Guild Wars 2

As we all know, the Commander system for WvW is a joke and not taken seriously by many players. We’ve all heard the cries and the putdowns about Commanders only forking out the gold just for the title. This is my suggestion to change the way the system works. For those who have played Space Cowboy Online, Air Rivals, or even Ace Online (ewwww non-first gen pilots >_>;) you will be familiar with the system already. For those who aren’t familiar with these game, I will explain how their Commander system worked.

SCO was indeed a game focused on mass PvP where two nations opposing eachother would be constantly duking it out with airships. Objectives would spawn in maps and the two nations would fight to secure them. In these dogfights, people could easily tell who were the most skilled pilots and who were the strongest brigades (GW2’s guilds). They would dominate the airspace. Because of this, individual players were well distinguished as well as brigade prestige firmly established. Now, here is where the recognition is important.

Every month, each nation had to vote for their Nation Leader. Only Brigade Leaders could nominate themselves to be voted for. Naturally, Nations voted for the Brigade leaders who showed talent and commanded strong brigades.

Once a Nation Leader was established, he/she got to appoint his left and right hand men,regardless of brigade affiliations, who equally have the power to command a nation if the Nation Leader was not online. This ensured that timezones were less of a problem as you’d have someone leading you at most times of the day.

Each leader had their own unique chat title and unique text color (something that GW2’s Commanders do not have). So why is this important? The answer is simple.

You stand out.

It was easy for the whole player base to recognize who is leading and what the plans were. From there, it was up to the player base to follow directions and make the plans succeed. Nations would rise or fall according to how well the Nation Leader led or how well the player base trusted him/her.

Solution

GW2 should implement a similar command system for WvW, just as SCO had. But how do we make it work?

1a) The whole foundation for finding a worthy Commander is to distinguish the strongest guilds in WvW. In order to do this, guild symbols, as well as their guild names, must be shown on flags of keeps/towers/supplies that they own. This must also be displayed on icons when a player brings up the map. To combat the random no-name guild from claiming a position, a guild must have a certain level of architecture and players. This ensures that you actually have a coordinated player base willing to defend the position. Maybe reworking the 100g fee for commander to instead be a 100g fee for the guild to be allowed to claim positions.

OR

[NOTE: I forgot to mention earlier when explain SCO, but they had brigade leader boards that showed which brigades were helping out the most as well]

1b) A guild leaderboard is implemented in the citadel showing how many points a guild has secured during and at the conclusion of, the 2 week WvW showdown. This too will help players distinguish the strongest guilds.

2) Every WvW reset, the players will vote on a guild leader to become a Commander. The prestige and recognition brought from step #1 will help players distinguish which guilds are best fit to lead the server. Guild leaders only, will nominate themselves for the position of Commander and we, the players, will vote for them.

3) Give Commanders the ability to choose 2 or 3 others as their right hand men, regardless of guild affiliation, to ensure timezones are properly covered if at all possible.

4) Give all server leaders a unique chat title and unique text color.

I hope you guys find this a sensible plan to make WvW a more interactive and coordinated environment as I have personally known this system to work. There may have been small details that I’ve missed but this is the gist of what the solution needs.

[Shout outs to BCU/ANI HOV and BCU/ANI Orion!!!]

Like the idea, but I think that would be too much work, we just need some simple changes and additions

My ideas -

1. add Party leaders, with a mini blue star on the map in place of the dot(only party mates can see this) maybe they can place orders of their own, optional

2. Commanders squad reworked, instead of a big party make it so Commanders can invite 5-6 Party leaders into his squad, the party leaders in the squad can see each other on the map and each leader has a number or color

This should help a lot for organizing guilds and alliances. Just a simple start is all we need. Look at Battlefield 2, that’s the command system we need

Splintrr, I see what you’re getting at but you’re thinking small scale. BF2’s system is fine because it has no more than 64 on a team?

Here’s a video of SCO click me. This is a perfect example of how powerful it is to have 1 man, distinguishable above the rest, make a zerg. As you can see in the beginning chat, he is labeled as “Vice Chairman”. He had THAT many people move together as one because he made clear directions to zerg by counting down. A leader in WvW must be able to have his followers move as one.

