Guild Wars 2

EDITED TO INCLUDE IDEAS FROM OTHER PEOPLE IN MAIN POST

Ways to Improve Squad Commander:

1-All members of the squad should show up on the map like in parties (to members and leader).

2-There should be a squad window that shows who is in the squad

3-Basic Control options such as inviting people/kicking people/locking random joins.

4-The option to show or hide the commander symbol from people not in squad

5-The option to assign 2 assistants who can invite/kick/set map markers.

6-Assistants should show up with a special map marker to people in the squad and nothing to people outside.

7-Allow an optionally joined cross continent channel for any squad commander who is currently leading a squad of 10 or more people.

8-Squad Window should show Total Squad resources and Seige Equipment as well as being able to organize the squad by who has what or at least mouse over to see who has what.

9-The option to allow or limit specific people’s ability to talk in squad chat.

10-The ability to Draw on all Squad members maps and limit drawing, (drawing should stay on the map not disappear like currently)

11- Make commander chat a different color.

12- Make the ability to vote to make someone a temporary Commander if there isn’t on on the continent already.

13- The option for different colors for the commander icon, so you can say “red commander heading north, blue going east” or “yellow is a scout team”.

14- The ability to toggle the icon while still running a squad/have it only show up to people in the squad.

1,2,3 are pretty much necessitates to making a raid even though there so basic and i’m astonished at how even those basic features aren’t even implemented, ESPECIALLY with the 100g cost

Ya I definitely agree they need to get 1 2 and 3 in ASAP. It really should have already been in especially at 100gold. As for the rest of them that is less of an immediate issue but 1 2 and 3 are such necessities that I would basically consider it to be broken without them.

I was surprised that 1, 2, and 3 were not included.

I disagree except for number 4.

The commander title is really strong compared to no commander title. When you have a commander title, people will follow you and then you will have a huge zerg to annihilate the enemy.

sounds like good options that really should have already been there.

Lathalshal.7831:

I was surprised that 1, 2, and 3 were not included.

I agree. It was especially surprising to see there is no way to see who else is in the squad, only what squad you are in.

The only point I sort of disagree on is the ability to see everyone on the map. I think it should be an option, but if I’m not the commander I don’t think I really need to see whatever everyone else is doing. That really is just my preference though.

dunno, commander has just a bit too wide scope to use those perks, as basically everybody on the map can join a squad it would become mostly pointless showing random people on the map and micromanaging them.
the commander role is to work on strategies, not tactics.
they should rename the “squad commander” to “general” (or just “commander”) and add a new “squad leader” role for 15 to 30 people groups with all the perks you are requesting.

What I would like is some way to gauge the actual ability of a commander to lead people in battle, so its not just the first moron with 100 gold to spare that get everybody killed.
probably the ability to just like/unlike a commander would be enough (even if a bit prosaic…) or to swear fidelty (yeah, follow…) to one.

bumping up again

I feel that the squad commander should be able to draw on all members’ maps (but not the other way around). This allows the squad commander to be able to micro manage more effectively.

I agree. A friend of mine bought Commander, and I kind of feel bad for him. It’s like he paid 100g to have a new chat that random people can join.

Its really sad but its early and Anet still has time to fix it.

Krathalos.3461:

I agree. A friend of mine bought Commander, and I kind of feel bad for him. It’s like he paid 100g to have a new chat that random people can join.

I feel bad for my guild too. We had a lot of members donate so that we could get this thing that we thought would help organization and while it somewhat did it definitely hasn’t helped 100g worth. I trust these issues will be fixed anyways I mean they need to put in a raid group system and I highly doubt they will put a free one in while commander is still around or at least without offering refunds.

Guilds are buying commander status simply so they can have more than one group together and coordinate. If a guild just wants to run around with 3 guild groups the only way to do it in game atm is with the commander and squad. You need a NEW raid style system for at least 20 people.

We have no effective choices for guilds that wish to run multiple groups privately. Either run together as 5 mans and get lost and scattered, or use the commander/squad system and have 50 more people join you.

