Guild Wars 2

Current Commanders should be removed completely. Refund the gold to those who got it. Instead introduce a voting system, where you can right click and vote for a person to be your current ‘leader’ for the match, meaning you think he knows what he’s doing and you will follow him. Then he gets a blue icon – FOR YOU only. If you talk in the chat, and appear to talk with reason, and your advices actually work, people will vote for you. No need to farm 100 gold killing dredge!

If say 12 people vote for the same guy, that guy gets a temporary COMMANDER title and a purple icon visible FOR ALL. Simple, easy, effective.

A rank system could be easily introduced here. The more people vote and follow you, the higher your rank becomes, from say Lieutenant through Commander to General and Field Marshal. It would be just a title next to your icon, showing how many people follow you currently.

If a person gets voted a COMMANDER often, he receives a permanent title, and can turn it on/off at will. Since people were following him for weeks already, it is ensured this title is earned and credible. People don’t choose to follow someone this long, who does not get results.

A person can see the people who voted for him, as a Number of Followers, this will help him in deciding what targets to take. With only a few followers there is no point charging SM.

In addition add a feature to hide unwanted commanders, and a Favorite Commander List – commanders on that list will always be displayed for you.

Finally, whatever your chosen commander draws on the map will be visible for you. For advanced strategies in the field.

Simple in implementation, clean, logical and effective. This is how commanders should be.

UPDATE:

The commander system will work in TWO LAYERS. The PUBLIC layer, and the GUILD layer. If only your guild mates voted for you, you will become a guild commander (or lieutenant or general depending on follower count), you will be visible as a symbol to them and only them. Other non-guild players can also vote for you, so you can become a public commander as well, subject to all the above rules, and everyone could see you on the map. However your guild mates would still see you as a guild commander.

Achievement System
Once you are voted a commander, each time you receive karma from an objective, you also receive points towards the Commander Achievement. Once the achievement is complete, you will receive a permanent title you can turn on and off, without others having to vote for you (they can still turn you off though). This ensures that you have to be A. chosen and B. taking lots of objectives as a commander, in order to get the title.

I can see multiple ranks, for example:

[Guild] Team Leader – if you have 6+followers.
[Guild] Lieutenant – 12+ followers
[Guild] Commander – 20+ followers
[Guild] General – 40+ followers
[Guild] Field Marshal – 84+ followers (about half of the map population)
Insert guild name in the brackets if you are in the guild layer.

You have achievements for each of these ranks, and the ranks are only there to give people quick ideas about how many people you are leading currently. If ANet really wants a gold sink within the Commander system, you can provide Rank Armor sold for gold, as long as you completed the achievement for that rank. Purely cosmetic.

Dynamic Commander Switching
Say, you voted for commander A, or have not voted for any commander at all, but you start following commander B, and have the DCS flag turned on in options, you will automatically align to the commander you are following, if you stayed within X range of him for the past Y minutes. Just a little neat automatic trick to help the undecided pick the best commander to suit their gameplay style! Entirely optional.

Yup i see to many fail commanders leading or lack of leading.
Also commander is a bought tittle not a earned one.

let players vote for their commanders who lead people and know how to win WvW.

Yes, i can agree to this. although…

In our server, there are a lot of people who got Commander because the really do lead properly, and are in guilds dedicated to WvW. What about those people?

Then, couldn’t guilds simply vote their own commanders into oblivion, giving as many members as they want the purple tag? They already fund their own commanders, large guilds would have an easy time giving as many members as they possibly can high ranks. Also, though this is a nice idea (it has a few problems), it seems like it would be a pain to implement, when we consider the fact that Areanet is already swamped as it is. I think a simpler — albeit possibly less preferable — solution is a bit better for the time being (such as simply making the book require badges of honor).

Yes WvW guilds who’s leaders are known gets votes from their guildies and millitia anyway

Also ive leaded alot of people from beta to 1 week ago and know alot of people say listen to the commander….
I have no trouble doing that, but not every commander is a good one and knows evrything best

Would you give up a tier 3 keep for 2 suply camps in enemy territory ?
I dint and when i called / spammed / screamed / begged for help the commander said kitten we can retake it :P

And all the zerglings followed the commander and we lost a fully tiered upgraded keep in the following minutes.
If that commander turnded away and headed back we woulnt have lost it.

