Simple Commander-GUI overhaul

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Posted by: Tiscan.8345

Tiscan.8345

Just a short info why this thread was created:

Somebody on the german forum started a discussion about the visibility of commanders in PvE. During that discussion, I commented that the whole commander-gui needs an overhaul as currently pretty much no GUI exists at all.

So I wrote a small posting and added a few graphics i slapped together to show what changes should be made as a first step towards a better commander-gui.

After posting those screenshots some people asked me to create an own topic for my ideas as they liked it.

So I decided to redo the graphics and start an own thread. I posted it on the german wvw-board and again was asked to translate it because people on the german board (including me) thought that it won’t reach the devs if we didn’t post it on the english board.

First I didn’t want to translate it (yeah, i’m lazy) but finally decided to do it…

So here we go…


WARNING! -> the following changes are NOT the huge changes some people want to see (sub-squads, etc.) !!! The stuff i’m proposing are mostly minor changes to the existing system (or the system coming on September, 9th) which should be “easy” to add.

The main reason for this is, that I didn’t want ANet to be able to say “Hey, nice – but we can’t add those changes as it would require 2 coders working on them for 4 weeks”


Changes for commanders

So far, there is virtually no UI for the commander. He can use the “/squadinfo” and “/supplyinfo” chat commands but thats about it. The only squad-related UI-elements are “hidden” in the “Groups” dialog where most people wouldn’t really expect them.

My first suggestion is to add a new button to the gui for all players who bought the commander-tag. That button would be displayed the same way the small group-button is displayed on the left side of the screen and it would show a black or grey commander-icon while the player isn’t using his commander-tag.

If the player clicks it, a small pop-up dialog appears (Attachment A) -> this dialog contains all GUI-elements necessary to manage the commander-tag. The commander can choose a color, an icon and he can decide who can see his tag (all players / only guild-members).

After creating a squad, the icon of the button changes to a colored version – so the commander gets a visual feedback he is using his tag. At the same time, a new window appears below the button (Attachemnt. Its a very minimal display of the squad-stats (number of players, supplies, squad-members by class, how many of them are upscaled).

One thing i forgot in that dialog is a combobox which allows the commander to switch between “Show stats for squad-members” and “Show stats for all nearby players” (lets face it: most of the time people don’t join squads).

That way, commanders get a simple way to “manage their tag” and can easily see the basic stats for their zerg.

Changes for “normal” players

The changes for normal players are pretty small. The only “obvious” change for them is a missing button in the “party” dialog. They still see the Join / Invite / Leave Party buttons, etc. – but the “Create” button should be removed from that dialog.

The other change involves the mini-map… right now, if the mouse-pointer hovers over the minimap, 5 icons are displayed to zoom in/out, jump to the personal story, etc. -> there should be a new button looking like a white commander-tag. If the player clicks on it, a new pop-up dialog is shown (Attachment C).

Using this pop-up, players can configure what commanders they’ll see on the minimap.

The three settings on the left are used when the player has joined a squad, the three on the right when he hasn’t.

  • “show all” -> all commanders on the map are displayed (of course taking into account the visibility-setting the commander choosed (guild only / all))
  • “show none” -> never display any commander (if the players joins a squad, THAT commander is ALWAYS displayed – no matter what)
  • “show selected” -> only display “selected commanders” -> commanders can be selected by using “show all”, then right-click all commanders you want to see and then switch to “show selected” -> probably not the best / most userfriendly way to do it but we couldn’t come up with a better idea so far)

By default, those filters would be set to “show all”.

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Posted by: Tiscan.8345

Tiscan.8345

Bonus-Features:

While re-doing the gfx and writing the thread i had two little additional ideas…

Commanders should be able to open a “real” dialog (“real” = like the hero-panel, the inventory, etc.) giving them additional capabilities.

Upon opening it he should see a list of all players in his squad / nearby (Attachment D). The list should display all basic data that is useful for the commander – like Level/Supplies/Class/etc.

By right-clicking on a name he should be able to kick players from his squad (for example if they are offline, switched maps, etc.). By using the combo-box at the bottom of that dialog he can also decide which players he sees (only those in his squad or all nearby players).