Add a Raid style grouping mechanic and solve these issues so we can play together. I’m surprised at how HARD it is in GW2 to simply group and do activities with multiple guild members. Gw2’s inability to effectively do content with our guild is the biggest negative in the game for me.

my suggestions .. and they arent perfect by any means .. are to :

1. Make commander chat a different color.
The main problem is people don’t listen (read).
The main reason I think this is true, is because chat is littered with people barking orders. Who’s gonna read orders from 5 ppl? And what the hell are you supposed to do with 5 different orders?

2. Make a voteable, or random with the option to pass it commander when there is no commander in the lake.

They need to put in a guild only ranking system for WvW ..your leader or officers being int he same role on the battle field would make sense. If a-net wants to make us pay then fine, but make them functional. I don’t like or want to be running, leading, or following any zerg facemash spam monsters who are blinded by the numbers they are causing. Large group based strategy on the battlefield is what makes WvW so much fun, and A-net has removed the ability to coordinate efficiently. The only thing they DO have in place does nothing to help counter the problem and isn’t currently worth the gold needed for it.

Raid style with all the bells and whistles, including the ability to make private, mark targets according to importance, map marking for coordination, and the ability to assign assistants to help with all of the above abilities. This would fix so many issues right now with orginazation.

I agree with all of these comments tbh. I think a secondary system would also be great even if paid for. The only thing I want to add to that is that if they make a secondary system they need to offer refunds for the guilds that bought commander.

Groups feel like an after thought in this game. You shouldn’t need to be a commander to play with your guild in a more organized fashion than having to update your whereabouts less than every 2 minutes.

I would also like to see the option for different colors for the commander icon, so you can say “red commander heading north, blue going east” or “yellow is a scout team”.

I think that would help alleviate issue where everyone just follows the icon somewhat.

10 . Allow the commander to call targets for the squad…figured this would be a given with the commander.

All really good ideas coming out hopefully they put them in.

These exact same ideas were suggested at the first BWE. I understand that Arenanet probably has a lot of stuff on their plate but…

Player grouping system and coordination tools are lacking horribly at this time. I’m sure that things will change in time, but I’m not sure if Arenanet understands the level of frustration right now when friends and guild members have trouble grouping and doing activities together.

Our guild banded together to get the 100G and we are kinda dissapointed that it’s in such a miserable state right now. I hope they fix it soon.

Cannot back this up enough.

After the 100g was spent only to find out that there’s little to no control over the Squad itself, and the others cannot see each other is very dissapointing. All the mentioned ideas in the OP are not only conservative, they are exactly what 100g should buy you/your guild.

Toggle the icon should be on it.

I really like this idea Melphina I would love to be able to use the squad commander without needing to advertise it to the server. With 180 active and representing members in my guild there is enough to command without zerglings expecting me to lead there group that is on the other side of the map too.

1.) Remove and replace it with a better autogrouping/one mark per group system.

/signed

I would like to note, I am assuming the devs had a list a mile long of things that they wanted to add to game, but time constraints and being pressed to release the game became a priority. I think all of the “MMO common sense” changes are on the horizon. I am so impressed with the evolution of the WvW that I can overlook all of the trivial stuff that is known as MMO 101.

Everytime I find something slightly annoying, I think back to the faceplant of AOC siege, and thank God I am not throwing another game into the garbage can.

italia.6524:

/signed

I would like to note, I am assuming the devs had a list a mile long of things that they wanted to add to game, but time constraints and being pressed to release the game became a priority. I think all of the “MMO common sense” changes are on the horizon. I am so impressed with the evolution of the WvW that I can overlook all of the trivial stuff that is known as MMO 101.

Everytime I find something slightly annoying, I think back to the faceplant of AOC siege, and thank God I am not throwing another game into the garbage can.

I agree I can wait however when you spend 100g on something that lets be honest gives no basic functionality it is an issue.

