Guild Wars 2

Just an observation but when there is no commander on the map people just have no idea what to do or where to go. Some times you get a few vocal people on mapchat but nothing really happens. This is from a gold tier Server (SoS)

I hate to say it but constantly getting crushed by the top 3 servers seems to have turned people away from WvW. Either that or people are just losing interest in WvW but the drop does seem to coincide with the start of this competition so I’m guessing its the former. So no commanders seem to be turning up, we’ve become too reliant on them to organise the masses.

BL’s are just places to hang out while waiting to get into EB as massive enemy zergs circle around waiting for groups to venture out of the safe areas.

*Perhaps people could ask to be nominated for a commander tag if no commanders are on, and it is removed as soon as you leave the map.
*Or have some kind of toggle/overlay on the map that lets you see what the player density is so at least you can see at a glance where the main groups of teammates are and go help them.

A thing I’ve noticed (being on a server with no commander late night) is also that once the commander heads off to bed, he usually asks if anyone could take over, so perhaps being able to get permission from the commander to borrow his tag could work.
Otherwise the idea of nominating a commander would also be great. Perhaps even better if you could briefly get a list of the ppl on the BL and vote for a temporary commander? (not sure if it would work, would depend on the server community being reasonable I guess).

Most PUGS join a team purely as they are used to joining one for champ farming/other pve activity, and have little idea of co ordinated team play.

I’ve lost count of the times I have either tried to form or asked for a team to go off in one direction flipping camps etc while we go in the opposite direction trying to flip something else.

As soon as the commanders go, a lot of BL become a milling mass of brainless wonders- it’s almost like the commander tag dropping switches their brains off, with the reports of sightings disappearing, etc.

Then of course there are those that form a small party or have people follow, run to the first camp left or right, get wiped, try the tower in front, get wiped, and then give up and cry about being unable to get anything as some massive zerg awaits them….try running out and heading north for a while, then flip camps, move fast, use superior rams and don’t move in an obvious clockwise or counter clockwise way so they don’t know where you will hit next.

buy a tag, its only 100gold

Teamspeak can solve this.

Commanders are Commanders. None of this nominate crap. The 100 gold price is there to stop casual people from just picking a tag up.

Victory.2879:

Most PUGS join a team purely as they are used to joining one for champ farming/other pve activity, and have little idea of co ordinated team play.

I’ve lost count of the times I have either tried to form or asked for a team to go off in one direction flipping camps etc while we go in the opposite direction trying to flip something else.

As soon as the commanders go, a lot of BL become a milling mass of brainless wonders- it’s almost like the commander tag dropping switches their brains off, with the reports of sightings disappearing, etc.

Then of course there are those that form a small party or have people follow, run to the first camp left or right, get wiped, try the tower in front, get wiped, and then give up and cry about being unable to get anything as some massive zerg awaits them….try running out and heading north for a while, then flip camps, move fast, use superior rams and don’t move in an obvious clockwise or counter clockwise way so they don’t know where you will hit next.

Apart from the problems you mentioned. The game does an awful job helping the player to organize a large number of people (even a small group of 5+ people) and controlling a map.

The comm tag is plain bad in most cases it just makes a mess when there is more than 1 tag up and 100g is a lot of gold if you dont play often.
Then there is the fact that you see only friendlies in a small area around you which has an huge impact on overall organiziation. Its the main reason why alot of people run around “headless”, because the only way to tell where people are is either via comm tag, chat or any 3rd part communication. But on this large scale you can’t expect everyone to use 3rd party software and the chat becomes just a mess when 50+ player asking for directions and whatnot.

The game relies heavily on the player to organize to a point where it drives PUGs and non regular WvW players away from the game.

Im still waiting for the revamp of the commander tag.

I’d like to see the Commander Tag for outnumbered servers provide the vitality buff Siegegrazer gives in the base camp.

canadez.5328:

Victory.2879:

Most PUGS join a team purely as they are used to joining one for champ farming/other pve activity, and have little idea of co ordinated team play.