(( Another possibility would be to split that list into 2 seperate tabs of that dialog… the first tab could show only squad-members while the second tab shows all nearby players. ))

The second part of the dialog would be a “Siege Calculator” (Attachment E) … its basically a screen with a single textbox where the commander can enter the number of supplies his zerg has (upon opening the dialog, the textbox should be automatically filled with the number of supps of all nearby players) and an overview showing all siege weapons the zerg could build.

I know that most experienced commanders do those calculations in their head but it would be a nice little helper for new commanders.


Thats pretty much it… please keep in mind that the goal of those ideas is not a total overhaul of the existing system but mostly just a new way of displaying things the client already knows today.

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Posted by: Grevender.9235

Grevender.9235

these are all good ideas, and if I am not mistaken some of them were already in the CDI thread…. the only thing we can do is cross fingers and hope.

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Posted by: Tiscan.8345

Tiscan.8345

Thanks…

Honestly… i haven’t read the CDI-thread as i’m not very active on the english forum… I mostly posted it here so there is at least a small chance that an ANet-Dev will see it as posting on the german forum always feels like a waste of time as we pretty much never get any kind of “official” feedback.

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Posted by: Offair.2563

Offair.2563

Can’t they make wvw a bit of open source so people like you can work on this and maybe they implement it? Looks like theyre currently too busy with something else or simply dont bother doing anything for WvW, all in all a great idea.

Big Babou, Ranger for life.
Madness Rises [Rise] – Banners Hold.
Don’t argue with idiots, they pull you down their level and own you with experience.

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Posted by: MasterD.4790

MasterD.4790

Thanks…

Honestly… i haven’t read the CDI-thread as i’m not very active on the english forum… I mostly posted it here so there is at least a small chance that an ANet-Dev will see it as posting on the german forum always feels like a waste of time as we pretty much never get any kind of “official” feedback.

Don’t worry….we don’t really get much “official” feedback here either….nice to see Anet is at least consistent in that department..

Gamadorn the epitome of a hotjoin hero

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Posted by: Oak da Vite.9054

Oak da Vite.9054

I give this thread a [+1] so there might be a chance to be seen by a developer.

Da Vite – Miller’s Sound
Last Phoenix [Nix]

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Posted by: Chris Barrett

Chris Barrett

Gameplay Programmer

Next

Thanks for the work on translating, mocking-up, and thoroughly describing a commander GUI, Tiscan.

The only squad-related UI-elements are “hidden” in the “Groups” dialog where most people wouldn’t really expect them.

There’s one more tool commanders have for organizing their squads that I want to be sure people know about. Alt+left-clicking the map to set an attack/defend/rally icon for their squad: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Commander

Do you think these squad directive icons are useful? What issues do you see with them, if any?

After creating a squad, the icon of the button changes to a colored version – so the commander gets a visual feedback he is using his tag. At the same time, a new window appears below the button (Attachemnt. Its a very minimal display of the squad-stats (number of players, supplies, squad-members by class, how many of them are upscaled).

Your click-to-open UI could provide a lot of information without cluttering up the usual view of the game, which is pretty nice. Though for supply in particular, a more constant display may be worth the visual noise. That seems like it changes rapidly and is always relevant.

One thing i forgot in that dialog is a combobox which allows the commander to switch between “Show stats for squad-members” and “Show stats for all nearby players” (lets face it: most of the time people don’t join squads).

I love the idea of making info available on nearby allied players.

By right-clicking on a name he should be able to kick players from his squad (for example if they are offline, switched maps, etc.). By using the combo-box at the bottom of that dialog he can also decide which players he sees (only those in his squad or all nearby players).

Having some nice way to clean up the squad would definitely be useful. Does it need to be fine-grained to each player? Or would something along the lines of a “Kick offline/afk members.” button serve enough of the same purpose? That might do something like remove players who have been offline or afk for five minutes from the squad, to make room for more players and to clean up the UI.

I’m also interested in learning more about what sets of behaviors commanders go through today. For example, to learn cumbersome parts of the UI. Such as opening the world map to check on objectives… then blindly running off a cliff and dying. Or which parts of the UI, preferably simple and small like you’ve aimed to keep things, are just missing right now.

