Guild Wars 2

In place of the book, there should be a merit system instead.

Each objective you do gives you a certain amount of points.
A kill gives 1, taking a camp gives 5, a tower gives 10, etc.
Setting up a Flame Ram gives 1, a Treb gives 3, etc.
Essentially, everything you do that furthers the war effort gives you a certain amount of points.

With these points, you gain staff positions. Upon gaining 500 points, you are a Corporal (named differently in GWs to fit the world). At 1000, you’re a Sergeant. At 5000, Lieutenant. 10,000, Captain. 20,000 Major. Up until General/Commander/Admiral/Whatever.

Each position gives a different and stacking benefit to your character.
A Corporal has 1% more movement speed. A Sergeant has 1% more damage along with the 1% speed. A Captain has 3% more damage, 2% more speed and 1% reduced damage taken.
These are just sample numbers, of course. But the general idea is that the benefits are present but not overbearing. I don’t want a Commander to be able to go 3v1 people. But he should have something like 10% increased damage, 5% damage reduction and 10% increased movement speed.

Maybe, and just maybe, give certain ranks a certain WvW-only skill. For example, at Captain, you can double his WvW rank bonuses for 10 seconds.
And a Commander can see the number of enemies 3000 ranges ahead of him in a certain direction. Of course, there will be only one slot for this skill. Maybe have it replace the elite skill, or have it be an F5 skill.

And lastly, at a certain rank, like Sergeant, you can make squads, starting at 10 max capacity, 50 at Captain and unlimited at Commander. Each person in a squad is given half of the leader’s bonuses.

Discuss.

Not too fond of this, but to go along with it. When would ranks be reset? Else everyone would end up as commander.

Also this would be quite a bit of a setback for beginners. Its already hard as a level 10 to fight a level 80 with exotics in WVW, wouldnt this just broaden the gap?

Not sure I agree with stat bonuses, but I do agree that the commander rank needs to be earned through wvw, maybe with badges(a LOT of badges), not bought without outside gold. There are so many commanders who have no idea what they are doing.

instead of soem silly half kittened non functional multi party grouping system like commander books or anything that resembles it,

how about some basic standard raid group functionality.

half my job as my guild’s wvw strategist in any given night of wvw is juggling groups, figuring out where each group is on the map, keeping groups together, frettign over the fact we have 1 or 2 full groups and one group of 1-3 players, coming up with creative ways to arrange our members between groups so no one is alone, trying to figure out if the other groups in our guild are nearby or not, trying to figure out if those green dots are one of our guys or a pug, and other totalyl neeedless silliness that i haven’t had to deal with since before l2 had a raid grouping system.

“play the ui, not the game” – i’d love to focus on the game, instead of fighting the ui.

Hillierawrs.5834:

Not too fond of this, but to go along with it. When would ranks be reset? Else everyone would end up as commander.

Also this would be quite a bit of a setback for beginners. Its already hard as a level 10 to fight a level 80 with exotics in WVW, wouldnt this just broaden the gap?

Well, no. Following the math, it’ll take 500 kills, 20 camps, 15 towers, and about 10 keeps and castles to get to Sergeant. After playing five weeks, I barely have enough to get there, and I go to wars rather frequently.
But someone that is a more hardcore WvW player could get to sergeant maybe in a week.
And since each rank takes progressively more points to achieve, no, not everyone would end up commanders. Again, these numbers are all used as examples, but the basic idea is that high ranks are not easily obtained.

As for your second point, I have no qualms with setting back beginners.
It’s hard for a level 10 to fight a level 80. Sounds right to me.
What’s the point of getting gear and such if a level 10 is on the same footing as me?

I’d rather have this than just farm PvE all day for gold.