I’ve lost count of the times I have either tried to form or asked for a team to go off in one direction flipping camps etc while we go in the opposite direction trying to flip something else.

As soon as the commanders go, a lot of BL become a milling mass of brainless wonders- it’s almost like the commander tag dropping switches their brains off, with the reports of sightings disappearing, etc.

Then of course there are those that form a small party or have people follow, run to the first camp left or right, get wiped, try the tower in front, get wiped, and then give up and cry about being unable to get anything as some massive zerg awaits them….try running out and heading north for a while, then flip camps, move fast, use superior rams and don’t move in an obvious clockwise or counter clockwise way so they don’t know where you will hit next.

Apart from the problems you mentioned. The game does an awful job helping the player to organize a large number of people (even a small group of 5+ people) and controlling a map.

The comm tag is plain bad in most cases it just makes a mess when there is more than 1 tag up and 100g is a lot of gold if you dont play often.
Then there is the fact that you see only friendlys in a small area around you which has an huge impact on overall organiziation. Its the main reason why alot of people run around “headless”, because the only way to tell where people are is either via comm tag, chat or any 3rd part communication. But on this large scale you can’t expect everyone to use 3rd party software and the chat becomes just a mess when 50+ player asking for directions and whatnot.

The game relys heavily on the player to organize to a point where it drives PUGs and non regular WvW players away from the game.

Im still waiting for the revamp of the commander tag.

Yep pretty much sums it up. I’m still not sure why green dots aren’t shown on the entire map and red dots within visual range- wvw just feels like it was a bit underfunded and an afterthought coming up to launch and not much has changed since.

Having no commander tag on a map is a serious detriment and can’t really be solved aside from allowing people to tag up regularly – and to train those people in commanding. One thing I’ve noticed is that (and I’m guilty of this myself) if you haven’t seen that commander/guild tag before, you instantly ask them to tag down. Of course, it discourages multiple tags running at the same time when you don’t want there to be, but then, in off hours, those people with tags aren’t willing to tag back up again.

Guilds should be training new commanders often so that you don’t see the same commander online everyday slogging it out and burning themselves out of the game. People just aren’t willing to do it.

People are terrible to commanders. It’s actually amazing to me that anyone subjects themselves to that kind of abuse. (Note: the above poster asking someone to tag down is a great example.)

Run a tag for an hour and you will probably never want to do it again.

+1 for a “temporary tag system”
In the meantime, what we sometimes do is to make groups so that blue dots tells you where the “bus” is, and put a target on the head of whoever is leading.
(That is a willing player asks everyone tp spawn, then groups get organised, then “commander” is targetted)
Of course, if someone just comes on the ma, he does not see activity, since there is no tag, but it is still better than nothing

Folks in SoS just need to get in the habit of leaving TS on and being in the appropriate channel whether they are roaming or following a zerg.
Luvpie gets tired of spamming all day long for people to log in (and to their credit, a lot of people do) only for people to get selective amnesia and not log back in the next time they WvW.

As the official commander for SoS’s “Happy Hour” (3 drink minimum) ; I’d appreciate it as well.

The solution is obviously something larger than a Party and perhaps then something yet larger than that. Commander tag is a nice funnel for pointing players where to go but somewhat unwieldy.

Ideally: Groups can join together in a League or a Force. The leader of a group that has another group join into it becomes the “Commander” of a force putting a tag over them that is visible only to those in the force. This would also come with Nameplates and chat color coded to the new “force” thingy like Group and Guild chat already is.

A map without a person sigiling up can function as long as there is communication. Better if it is in teamspeak but map chat can work as well as long as it is clear concise and timely. Of course if someone is directing through chat others have to be willing to follow instead of troll and whine.

map chat will never be as fast or as concise as VoiP. Not to mention that between all the chatter and “skill recharging” messages that the commander might entirely miss important scouting info.
There is a huge difference between scouting info given over VoiP, and the often confused messages typed out.
Plus the lag while typing forces the scout to be immobile while trying to type a response.

