Guild Wars 2

Before I start, I want to pass comment on the amazing work the dev team has done on the whole for this game, and the excellent work they’ve been doing post-launch in responding to the problems that have come up. Thoroughly enjoying the game, especially WvW!

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So, the Commander.

In short, I think the requisite to have a commander badge and lead a squad being having earned a large sum of gold (usually though PvE) alone is, well, flawed.

Immediately it is becoming obvious that it is being purchased as a status symbol bringing the first problem, commander badges all around LA.

The other more crucial problem is that those who have purchased the Compendium and act as a commander in WvW aren’t necessarily appropriate people for the role. This isn’t just a comment skill which is a potential problem anywhere and one I expect natural equilibrium to filter. This is a comment on certain people who’s attitude is of automatic authority of all those fighting on their map, and the right to talk down to those who’s performance they deem insufficient – not always in the most diplomatic way.

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An example of this has taken place on my server. In the evening we don’t actually have any formal command going on, but general messages across the map chat gives a lot of information to people and we end up taking significant portions of the maps, naturally splitting up to objectives. No one is told off for their performance, everyone is just having fun but accidentally being good at the same time. It’s a really nice community feel.

Later in the night, a certain Commander comes online, one of the few on the server. The chat suddenly starts to be splattered with insults about people not being able to play properly, defending wrong, attacking wrong. We should all grow a spine, we all need to all learn to play our classes right (he says while returning from base spawn after leading another zerg to death in the ogre camp), and “stop role-play capping” (whatever that referred to).

This attitude is poisonous and brings down the entire community spirit and enjoyment. Many people have complained about him in /say, and a few have made comments directly.

I asked the person to try to be a bit more respectful on /map and reminded them that this is everyone’s game, not just theirs, and we’re all there to do good but not at the expense of fun. This seemed to have made an impact, for about half an hour, where after it started again. I ended up reporting him for verbal abuse, so if any devs are reading this, you know where to get a better look of what I’m talking about.

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Solution:
I’m certainly not suggesting this is the only solution, but rather the solution I would choose.

I, personally, would be tempted to remove the Commander’s Compendium and refund gold for all those who purchased it. I would probably keep the Commander symbol as it is nice for newer players to easily get involved, and you can check were likely own-team zergs are on the map, but only have it activate when a Squad reaches 20-30 players or so. Now if you’re doing a decent job and people join your Squad, you get the Commander symbol – social dynamics finds the equilibrium.

I would make the Squad system an on-the-fly system that simply allows the linking of Groups, with the same Commander-to-all chat but perhaps also a channel for full-Group leaders to talk with the Commander 2-way to increase communication, coordination, and tactics beyond the zerg. The Commander would be the leader of the Group who started adding another Group.

Thinking about it, with this design there would no reason for the Compendium to be removed, however I do think if left in it should be gained in other ways other than PvE gold-making tactics, perhaps through the guild system.

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I welcome anyone to make comments on this below, positive or negative. Bear in mind that I’m aware on other servers the system may actually be working very well if the right people have been the ones with the badges, however my topic addresses the situation (which I cannot imagine is unique to my server) where the Commander’s Compendium is potentially doing more harm than good.

I agree it should go away but because it is useless. I am clearly on a different server and it sucks this happened but commander for our guild basically doesn’t get used.

Commander literally gives 3 things, 1 person a blue marker, 1 person the ability to mark the map, and anyone the ability to click and join the chat channel.

Our guild pooled our money because we wanted to be able to group as a GUILD. We were envisioning more raid group less chat channel with map markers. We also didn’t realize that there would be no way to keep people out of the group. What we get is a steady stream of zerglings joining the squad which in turn means that the chat channel just becomes the new team chat. We literally had zerglings in our squad arguing with our officers… Glad we wasted the 100g.

What they should do:

-Refund all Commanders books and add in Captain Training which costs say 20g.
-This will allow a person to create an actual group of 20 people.
-This would be a group where people need to be invited and can be kicked without a “vote”.
-The Captain would be allowed to assign 2 other people to the role of assistant. These people could edit map markers and invite people or kick people.
-The channel would show like party (blue) and the leader could use the same map markers they have for the commander which would show up just for the group.
-Like parties you would be able to see anyone who was in the party anywhere on the map.
-There would be no marker over the persons head to the rest of the world which would eliminate the issue of random zerglings trying to attach to you from across the map/the easy spying potential.