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Posted by: Elrey.5472

Elrey.5472

(Not native english, i’m sorry for broken english).
If you don’t mind, i’d like to give some feedback from someone that never plays WvsW but uses the commander tag almost daily to command Tequatl, Three headed wurm (marionette and lion’s arch knights back them)…

I feel the OP is right in most of the points. Commanders really need to to be able to have some data in order to manage a group of players with minor misstakes. Most of the issues that i’ve seen has been about not knowing how many players of each class there’s around.
-Example: Everyday in Tequatl we ask to our map chat to type a W for each warrior in the zerg, in order to manage how many banners to rez people we have. We also ask how many guardians for the Tome elite skill to heal if needed.
How many players of each class/proffesion are around is something a commander should be able to know in a blink. The need to ask is a big waste of time that i believe it will also affect the WvsW zergs. If the commander notices there’s a lot of necromancers, he can expect strategies involving fears in advance. If the commander notices he has 2 mesmers, he can build up ambushes with mesmer portals.

I feel dumb trying to explain this in english, but i believe you get my point: More data about our squad equals to a better management of the squad itself.

That said, another issue that i’d like to see adressed (if possible) is to being able to see every single member of the squad in the minimap. We already got a system that works that way, for groups (right now you can see where the people in your group goes as blue dots). We got also something simillar in the WvsW maps, but that shows everyone in the map, regardless of your squad or not.
For PvE events, I feel a commander should be able to see where any member of it’s squad is (or even better, not only commander but everyone in the squad should be able to see their allies). That way we can easily redirect some troops in 1 direction or another if needed.
-Example: In dry top we got 6 different groups doing events at the same time in order to reach Tier 6. Sometimes we are blind wondering if a group made it or wipe. Every group needs to complete an event and then move to the next one. So what’s the problem? People too busy fighting for their life to even type in the chat.

In those scenarios, or even a Tequatl defense, if the commander could easily check the minimap and see how many of those dots are dead or alive, he could redirect some reinforcements or just check that everything goes fine.

ES Wiki Sysop. Vanquiser of the Marionette, Lover of the Aetherpath.
Aens / Ellantriel / Nao To Mori / Saelyth. Commander
Guias de Raids en español / Spanish raiding guides

(edited by Elrey.5472)

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Posted by: Reborn.2934

Reborn.2934

Thanks for the work on translating, mocking-up, and thoroughly describing a commander GUI, Tiscan.

……
I’m also interested in learning more about what sets of behaviors commanders go through today. For example, to learn cumbersome parts of the UI. Such as opening the world map to check on objectives… then blindly running off a cliff and dying. Or which parts of the UI, preferably simple and small like you’ve aimed to keep things, are just missing right now.

first of all .

THANK YOU for your interest to hear from us and posting of these “bloody” topics (wvw ) !!!

as a wvw commander ( pug that hates to speak on teamspeak ) my difficulties are these .

  • i don’t know some basic info and stats of the players around me / follow me. for example if i had as info from the guardians near me ( the armor , vitality and the healing power ) i can suggest them were they should stay in battle . near me or with the damage dealers .another info that is very useful for commanders is what utility and elite skills they are using .also the level should be useful to suggest to players where to stay in battle . at least for wvw i think that all have a place in battle , even an uplevel char can use a siege with safety if he has the mastery , but if he will go play in-front line i am sure the front line enemies will be the last thing that he will see in the battle before dies
  • i don’t know where are the people that are following me . in the party formation players can see with blue dots the other players in the map . as commander if i had with yellow dots the position of them in the map i can organize them better and i will know if i have scouters in-front or behind me
  • final the /supplyinfo /accept to come to my squad ( there is not like this now , everyone can join the squad ) and any other commands you can add it in a small window when someone opens his commander tag as tiscan suggested, available with mouse click . chatting and fighting is some times is very hard and triggers some times to open other in-game windows like TP , inventory . i think an addition in general options menu to disable windows to be opened from chat will help a lot the “pug” commanders .

also i want to ask you a generic favor for wvw ( and maybe is good for pve too ) . can you add in chat , when someone is speaking his current guild tag next to his name ?

p.s. soz for my english . it is not my nature language

(edited by Reborn.2934)

