56 replies to this topic

[simbola]

When there's a commander on the field consciously trying to rally your side, do you fight alongside him or do your own thing? What has been your guys' experiences with commanders so far? Just asking out of curiosity, commanders are an interesting dynamic that add a little flare to WvW and I'm wondering how people receive it.

[Jacbo]

As a commander myself, I respect any commander who tries to communicate well and coordinate with the rest of us in our community VOIP. There are a couple commanders I respect that don't necessarily always meet the above criteria due to extenuating circumstances, but that's more the exception than the rule. In my view, doing things without involving the rest of the server is counterproductive and I'd rather those individuals just turned their tags off.

I tend to lose a modicum of respect for any commander who wears their tag at length while in PvE areas or not actively serving a WvW function. It's not a status symbol, and it's not a show of wealth, it's a functional organizational necessity for servers with disparate guild groupings, and that's all it need be used for.

In general, every commander merits an individual assessment.

[Wifflebottom]

It depends on whether or not the commander is retarded or not. If they're a good one then fine I'll fight alongside them and when they go down I'm sure to rez them and say "Not today commander!" it makes me feel like a squadmate from Mass Effect.

[phani_kaushik]

It depends on the strategic decisions made by them, basically, at least on my server TC. We've got some of the best commanders who can rally the whole team with them and turn the tide in a matter of minutes. They've earnt a lot of respect from public due to their past record in making right choices and people, like to stand by them and fight no matter the odds. For a new commander, it might be difficult but if they prove they are good with mass communication, strategic movement of the zerg, and co-ordinating with other commanders, they make their mark soon enough.

[Dark]

I try to fill out their commands as best as i can

[EPIC Mara]

I have no self respect.

[brokerib]

As with most of the above posters, it depends on whether they're a tool or not, commanders need to earn respect.  That said, I'm happy to give a new commander the benefit of the doubt and follow orders, but if it becomes obvious that they have less idea then I do and are just costing me repairs, I'll go hunt yaks until someone useful comes on.

[Zheo]

Reality I have found is that most people get bloodlust and see a wall of red players and charge in...once the battle is joined, it takes a lot for people to pull back and listen to commands.

That being said, I communicate with commanders to determine if they need me and my squad to join them or if they can assign me a camp to flip. Even if you don't run with the commander's zerg you can still do your part. Just tell them your ideas, most will listen.

[Lordkrall]

I respect commanders that actually are commanders and can command.

95% of the commanders I have seen does not fit that though and does not deserve respect.

[Noosfer]

Short answer: yes

The problem is that not all those wearing a blue cap are true commanders, but guild masters.

[DreadlockrastaGW]

If they sit around in lion's arch all day, and then roll in a Battleground with a legendary for 20 minutes dragging the zerg on wild goose chases, or going to other battle grounds to get everyone to stop what they are doing to come to one battleground:  No

[Wotah]

Yes, I wouldn't want to do what they do.

However that doesn't mean I won't troll them.

[lioka qiao]

I respect the commanders who are there actually leading the fight.  If they practice strategy other than zerging I respect them more.

As your troop member I expect you as a commander to formulate a plan and execute it.  I don't want to follow you around aimlessly.

For bonus points I like you more when
-  you know when to deploy rams and when to deploy catapults
-  you know when to call a retreat
- you micromanage the battle at hand.

As for the other way around, I want to earn your respect by following orders, not getting carried away in the battle, always having supplies on hand, speccing and gearing my character right,  and any other little thing that helps our cause.

Speaking of respect... would you give respect to someone who didn't have commander yet but in the absence of other commanders tried to lead the fight?

[Wotah]

lioka qiao, on 04 December 2012 - 07:51 PM, said:

Speaking of respect... would you give respect to someone who didn't have commander yet but in the absence of other commanders tried to lead the fight?

I do as long as they are going in the right direction, or give reasons for going in a different direction then they should.  Some attempt at something is better than no attempt at anything.

[Gremlin]

What are the qualifications to become a commander,, the answer to that is 100 Gold

Does the title make a good commander ?
Or should they have made the title of commander something you had to earn in wvw probably by completing a number of tasks leading to victory.

To quote Python
strange women lying in ponds distributing swords
is no basis for a system of government.  Supreme executive power
derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical
aquatic ceremony.

Still if they seemed to know what they were doing yes I would follow their lead.

[Caffynated]

I follow people who can convince me that they know what they're doing. A commander tag just makes it convenient to find them when we're separated.

Most people with a commander pin are clueless and I go out of my way to avoid them.

[Piteous]

We have some very good commanders on our server BG, but with the good there is always the bad and I have seen a couple of those, not many though. For instance I followed one guy around for about 30 minutes and all he was doing was going in circles, I think he was trying to see how many people he could get to follow him.

[crowea]

Yes absolutely. We are privileged on SoS to have such a classy group who communicate with each other and generally know what they are doing.

[lamplighter]

So far all of our commanders on Far Shiverpeaks have been really great, and put a lot of effort into our server. When they ask for a ram I say "How many".

[XgreatArtist]

95% of the time, these 'commanders' are just rich people who spent 100g buying their shiny badge. Half of these may do Wvw but they know nothing.
Personally i only recognise 3 great wvw commanders in JQ.

[Tellia]

i respect people whos behavior warrants respect. i dont respect the little blue icon.