Do you all not see the gravity and synergy these create? I disagree on all points. These are amazing to have for not only bringing people to a point and lessening the confusion of where to go if you aren’t in a guild or alliance, but as a squad they give the commander immediate info on members of the squad and supply.

We have 3, and they do amazing things.

Orz someone lied to you about what they do. They don’t have any window that shows the squad, they don’t give supply, your commanders can’t see you on the map. My guild is going to make a youtube video later tonight to show these points. So that everyone can be on the same page about what it really does. It doesn’t help a bad situation that commanders are apparently lying to people about what it does so that people will always get supply or w/e else they are telling you.

It literally creates a chat channel, gives 3 map marker options, and allows anyone to click and join. That is it. The commander can’t even see who is in the squad.

Then this definitely needs to be improved, but we need a chain of command of sort to organize operations in a more coherent way.

“I, personally, would be tempted to remove the Commander’s Compendium and refund gold for all those who purchased it. I would probably keep the Commander symbol as it is nice for newer players to easily get involved, and you can check were likely own-team zergs are on the map, but only have it activate when a Squad reaches 20-30 players or so. Now if you’re doing a decent job and people join your Squad, you get the Commander symbol – social dynamics finds the equilibrium.”

I Agree

In agreement here. On Tarnished Coast, all but one of the people with this purchased have no clue.

I myself think it should be removed and replaced with an auto grouping system. I do think however, there should be a way to get an icon, possibly of people who are leading parties and parties should extend beyond 5, squads should extend beyond 25.

They should both be the same thing, a party, and the auto grouping wouldn’t group up two teams if they have parties just group up people who run near an “event” happening into the largest group which would be the zerg while the other parties are parties doing other things, sometimes with the zerg, events would be taking down a supply camp/tower/etc.

This would keep the party leaders with icons on the map and not merge two of them into one group during an event. This would also inform everyone on the map where the parties are, and not just where a single person is which when everyone gets commander it will be a mess.

In short, I think the requisite to have a commander badge and lead a squad being having earned a large sum of gold (usually though PvE) alone is, well, flawed.

That was enough said.

I don’t understand why they just didn’t implement an auto-grouping system….you go into a WvW map and you’re tossed into a big group.

Don’t want to be in the main group? Leave it and make a smaller one.

gandhigonewild.3645:

I don’t understand why they just didn’t implement an auto-grouping system….you go into a WvW map and you’re tossed into a big group.

Don’t want to be in the main group? Leave it and make a smaller one.

Autogrouping is done a bit differently than that.

When a group is taking a tower it would be considered an event kind of like it is an Assault on Anzalia for example. When a single player runs up to this event happening he gets thrown into the largest group.

The group leader would have a commander logo on the map.

Now, another party could run up to this but they will not get auto grouped unless the smaller party clicks accept to it. However he may want to stay in his smaller party for a variety of reasons, and that group leader would also have a commander logo on the map.

Like I said commander will be pointless when you have 100 commanders running around. Keeping it to party leaders only and showing how large those parties are when you roll over the logo would show what is really going on.

Commander being removed would be the cleanest way to do this type of system, however you could make a new logo for the party leaders, but that really isn’t required. Auto grouping can be done without removing commander but I think it would be best to save the commander logo strictly for the party leaders instead of making it become the mess it will be within a few months after everyone buys it.

Party leaders should also be able to switch and let someone else lead the party if they don’t want to lead anymore.

I think there should be the option to turn off the icon at least, so that we have the option whether we want to see all commanders, specific commanders, or no commanders.

I have also witnessed a lot of arrogance coming from the only two commanders I have seen in WvW, demanding total strangers to behave in a certain way, standing at the back doing nothing, telling everyone to “shut up and listen”, you know the sort.

It’s a good idea to be able to identify someone that you personally might like to be your leader, but this is not an oligarchy where we must submit to the will of rich strangers (well, they were rich before they became commander).

My guild has 3 commander icons, and they are invaluable when used correctly. When everyone joins your squad /squadinfo let’s you know who individually is in your squad, who has how much supply, and totals at bottom. Through proper leadership the regulars on our map know to follow and that they can trust us to keep winning.

If your command is abusing his icon, ignore him. It’s that simple. Encourage the leaders that are doing their job, even if they don’t have an icon.

There need to be filter options for commander badges. Your guilds. your alliance and general server etc. That would help with coordinating. But i agree with commander becomming a status symbol being a problem. it needs to be tied to size of group aswell

Aletheides.5693:

There need to be filter options for commander badges. Your guilds. your alliance and general server etc. That would help with coordinating. But i agree with commander becomming a status symbol being a problem. it needs to be tied to size of group aswell

I believe only the top 3 commanders (by squad size) will show up on the map. So ‘status symbol’ shouldn’t be a problem.

