Discord / Hidden Tags / Closed Squads

[hunkamania.7561]

@Shroud.2307 said:

I find it funny that you claim any server could possibly have more Longbow Rangers than Mag. The server is 99.9% pugs, it's amazing we manage to pull the kind of KDR we do every single week despite always being a disorganized mess with zergs comprised of 50% Rangers.

Mag is a dumpster fire of trolls and has-beens, but I never had a fraction of the fun on any other server. I'll take being locked in T4 with Mag over PPTing gates on SOS any day, thanks.

I'm a Maguuma native and can tell you the only reason their KDR is high is that they camp an op T3 SMC all day and farm noob pugs on ebg. The mediocre guilds on the server also nuthug to ensure they win fights vs smaller groups or blob it up with a bunch of greens surrounding them. KDR does not tell the whole story.

[Bristingr.5034]

There's a few reasons why we might go to a private tag and/or use comms:

1. Typemanding takes a lot of practice, and in the end it's still quicker to verbally provide the commands.
2. The enemy team might have a spy on the map and is tag watching.
3. We're running as a Guild-only and don't want any Pugs.

As for being able to ensure where the other tag is at when they're hidden, I'll generally aim to try and have 1 person from their guild join our squad while they run with their hidden squad (if we're on good relations with that guild), or just have 1 person from our guild (if they want to) run with their squad while staying in ours, so we have that blue dot and it's a quick and general idea of where they're at. It'd be nice if we could have a "tag sharing" option that can only share tags to those who have a tag up or something, but alas, it's my workaround method for now.

[mindcircus.1506]

Pointing to KDR is the way losing servers pretend to be winning while they are losing.

[kash.9213]

@"Bristingr.5034" said:There's a few reasons why we might go to a private tag and/or use comms:

1. Typemanding takes a lot of practice, and in the end it's still quicker to verbally provide the commands.
2. The enemy team might have a spy on the map and is tag watching.
3. We're running as a Guild-only and don't want any Pugs.

As for being able to ensure where the other tag is at when they're hidden, I'll generally aim to try and have 1 person from their guild join our squad while they run with their hidden squad (if we're on good relations with that guild), or just have 1 person from our guild (if they want to) run with their squad while staying in ours, so we have that blue dot and it's a quick and general idea of where they're at. It'd be nice if we could have a "tag sharing" option that can only share tags to those who have a tag up or something, but alas, it's my workaround method for now.

Those are good reasons, especially 2 when they know what tacs to pull ahead of you or repair walls on you. It would be nice if commanders could get more QoL tools but I don't think there's a huge issue with hidden tags. Most seem pretty good about letting people know what's up on a map anyway and most pubs are full of people who already know what they're doing. Newer players need to learn how to read the maps like we do for story map metas, they'd be able to more safely get around and find where everyone is at.

[Chaba.5410]

@mindcircus.1506 said:Pointing to KDR is the way losing servers pretend to be winning while they are losing.

Pointing to winning while having a poor KDR is the way players delude themselves into thinking they're on a good server rather than one that just has coverage and numbers.

[solemn.9608]

+1 to OPMost of them won't understand.

They think anything unconventional is not viable because nobody dares to think outside the box anymore in this game. Same with the meta. Plenty of options for interesting and hard to defeat guild comps but people just default to the ole firebrand scourge scourge plus whatever 'meta'.

Don't expect them to understandThey won'tIt is entirely possible to textmand effectively. I have done it myself and seen others. Make good tactical decisions, have good movement skills, play heal scrapper or something that can hard-carry pugs through raw healing power and type quickly. Really not that hard. But that goes against the norm so everyone will just attack you for challenging their beliefs.

[God.2708]

@solemn.9608 said:+1 to OPMost of them won't understand.

They think anything unconventional is not viable because nobody dares to think outside the box anymore in this game. Same with the meta. Plenty of options for interesting and hard to defeat guild comps but people just default to the ole firebrand scourge scourge plus whatever 'meta'.

