Guild Wars 2

Today, on SBI borderlands, about 3 hours ago, there were seven SBI commanders. And from what I can tell not one of them used squad chat.

1. Not everyone is on the TS3 server. Some people are playing with friends and are using voice chat to keep them alive. That’s why we have a chat window.
2. Being part of a squad instantly means that all the other squad icons disappear. It helps avoid clutter.
3. Squad chat is not shared. It’s private The only ones that can see squad chat are the people in your squad. It’s essentially a bigger party chat system. Do not turn this off.
4. Being a Commander gives you special rally point commands. Don’t have time to say something? You can place a dot on the map for people to attack or defend, and only people in your squad can see it.
5. Squad chat is in gold. This makes it stand out. This helps you quickly put out an order for people around you that won’t get swamped from the other people in team and map chat, which have similar colors. It allows people in the squad to quickly say that there’s danger that will be specific to your group and will stand out even more than local chat. Especially useful if your squad is trebbing and someone is scouting the wall strength.
6. Currently broken, but if you hit ‘m’ to open the map, find a commander icon, and click on it, you can instantly join a squad.
7. A quote:

TevinC.1472:

You can see who is in your squad by typing /squadinfo, it also shows how much supply they have.

Don’t tell me my fellow commanders didnt know that?

• In addition, because this is broken for convenience and grouping up sake, the best thing a great thing for squad commanders to do is to respawn at main waypoint, send out a message in team chat as to what your intentions are, and wait a few minutes for people to run over to you, right-click, and join your squad. Every time you respawn you repeat what your current intentions are, and wait for your earlier group to respawn as well so they don’t get picked off as stragglers trying to run across the map after you. There are a lot of people, soloists and pairs, ganking in WvW right now. Especially Thieves and Warriors.

Please. If you’re going to lead people, do it properly and responsibly. Team chat should primarily be used to call out an upcoming attack, either one that you’re planning or one that you see the enemy planning.

Edit: I just got off from playing again, and apparently joining squads from the map menu is in fact working.

Edit2: /squadinfo

Good points, thanks for the post.

Since commander doesnt know how is in his squad, squad chat in not reliable. Addition, commanders should lead the whole map to be able to achieve some goals and squad chat is not helping this.

Well, squad chat is good if multiple commanders exists but there are still tons of thing to be improved.

As a commander, it is just world-wide icon that helps.

I would suggest that they implement an exclusive commander only chat channel to help facilitate communication between them without having to resort to whispers and public bickering.

Whispers and Team chat are fine for commanders communicating. The latter lets the server know where the big groups are going, so small 5 man parties can figure out where they can be most effective off on their own.

As for the commander not knowing who is in his squad, that’s something that can be fixed. But you can always tell people to join your squad and to use squad chat. The more you encourage them, the more they do it. Part of the whole leadership thing.

And as I mentioned up above, the problem is when there are multiple commanders, and then team chat becomes an entire slog of constant babble, some useful, some useless.

When you click to join a squad from the map, I guess the commander needs to approve it similar to if you /join somebody for a party? Because it seems to me a lot of them are not doing that.

Commander is a kittening joke at the moment they need to add more things such as Commanders can actually see whos in there squad and People in the Squad have different colored dots (YELLOW) so people in the squad know who are with them.

7 commanders one map, there is the problem and it will only get worse. 100g to get an icon.

Squad chat is not secure, a spy can just as easily join a squad and no one knows that he joined. At minimum the squad commander should get raid frames to see who is in the squad.

Squad chat isn’t secure, but neither is our Teamspeak. As usual, all you can do is push through and try to out play them in the open field.

why dont you lead then?

I do lead. A lot. I was just on as Bloody Smith. I’m still saving for a Commander’s Compendium though; unfortunately my small guild is obsessed with spending money for legendaries and maxing crafting for completionists sake at the moment.

You can see who is in your squad by typing /squadinfo, it also shows how much supply they have.

Don’t tell me my fellow commanders didnt know that?

Woah, I didn’t even know that. I’m adding that to the OP.

As a Commander I can tell you, at least on HoD, I get whispers from those not in my Squad (it fills up quick) with what their group is doing, where, with what, and an estimated ETA for support if needed. The Militia (aka Non-Alliance based personnel) on HoD is probably the most exceptional grouping of players in the game. With everyone working with Commanders from TA, and the few that aren’t we get work done. It’s all about communication and a real want to win attitude.