The changes aren’t as complicated as you think it is. My plan essentially says to vote for one person worthy to lead, and then follow his directions.

100g is a brilliant design. Cheap enough for real leaders to acquire via gold pool. Expansive enough to keep others away. Simple, no bugs, no exploits, no drama, no politic, just works. And I dislike “vote” idea the most, votes in internet are always very ugly.

I can list so many reasons why 100g is NOT a brilliant design. I would like to have a leader based on merit and not someone who just happened to gather money.

100g Commander allows for multiple leaders, as long as they have the money, on a map. They’ll be shouting out commands and just maybe they’re not cooperating with eachother. Who do you follow?

If we had 1 respectable leader that we all voted for, we know how clean plans will be. If the leader turned out to be a dope, then we’ll learn to vote for someone else.

IV Endu.8920:

Splintrr, I see what you’re getting at but you’re thinking small scale. BF2’s system is fine because it has no more than 64 on a team?

It’s not small scale because we can have what, 5-6 commanders per zone? it can work. Besides, I don’t want to organize the entire server, I want to start by helping guilds and alliances smoothly operate, to me that’s what this game is about, that’s how I have fun…and it would be even funner if we didn’t spend 25 minutes every night getting parties and team leaders set up.

Quoting shadowx, “Your proposed system is flawed because it puts the power in the hands of people, and people as a whole are dumb.”

That’s basically my problem with it, it’s almost a lottery system, you might have your best leaders forced into zergling spots because they weren’t famous enough or whatever…

But seriously, they must be making some changes to all this in the future…if they leave the features(minus all the glitches and bugs) as is I’d say they don’t even know how to make a game right.

Many people are commanders because people thought they deserved the rune enough that they donated, capitalistic voting at its finest.

IV Endu.8920:

I can list so many reasons why 100g is NOT a brilliant design. I would like to have a leader based on merit and not someone who just happened to gather money.

100g Commander allows for multiple leaders, as long as they have the money, on a map. They’ll be shouting out commands and just maybe they’re not cooperating with eachother. Who do you follow?

If we had 1 respectable leader that we all voted for, we know how clean plans will be. If the leader turned out to be a dope, then we’ll learn to vote for someone else.

You can respect whatever commander you want to respecte and ignore/block the other you don’t like. What you asking is to idolize someone and build a dictatorship around him. But even this won’t help as people are still free to do whatever they want to do. It only punishes guilds that need the commander/squad feature. And not to mention the politic and drama.

YPC, how the hell did “dictatorship” and “idolization” come into discussion? What I’ve proposed merely gives recognition to guilds and guild leaders who are doing their part to win objectives. As a result, maybe players would want to join their guilds or players would simply follow them because they knew the guild had what it takes to win.

I’m speaking on behalf of a system that works. If you’ve played SCO, AR, or AO, you would feel the same way. Not once in my 3 year career in those games have I felt that someone we voted for was being idolized or being a dictator. There was a reason we voted for someone and that was because his/her talent to lead and his/her brigade were the best chance we had at winning objectives.

GW2 Commanders lack a very important aspect for success and that’s an established central command. Any rich fool could fork out 100g for the title, hop in to WvW, and start barking out commands. Prove me wrong. With a voting system in place, those who want to be a Commander had to have proved their worth in the battlefield and that is where recognition is important. Recognition is NOT idolization.

We are really pushing hard for changes to something that matters very little.

As of right now, I’d prefer if everyone had commander so I could see people on the map.

We need a better interface for large groups, and we can work on the commander/squad structure once we get it, IMO.

YPC, you’ll see how brilliant the 100g design is when we start to have 10+ commanders on every map, all the time.

Definitely like the idea of a more merit based system for the commanders, but I think they’re going with the idea that everything is achievable by everybody. I’ve already learned which commanders to ignore and which to follow. It does amaze me though, how people are so willing to follow that blue marker. Hell of an idea, ArenaNet.

Voting is bad. It will become a popularity contest. Someone with a huge guild but no skills will always get voted.

Make Commander based on 100g and WvW achievements. The achievement system is already in place. Have people who want to become commanders have to clear a certain portion of it before they’re allowed to buy a book. At least then we’d know that someone with a Commander icon has at least been on the battlefield before and not just been lucky at the auction house or at crafting.