Feedback talk:User/Tennessee Ernie Ford/Squad Commander Vetting

+1 (plus, a suggestion or three)

+ 1. Support. I love the idea of a squad commander, but fully agree that - in the current iteration - there is too great a risk of players of questionable leadership ability obtaining a Commander's Compendium. The counter-argument of that demographic would go something like this:

"I paid my gold; thus I have the right to play as a commander! Why do you care anyway? It doesn't negatively impact your gaming experience."

To which I would reply it has the potential to negatively impact my gaming experience. Under the current implementation, if I join Captain Inept's squad, I have no way of knowing in advance whether this commander is a competent leader or simply a Napoleon clone. Once I join that squad, it then results in frustration and wasted time being under the command of a squad leader who doesn't know what they're doing. Of course, I'm free to leave the squad (and would), but I wasted time and effort joining it in the first place.

Squad commanders are not playing in a vacuum; they are accepting a role which impacts their fellow players. As a consequence, I want some reasonable assurances that the commander is a capable leader. TEF's suggestion helps address this need. I offer the following additions to further the goal of helping potential squad members separate the wheat from the chaff:

• A voting system for players to rank their squad commanders. I realize voting systems have lots of pitfalls associated with them, not the least of which is shills and friends skewing the votes. However, taken as a whole with TEF's and my additional criteria, it has utility as one more means of measuring a commander's efficacy.

The votes could be limited to one vote per commander per player account in perpetuity. This prevents the same player from casting multiple votes for the same commander to artificially inflate the commander's ranking. Alternately, a player could vote more than once for the same commander, but is limited to a single vote per commander per 2-week WvWvW match.

• Voting is a completely voluntary option; players are not required to cast a vote for a particular commander.

• Votes would be simple +1 or -1. A positive vote adds to the commander's ranking, a negative vote detracts from it. Their final ranking is a composite of all negative and positive votes.

• To be clear, the votes carry absolutely zero in game consequence or benefit. They are simply a means for players to rank a commander's performance. It is then up to an individual player to use this information to come to their own decision on whether or not to join a particular squad.

• Clicking on a squad commander will bring up a mini-window displaying the commander's stats or next to their name and health bar in the party display in the upper left corner of the screen. I suggest this rather than having it pop-up while hovering the mouse cursor over a squad commander, as it may be difficult to keep the cursor on target in the heat of battle. Alternately, the commander's stats could be ever-present, floating above their head along with their squad commander icon. However, as their vote rank is not the only piece of data I intend to display for squad commanders (more on that below), keeping it ever-present might start to get a bit busy.

• The votes display will not only show the commander's composite rank, but also the total votes received. For example, if we displayed rank alone, two commanders may have the following scores:

Commander A = +100

Commander B = +30

At first glance Commander A appears to be the better commander if we're measuring by rank alone. Now let's add the total number of votes received for each.

Commander A = +100 (1000)

Commander B = +30 (32)

See the difference? Commander A has 1000 votes but only a rank of +100; 550 were positive while 450 were negative. This means Commander A has a confidence rating of only 55%. Commander B, by contrast, has a confidence rating just shy of 94%! Of course, if all 30 positive votes were his friends and guild mates while Commander A's votes were from truly objective players, this adds yet another twist in attempting to interpret the results.

That covers voting. The next pieces of data I would like to see are the number of WvWvW rounds this commander has participated in as well as the number of times the player has acted as a commander in a match. I'm not too interested in knowing how many winning rounds of WvWvW a commander has been a part of. As WvWvW is a group effort of - potentially - hundreds of players, the success or failure of a world is not determined by the performance of a single individual. For example, a commander could be a fantastic leader yet the server he or she is on loses their WvWvW round. Why penalize the commander by adding this as a "loss" to their stats? I'm more interested in the commander's time spent in a leadership role rather than the vagaries of the win:loss record of the world to which they belong. I freely admit that, like the voting stat, time spent as a commander is not - in and of itself - sufficient to judge performance. However, it's one more piece of the puzzle which - when viewed as a whole - allows players to make informed decisions about which squad to join.

Here are some changes (in red) I would prefer to see added to TEF's original criteria:

Adept's

Using this tome allows the player to lead squads of up to ten players (Perhaps increase this a bit, maybe to 15 players. Otherwise, I fear too many mini-squads running around will add to the chaos rather than helping bring some order to it.)

• 10 gold (about a tenth of the current cost of the CC), i.e. one gold per allowed player.
• No other requirements. (I see nothing wrong with imposing a Karma requirement as per the more advanced tiers. If my math is correct, Gold participation in an event awards 30 Karma points. Make the requirement 60 Karma points, then; implying Gold participation in at least 2 events. This will weed out wannabe commanders who's only interest is purchasing the title.)

Master's

Using this tome allows the player to lead squads of up to 25 players. (If my edit above of increasing the squad limit to 15 is acceptable, then perhaps this limit should scale to 30.)