Don't expect them to understandThey won'tIt is entirely possible to textmand effectively. I have done it myself and seen others. Make good tactical decisions, have good movement skills, play heal scrapper or something that can hard-carry pugs through raw healing power and type quickly. Really not that hard. But that goes against the norm so everyone will just attack you for challenging their beliefs.

I mean, basically every group I see that is closed and invisible does so because if they open up all challenge goes out the window. Competitive advantage comes from a variety of sources in WvW, and if a group is actively deciding against increasing their numbers it's because they're either confident in other things (like comms and unique party synergy), or they're expecting similar sized opponents and don't want to just W-key them.

[enkidu.5937]

@Sealamin.6549 said:I have been playing WvW for around 8 Years and WvW is on a terrible down slide for the worse. More and more I am seeing hidden tags and closed squads with regular players unable to join unless they use Discord. I understand the need to use voice comms and have even owned and managed a TS server for WvW but this was for Guild battles and Fun nights, the server was there if people wanted to use it. I have seen far better commanders in the past than current ones and they used no voice coms and they earned the respect and following of other players by their commanding skills and success in battles. Forcing players to use Discord in normal game play like EB for instance or they can't join a squad points clearly to one person dominating the game for his own satisfaction , I mean it's not hard for serious players to follow a badge and support the squad and have fun. Using voice coms in a guild most definately helps with a better gaming experiance in WvW but enforcing a guild enviorment on players who just want to play openly on a public server you take the fun out of it and will eventualy kill the Server.As you can see in this thread, 95% of the ppl that run in hidden squads with XY restrictions dont even have a clue what the problem is. They simply dont care about the game and instead have created their own one with their own private rules and such.

[DeceiverX.8361]

@hunkamania.7561 said:@"Shroud.2307" said:

I find it funny that you claim any server could possibly have more Longbow Rangers than Mag. The server is 99.9% pugs, it's amazing we manage to pull the kind of KDR we do every single week despite always being a disorganized mess with zergs comprised of 50% Rangers.

Mag is a dumpster fire of trolls and has-beens, but I never had a fraction of the fun on any other server. I'll take being locked in T4 with Mag over PPTing gates on SOS any day, thanks.

I'm a Maguuma native and can tell you the only reason their KDR is high is that they camp an op T3 SMC all day and farm noob pugs on ebg. The mediocre guilds on the server also nuthug to ensure they win fights vs smaller groups or blob it up with a bunch of greens surrounding them. KDR does not tell the whole story.

It's the reason my havoc guild and I would log out for the week when we got matched a long time ago. There's like, two, actually good guilds/groups on that server (shoutout to HUNT giving us some difficulty despite the fact I know you MFers play some cheeky builds), and most of their pugs are just hilariously bad. Notice how the server fell off a cliff after the first wave of hacking bans. Yeah.

We ran 5 deep, and BL's were either just PvE zones or we'd just get ganked by "roamers" running 10-15 deep just playing the FotM OP spec.Glass longbow soulbeast on high ground with pocket heals/support seems to be the current favorite of the "RF go brrrrrr" audience.

I don't even mind if people are running and dying with builds that suck; that's me half the time. But they're just so aggressively tryhard while absolutely insisting they're not that it's comedic in the sad sense that people there actually think they're decent.

People hate the matchup not because Mag is good so much as Mag doesn't provide any meaningful content whatsoever. Either they cower when numbers show up or they just spam emotes after some poor sap gets exploded in a 5v1.

I feel like Mag's the same kind of population of 13-year-old CoD players who say they copulate our moms and could beat us in a real fight. It's absurd, and the novelty is funny as a meme, but being proud of that is honestly super cringe and really makes the game less fun for everyone.