no commander in map? i would say no problem. it is the kittens that complain because if there is no commander there is no karma train. i think having no commander in map is mostly good for me having a server with small population.
some dumb kitten commander stretched the man power so thin that our defenses become crackers (since kittens only want the bags and karma) and most commander are kittens (no commander in map, wont tag up because they also only want karma and bags)
i think it is stupid and the wvw system need an overhaul.
i think what people need is to learn how to read wvw maps, how to respond and to make up strategy (which most people is too lazy to do that because its mainly a commander task)

When no tag is present, you and whatever friends you can gang up with should:
1. Flip camps and set supply traps.
2. Run supply to your objectives.
3. Build defensive siege.
4. Turtle until help arrives.
5. Flip bloodlust when possible.

People need to learn to play to see results. Seriously. It’s pathetic when people whine about no tag and DEMAND someone tag up. Really, people have raged at us for not having a tag. And once someone obliges, they take a lot of crap because things don’t always go our way. Yea, hindsight is 20/20 ya know. Sure, I’ll tag up— gimme 100g and I’ll go lead you off a cliff. No? Press Ctrl-Target on someone. Still no? Ask someone to do it to you. Really, it’s nobody’s responsibility to babysit you and if they are willing to help you, then you should already be thankful, even if they are subpar, because at least they’re trying to think on their own. Everyone has to start everywhere, and if you just reject over com because they are new, then where are you gonna find new ones?

Since I don’t want to learn to play, you can also take the 15 minutes to join your server’s teamspeak. Problem solved unless nobody’s there too, and in that case, you’re going to have to type in chat. I know it’s scary, but it’s an MMO. So in reality, you don’t have to even learn how to play. You just have to learn to not be a jerk and find the best medium of communication. Your server mates usually won’t eat you; though I suppose you should move away from servers that do consume people. Intra server bickering is bad for the server and just leads to less bags, more wipes, and increased rage.

This game doesn’t lend itself to playing and chatting at the same time though. It’d be nice if they had something like Diablo 2 where you could press a number to send a predefined message. Actually, why doesn’t it exist?

I spawned in on Deso BL today and everyone was either in Citadel or the Garrison while Gandara ran around capturing the map.

I got a little angry while I was out recapping camps and towers.I said people have got so used to zerging they don’t know what to do when there isn’t one.

Someone replied,there is not much we can do if there is no zerg.

We were not outnumbered.

All became obvious later when a commander did turn up.They all melted infront of a Gandara charge.I went to another map.

Guess these peeps weren’t around when we faced Vizunah Square.

I’ve been told that SoS has no public form of VOIP. I’m not even sure how this is possible.

Nickthemoonwolf.1485:

I’ve been told that SoS has no public form of VOIP. I’m not even sure how this is possible.

No, we have a server-wide TS that everyone is welcome to use. Some guilds prefer not to use it when they raid (AGG, EP) but it’s open to everyone on Sea of Sorrows who wants to use it.

Chris.3290:

Folks in SoS just need to get in the habit of leaving TS on and being in the appropriate channel whether they are roaming or following a zerg.
Luvpie gets tired of spamming all day long for people to log in (and to their credit, a lot of people do) only for people to get selective amnesia and not log back in the next time they WvW.

As the official commander for SoS’s “Happy Hour” (3 drink minimum) ; I’d appreciate it as well.

This. All the time I’m in a BL or EB and there’s either no commander or a commander that is still learning everyone complains and asks why Luvpie isn’t here to lead our sheep around. He has a life too. You can’t depend on 1 person to always be there to tag up and lead the PUGs around. I know Luvpie is hands down the best Commander on SoS (no offense to anyone else of course), but really people he can’t be on 24/7 to take care of all of you.

As for the TeamSpeak part, it’s free, why not use it? Even if all you do is get on and follow orders it’s helping so much. The amount of time it takes to type out a message directing in Map Chat could cost the battle. Even when there is no Commander online TeamSpeak helps so much. When [EP] transferred over I was amazed at the fact that they were able to keep a waypoint on our keep in EB and hold at least 1-2 t3 towers with such a small force on. The answer was they used TeamSpeak to relay Enemy movements and all worked as a team instead of complaining all the time.