R E F L H E X.8413:

1.) Remove and replace it with a better autogrouping/one mark per group system.

I disagree with this, I don’t see a reason to remove it. It can simply be improved, now of course there is the issue of people want to just be able to make raids (for events and such) but it seems like ANet doesn’t want to do that. However the item you spend 100g on should give that option.

All the above are great ideas. Thanks for warning me not to buy the book yet. You can still take charge in either team or map chat…the commander icon is only going to help you so much. We have 1-2 people that have the commander icon on Anvil Rock, and it’s rare that anyone takes them seriously.

It’s nice when people volunteer to chip in to buy the book…but for now just rely on your natural (or unnatural) human ability to lead people, rather than a silly item.

Cayden.4587:

R E F L H E X.8413:

1.) Remove and replace it with a better autogrouping/one mark per group system.

I disagree with this, I don’t see a reason to remove it.

Are you one of the few who currently have it right now, yet when everyone has it will agree with me?

R E F L H E X.8413:

Cayden.4587:

R E F L H E X.8413:

1.) Remove and replace it with a better autogrouping/one mark per group system.

I disagree with this, I don’t see a reason to remove it.

Are you one of the few who currently have it right now, yet when everyone has it will agree with me?

Nope.

I have it but I couldn’t care less how many people have it and would not agree with you even then. If they made the appropriate changes as are discussed in this thread than it would be extremely useful. Especially the one where I could run a squad but NOT show up on the map I like that one.

You shouldn’t assume things about people based on if they have an item…
My guild has 180 active members (we know they are active cause we just switched servers and that many came with us and we kicked the rest) and they all represent 100% of the time. We bought the book as a guild to help with our organization when we are fielding 60 people on a map. I am not one of those ppl that bought gold to have their name on the map. I am glad though to see that you care so much about other people showing up on the map to get angry because you don’t.

No new patch before the next WvW makes me sad

/Signed

Why these features aren’t already included I’ll never know!

I know I don’t get how these simple features could have been overlooked on such an expensive item. I mean somewhere along the line someone must have thought, “Hey would I pay 100g for this?”

Please fix this… Come on.

15: Make it cost Badges of Honor alone or in addition to the normal cost.

When commanders are good, it’s great. When they suck, it’s worse than horrible. Because then you have a large group of people following someone who has no idea what to do, in which case the people who actually DO know what to do are basically ignored.

Today I saw a commander who didn’t say a word to anyone, and did horribly stupid things. The people who were new to WvW simply followed him around.

There was a time when we could flank the enemy siege since we happened to be in the perfect spot. If we destroyed their siege, we would have allowed the rest of our force to push forward, meaning we would outnumber the enemy 2-1. Instead, he leads these people into the enemy zerg and they all die, instead of just destroying their seige and allowing us to win.

So what exactly has changed regarding the commander functionality since BWE2? If this post is correct, absolutely nothing. Which is a far cry from what they were saying the Commander feature would allow.

They put it on the back burners. They increased the price so no one could access it in BWE 3, and left it the same. Queue times killed BWE 3 and that system has been a focus for WvW ever since.

On a side note, as a commander please make the thing account bound. 100g, and now I am forced to play once class when I might want to play a mesmer or guardian depending on the numbers of those classes my guild is running is a terrible downside to the pin. Make the manual account bound and you have solved a problem.

Commander on Seafarer’s Rest here. I can sign the OP post for a lot of these features. Commander is 100g and while I understand the price is steep to make it an unaffordable rank for people not supported by followers, it needs much more tools to be cost-efficient.

Squad management skills are currently a joke, which was well explained in posts above. So focus on that first.

And above all else, please do make commander rank account-wide. There is absolutely NO reason for it not to be so, and it forces us to play one character only, which is pointless.

Sad that another patch apparently has come and gone with no improvement to the squad commander system. Why don’t the devs take this issue seriously :|

I agree. Almost no significant patches to WvW. Commander and squad function should be the first one…. I just don’t feel WvW is a priority for the game.