is it period. The commander tag gives a PUG and smaller guilds a chance to do something.

Get over it, this game is about army size nothing will change that but to limit the amount of people per man per server.

We need the current commander system AND a private grouping system for guilds or medium forces. There is room in the game for both.

DanyK.3842:

This has actually been mentioned in beta3 if I’m not mistaken. Just take a deep breath and accept the fact that Arenanet will never consider implementing such system. A year has passed since they aknowledged this is a demand and a year without them doing anything. You won’t be positively surprised. Btw prepare to have this post moved to ‘Suggestions’ aka ‘We do not care’ section.

I sure hope they realize how bad their social grouping system is. With all the feedback they have to be aware of it. A decent grouping system needs to be flexible for all play styles and let the players or guilds form the way that works best for them. We simply need a guild or private grouping system that allows multiple groups to coordinate better in the game.

It just blows my mind that this isn’t already a thing. Sure they might be “working on something” more elegant than this, but I don’t see how implementing a system so simple would hurt in the mean time.

Urrid.4593:

It just blows my mind that this isn’t already a thing. Sure they might be “working on something” more elegant than this, but I don’t see how implementing a system so simple would hurt in the mean time.

Especially when the feedback since the BW1 strongly suggested the C&S system was completely inadequate. How long is a reasonable about of time to make these changes…. we are coming up to a year soon.

Made an option for different color tags or just have the function of the tag without it showing.

I vote for Spicy Sweet Chili flavor icon as in addition to the current Cool Ranch flavored Dorito icon.

Make them change color based on WvW achievement progress…That way the PUGs can differentiate a PVE commander/CC commander, from someone who knows what they are doing.

Up to the top with you! I am going for viability here. Someone, someday, might get it.

Yup, it is important.

guild commanders: orange commander tags – only guildmembers and other commanders on the map can see these.

so easy. please atleast read our suggestions…

A simple option for commander to decide who see the tag like: party only, squad only, guild only, all map… And a color option too… Would be a great step forward. There’s so many way to improve the current system and yet after one year nothing has been done

I don’t see a way more flexible or simple than a four digit passcode. Can you think of anything that offers as much flexibility?

Remember – people guild switch all the time, you would have to take this sort of thing into consideration, and that is why I would opt for a pass-code. Use the infrastructure that exists through communicating in chat channels, determine the group composition that way. Commander “Hey my code is 4321! Come fight with me!” etc. Don’t enforce an artificial limit like “guild” or “party”. Both guild and party are terribly under-supported in terms of features as it stands.

Urrid.4593:

I don’t see a way more flexible or simple than a four digit passcode. Can you think of anything that offers as much flexibility?

Remember – people guild switch all the time, you would have to take this sort of thing into consideration, and that is why I would opt for a pass-code. Use the infrastructure that exists through communicating in chat channels, determine the group composition that way. Commander “Hey my code is 4321! Come fight with me!” etc. Don’t enforce an artificial limit like “guild” or “party”. Both guild and party are terribly under-supported in terms of features as it stands.

I agree in principle. Any private grouping system needs to be flexible enough to meet ALL player and guild requirements. Guilded or non-guilded, you should be able to create a private or public force any way that increases enjoyment and fun.

Stop forcing us to group in ways we don’t enjoy. Make a system that can be used for ALL grouping formats and let the players choose the way that works best for them.

Oh hey imagine this in the patch notes! >.>

I think I know the answer from Anet: We are aware of this. But right now we dont even think of solution. Yesterday we announced another update with new WvW ability and we need to continue this way.

Yeah agreed. The developers have mentioned how they are trying to decrease the amount of zerg vs zerg. Here is an idea that would really help this. By encouraging people to roam in smaller private groups.

Beats control+Ting the commander every time he wps….

Another new living story patch…. but no basic WvW bug fixes or changes to the grouping systems. Still can’t kick offline players, invite through the UI or group the way we enjoy in WvW.

With every patch the screw tightens going into the brain of WvW players….

Oh my gosh a Developer was looking at the forum today! Do, do you think they will notice this thread? /blush

it. wont. happen.

and if it does – lets be generous and say anet implements this a year from today – no one will be here to use it

Well, I hope it happens. Private Commander Squads, a better UI to tell who is in your squad along with Supply Count/Who has Supply, etc. something better than /supplyinfo. And allowing Squad members to see other Commanders… there are just so many basic things that can be done to improve the Commander feature that hasn’t been done.

For a company that wants to promote people grouping up and working together…especially PuGs, they have seriously failed us on this front via the poor excuse that is the Commander/Squad feature. Sorry.

Well 12 hours ago didn’t work, lets try right now…