Thats what i mean with:

Its a bought tittle not a earned one

Since I can’t seem to quote:

@RealoFoxtrot

My system suits these people perfectly. Their guilds, dedicated to WvW, will obviously choose to follow them again, and they will receive the permanent titles soon enough Bottom line, the commanders who are capable now, will be chosen to be commanders again in the new system. Only those who bought the title merely for showing off will be left out.

hello zerospin,

I like your proposal, because i dont like the current commander system either.

but I highly doubt that a pure vote system would resolve that issue completely.

I’d like to have a little adjustment: votes from guildies (no matter if representing or not) should not count for the commander flag.

Otherwise guildies just vote for their commanders no matter if they are good or bad.
Instead there should be the possibility within the guild-ranking-system to flag someone up as Commander. However, this guild-commander should be only visible to guildies if representing. Maybe by adding a WvW-Commander section on the guildadminsitration where the Guild-Leader can add people of his Roster without playing around with the Guild-Ranks itself.

Other than that point, i like your recommendation system alot more than the bought title.

@Cruzyo

Thanks for constructive criticism The issue of guild members voting for one of their members as commander is perfectly natural in my system, he will indeed become visible to everyone after a certain number of votes has been given. If he’s a good commander, there is no issue at all. If he’s a bad commander, remember you have the ability to turn him off (you wont see his marker) and vote for your own commander. Remember, you can only see what a commander is drawing on the map, if you voted for him, so a bad commander won’t be an issue here either.

Again, people not in the guild will not vote for a bad commander. Each person can only vote for 1 commander at a time. There should be no significant issues here. It is highly, highly unlikely most people on the map will vote for a bad commander who has no clue what he’s doing.

unless they dont have a clue themself :P

However, i understand your point but I believe the adjustments i suggested would make the system even more efficient.

we had a commander a few days ago, that only had the commander tag up because he wanted his guildies to know where he goes to, that would be completely covered with the slight adjustmend of making a guild-commander-flag for wvw within the guild-adminstration.

I know you wrote that you could turn down the commanderflag for yourself, but then again, you need to rely on other people to listen to you and do the same, even vote for someone else.

Yeah a guild commander tag could be easily added. The system could work in layers, the public layer, and the guild layer. If only your guild mates voted for you, then your symbol would be visible only to them. If you also issue commands in the chat, non-guildies may vote for you, and you will also become a public commander. Your guild would still see you as a guild commander, but others would also see you as a normal commander.

I ignore any blue dot I see unless it’s a commander I’ve seen produce results in the past.

zerospin.8604:

Yeah a guild commander tag could be easily added. The system could work in layers, the public layer, and the guild layer. If only your guild mates voted for you, then your symbol would be visible only to them. If you also issue commands in the chat, non-guildies may vote for you, and you will also become a public commander. Your guild would still see you as a guild commander, but others would also see you as a normal commander.

absolutely !

@Daylos same for me, but that sadly isnt enough most of the time :/

I’ll follow and see what results they get and read what they type, if it’s just some kittenhat that bought 100g worth a gems, then time will tell.

@Monsoon
My system does incorporate switching off the commanders you don’t like.

@Narcosis
In my system it is highly unlikely you would see a commander who is not worth following In the rare case they do suck for your tastes, there is an option to turn them off, and pick your own commander, or start giving strategy suggestions in the chat and maybe become one

I have added the Layer System, Achievement System and Dynamic Commander Switching to the post, check it out

Some people use it in many different reason. Some people use it to Recruit members, Cosmetics, and To lead without any Experience. This Cost Commanders a Bad Reputation in general. Sooner or later everyone will be Commander.

They should put a Limit to be commander in the Server. They should make a Tournament to get the Icon. They should make Requirements. They really need to do something. I am a commander my self but not Abusing it. Just only using it when we really need 1. No offense to other commander though.

This is hands down the best idea since sliced bread.