[mindcircus.1506]

@enkidu.5937 said:

@"Sealamin.6549" said:I have been playing WvW for around 8 Years and WvW is on a terrible down slide for the worse. More and more I am seeing hidden tags and closed squads with regular players unable to join unless they use Discord. I understand the need to use voice comms and have even owned and managed a TS server for WvW but this was for Guild battles and Fun nights, the server was there if people wanted to use it. I have seen far better commanders in the past than current ones and they used no voice coms and they earned the respect and following of other players by their commanding skills and success in battles. Forcing players to use Discord in normal game play like EB for instance or they can't join a squad points clearly to one person dominating the game for his own satisfaction , I mean it's not hard for serious players to follow a badge and support the squad and have fun. Using voice coms in a guild most definately helps with a better gaming experiance in WvW but enforcing a guild enviorment on players who just want to play openly on a public server you take the fun out of it and will eventualy kill the Server.As you can see in this thread, 95% of the ppl that run in hidden squads with XY restrictions dont even have a clue what the problem is. They simply dont care about the game and instead have created their own one with their own private rules and such.Maybe take a long hard look at why people run in closed squads.You can deny it if you like but there is a very big difference in the reaction time between people in voice and people who arent. Those who arent in comms when the rest are are more often than not a liability. They miss stealth calls, they give away position, they squirell off tag and take spots in a line that would be better taken by someone with a mind to actually contribute. Not having them in your group is usually addition by subtraction.I would rather surround myself with the people who want to play like I do. There's no harm in that until some toxic player comes along and decides the way

I

want to play is somehow "bad for the game mode" because me and my friends won't carry them.

The attitude that you and the OP are using is functionally no different than the PvE players who get angry that they can't get a carry in Strike missions and come on to the forums with claims that people who set restrictions for their groups such as certain classes/dps requirements/kps are "bad for the game". It's a negative reaction to being denied a carry.If you have a problem with groups running closed with restrictions usch as Discord you are more than welcome to tag up and run an open pug group. The people setting a bar for entry into their squads are doing nothing but ensuring they are playing with likeminded players. They are doing nothing against the ToS,

Attempting to shame people who set a barrier for entry to their groups rather than just starting their own open squads?That says more about you and the OP than it does about the people setting a bar for entry into their groups.

[Dawdler.8521]

@God.2708 said:

@solemn.9608 said:+1 to OPMost of them won't understand.

They think anything unconventional is not viable because nobody dares to think outside the box anymore in this game. Same with the meta. Plenty of options for interesting and hard to defeat guild comps but people just default to the ole firebrand scourge scourge plus whatever 'meta'.

Don't expect them to understandThey won'tIt is entirely possible to textmand effectively. I have done it myself and seen others. Make good tactical decisions, have good movement skills, play heal scrapper or something that can hard-carry pugs through raw healing power and type quickly. Really not that hard. But that goes against the norm so everyone will just attack you for challenging their beliefs.

I mean, basically every group I see that is closed and invisible does so because if they open up all challenge goes out the window. Competitive advantage comes from a variety of sources in WvW, and if a group is actively deciding against increasing their numbers it's because they're either confident in other things (like comms and unique party synergy), or they're expecting similar sized opponents and don't want to just W-key them.Except they still demand everyone to get on discord and join the squad for anything less than 50 man so your theory is a failure.

[Chaba.5410]

@solemn.9608 said:+1 to OPMost of them won't understand.

They think anything unconventional is not viable because nobody dares to think outside the box anymore in this game. Same with the meta. Plenty of options for interesting and hard to defeat guild comps but people just default to the ole firebrand scourge scourge plus whatever 'meta'.

Don't expect them to understandThey won'tIt is entirely possible to textmand effectively. I have done it myself and seen others. Make good tactical decisions, have good movement skills, play heal scrapper or something that can hard-carry pugs through raw healing power and type quickly. Really not that hard. But that goes against the norm so everyone will just attack you for challenging their beliefs.

Expect the 8 year players who have already been on both sides of this debate and no longer agree to understand though. Already been there and done that. You do you.

[God.2708]

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@God.2708 said:

@solemn.9608 said:+1 to OPMost of them won't understand.

They think anything unconventional is not viable because nobody dares to think outside the box anymore in this game. Same with the meta. Plenty of options for interesting and hard to defeat guild comps but people just default to the ole firebrand scourge scourge plus whatever 'meta'.

Don't expect them to understandThey won'tIt is entirely possible to textmand effectively. I have done it myself and seen others. Make good tactical decisions, have good movement skills, play heal scrapper or something that can hard-carry pugs through raw healing power and type quickly. Really not that hard. But that goes against the norm so everyone will just attack you for challenging their beliefs.