That being said, a Commander UI box would be AMAZING. As well the ability to SEE all of the people in my Squad on the Map regardless of how near/far from me they are would be awesome. However, if ANET has plans for something like that. I don’t see it in the near future. One can hope though. Soon enough…

Daedalus.3954:

As a Commander I can tell you, at least on HoD, I get whispers from those not in my Squad (it fills up quick) with what their group is doing, where, with what, and an estimated ETA for support if needed. The Militia (aka Non-Alliance based personnel) on HoD is probably the most exceptional grouping of players in the game. With everyone working with Commanders from TA, and the few that aren’t we get work done. It’s all about communication and a real want to win attitude.

That being said, a Commander UI box would be AMAZING. As well the ability to SEE all of the people in my Squad on the Map regardless of how near/far from me they are would be awesome. However, if ANET has plans for something like that. I don’t see it in the near future. One can hope though. Soon enough…

This is what is needed for proper WvW play, but we need a /showcommander command that lets players know who their leaders are out there. That and perhaps show the commander icon beside their name anytime they post in any chat.

Squads work?! because ZERO of the commanders on BG use them, lol

I don’t know of any military commanders that would go into battle not knowing if their soldiers are actually with them or not. Until they listen to some of the extensive feedback about showing everyone in a squad with a unique color dot on the map… commanders are basically a big chat channel with waypoints.

WvW and commander/squad system in particular just don’t seem to be a priority at this time. I’m reading the same feedback and suggestions now that I did since BW1. Nothing has changed except the price of being a commander.

I’m on fort aspenwood and have no idea how squads work because I never joined one. There aren’t a lot of commanders on FA and the few that I see around are pretty terrible. I just run around and do my own thing.

Unless I’m missing something, a commander can’t see who is in their squad. But can see the three dozen green dots on the map following them.

I wouldn’t be surprised if less than a third of those green dots bother to join the squad, and of whats left, probably half of them are even paying attention to team chat.

So if the commander wants to even make an honest attempt at directing the zerg, then the only option they have is Team chat.

Commanders need to see who is in the squad. In fact the squad needs to see who is in the squad.

Let’s say the commander orders a group of 5 to go defend and report from the ruins. Well there might be three green dots on the way over there. Are those your guys? Who knows. Commander want’s a handful of people to bring supply for a treb. You see allies going to and from a camp. Are those guys grabbing supply for your squads treb or for their own?

It’s very hard to play re-actively when you and the commander have no idea of what the squads actual presence is. When you are dodging arrow carts its not exactly like you can do a squad chat role call and see what every one is up to.

There should definitely be more the encourage squads and not just zerging around an icon. Honest to gods, I watched a group of at least 20 follow a commander right off the side of a cliff. Pile of dead bodies at the bottom. Commander’s presence is supposed to increase the effectiveness of a group of players…not diminish it to the intelligence level of rodents.

It’s one of the reasons why Commanders themselves need to start reminding people to join their squad and use squad chat. As for seeing who’s in on the mini map, that’s something we probably have to wait a while for, considering some of the other bugs and issues on the chopping block. I want to see that PvP blog go up!

squads come and go and map/team reach more people. switching between squad and map/team also wastes time.
supply count is better done manually because there will be large number of followers not in squad.

Nothing stops you from using local chat. In fact, local chat also helps with keeping team chat uncluttered. As for “taking too long”, I resent anything like that. Anything worth saying is worth saying right. You know how annoying it is when someone says “enemy incoming!” in team chat with no indication as to where they are or how many are there? The time spent making sure people know where you are and get enough details is canceled out by properly using the chat channels to talk to people right next to you.

Edit: I have to stop typing angrily on mobile. The auto-correct is killing me. A perfect example right there.

no, i actually did not know that, and when following a commander, i’d just use team chat.

so thanks for the info.

/Squadinfo
Squad commanders can find out who is in their squad, how much supply each squaddie has and has a total supply/squad member count available to them.

Just in case anyone is unaware of the above command

And as I hope to test this out, I find no commanders on SBI Borderlands tonight. We’re getting kinda crushed now; we’re outmanned on at least two maps during primetime.

Alright, I’m going to hop on now and see if people have given up yet.

Not much has changed. I still see a lack of squad chat use.