I love your ideas … the only thing I’d change is …

[Guild] Team Leader – if you have 6+followers.
[Guild] Lieutenant – 12+ followers
[Guild] Commander – 20+ followers
[Guild] Field Marshal – 50+ followers
Insert guild name in the brackets if you are in the guild layer.

Many WvW focused guilds, including mine use the commander buff simply as a means to provide tactical convenience WITHIN THE GUILD…..we couldn’t care less about the mindless PuGs zerging after us. If we had our choice, the commander buff would only show to our guild, but that apparently is not going to happen.

It’s not the commander’s fault that noobs flock to the little blue icon; and trying to organize 4 or 5 groups without some visual clue as to where the leader is headed is next to impossible.

@Adaneshade

And you still could do that in the new system thanks to the guild commander layer. However in the new system, your display would not be cluttered with a horde of wannabe commanders with lots of gold and no tactics. You could use the tag at once, without any gold, by simply voting for whoever you choose in your guild.

Not saying your plan isn’t great and all, (in fact I think it’s genious) I’m just thinking of available dev resources and the major issue we have atm with culling and exploiting that I’d rather they focus on first.

ALot of the problem rests with the players rather than the commanders at this point. Anyone who mindlessly zergs after a random commander would otherwise be an absolute waste of space beating on SM’s gates or some other equally pathetic task. (As a veteran Hibby from DAoC I’m honestly speechless at the tactical ineptitude of the masses here >.< Even alb zergs were more intelligent [can’t BELIEVE I’m saying that])

I believe the team responsible for culling (Performance) is not related to the team that deals with game systems and WvW in particular. So they do have the resources, and I made sure this system is easy to implement. Most of what’s needed is already there, all it needs is putting it together. I could do that myself, no need for a team tbh but the big devs always like to waste resources and thousands of $ to do every little thing

@zTales i wouldnt limit it with numbers for the guild layer, myself, i dont want a guild with 50 people in but still want them to know where I or my appointed commander is at on the map.

The numbers your provide would work for the public layer tho

Rank titles and specific numbers can easily be modified, it would be up to ANet anyway to pick the titles and follower ranges, the ones I provided are just an example.

Your proposed system is flawed because it puts the power in the hands of people, and people as a whole are dumb. Badges of honor would be an ok alternative to buying it…. but it better cost at least 10,000 honor badges. Because no way do 1,000 = 100g. You can earn like 500+ in 3 days time. I know some people that have spent that much just in siege equipment.

We just need some simple changes and additions, you will never stop dumb people from being Commanders, so lets try to help the ones that are actually doing work and organizing their team

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

Badges are just as bad as gold just because you play WvW alot does not mean you are a born leader! there are many names i see on everyday and yet i would never want them to be a leader that being said i do not think that means they are bad just not a leader. being good at WvW and being good at leading is two very different worlds.

As for zerospin i do like your idea BUT i have to say that could be really bad as well. because people would all be following different people. which would end up in many un wanted/needed arguments between players.

i do agree commander is a broken system and could use work but i would not like to see them even look at this issue till they were able to remove Invisible Wars 2.
I do think there needs to be a good way to earn commander but i do not believe it’s in this tread. How ever i personally do not know how people could truly earn Maybe a match to match/ month to month server wide vote. though i will say that my idea is not a great one just like zero spin it may be a step in the right direction!

the good stuff about zerospins idea is, that the votes can be taken back and changed, aswell that the commander is first only temporarly. once he logged off the votes vanish.

but there shouldnt be any other way earning the commander than getting faith from people that are not directly related to you due being in the same guild.

For some reason BF2 comes to mind on what I personally would like to see happen.
You enter map and apply for commander. You not doing a great job, you get voted out by players or resign.

Commanders command squad leaders giving them objectives. Squad leaders command squad members. If you listen to commands, you gain w/e rewards Anet deems sensible…greater influence gain, command points building towards a title, maybe even some armor skins.

I’d say have 2 open commander spots per map. One for squads 1-10, One for squads 11-20. If a squad leader makes squad 13 for example, can only be given orders by commander #2. In the case that there isn’t a commander spot filled, squad leaders ofcourse just target the objectives they created alone.

As for the zerg, or stragglers/solo’ers, if you are not in a squad…you get points working for a different title or rewards.