Well.. efficiency comes from organization..

Well.. efficiency comes from organization..is better to have 1 voice leading the army… than many saying stuff at the same time.. most of the time being idiotics ideas.

Well.. efficiency comes from organization..is better to have 1 voice leading the army… than many saying stuff at the same time.. most of the time being idiotics ideas.WvW is not a place to just “go and have fun!”
if u want to go and have fun in WvW go join an underpopulated server with disorganized players that do what they want instead of aiming for a common purpose, wich should be the succes of the server as a whole.

Now.. giving commander yo random players just because they “lead a group” is also not a great idea.. since some times people would just give out stupid ideas with the goal of “lets get experience and karma” and people would follow.
For example yesterday (my server is really messy and 90% of the players that go on WvW are really disorganized) we were in an enemy borderland and we capped a couple of towers, supply camps all good.. then.. instead of staying to defend the obvious counter attack from the enemy.. “the lead” (wich wasnt really guiding or anything for the raids) said.. lets go take the Quaggan camps.. noticing that NONE of our supply camps or towers were in the Quaggas attack/defend range.. i found that idea kinda.. stupid and a bad move with an enemy attack coming..
but again.. he said it and said “we can get exp and karma, lets go” so he drove most of the raid that could’v helped defend/move supply.. to take.. Quaggan camps..

Now.. giving commander yo random players just because they “lead a group” is also not a great idea.. since some times people would just give out stupid ideas with the goal of “lets get experience and karma” and people would follow.
For example yesterday (my server is really messy and 90% of the players that go on WvW are really disorganized) we were in an enemy borderland and we capped a couple of towers, supply camps all good.. then.. instead of staying to defend the obvious counter attack from the enemy.. “the lead” (wich wasnt really guiding or anything for the raids) said.. lets go take the Quaggan camps.. noticing that NONE of our supply camps or towers were in the Quaggas attack/defend range.. i found that idea kinda.. stupid and a bad move with an enemy attack coming..
but again.. he said it and said “we can get exp and karma, lets go” so he drove most of the raid that could’v helped defend/move supply.. to take.. Quaggan camps..in that scenario he would’v gotten a commander simbol.. since a bunch of people followed his idea..just with the goal of getting exp and karma instead of protecting our current stuff…

Now.. giving commander yo random players just because they “lead a group” is also not a great idea.. since some times people would just give out stupid ideas with the goal of “lets get experience and karma” and people would follow.
For example yesterday (my server is really messy and 90% of the players that go on WvW are really disorganized) we were in an enemy borderland and we capped a couple of towers, supply camps all good.. then.. instead of staying to defend the obvious counter attack from the enemy.. “the lead” (wich wasnt really guiding or anything for the raids) said.. lets go take the Quaggan camps.. noticing that NONE of our supply camps or towers were in the Quaggas attack/defend range.. i found that idea kinda.. stupid and a bad move with an enemy attack coming..
but again.. he said it and said “we can get exp and karma, lets go” so he drove most of the raid that could’v helped defend/move supply.. to take.. Quaggan camps..in that scenario he would’v gotten a commander simbol.. since a bunch of people followed his idea..just with the goal of getting exp and karma instead of protecting our current stuff…needless to say.. while they were trying to get all 3 quagga camps.. we lost 2 supply camps and the tower was so under upgraded that didnt had a chance to be defended and got lost 10mins later.. but hey.. we had quaggans attacking the enemy Main Keep.. right?

Now.. giving commander yo random players just because they “lead a group” is also not a great idea.. since some times people would just give out stupid ideas with the goal of “lets get experience and karma” and people would follow.
For example yesterday (my server is really messy and 90% of the players that go on WvW are really disorganized) we were in an enemy borderland and we capped a couple of towers, supply camps all good.. then.. instead of staying to defend the obvious counter attack from the enemy.. “the lead” (wich wasnt really guiding or anything for the raids) said.. lets go take the Quaggan camps.. noticing that NONE of our supply camps or towers were in the Quaggas attack/defend range.. i found that idea kinda.. stupid and a bad move with an enemy attack coming..
but again.. he said it and said “we can get exp and karma, lets go” so he drove most of the raid that could’v helped defend/move supply.. to take.. Quaggan camps..in that scenario he would’v gotten a commander simbol.. since a bunch of people followed his idea..just with the goal of getting exp and karma instead of protecting our current stuff…needless to say.. while they were trying to get all 3 quagga camps.. we lost 2 supply camps and the tower was so under upgraded that didnt had a chance to be defended and got lost 10mins later.. but hey.. we had quaggans attacking the enemy Main Keep.. right?What i want to say is.. no Matter how people get Commander status.. there will always bekitten with some sort of “power” that are gonna mess things up..
and i’d rather have thekitten spend 100g for it.. than just getting it for free..