• 25 gold (about a fourth the current CC cost)
• 150 karma points (implies completion of at least five events at the Gold participation level)
• Lead squads of at least five players during at least five successful events (any level). (I would strike "successful" from the requirement. Going back to what I said earlier, a commander could be a brilliant strategist, cunning tactician, and proven leader but has the dumb luck to be stuck on a losing server. Requiring that commander to lead a squad through a "successful" event is not something within their power to singlehandedly affect the outcome. I have no problem with placing criteria on commanders; but they should be ones under the commander's control.)

Grandmaster's

Using this tome allows the player to lead squads of any size.

• 100 gold (same as current CC cost) (I'm leaning towards the cost of the three compendiums totaling 100 gold as per the cost of the original, single compendium. In which case, the cost of the Grandmaster's Compendium would equal 65 gold; assuming the other two tiers remain at their current price. It's a small thing, though, and wouldn't cause a problem if it were to remain at 100 gold.)
• 300 karma points (implies completion of at least 10 events at the Gold participation level)
• Lead squads of at least 15 players through at least five successful events (any level). (Same issue with the word "successful" as described above.)

As for:

"Allow a guild to promote members to Squad Leader by spending influence. (Perhaps limit this to 1-2 people per month or based on the guild's size.)"

I don't have a problem with a guild spending influence to promote a member to commander status. However, the influence should only be a substitute for the gold requirement; these players should still have to meet the same Karma and proven leadership requirements.

Of course, if my suggestion above of removing the word "successful" is adopted, this leads to a scenario in which all a commander need do to satisfy the leadership requirement is have the stated number of players join his or her squad. That's it. Obviously, that's not an accurate reflection of performance. What I offer, instead, is a measure of performance over which the commander has some control. For example, "successfully" leading a squad could be measured the following ways (all of which could contribute simultaneously):

• Kills. A commander's success could be measured by the number of enemy players sent to defeat by members of his or her squad. For example, every 100 defeated enemies counts as one "success" for the commander. Perhaps a squad member using a finishing move on a downed player will count as 1.5 kills.

• Supply. For every "X " supply delivered by squad members to a supply depot, contributed towards the construction of a siege weapon, or used to upgrade a resource camp, tower, or keep, the commander will be awarded a "success".

• Construction. For every "X " siege weapons built by squad members, the commander will be awarded a "success". This differs from the "Supply" criteria in that - in the previous requirement - squad members need only deliver supplies or contribute them to a structure initiated by another player (squad-affiliated or not). In this scenario, the siege weapons' blueprints must be purchased by the squad members who then initiate the construction. The measure of "success" is that the siege weapon is built; regardless of how much supply may have been contributed by squad members to its completion.

• Revival. For every "X " points of healing squad members administer to downed or defeated allies and/or for every "X " successful revivals accomplished by squad members, commanders will be awarded a "success".

• Dolyak Caravan escort. For every "X " Dolyak Caravans safely escorted from a resource camp to their destination tower or keep AND back, the commander will be awarded a "success". Escort will be defined as at least 1 squad member remaining within "X " distance of a Dolyak Caravan during a full supply run and return.

• Dolyak Caravan marauders. For every "X " Dolyak Caravans defeated by squad members, the commander will be awarded a "success".

• Defender. A commander leads their squad in the defense of a resource camp, tower, keep, or Stonemist Castle. If the objective is kept out of the enemy's hands for 1/2 hour following the first damage inflicted on an NPC Defender, gate, or wall while the commander and majority of the squad members remain within the walls (or close proximity in the case of resource camps), the commander will be awarded a "success". The 1/2 hour timer resets if the objective is captured by the enemy and subsequently recaptured by the commander's team or if there is a 10 minute lull between the last time damage was received by an NPC Defender, gate, or wall and the next time damage is received.

• Captures. The members of a commander's squad participate in the capture of a resource camp, tower, keep, or Stonemist Castle. Said participation will be measured as a set amount of damage to a gate, wall, and/or NPC defenders multiplied by the largest number of players present in that squad within 1/2 hour of the capture of the objective. Some examples (let's assume the damage requirement is 10,000 points):

• A squad of 10 players assault a tower. Ten minutes in, 5 more players join the squad to bring its number to 15. Twenty minutes into the assault, 2 members have to log off for whatever reason, reducing the squad to 13 members. The gate is breached, the lord defeated, and the tower is captured at 25 minutes. The commander's squad will need to have inflicted a cumulative 150,000 points of damage to any combination of the tower's gate, walls, and/or NPC defenders to meet the "success" criteria. This is because, during the assault, the commander's maximum squad size reached 15 members. Fifteen multiplied by 10,000 equals 150,000 points of damage.

• A squad of 5 players participate in assaulting a keep; 40 non-squad players are participating as well. The squad never grows beyond 5 members during the assault. The squad members must deal 50,000 points of damage to the keep's gate, walls, and/or NPC defenders to meet the "success" criteria. However, being such a small squad lost in the sea of the zerg mob, their contribution to the assault falls short of that 50,000 point goal. It's not that the squad didn't contribute; but their effort pales by comparison to the effort of the other 40 players. Hanging onto the coattails of a massive zerg mob isn't a real test of leadership; thus it's not appropriate to reward the commander with a "success" under these conditions.