The simple truth about winning in WvW is get on TeamSpeak, quit whining, follow direction, and above all have fun collecting them bags!!

I would love to jump into WvW and find no commanders. No commander = no zerg. I’m so sick of the skill free zerg bullkitten that I actually left WvW months ago. I’d rather have interesting 5v5 3v5 fights, which Anet doesn’t support at all…

Phlogus.2371:

A map without a person sigiling up can function as long as there is communication. Better if it is in teamspeak but map chat can work as well as long as it is clear concise and timely. Of course if someone is directing through chat others have to be willing to follow instead of troll and whine.

If there arent at least 2-3 20+ guilds running around untagged, it function about as good as an comatose 120 year old. Sure it may work defensivly, but if the enemy give even the slightest of prods in any organized fashion its going to fall apart quickly. We’re talking about seeing ticks go from 350+ to 200 in 15 minutes. Yes, it happen. Unless of course you’re talking about a server that’s pretty much already won on overall score and being constant top dog due to coverage, then they can play it relaxed.

The thing is, being a commander is a dirty job. You spend 100 gold and you get absolutely nothing for it. I often see people laugh on the forum about scrub commanders spending 100g “just because they think they are cool”. That may be so but they still didnt get crap for those 100g. People will raise that pug commander to high heavens, as if the entire borderland depend on him. When he fail they ridicule him. Multiple commanders to “spread the load”? HA! Complete taboo in GW2! We need that pug commander to lead us and only him, everyone on that pug commander (but we all hate zerging, booo, we dont zerg!) and kitten that kittened kitten if he doesnt lead us to victory!

But what it really comes down to is the fact that a poor commander is better than no commander at all.

It is true that a map falls apart without a commander. I have commanded few times and for the large part, refuse to do so anymore unless I have my particular crew with me (what I consider core players) due to my experiences as follows in no particular order:

1. People refusing to get on voice which forces me and my group to remain stationary or at best in auto run while typing, thus being open to organized flanks etc. results of this are self explanatory.

2. This is my biggest reason to not tag up anymore and it is as follows: People dont push with commander. They just stay there in the back and are completely and utterly useless.

3. Map is qued thus we are unable to get our 20 man in it

4. We drop a wall/gate and 4 of us push in while 36 stay behind uselessly plinking

5. People dropping unnecessary siege causing me to take the 40 man group to resupply for inner gates / walls then they get kitten ed that we had to peel off and not take our objective or missed our time window and get wiped on defenses.

6. People running too many uplevels / zerks which can be wiped easily at 1:4 or even as high as 1:6 odds by an organized team.

7. The above mentioned zerks/uplevels are hostile to me, for their failure to understand the game play and their own classes/builds game mechanics and wiping themselves on the simplest of things.

8. Players refusing to log onto and play toons that will counter an organized meta, whatever that particular meta is for any given match, be it hammer heavy, necro / ele heavy, etc. While it may be less fun then playing main toons, it a lot more fun to wipe the opposition instead of being wiped due to bad team comp.

People hostile and vulgar in map chat when I politely ask them to get on voice or try to get at least a few to address and eliminate any of the above stated problems.

So all in all, unlesss I have my team with me, I no longer tag up except for some misc purposses such as to indicate a location for the map etc. We run tagless many times to avoid the problems listed above.

At this point I would rather lose the whole map and towers/keeps or whatever, then have to deal with this sort of crap anymore. So unless the wider game population starts to put in at least reasonable effort, let them run around in EB like chickens with their heads cut off and get farmed.

So if anyone complains there is no commander, then they need to fix all of the above 1st. And not just for themselves but for their guild / server, then there will be plenty of commanders as we will not need to tag down so much or not tag up at all.

Yes they do. It’s called tPVP.

Tongku.5326:

It is true that a map falls apart without a commander. I have commanded few times and for the large part, refuse to do so anymore unless I have my particular crew with me (what I consider core players) due to my experiences as follows in no particular order:

---

At this point I would rather lose the whole map and towers/keeps or whatever, then have to deal with this sort of crap anymore. So unless the wider game population starts to put in at least reasonable effort, let them run around in EB like chickens with their heads cut off and get farmed.