I dunno, maybe I could flesh this out more if I wasn’t tipsy, with blurry vision trying to type kitten near 6am in the morning.

As for equal opportunity, everyone having the option to buy a book for 100g to make them a commander is ok I guess. BF2’s way or the op’s way actually rewards ppl for doing their job. Leaders lead though regardless of having an identifier.

I’m up for the voting system. I know a guy that is an excellent leader but doesn’t have the commander title. At one point he even had someone with the commander title telling other people to follow him because he knew what he was doing. It would make things easier on me too when I organize small strike units so they can keep track of me better instead of getting amalgamated into the zerg mind.

This is very much like the fame system from Maplestory, and the commend system in Dota 2. Both systems allowed other players to “rate” a person based on how well he does in the game and fame/commend them for being so. It eventually turned into mass circle-commending for no other reason as to trade fame/commends. What will you do to prevent this?

The 100 gold thing makes it a commitment but also lets people who are good at trading or crafting get it easily.

Make it so you have to complete a certain number of WvW achievements before you can buy the book. The system is already there. Use it.

@Kid Taylor

Trading votes would be futile because as a commander you gain virtually nothing but an obligation. It’s not a one time vote either, the system would require you to become elected over and over again for long time periods (weeks), and THEN capture objectives well enough to actually keep the votes during each day. You won’t get a permanent title otherwise. It would be much much easier to convince random people to donate gold so you can buy it for 100g. Keep in mind that when you vote for someone who is a bad commander, you will be his follower and will miss out on following a good commander. While this may be possible for small groups of people voting for a friend over and over, I don’t see this happening for higher ranks, such as Lieutenant, Commander and higher. 15 random people won’t just log in and vote for you for weeks each day just so you get a blue dot. It would take ages to trade this way. And easy to spot and block too.

In addition, you have the safeguard in form of a block option, if you see someone is only trading votes and is doing nothing, simply block them. There would be filters to for example block ALL commanders except X and Y, and so on.

doenst even have to be that complicated,

just make it even more simple: a like and dislike system.

If the dislikes you get outnumber the likes you get, you lose the commander or get ranked down.

So if you see a commander doing a crap job, just give him a dislike.

I did not add a vote down system on purpose, it is a lot easier to abuse than the positive vote system. Ranking down could be used by enemy faction spies to vote down good commanders, could be used by some players to vote down someone just because they don’t like them, even if they are good commanders, and so on. The positive vote system is backed up by the block list and favorite commander list.

I do understand that point. I still believe there needs to be a counter mechanism other than blocking. If you block a commander you dont like for whatever reason, it has no negative effect on him at all. Maybe do it by some kind of favor-over-time system. If you got many positive votes for a long period of time, a single negative vote wont do anything bad to you until more people vote you down, over a period of time aswell, kinda like the current wvw score system

that would back up abuse from opponent spies or personal dislikes.

Cruzyo.7304:

I do understand that point. I still believe there needs to be a counter mechanism other than blocking. If you block a commander you dont like for whatever reason, it has no negative effect on him at all. Maybe do it by some kind of favor-over-time system. If you got many positive votes for a long period of time, a single negative vote wont do anything bad to you until more people vote you down, over a period of time aswell, kinda like the current wvw score system

that would back up abuse from opponent spies or personal dislikes.

This makes partial sense, I say this because I have my commander book and actually lead. The problem is , is that some people dont understand mechanics or priority in WvW. Last night in Borlis Pass BG, I led a raid on our orb in etheron hills. From there we chose to fortify our keep. I stuck around with about 4-5 people escorting yaks to make this happen.

Most of the people got bored leaving to go counter-zerg the server taking towers and the likes. Now if this voting system was in place I would get down votes for doing the intelligent thing. After we fortified the keep I led the troops into complete control of the map with the help from some great players and other voices.

But consider this, imagine a server where there is a dominant guild who does not tolerate randoms trying to lead. I have heard this happens on some servers. That guild may force their members to vote down any non-guild people who try to lead, effectively blocking new commanders not just for themselves but for everyone. I still thing that a personal block is the best and most fair way to go, as it does not affect others.