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Posted by: MRA.4758

MRA.4758

To throw my 2 copper in the ring, I always liked the following idea about how to limit the number of “unwanted” commanders on a map: A new squad is not simply formed by a commander clicking on a “create squad” button. Instead, if a commander-to-be requests to form a squad, all players within earshot (in WvW: on the whole map?) get a timed pop-up asking:

“Commander Whatshisface asks you to accept him as your commander and to join his squad. [accept and join squad] [decline]”

If, and only if, a certain threshold number of players (say, five?) accept and join, then the squad is actually formed and the commander icon will be visible on the map. If not enough players join before the timer runs up, then the “form squad” button will go on a cooldown to prevent spamming.

With influx of new commander icons we currently see/will see because of the September patch changes, having such a feature might become relevant. After all, as the old zen riddle says: If a commander has his tag on and no one follows him, is he then actually a commander?

~MRA

IGN: Peavy (Asuran Engineer)
Tyrian Intelligence Agency [TIA]
Dies for Riverside on a regular basis, since the betas

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Posted by: Alvain.7364

Alvain.7364

I’m rank ~370 and i’ve never seen any commander use the attack/defend/rally icon, and wasn’t aware they even existed. Is there any in-game info these tags exists? Because they sure as f are useful.

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Posted by: moiraine.2753

moiraine.2753

OP and Elrey give awesome ideas.Comanders absolutely need more options for managing their squads.Also it’s a must to see what classes are in the squad and where are the people.Also better visibility of squad members on the world map and mini map is a 100% needed.
Squad check is everyone ready could be added.
Also could be added similar to THOSE MARKERS

TxS – Tequatl Slayer Alliance (EU)

(edited by moiraine.2753)

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Posted by: moiraine.2753

moiraine.2753

I’m rank ~370 and i’ve never seen any commander use the attack/defend/rally icon, and wasn’t aware they even existed. Is there any in-game info these tags exists? Because they sure as f are useful.

When TxS is doing the Wurm those icons for map are some times used.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Commander

TxS – Tequatl Slayer Alliance (EU)

(edited by moiraine.2753)

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Posted by: McWolfy.5924

McWolfy.5924

We realy need guild tags, tags what not pop up on minimap, biger range for supplyinfo and more commands

WSR→Piken→Deso→Piken→FSP→Deso
Just the WvW
R3200+

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Posted by: MithranArkanere.8957

MithranArkanere.8957

Oh, my if only it worked anything like that…

We really could use those.

An “automatic” setting for tags could also come in handy. When such a setting is active, your commander’s tag would show up whenever you are in an event the event’s main icon (crossed swords, shield, fist, boss, etc) merged with their commander tag. When the event ends the tag disappears.

The contacts panel could get a new tab for the squad. A greyed icon while not in a squad, clickable and showing a list of players while in a squad, and with extra options for the squad’s commander.

[…]

Do you think these squad directive icons are useful? What issues do you see with them, if any?

[…]

People rarely enter squads, so the squad orders are pretty much useless.

I tried using them, but nobody saw them.

First of all, joining a quad should be made easier, and maybe even more appealing.

For example, having a mass invite command that allows the commander to request the closets 50 players not in a squad to enter theirs.

Then while in the squad players could get a small 10% exp and 5% karma bonus from events.

SUGGEST-A-TRON says:
PAY—ONCE—UNLOCKS—ARE—ALWAYS—BETTER.
No exceptions!

(edited by MithranArkanere.8957)

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Posted by: Lonami.2987

Lonami.2987

This is pretty awesome, really awesome. I would love to see it ingame. The images really helped, too.

If it helps, I wrote some ideas for a prestige commander tag icon system here: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/User:Lon-ami/Commander_system_improvements. By these ideas the new icons and colors would be pretty expensive, but I could see them being free by default too (with the prestige coming in the shape of small ribbons, like higher tier military medals).

I really hope your ideas make it into the game!