So if anyone complains there is no commander, then they need to fix all of the above 1st. And not just for themselves but for their guild / server, then there will be plenty of commanders as we will not need to tag down so much or not tag up at all.

What server are you on? Man your server sucks. I’ve been running Commander a few times and I never had any of these problems, except the Team Speak one. But my view on the Team Speak issue: I don’t know if I’m doing it wrong, but when enter Team Speak I have to put in an IP Address and Port. And after that, I need permission from the server to get on.

But for some reason, Commanders and Guild People only give something like, “Get on Teamspeak. et.enjinvoice.com” and expect me to be able to get on without giving me permissions, without providing IP Address for the teamspeak, so yeah if they wonder why nobody gets on, it’s because you’re not helping them get on! Help them out; some people don’t know how to use it the way you do.

I also sometimes run into the problem of people dropping extra siege. No biggie. I tell them, “I’ll drop siege, nobody else drop siege” and they all comply. If you can’t get them to do something as simple as this…. something is wrong with your leadership.

Really though, seems your server has a lot of sucky people in it.

meklin.4530:

As for the TeamSpeak part, it’s free, why not use it? Even if all you do is get on and follow orders it’s helping so much.

Hi! I mostly agree with the underlying sentiment of your message but I do want to point out that the TeamSpeak server isn’t free. It’s paid via donations from SoS citizens. It’s definitely a resource that everyone on SoS can make use of though whether they donate or not.

Mochann.5298:

Tongku.5326:

It is true that a map falls apart without a commander. I have commanded few times and for the large part, refuse to do so anymore unless I have my particular crew with me (what I consider core players) due to my experiences as follows in no particular order:

---

At this point I would rather lose the whole map and towers/keeps or whatever, then have to deal with this sort of crap anymore. So unless the wider game population starts to put in at least reasonable effort, let them run around in EB like chickens with their heads cut off and get farmed.

So if anyone complains there is no commander, then they need to fix all of the above 1st. And not just for themselves but for their guild / server, then there will be plenty of commanders as we will not need to tag down so much or not tag up at all.

What server are you on? Man your server sucks. I’ve been running Commander a few times and I never had any of these problems, except the Team Speak one. But my view on the Team Speak issue: I don’t know if I’m doing it wrong, but when enter Team Speak I have to put in an IP Address and Port. And after that, I need permission from the server to get on.

But for some reason, Commanders and Guild People only give something like, “Get on Teamspeak. et.enjinvoice.com” and expect me to be able to get on without giving me permissions, without providing IP Address for the teamspeak, so yeah if they wonder why nobody gets on, it’s because you’re not helping them get on! Help them out; some people don’t know how to use it the way you do.

I also sometimes run into the problem of people dropping extra siege. No biggie. I tell them, “I’ll drop siege, nobody else drop siege” and they all comply. If you can’t get them to do something as simple as this…. something is wrong with your leadership.

Really though, seems your server has a lot of sucky people in it.

My server and guild is in my sig bud. Also, Please do not make such false assumptions about me. I have been playing the game since beta and doing everything you said for the last 8 months out of that and much much more that you havent. There is only so much I can take.

And sicne we have a match for this and next week, note the difference if you ever see me tagged up (extremely unlikely) in EB, and on your BL. Though these days I tend to run alts a lot more so that is rare as well.

Thobek.1730:

Just an observation but when there is no commander on the map people just have no idea what to do or where to go. Some times you get a few vocal people on mapchat but nothing really happens. This is from a gold tier Server (SoS)

I hate to say it but constantly getting crushed by the top 3 servers seems to have turned people away from WvW. Either that or people are just losing interest in WvW but the drop does seem to coincide with the start of this competition so I’m guessing its the former. So no commanders seem to be turning up, we’ve become too reliant on them to organise the masses.

BL’s are just places to hang out while waiting to get into EB as massive enemy zergs circle around waiting for groups to venture out of the safe areas.