@Speno
I can see how some people may leave you if you decide to defend yaks, and withdraw votes, but that is their choice. You may regain their votes again once you move on to other objectives. Also you could ask some people to guard the yaks without doing that yourself (at least not for a long period of time).

Bottom line is, you can still issue commands and directions in the chat, my system is merely giving freedom to people, they can choose who will be the blue dot for them, instead of a 100g badge forcing that symbol on everyone on the map. If they don’t feel like guarding yaks right now, and would like to siege a tower instead, they can go there and align with another commander.

In addition, the favorite commander list allows them to have multiple commanders visible at a time, but they will only see the one they voted for currently drawing on the map.

I support this completely

You spend zero time revealing what’s wrong with the current system. One thing about requiring 100g is that you aren’t going to have a bunch of noob commanders overnight.

In your system, a zerg of Lev 1 can all vote each other commanders overnight.

That is quite true Kabuki, The 100g is a problem as money is not exactly that hard to make with constant play. The issue is that no requirement in token are needed. I have my 500 token badge for my legendary. But if I had to choose to get the book with my tokens and pay the gold I still would. Badges should be involved some way. say 1000wvw and 100g.

With 1000comms that would mean the person gets the premise of WvW, Truth in large is not everyone will buy a 100g book at that. Not everyone wants to lead, some people are probably terrified of trying to lead.

Voting system never works, we had it in Swtor for extra rank points. Being in a hardcore guild at the time in that game, we always voted for our members. Even though it would be random healers making or breaking matches sometimes. That is really the reality of a voting system.

@Kabuki

I don’t need to spend any time to reveal the obvious broken parts of the current implementation, but fine here it is.

1. Currently being a commander is completely independent from having the skills and knowledge to play WvW and lead. Any “noob” can be a commander. 100g is easy to get, whether by playing the TP, farming DE’s or simply buying it for money.
2. Currently, the system is quickly going to collapse on itself. Imagine a situation when you log in and see 99 commander icons on the map. What is the point of having a commander then at all? This will happen within next few months.
3. Currently, people can easily buy the commander title merely to say ‘hey look, i’m cool, rich and here!"
4. Currently, when you’re a commander, you will often be ridiculed about being rich and having no clue how to play, a logical assumption considering the above flaws.
5. Players have no say in who should lead, and who should be displayed on their map, it is forced on them.

@Speno

I disagree. I seriously doubt SWTOR had anything close to what I am suggesting. Have you not read about my layer implementation? Guilds voting for their own members is perfectly fine in my system, and does not harm the system in any way. Non-guild players have still the option to also support these guild commanders, or choose other, non-affiliated public commanders. Nothing is forced on you, you have free choice whom to follow. If you as a guild want to vote on a newbie (why??) your guild will be hit by his actions, if you choose to follow him. It is far more likely, you will vote on a good leader inside your guild, you do want karma/gold/loot/and points right?

@zerospin

2. Currently, the system is quickly going to collapse on itself. Imagine a situation when you log in and see 99 commander icons on the map. What is the point of having a commander then at all? This will happen within next few months.

This right here is completely wrong and is why I cannot believe what you are suggesting. You may not WvW alot, and you may get mad and rage at me if you would like. Only 6 commanders can show up on a map at all times, which is about as many as you suggest with:

I can see multiple ranks, for example:
[Guild] Team Leader – if you have 6+followers.
[Guild] Lieutenant – 12+ followers
[Guild] Commander – 20+ followers
[Guild] General – 40+ followers
[Guild] Field Marshal – 84+ followers (about half of the map population)
Insert guild name in the brackets if you are in the guild layer.

The way it is chosen now is that, the 6 with the highest PvP rank will show up. That to me maybe should change by a voting system for current commanders. Anet is not going to change it though as they need gold sinks being F2p, and this is clearly a rather large one.

I WvW all the time, in fact I don’t do anything else, but this is not about me. It is new to me that only 6 commanders can show up on the map, and that it is tied to their PvP ranking (I am on a relatively small server and this limit has not been achieved yet).