Elonian elite specialization ideas: El: Dervish
M: Bladedancer – N: Scourge – En: Occultist – Ra: Swampstalker
T: Sharpshooter – G: Sunspear – Re: Hierophant – W: Corsair

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Posted by: Zepher.7803

Zepher.7803

I’ve always been trying to push for people to re-think what a commander does in the first place (to fix a problem, start at the beginning and work from there)

The Mindset of players seeing the commander tag as something to follow is the first and foremost thing limiting the usefulness of the already available tools we have.

the person commanding would be in a safe location directing troops (and watching map for intel) to said locations (alt-left click) the boots on the ground would be following a captain’s tag/orders or something similar in rank.

until the players understand how much more effective they can operate within a chain of command, no GUI is gonna fix the base of the problem.

Sincerly, Me.

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Posted by: Sreoom.3690

Sreoom.3690

I’d love to see the option for a commander to form sub-teams with other commanders to coordinate map maneuvers and tactics.

“The Leaf on Wind”
JQ Ranger

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Posted by: MithranArkanere.8957

MithranArkanere.8957

I’d love to see the option for a commander to form sub-teams with other commanders to coordinate map maneuvers and tactics.

If commanders had a list of squad members, it could be a tree list.

Then the commander could set any player in the list as sub-commander, and assign players to a sub-squand by either dragging their list entry to the node of the sub-commander or right clicking their name and choosing “assign to sub-commander <charname>”.

Commanders could then give quick tasks by dragging a sub-commander’s tag in the map to a location, which would give a squad yellowish map marker in the map for all members of the sub-quad.

SUGGEST-A-TRON says:
PAY—ONCE—UNLOCKS—ARE—ALWAYS—BETTER.
No exceptions!

(edited by MithranArkanere.8957)

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Posted by: EFWinters.5421

EFWinters.5421

Thanks for the work on translating, mocking-up, and thoroughly describing a commander GUI, Tiscan.

The only squad-related UI-elements are “hidden” in the “Groups” dialog where most people wouldn’t really expect them.

There’s one more tool commanders have for organizing their squads that I want to be sure people know about. Alt+left-clicking the map to set an attack/defend/rally icon for their squad: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Commander

Do you think these squad directive icons are useful? What issues do you see with them, if any?

After creating a squad, the icon of the button changes to a colored version – so the commander gets a visual feedback he is using his tag. At the same time, a new window appears below the button (Attachemnt. Its a very minimal display of the squad-stats (number of players, supplies, squad-members by class, how many of them are upscaled).

Your click-to-open UI could provide a lot of information without cluttering up the usual view of the game, which is pretty nice. Though for supply in particular, a more constant display may be worth the visual noise. That seems like it changes rapidly and is always relevant.

One thing i forgot in that dialog is a combobox which allows the commander to switch between “Show stats for squad-members” and “Show stats for all nearby players” (lets face it: most of the time people don’t join squads).

I love the idea of making info available on nearby allied players.

By right-clicking on a name he should be able to kick players from his squad (for example if they are offline, switched maps, etc.). By using the combo-box at the bottom of that dialog he can also decide which players he sees (only those in his squad or all nearby players).

Having some nice way to clean up the squad would definitely be useful. Does it need to be fine-grained to each player? Or would something along the lines of a “Kick offline/afk members.” button serve enough of the same purpose? That might do something like remove players who have been offline or afk for five minutes from the squad, to make room for more players and to clean up the UI.

I’m also interested in learning more about what sets of behaviors commanders go through today. For example, to learn cumbersome parts of the UI. Such as opening the world map to check on objectives… then blindly running off a cliff and dying. Or which parts of the UI, preferably simple and small like you’ve aimed to keep things, are just missing right now.

Right now the biggest problem with the commander system is that the effort required to get everyone to join your squad far outweighs the benefits of doing so. You don’t know how many are in your squad, what professions you have available, how many are near you etc.

If you applied this UI to the squad system, and added some of the suggestions that OP mentioned I am sure that a lot more people would use it because a lot of commanders would push for it to be used.

Human Guardian
Fort Aspenwood

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Posted by: Elrey.5472

Elrey.5472

Having some nice way to clean up the squad would definitely be useful. Does it need to be fine-grained to each player? Or would something along the lines of a “Kick offline/afk members.” button serve enough of the same purpose? That might do something like remove players who have been offline or afk for five minutes from the squad, to make room for more players and to clean up the UI.