*Perhaps people could ask to be nominated for a commander tag if no commanders are on, and it is removed as soon as you leave the map.
*Or have some kind of toggle/overlay on the map that lets you see what the player density is so at least you can see at a glance where the main groups of teammates are and go help them.

Gather people together ,appoint one as “commander” and ctrl-T on him.
Commander problem solved.
There are inherent problems with human nature and commanders though.
The scrubs that arrived to do achievements have no patience and DEMAND the commander to zerg around so they can get spoonfed profit.
I dont think any veteran commander would like to run around haveing a pack of deadweights behind his back whining when they dont even lift a finger to fight.
There is also no rule saying that anyone who aqquired a tag is obligated to tag up.
Maybe when the pugs start to act more disciplined and stop looking only after theyr personal gain more commanders will show up.

For people that say “just buy a 100g tag”, that’s not a solution. If I need to move something large once I’d rent a truck not buy one. Nominating/voting a commander is just a fix for when a real commander is not in the map, its not permanent and would just help those willing to step forward and organise so kind of resistance. There also should be a vote to remove the tag just in case the player voted in starts to troll.

Also I agree that all allied dots should be visible. It would help commanders and players know where the distribution of allies are.

I think commander tags should be colour coded only within WvW maps and not just blue. This would help commanders and pugs to at-a-glance know which group to join.

Chris.3290:

As the official commander for SoS’s “Happy Hour” (3 drink minimum) ; I’d appreciate it as well.

I had no idea they did a happy hour session. I might have to investigate this

grave of hearts.7830:

Gather people together ,appoint one as “commander” and ctrl-T on him.
Commander problem solved.
There are inherent problems with human nature and commanders though.
The scrubs that arrived to do achievements have no patience and DEMAND the commander to zerg around so they can get spoonfed profit.

Unfortunately the commander tag system has been around for so long people are so accustomed to “following the blue tag” – crtl-T wouldn’t be effective. Also crtlT does not appear on the map.

Another thing is people use the target system to keep track of their target which is normally an enemy, NOT the commander. Its an interesting option but I doubt Crtl-t would work at all.

“Scrubs” that arrive to do achievements and “DEMAND” the commander to zerg around should basically be muted by the commander if it annoys them so much but I fail to see how this has anything to do with the issue of not having a commander on the map.

He’s basically saying that all of you achievement hunters are violating our game mode and will be happy to have you off our maps and back to your PvE. While we do appreciate the fact our numbers have been going up since season start, it is a bit annoying to run into a ZvZ fight, drop half their team and then all the Zerker geared PvE players drop like flies and their whole Zerg is rallied back up. Get some PVT armour please!

And saying that the target system doesn’t work… Yeah I find putting a Target over the Tagged Commander, or even my party leader for that matter, a wonderful tool to use. Makes it so much easier to find then that tiny blue taco in the chaos in fights. Saying that you don’t want to do that because you use it for targeting your enemy is just lulu being lazy. It takes a second to find your leader and retarget them after your enemy is down. Stop being lazy…

I’m not sure i agree, I’m on SOR and i have literally stood in a tower for 20min screaming in general chat that I’m a Mesmer and just need a few people to take the darn tower. and have watched as the commander carefully took the other 3 towers back, then slowly walked to my tower and drop rams, while i’m talking in general chat “hey there’s a portal here…. um guys?” and this was suppose to be a good commander?
If a “good commander” is defined as being only on TS and ignoring general chat then i can’t see much point in the icon good or bad.

Koralz.3970:

If a “good commander” is defined as being only on TS and ignoring general chat then i can’t see much point in the icon good or bad.

I don’t think he was ignoring general chat on purpose. A lot of times when you’re tagged up, you get a lot of people whispering you (and a lot of that is general insults and derogatory comments) while your guild and party chat is also being spammed up trying to tell you stuff. It’s pretty easy to miss a /map or /team chat report in all that spam.

To combat this problem, we have people here in BG in TS who look for /map and /team chat reports to let the commander know what’s going on so we don’t miss vital scout reports from people not in teamspeak or unable to communicate over voice (no mic).