Well what you just said happened without this in place, this is auto organization. it can and obviously did happen without it, so i don’t get your point at all.

If someone gets put ina leadership position he can pass the torch, and if he wants the group to decide, which evidentally to me it sounds like your group decided to follow his idea, it wasn’t something they had to do, and they most likely weren’t even partied..

I think they should have more WvW/PvP requirements to obtaining it rather than just paying 100g. Soon the majority of players will be afford it if they want, just to have the “cool” factor. The downside to commander is the ego as mentioned earlier. SOME people that do have the commander think they are above the rest and everyone must listen to them. This includes the insults and name calling when things don’t go right. IMO the requirement should be something that makes you qualified to be a commander such as obtaining certain achievments etc. The ego will never go away so there is no solution to that. This is just from my perspective of playing a heavy amount in WvW.

The ego will never go away so there is no solution to that. This is just from my perspective of playing a heavy amount in WvW.

It’d be quite a bit harder to get an ego off something that was automatically done at some points, or by someone who was chosen to lead the group by the person who got the auto lead role. However a guild being formed as a group could easily have that as the team that is taking in all the members, etc.

I just don’t see an ego coming from something that takes no requirement.

Yea, i think its poor design to have it the way it is. I think it should require either:
Badges to buy lets say: 3000.
or require a certain kill amount with a gold price.

its still not perfect but then at least you know the people getting them have some experience.

SKYeXile.2716:

Yea, i think its poor design to have it the way it is. I think it should require either:
Badges to buy lets say: 3000.
or require a certain kill amount with a gold price.

its still not perfect but then at least you know the people getting them have some experience.

I don’t see why the information of knowing where the parties are should cost anything.

That would also not do anything for ego. We most likely have wvw titles someone could use to boast with the commander thing is just irrelevant especially when having symbols for party leaders is better, so when you load onto a map you can say ok we got three parties going on, rollover the icons, this ones sized 40 people, this one ten people, the other is fifteen people, and it would say who is leading them kinda like the commander icons say “Commander Johnson”.

It would say “Party Leader : Johnson – Size : 15” or something along those lines.

When you don’t have a commander your battle becomes finding the group if there even is one and noone answers or reads the chat when you ask if there was one. This system jsut adds so much more organization to wvw, it’s just unimaginable what it’d be like.

I believe the high cost is fine. Any mechanism they put in place, anyone can grind one so cost is the easiest to get.

Yea, finding me is the reason ill never get the commander title, in its current form.

IMO it needs some serious adjustments to be worth it for a guild to buy.

from having a proper raid interface, closing the group, hiding the icon + a whole bunch of other features that have been in MMO’s since the dawn of time.

The way public groups work in Rift events would be perfect for WvW.

I believe that the ‘Commander’ status should remain, though anyone caught abusing it should have it stripped from them. They can get it again, though only if they pay the hundred gold it takes to purchase it.

Possibly a good compromise? I don’t know, I’d like to see it remain even if some people abuse it. If Arena Net took a hard stance on dealing with reports of ‘Commanders’ abusing their perceived status, it’d probably work a bit better. From what I gather, these players are meant to purchase it for the sake of helping rather than hindering their community, after all.

I agree this needs rework. Please check out this proposal I just wrote:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Guild-Commanders

It is amazing that a few guys who were willing to spend 500 or more real life dollars to buy gems to trade for gold are suddenly deemed PvP experts because they have a blue triangle over their name. It is frigging ridiculous.

The one thing it does accomplish however is to give the mindless zerg something to rally to. But in a couple months when people have gold coming out of every orifice and even the die hard anti commander types buy one because they dont have anything else to spend money on then what? There will be 50 or 60 commanders to a map. Which one do you follow?

Right now it isnt too bad since there are only a few per server and they arent all on at the same time, but in time there will be many. I would hope an option to turn off your marker would be a priority or making the title worth something. As in giving it some actual perks other than the make believe ones people think it does now.