[chuckles79]

Some commanders warrant respect and some there is a silent consensus to ignore.  We're blessed in SoS with the leaving of "he who speaks in the 3rd person" (even he warrants enough respect that I won't use his name), and have an excellent cadre of commanders.  There are some definite "2nd tier" commanders, and some guilds need to talk to their members about not having 3 commanders on and having them cluster on the map (what's the point?), but as a rule they are classy and we have no real clashing.

[Shiren]

I know who the good commanders on my server are. If I'm on and my guild commander is on, I'm with him. If he logs and we are appointed to work with another guild, I do that. If I'm running small ops I'm happy to ignore all commanders and work with my team taking supply camps or ninjaing towers or keeps. Ocasionally we will drop by the commander's zerg if they are doing something important (like a siege on a keep) and throw supply on their build sites (pug commanders have notoriously low success when it comes to getting pugs co-ordinated enough to carry around supply and build important siege equipment. If I'm on my own and I can't form a small ops group, I will sometimes fall in with a good commander I know (some guilds on my server have open TS info and I can join in like a regular member with them) or I act as a scout.

It always depends on the commander. Some are bad, some are good, some are excellent. A lot of times a commander might have the right ideas but the wrong people following them (a pug commander accomplishes less than a guild commander because pugs are worse than co-ordinated guilds). Some commanders are only interested in taking points and moving on, never building up stability on the map, only interested in karma and captures. These are the commanders that get the most pugs, but have a much weaker contribution to WvW because everything is flipped behind them. The commanders that take supply camps, upgrade key supply camps and carve out a fortified position on the map instead of zerging the entire map only to lose it an hour later, those are the commanders I respect.

I still miss he who speaks in third person. He was like our server mascott. I had so much fun laughing at him when he was still around.

Edited by Shiren, 05 December 2012 - 08:00 AM.

[Perm Shadow Form]

100g is good investment to troll people.
Give them wrong orders. form zerg and run around in circles. etc.
Now this is what I call fun.
Need only 60g more.

[Genev]

Most commanders on Blacktide work together and are pretty sensible people.
So far, I've only seen 1 which made me go "..what?"
We poked fun at him until he left the borderlands in a huff /shrug

[coronbale]

The real question that is here is this

Does 100g make you a leader in WvW?
---NO  Like in every single other MMO where you have coordination kicking uncoordinated asses, your going to have someone trying to get it organized.  You, as the individual, need to weigh the person you are following.  If they constantly get you killed, then dont follow!  Not rocket science.  The blue dot is a tool to help them rally you, nothing more nothing less.

Here is where I will say the line is.  If your in there, solo, without a team, you are at the whim of the masses.  You take the blame from every bad thing happening, and are more often doing what the zerg wants rather than what you know needs to be done.  The choice of people to require you to prove your worth to them before they follow you, or people who are resentful that you spent that money and they didn't go out of their way to avoid doing what you want will always work against you.  There is an easy fix to this.  BE A PART OF A WVW GUILD

TSYM on SoS has a great team, one we go into WvW with that fields between 15 and 25 people.  This allows us to do what we need to do in there, get the job done, and do the dirty jobs that some of these "WvW"ers who claim to need references before they take orders will flat out refuse to do.  Guarding a Yak. scouting, and defending a point is something you'll never see these "WvW"ers do, cause its not pew pew or making them money (even though it may be the difference between a win or a loss).

That is the real difference IMHO.

Edited by coronbale, 05 December 2012 - 12:16 PM.

[Dalure]

We from Deso have many good commanders.....good communication between the commanders from different guilds:)
We even plan things before we do major attacks......ofcourse there are some bad appels....but those we ignore.
Focused people with good leadingskills is what Deso is all about

/Salute

Edited by Dalure, 05 December 2012 - 12:46 PM.

[Wotah]

Caffynated, on 04 December 2012 - 09:23 PM, said:

I follow people who can convince me that they know what they're doing. A commander tag just makes it convenient to find them when we're separated.

Most people with a commander pin are clueless and I go out of my way to avoid them.

All the commanders I know of out there are very good at different things.  It's not always the same.  There are different styles of commanders some you may like because of this over others.  All of them do good in what they do.  Come to jadequarry.com and find out which you might work better with.

[coronbale]

Wotah, on 05 December 2012 - 04:50 PM, said:

All the commanders I know of out there are very good at different things.  It's not always the same.  There are different styles of commanders some you may like because of this over others.  All of them do good in what they do.  Come to jadequarry.com and find out which you might work better with.

Nice plug!  I can attest to JQ's skill and lethal on the battlefield, having faced off against them for the previous 3 weeks.  If your looking for a good server, and would rather help build a server to first rather than jump on one that's already there, they would be my vote!

[Jedbacca]

/agree with the statement above.  I have respect even for the commander on the opposition.  There's a few things that you tend to learn from each other when fighting other commanders as well.

As far as earning respect when you don't have commander yet, it can most definitely get earned.  I was able to have the privilege of leading maps before my guild collected money for our first commander tag for me.  By the time people seen me with a tag, they knew who I was.

As for following another commander, when I was but a wee lad of no tag, I would follow quite a few commanders down to see what their tactics are.  I learned a lot from following every one of them and was able to depict their play styles.  It's really all on what light you see the commander in.  Is the commander a defensive one or offensive?  There's different ways to gauge each one.

Also, if you see a failing commander or a bad call perhaps being made.  A lot of the time PM'ng that team lead instead of saying everything in /team chat really helps those commanders that may just not know.  Coaching is always a plus to bring the newer team leads out there up to speed.  There's less offense taken when it is private, and that commander won't feel as defensive in PM rather than team chat.  I've seen terrible commanders grow up to be big girls in boys from getting coached in this fashion.