I mean, basically every group I see that is closed and invisible does so because if they open up all challenge goes out the window. Competitive advantage comes from a variety of sources in WvW, and if a group is actively deciding against increasing their numbers it's because they're either confident in other things (like comms and unique party synergy), or they're expecting similar sized opponents and don't want to just W-key them.Except they still demand everyone to get on discord and join the squad for anything less than 50 man so your theory is a failure.

So, it's possible you witness that on your server, but I've never seen a tag that is both closed AND invisible demand people to get in comms so they can join squad.

Closed squads, sure, but not invisible ones. And closed + invisible was what the original post was about. There are different arguments to be made about tags that are closed except to those in discord, but it is also fairly easy to follow them on your own with your own party if that is your interest so it feels like a silly rabbit hole to dive down.

[DeceiverX.8361]

@God.2708 said:

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@God.2708 said:

@solemn.9608 said:+1 to OPMost of them won't understand.

They think anything unconventional is not viable because nobody dares to think outside the box anymore in this game. Same with the meta. Plenty of options for interesting and hard to defeat guild comps but people just default to the ole firebrand scourge scourge plus whatever 'meta'.

Don't expect them to understandThey won'tIt is entirely possible to textmand effectively. I have done it myself and seen others. Make good tactical decisions, have good movement skills, play heal scrapper or something that can hard-carry pugs through raw healing power and type quickly. Really not that hard. But that goes against the norm so everyone will just attack you for challenging their beliefs.

I mean, basically every group I see that is closed and invisible does so because if they open up all challenge goes out the window. Competitive advantage comes from a variety of sources in WvW, and if a group is actively deciding against increasing their numbers it's because they're either confident in other things (like comms and unique party synergy), or they're expecting similar sized opponents and don't want to just W-key them.Except they still demand everyone to get on discord and join the squad for anything less than 50 man so your theory is a failure.

So, it's possible you witness that on your server, but I've never seen a tag that is both closed AND invisible demand people to get in comms so they can join squad.

Closed squads, sure, but not invisible ones. And closed + invisible was what the original post was about. There are different arguments to be made about tags that are closed except to those in discord, but it is also fairly easy to follow them on your own with your own party if that is your interest so it feels like a silly rabbit hole to dive down.

The point of running closed was to prevent people from joining on tag to prevent accidental boon and effects sharing to unintended targets, which was changed in a later patch to allow parties within squads. It's now mostly just used as an incentive to join discord. The point in running invis is to stop people from following and rallying the opposition when the numbers are too close.

If they locked F2p accounts out of WvW to stop the ridiculous amounts of spying, it'd remove most of the incentive to run invis for positioning.

If ANet removed rallying from other players' deaths, almost nobody would run invis for combat reasons.Note this is different from not having downed state.

[Dawdler.8521]

@God.2708 said:

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@God.2708 said:

@solemn.9608 said:+1 to OPMost of them won't understand.

They think anything unconventional is not viable because nobody dares to think outside the box anymore in this game. Same with the meta. Plenty of options for interesting and hard to defeat guild comps but people just default to the ole firebrand scourge scourge plus whatever 'meta'.

Don't expect them to understandThey won'tIt is entirely possible to textmand effectively. I have done it myself and seen others. Make good tactical decisions, have good movement skills, play heal scrapper or something that can hard-carry pugs through raw healing power and type quickly. Really not that hard. But that goes against the norm so everyone will just attack you for challenging their beliefs.

I mean, basically every group I see that is closed and invisible does so because if they open up all challenge goes out the window. Competitive advantage comes from a variety of sources in WvW, and if a group is actively deciding against increasing their numbers it's because they're either confident in other things (like comms and unique party synergy), or they're expecting similar sized opponents and don't want to just W-key them.Except they still demand everyone to get on discord and join the squad for anything less than 50 man so your theory is a failure.

So, it's possible you witness that on your server, but I've never seen a tag that is both closed AND invisible demand people to get in comms so they can join squad.