Something as simple as a readycheck? A button that only the commander can use, it would send a request to every member of the squad, if the members doesn’t click “ready” in less than 5-10 seconds, it kicks that player off the squad.
If that happened, the game should send you a chat message telling you that you were kicked off the squad because of inactivity. Otherwise… people wouldn’t notice if they were kicked from the squad just because the commander did a readycheck in the only 2 minutes that took you to go to the toilet (that was an example, of course ^^).

ES Wiki Sysop. Vanquiser of the Marionette, Lover of the Aetherpath.
Aens / Ellantriel / Nao To Mori / Saelyth. Commander
Guias de Raids en español / Spanish raiding guides

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Posted by: Chris Barrett

Previous

Chris Barrett

Gameplay Programmer

When TxS is doing the Wurm those icons for map are some times used.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Commander

Which reminds me of one other feature I forgot to mention before. Some months ago map pings (Shift+Left-click) and strokes (Shift+Left-click-and-drag) were updated. In addition to the usual behavior of those being sent to party members, when a commander does them, they’re also sent to members of their squad.

… I wrote some ideas for a prestige commander tag icon system here: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/User:Lon-ami/Commander_system_improvements

Thanks, Lon-ami. That’s a ton of work and a very thorough design! I remember seeing these a little while ago. Commander progression is big enough to be entirely its own topic. It’s also more into the design side of things than I am, so I’m not really one to comment on it.

Most of the issues that i’ve seen has been about not knowing how many players of each class there’s around.
-Example: Everyday in Tequatl we ask to our map chat to type a W for each warrior in the zerg, in order to manage how many banners to rez people we have. We also ask how many guardians for the Tome elite skill to heal if needed.

i don’t know some basic info and stats of the players around me / follow me. for example if i had as info from the guardians near me ( the armor , vitality and the healing power ) i can suggest them were they should stay in battle … even an uplevel char can use a siege with safety if he has the mastery…

That makes sense. As you both wrote, having this kind of information readily available can completely change what tactics a commander knows they have available. The more fine-grained that information is, the more advice they can give to individual members. Though getting into available skills like portal/banner/healing tome, and especially actual stats, gets a little tricky. The more detailed and specific to a player the information is, the more open it leaves players to harassment if a commander doesn’t like someone’s build. I’d hate to sour people’s impressions of joining squads if they happened to have a few bad experiences. Even if there’s an opt-in checkbox somewhere to advertise build information, players who choose not to may still be harassed.

(Side note: If any player anywhere in the game is ever being abusive or bullying anyone, please report them immediately.)

Following is a clunky first-pass of an idea, but how useful would something like “/squad count portal” returning the number mesmers in the squad with portal equipped be? (And so on for any skill by doing a text search on the name.) Is the clumsiness of it offset by squad members changing less often than this needs to be checked? How useful is it compared to asking for portal counts in text or using voice chat?

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Posted by: insanemaniac.2456

insanemaniac.2456

Following is a clunky first-pass of an idea, but how useful would something like “/squad count portal” returning the number mesmers in the squad with portal equipped be? (And so on for any skill by doing a text search on the name.) Is the clumsiness of it offset by squad members changing less often than this needs to be checked? How useful is it compared to asking for portal counts in text or using voice chat?

i think it would be a nifty trick at best. unfortunately i think we will need to default to voice comms for such specific utility, because it requires that the mesmer be responsive to the commander. passively knowing “we” have 3 portals and 2 veils does nothing for the group when the commander says “veil veil veil veil veil!!!1” or “portal the golems away NOWWWWWW” and nothing happens and afterwards the commander is like “well i know we had 2 veils…”.

JQ: Rikkity
head here to discuss wvw without fear of infractions

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Posted by: alvinjason.3109

alvinjason.3109

like how anet listens & interacts more and more with players. alot more than before

Devona’s Rest → NSP [SA] [TeaP]

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Posted by: Ben K.6238

Ben K.6238

passively knowing “we” have 3 portals and 2 veils does nothing for the group when the commander says “veil veil veil veil veil!!!1” or “portal the golems away NOWWWWWW” and nothing happens and afterwards the commander is like “well i know we had 2 veils…”.