• A squad participates in an assault of Stonemist Castle. From the moment the first squad member inflicts the first point of damage on a gate, wall, or NPC defender to the moment the castle's lord is defeated, 43 minutes elapse. Regardless of how much damage this squad's members inflict on the castle, this will not count as a "success" for the commander as it exceeded the 1/2 hour time limit imposed on capturing objectives.

If all of the "success" criteria I listed above are implemented, this begs the question of do we permit commanders to earn points towards their leadership requirement by engaging in any of these objectives or do we require commanders to engage in a variety of these activities. In the former case, this will permit commanders to become specialists; one is adept at leading a group in the construction and use of siege weapons, another is expert at commanding squad members in the capture of objectives, etc. In the latter case, it requires commanders become generalists, skilled in a range of leadership duties and squad roles.

Lastly, these criteria could be tracked as part of a commander's profile. The number of kills, captures, defenses, siege weapons constructed, etc. by the commander's squad could be displayed in their pop-up (it's now evident why making this data ever-present and floating above the commander's head would be too busy). This could even lead to titles which can be displayed by both the commander and their squad members. For example, a commander who has participated in "X " defenses may be awarded the title "Defense Commander" while their squad members earn the title "Defender" (but only for those members who have actually participated in defense; it's not a blanket title applied - unearned - to any player joining the squad). Though the full dataset may not be ever-present above a commander's head, they would be able to display one of their titles. This will give players looking to join a squad a sense of the area in which a commander - and, by extension, their squad - specializes. If a player is looking to engage in a lot of combat with enemy players, joining a squad whose commander displays the title "Dolyak Defense Commander" is probably not in their best interests.

Well, there's my 2 cents (inflation adjusted so it became 200 cents). Thank you for reading. Guild Wars 3 perhaps 02:00, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Summing up the response

Wow, that's quite a response. I hope whatever I fail to steal for this suggestion goes into one of your own.

I have mixed feelings about your ideas here: on the one hand, I would like to see this level of depth in GW2. On the other, I'm not sure that the game, as currently envisioned/designed/implemented is ready to handle most/all of them. Accordingly, I'm going to organize them by the degree of nuance they require to implement. My original idea was to keep things as simple as possible, to make it easy for something similar to be adopted sooner rather than later; some of the above fits well with that (e.g. changes in pricing). Then there are more complex ideas, which require additional game mechanics (e.g. tracking success). And finally, there are some thoughts above that would require an entirely different dimension to the game (e.g. different kinds of leaders).

Simplex ideas

Rather than quibble with you about these, let's agree that ANet needs to tweak them for balance. They aren't trivial, but they probably aren't worth the time to perfect either. (I will tweak my original suggestion to reflect my new thoughts after reading GW3P's text above).

• Cost adjustments: e.g. adding Karma to the adept manual.
• Adjust in-game proxies for measuring success: e.g. the amount of karma/coin earned.

Complex ideas

These are ideas worthy of their own formal suggestion. They are worth discussing (and shouldn't require new mechanics to implement), but I'd prefer to see ANet implement tricks to filter out leader-wannabes ASAP rather than wait for a more complete solution. (I will not tweak my original suggestion to reflect my new thoughts after reading GW3P's text above; they deserve their own article).

• Track actual success for commanders using objective in-game criteria of squad accomplishments: number of kills, supply delivered, weapons constructed, squad-mates revived close to foes, escorts survived, enemy escorts destroyed, forts defended, forts destroyed, and captures (prevented or successful).

New dimension

These are ideas that add an entirely new dimension to the game. I think they are compelling, but require ANet creating a new set of mechanics and balancing to implement them. I would like to play a GW2 that included them, but I'm not holding my breath. (I will not tweak my original suggestion to reflect my new thoughts after reading GW3P's text above; they deserve their own article).

• Define different types of leaders: create new accomplishments using the success criteria above, e.g. Marauder, Defender, Generalist. Offer additional ranks (Adept, Master, GM or military ranks) and various benefits for earning them.
• Allow players to vote on leadership: give players the opportunity to report on the success of other leaders.

I suspect I missed something else in your original text...and I'll update my response as soon as I figure out what it was. (Or you point it out to me! ^-^)

As always, thanks for taking the time to respond and share your thoughts. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 06:13, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

You're most welcome; and thank you for identifying a potential weakness of the squad commander mechanic and creating this feedback post in the first place. I'm going to create a new suggestion of my own from my response above. However, I will link back to your suggestion with full credit for being its inspiration. As this is your discussion page, feel free to edit or delete my response if you like, as it will now become it's own feedback post.

Also, I realize many of my suggestions aren't going to make it into launch. As you've correctly pointed out, implementing them would use up resources needed for bringing the current iteration of the game to completion. That is something I certainly don't want to see happen. Hopefully, though, if the devs feel my ideas have merit, they could introduce them as future additions. This would play into one of my unstated goals in making these suggestions; frequent updates to keep the game fresh and engaging. Guild Wars 3 perhaps 17:38, 5 August 2012 (UTC)