Closed squads, sure, but not invisible ones. And closed + invisible was what the original post was about. There are different arguments to be made about tags that are closed except to those in discord, but it is also fairly easy to follow them on your own with your own party if that is your interest so it feels like a silly rabbit hole to dive down.If they are invisible then they are closed, because its always invite only. You instantly see when they are on the border as the map chat fill people writing what the commander tell them so he/lieutenant can invite.

I have no idea what you mean with closed being different.

[subversiontwo.7501]

@"Mil.3562" said:Nowadays WvW tags run closed squads because they only want and need meta classes, they need voice comm, they need numbers and still half the time they get wiped. Before, WvW Commanders ran open squads, invite anyone that ran next to them, no need for voice comm and still they win encounters most of the time.

Notice the difference? Real Commanders vs just tags.

Sure, and as per page one, those "real commanders" also had, out of a squad of 50, perhaps 15 guildmates, 10 friends from their best-friend guild and another 5 each from aquainted guilds so only 10-20% of their squad was made up by guildless, faceless snowflakes.

Not all the time of course, but that was pretty normative, and that seems constantly overlooked as this thread goes on.

Once the majority of your squad is snowflakes or, indeed, if you are not a proper commander with any support from friends and rather just a random tag yourself, then your reliance on those snowflakes tend to come with requests of them to help shoulder the burden with coms and builds.

[God.2708]

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@God.2708 said:

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@God.2708 said:

@solemn.9608 said:+1 to OPMost of them won't understand.

They think anything unconventional is not viable because nobody dares to think outside the box anymore in this game. Same with the meta. Plenty of options for interesting and hard to defeat guild comps but people just default to the ole firebrand scourge scourge plus whatever 'meta'.

Don't expect them to understandThey won'tIt is entirely possible to textmand effectively. I have done it myself and seen others. Make good tactical decisions, have good movement skills, play heal scrapper or something that can hard-carry pugs through raw healing power and type quickly. Really not that hard. But that goes against the norm so everyone will just attack you for challenging their beliefs.

I mean, basically every group I see that is closed and invisible does so because if they open up all challenge goes out the window. Competitive advantage comes from a variety of sources in WvW, and if a group is actively deciding against increasing their numbers it's because they're either confident in other things (like comms and unique party synergy), or they're expecting similar sized opponents and don't want to just W-key them.Except they still demand everyone to get on discord and join the squad for anything less than 50 man so your theory is a failure.

So, it's possible you witness that on your server, but I've never seen a tag that is both closed AND invisible demand people to get in comms so they can join squad.

Closed squads, sure, but not invisible ones. And closed + invisible was what the original post was about. There are different arguments to be made about tags that are closed except to those in discord, but it is also fairly easy to follow them on your own with your own party if that is your interest so it feels like a silly rabbit hole to dive down.If they are invisible then they are closed, because its always invite only. You instantly see when they are on the border as the map chat fill people writing what the commander tell them so he/lieutenant can invite.

I have no idea what you mean with closed being different.

You can check a box to make a squad private, this makes the tag invisible. The default setting when doing this is to 'close' the squad so no one can join (unless the commander or a LT invites). You can change this setting back to 'open squad' after making tag private and the tag remains invisible but anyone can join (assuming they know which person to click on).

Tags that are closed, IE you can see the tag on the minimap but cannot join without them inviting you, and demand you join voice comms are a common occurrence in WvW, they've also existed since the dawn of the game.

Invisible closed tags, IE tags that have vanished and aren't still open in order to hide minimap movements from spies or something, don't generally go around demanding people join them. They're closed and hiding for a reason: see my initial post.

As I said, I dunno what's going on in your server, but I never see invisible closed tags filling map chat on the servers I've been on. They generally mind their own business and look for fights. If a tag isn't even willing to put up the tag on the minimap but is whining about people not joining comms and their squad I'd join you in calling them out for being kitten.

[ArchonWing.9480]

@Mil.3562 said:Nowadays WvW tags run closed squads because they only want and need meta classes, they need voice comm, they need numbers and still half the time they get wiped. Before, WvW Commanders ran open squads, invite anyone that ran next to them, no need for voice comm and still they win encounters most of the time.

Notice the difference? Real Commanders vs just tags.