Both of which are invariably on cooldown. (That’s the other thing needed for it to be useful.)

Is it possible to have a toggle instead? /squadinfo:Portal for example might pop up a persistent line of text above the chat window, perhaps, showing how many Portals are equipped and available.

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Posted by: Elrey.5472

Elrey.5472

That makes sense. As you both wrote, having this kind of information readily available can completely change what tactics a commander knows they have available. The more fine-grained that information is, the more advice they can give to individual members. Though getting into available skills like portal/banner/healing tome, and especially actual stats, gets a little tricky. The more detailed and specific to a player the information is, the more open it leaves players to harassment if a commander doesn’t like someone’s build. I’d hate to sour people’s impressions of joining squads if they happened to have a few bad experiences. Even if there’s an opt-in checkbox somewhere to advertise build information, players who choose not to may still be harassed.

(Side note: If any player anywhere in the game is ever being abusive or bullying anyone, please report them immediately.)

Following is a clunky first-pass of an idea, but how useful would something like “/squad count portal” returning the number mesmers in the squad with portal equipped be? (And so on for any skill by doing a text search on the name.) Is the clumsiness of it offset by squad members changing less often than this needs to be checked? How useful is it compared to asking for portal counts in text or using voice chat?

In my opinnion, commanders should know how many players of each proffesion are in his squad but NOT what skills they choose. Just as you said, it could be used to harass people and that’s something i don’t want either. However a visual count of number of players and what proffesions are they in the UI can be really helpful for the PvE communities to manage big world events.

By the way, thank you for the Shift + Left Click feature! I didn’t know that one works now for the entire squad ^^

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Posted by: Pretty Pixie.8603

Pretty Pixie.8603

Do you think these squad directive icons are useful? What issues do you see with them, if any?

Hi Chris,

I find them not very useful since they’re a stategic tool, for only a small squad. The functionality I’d want for a squad is on a tactical level. For random groups who won’t bother joining a squad, or even know about them, they’re not of much use.

I’d rather have a couple of hotkeys which when activated would show an icon above the commander, and play a clear audible signal as well, like a bugle call. If I had one for Engage (push)/fall back/build/hold I’d be chuffed.

This is important because on a tactical level every second counts, and communication needs to be as instant as it can be.

On a strategic level /team and voip are unlikely to be replaced by a map icon system, due to the kind of relevant information that needs to be passed on. A ‘defend’ icon says nothing about enemies present, their guild affiliation if any, siege put up, defenders, defending siege, status of gate/walls, supplies remaining, etc.

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Posted by: insanemaniac.2456

insanemaniac.2456

passively knowing “we” have 3 portals and 2 veils does nothing for the group when the commander says “veil veil veil veil veil!!!1” or “portal the golems away NOWWWWWW” and nothing happens and afterwards the commander is like “well i know we had 2 veils…”.

Both of which are invariably on cooldown. (That’s the other thing needed for it to be useful.)

Is it possible to have a toggle instead? /squadinfo:Portal for example might pop up a persistent line of text above the chat window, perhaps, showing how many Portals are equipped and available.

and if theyre on cd, youre most likely in the middle of a fight… which means typing anything will usually get you killed and alternative communication methods such as voice comms or map pings are necessary anyways

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Posted by: Nabrok.9023

Nabrok.9023

Which reminds me of one other feature I forgot to mention before. Some months ago map pings (Shift+Left-click) and strokes (Shift+Left-click-and-drag) were updated. In addition to the usual behavior of those being sent to party members, when a commander does them, they’re also sent to members of their squad.

I didn’t know that one, nice. However, the problem is that very few people actually join the squad. Personally, I usually only do so if I want the other tags hidden, which will probably happen even less often now that we can have different colors.

On the other side, adding new features to squads giving people more reason to join them is great, but raises the possibility of wanting to be in a squad for those features but still see any other tags on the map, so that should probably be an option.

I’ve heard that a few of the devs played DAoC, perhaps you remember the battle chat system there? In particular I’m talking about the feature that allowed you to view who was in the squad, what groups they were in, what people NOT in the squad were also in those groups, and who didn’t have a group at all. Add class information to that so the commander can quickly see composition and it would be awesome.

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