This is yet another flaw of the system, how is the PvP skill even remotely correlated to the strategic and people skills a commander needs to have? So let me get this straight, currently, Napoleon could start playing WvW, buy his badge for his riches, and won’t even appear as an icon because some PvP fans already claimed all 6 top spots? And all he could hope for is to wait until some of them log out (even though they may be completely incompetent) in order for his icon to be visible?

My system is clearly superior. I am sorry you can’t see it. It’s more natural, democratic, self-regulating, hard to exploit, easy to implement, and has the spirit of what the game stands for. It clearly does not stand for “grind 100g”, it stands for “the choice is yours”.

zerospin.8604:

It’s more natural, democratic, self-regulating, hard to exploit, easy to implement, and has the spirit of what the game stands for. It clearly does not stand for “grind 100g”, it stands for “the choice is yours”.

Now THAT, I’m all for man.

I rather the commander tag be earned with Guild Influence. Have it last for the length of a WvW rotation (1 week right now, 2 in the future) and allow it to stock so that you can research before the current one ends.

Zero’s idea just seems overly complex.

a Commander tag by guild influence would, just like right now, not mean alot either.

Big guilds gain influence pretty fast, even my 11-man guild is gaining lots of influence just by playing WvW alot. and then again, just because you have lots of people in your guild, does not necessarily mean you are a good strategist / commander. In fact, it would be the same thing as with the 100g right now, if you have 100 ppl that each give 1 gold or 100 ppl that gather the influence for you, no difference

I’m completely with zero that the commander tag should be earned by faith of the people you try to command, and nothing else.

@Speno within the guild layer, why have “ranks” there?
actually, i wouldnt even make to many ranks and rather limit the number of commanders (or any other rank) to 2-3 in total.

By your ranks it would be easy to achieve 5 Lieutenant with 12 followers each, or even more. However this wouldnt lead anywhere i believe. If you limit the number to 2 public “icons on the map” it will be alot more efficient, and for this, you dont really need ranks, just give those two that have the most (non guild)-votes on them the tag and it’s done.

I think that this voting system would be appropriate with the dislike function mentioned a few posts above and the guild/public separation of the titles. A commander would get his title and icon only if the net amount of endorsement, that is the likes minus the dislikes, is more than the required amount. That way, a commander would not be voted commander only because he has a lot of friends that are not in his guild.

I think that players should have the option to refund their current commander 100g icon or not, and if not, they should gain access to some kind of extra wvw functions, like the capacity to create “super siege weapons” or hire special guards or something. Some people might actually not know what to do with 100g or a plain refund may cause them more troubles than what it’s worth.

Today I watched an unknown transfer commander single handedly kill off what was a nice rising up in an completely captured borderland.

Led the zerg away from a garrison assault to go capture an uncontested supply camp. Many other bad choices salted with long periods (10-20mins) of standing at citadel afk with icon still switched on.

It felt like rival server had sent him here right as we were gaining a foothold back in our home borderlands.

Gold bought commanders need to be removed. Vote ranking is a great idea, in fact I was going to make a very similar (except nowhere near as well thought out) suggestion.

+1

I think this is well thought out and brilliant.

We’re in a tough battle right now, and I’m sick and tired of spending gold on buying siege, upgrading stuff, being one of the very few, sometimes only person running outside supply to build stuff, only to see a fully upgraded, fully stocked garrison fall because the commander is trying to take a keep with his little friends. I have seen this all this week. Granted, we are going against a very tough server, but there’s still no excuse for this bad attitude of “eh, we can’t win, they have too many people, might as well try to take an objective.” What the heck for? I’ve held off an attacking force in the lord room for 2 hours untill more eventually came. You get…… I’m rambling.

This is brilliant and Anet should do this. I’m also all in favor of most of the rebutals. Being able to turn off the icon solves tons of problems.

RealoFoxtrot.3261:

Yes, i can agree to this. although…

In our server, there are a lot of people who got Commander because the really do lead properly, and are in guilds dedicated to WvW. What about those people?

If those commanders have such a stellar reputation, they would have nothing to worry about under the system the OP is proposing. They would keep getting votes and/or commendations from the players they lead. Eventually, their title would become permanent.

I agree that something needs to be done about the current commander system. Simply paying for the commander title is like paying for the degree “doctor of neurology”, and then that person is licensed to perform brain surgery.