Back then it was also much easier to carry because there wasn't stuff like metabattle or whatever and people were bringing in uplevels and stuff and generally being clueless. 7 years later, there's simply a lot less of those players as the overall incentive to play WvW has decreased and organized guild groups are much more experienced than before so even the worst of guilds is still capable of some threat just by the acts of sheer repetition.

The power creep decreasing TTK has also turned snowflakes into flat out liabilities too.

Consider a very simple situation where pugs not in comms may accidentally ruin stealth by not getting off mounts soon enough or just not getting it and running along with the stealthed crowd and defeating the purpose of it.

This is just an unfortunate effect of older games. It's been figured out so you can no longer just do whatever. Of course, the effect is much more pronounced in a long neglected game mode with shallow game balance.

[Dawdler.8521]

@God.2708 said:

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@God.2708 said:

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@God.2708 said:

@"solemn.9608" said:+1 to OPMost of them won't understand.

They think anything unconventional is not viable because nobody dares to think outside the box anymore in this game. Same with the meta. Plenty of options for interesting and hard to defeat guild comps but people just default to the ole firebrand scourge scourge plus whatever 'meta'.

Don't expect them to understandThey won'tIt is entirely possible to textmand effectively. I have done it myself and seen others. Make good tactical decisions, have good movement skills, play heal scrapper or something that can hard-carry pugs through raw healing power and type quickly. Really not that hard. But that goes against the norm so everyone will just attack you for challenging their beliefs.

I mean, basically every group I see that is closed and invisible does so because if they open up all challenge goes out the window. Competitive advantage comes from a variety of sources in WvW, and if a group is actively deciding against increasing their numbers it's because they're either confident in other things (like comms and unique party synergy), or they're expecting similar sized opponents and don't want to just W-key them.Except they still demand everyone to get on discord and join the squad for anything less than 50 man so your theory is a failure.

So, it's possible you witness that on your server, but I've never seen a tag that is both closed AND invisible demand people to get in comms so they can join squad.

Closed squads, sure, but not invisible ones. And closed + invisible was what the original post was about. There are different arguments to be made about tags that are closed except to those in discord, but it is also fairly easy to follow them on your own with your own party if that is your interest so it feels like a silly rabbit hole to dive down.If they are invisible then they are closed, because its always invite only. You instantly see when they are on the border as the map chat fill people writing what the commander tell them so he/lieutenant can invite.

I have no idea what you mean with closed being different.

You can check a box to make a squad private, this makes the tag invisible. The default setting when doing this is to 'close' the squad so no one can join (unless the commander or a LT invites). You can change this setting back to 'open squad' after making tag private and the tag remains invisible but anyone can join (assuming they know which person to click on).

Tags that are closed, IE you can see the tag on the minimap but cannot join without them inviting you, and demand you join voice comms are a common occurrence in WvW, they've also existed since the dawn of the game.

Invisible closed tags, IE tags that have vanished and aren't still open in order to hide minimap movements from spies or something, don't generally go around demanding people join them. They're closed and hiding for a reason: see my initial post.

As I said, I dunno what's going on in your server, but I never see invisible closed tags filling map chat on the servers I've been on. They generally mind their own business and look for fights. If a tag isn't even willing to put up the tag on the minimap but is whining about people not joining comms and their squad I'd join you in calling them out for being kitten.This is just semantics.

Again, all invisible tags by definition are invite only because they dont want people to just right click and join without being on discord, ie they are "closed".

If they arent invite by discord and just click to join, they dont run an invisible tag to begin with that's just a normal open tag.

[Zikory.6871]

This thread is like listening to a bunch of simps blaming females for not dating them.

[Dawdler.8521]

@"Zikory.6871" said:This thread is like listening to a bunch of simps blaming females for not dating them.

Wait are you saying the commanders are like female twitch "gaming" streamers?

[Whiteout.1975]

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@"Zikory.6871" said:This thread is like listening to a bunch of simps blaming females for not dating them.

Wait are you saying the commanders are like female twitch "gaming" streamers?

Even worse.The simps don't want to pay females for their content but still expect a date.