Please reward those awesome commanders who lead like true bosses!

[SheN.7145]

I've seen so many awesome commanders leading metas like true bosses throughout the years. However, I always wonder is that possible we have some formal in-game mechanic rewarding people who spend hours servicing us (especially those meta train comms)? I can't remember how many of my chars are fed to 250 points with those awesome tags.

I know some of us already tipping commanders for their hard work but I have to say that's only a few of us (I know, I know, I should do that more often too). But I am still thinking if we can have something implemented in-game. For example, a tipping option at the end of each train, or a reminder in the chatbox when the commander leaves the squad or take off the tag (the trigger condition can be he/she has to command for more than 30min). The amount don't need to be much, suggest 25 silver will be more than enough.

At the same time, this might also encourage more people to command.

Please let me know what you think below! I am not from Anet but I would love to brainstorm with this awesome community :)

[T G.7496]

I don't think the game would benefit from people tagging because they thought it was profitable.People should tag because they find the experience of leading others fun and inherently rewarding.Thanking (and even tipping) Commanders should remain an entirely spontaneous thing. It then becomes a far more meaningful occurance for both parties.

[Danikat.8537]

If I'm using my commander tag while doing an event the reward is getting enough people together to complete the event. It might be different for those who run things like hero point trains, but certainly in my case if I'm using the commander tag while playing I'm doing something I wanted to do anyway and stepped into that role because no one else was commanding and it needed an organised squad (or at least a marker to show people where to go).

Personally I don't like the idea of the game automatically pressuring people to tip the commander, for the same reasons that come up whenever someone suggests a ranking system for commanders. What makes a good commander varies hugely between game modes and activities and can often actually involve more than one person. For example when I'm commanding Dragon's Stand I always have to ask people to help me find the side events because no matter how many times I've done it I cannot remember where they are. I think it would be misleading in that situation for the game to prompt people to tip me and not the rest of the squad who helped (especially since those people would get the same message.) At other times I'm literally just turning the tag on so we have a marker for where people need to be and someone else is giving instructions, either because it's difficult to type when you're in the middle of things or because the person who knows what to do doesn't have a tag so I'm filling in.

Also some of the situations where I think a tip is most likely to be justified, because the commander isn't benefiting directly from the help they're giving other people, often don't involve other players joining their squad at all. Mesmers who stand at end of a jumping puzzle and teleport people up for the daily for example, or players who stand at the entrance so people who want to do it themselves can find it. (Although on EU there seems to be an emerging convention of using the mentor tag to mark the entrance and commander tag to mark portals.) It's highly unlikely many people join the commanders squad to get teleported because there's no need, so they wouldn't get the prompt to tip them. Same with commanders who stand in low level maps offering help to anyone who needs it.

It's not a bad idea necessarily, but I think it's too much of a complicated social situation to resolve with a simple solution like this. I think it's better to leave it for commanders who are comfortable asking to do so and players who want to give something can, whether they ask or not.

[Manasa Devi.7958]

If you're happy with a commander's work, you take care of the reward. If ANet does it, every map will have 20+ tags.

[yoni.7015]

I guess a nice whisper of appreciation is a good reward.

[LucianDK.8615]

Way too abuseable. Like a guild group of twenty pumping up their guild leader

[Friday.7864]

Send a thank you mail.Attach some gold if you want to, up to the commander if they want to accept your reward or not.

[Omega.6801]

You are free to send anyone a mail with, as far as I know, max 500g worth of items. Feel free to reward awesome commanders yourself.

[sitarskee.5738]

You can send them something if you like. The thing is though, they gain rewards same as we do when we follow them and they wouldn't be able to do it without us - the followers. So, both parties gain, everyone happy.

[JekthAvid.1408]

I think an endorsement system could be interesting... Not a fully fleshed out idea, but if you had a particularly good time with a commander, you could click a button to endorse him/her.

[Danikat.8537]

@JekthAvid.1408 said:I think an endorsement system could be interesting... Not a fully fleshed out idea, but if you had a particularly good time with a commander, you could click a button to endorse him/her.

Suggestions like that have come up a few times and it has potential, but there's a lot of problems with putting it into practice. For example how do you stop a guild from getting together, forming a squad of 50 members and taking turns being the commander to get 50 endorsements each for nothing? On the other side what do you do if a commander is demanding endorsements and threatening to kick anyone who doesn't give them?

Maybe less of an issue but there's also the problem that commanding in one area of the game doesn't really carry over to other areas. Someone could be great at leading the top lane of the Dragon's Stand meta, but that doesn't mean they know anything about commanding in WvW or raids, or even other PvE meta events but a high rank in whatever rating system is used could give the false impression they do, and lead to their squad drawing members away from more helpful commanders.

[Lottie.5370]

Personally it's reward enough for people to just join the squad and listen, and try and make it a smooth experience for everyone. It is of course nice to get a thank you, but I think most of us tag up not expecting anything - just because we want to.

I think a system like that is too easy to exploit and will never work like you intent it to, which is a shame. In theory it's a really nice idea.

[Yggranya.5201]

If you make it about rewards, it will turn to the same garbage that it is in FFXIV. In FFXIV if you do enough mentor roulette you can get rewards, like mounts and achievements. What does that mean? It means that most mentor don't want to mentor anyone, they just want the rewards and screw all the sprouts (beginners) that make it slower for them.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I'd prefer to keep it strictly social etiquette. The commander tag already pays for itself, just by letting someone complete events that otherwise wouldn't have gone off the ground. If you do a good job you'll already get plenty of tips. Most I got was 40g for hosting Serpent's Ire.

[Josiah.2967]

I tip a great commander. We should reward them, not the game.

[gert.7698]

I always tip nice commanders. I think they are very important for the game because without them playing open world would not be fun and less people will play the map meta’s

[Hesione.9412]

I comm up for daily bounties and for the Grizzlewood meta if there is no other comm tag on the map (and also to go into LFG and get more ppl into the same map). My goal is to get the event, whatever it is, to succeed. It is nice to be thanked at the end of the run, and I make a point of thanking comms when I am in their squad.

Bounty and HP trains are different. These are people investing a substantial amount of time in leading a train with little reward - pretty much 0 reward when it comes to HPs. The ones I've been in have been organised by guilds, so that there is one guild member leading, and one or more guild members doing things like back-up portals. They're the comms that deserve tips.

[Zahld.4956]

Maybe they can have a leaderboard and commander position option for each part of a meta in the meta maps to help show that the map is ready for the meta and show recognition for long standing leaders.

Unique GUIs would appear before each event to allow time for group organization.

The leaderboard could should show completion times, special completions, smallest group with a completion, number of completions, meta incompletions..maybe, and so on.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

In WvW, Commanders get rewarded extra PIPs.

Something similar could work in PvE. Maybe give a 100% bonus to Magic Find, 50% bonus to Karma, etc. I don't think it'd be abused because randoms wouldn't want others following them, otherwise you'd always see tags up in WvW for the extra PIPs and that doesn't happen, and if people do try to take advantage of it, who honestly cares?

They paid 300G to do that, its not like every player in the game would be lining up for it.

[jishi.7568]

nice thing to read but, this will just promote Account hacking.it would have to be something that doesn't involve the player giving away some of their own money or items.If anything Karma points or Luck increase would be more like it. Possibly Mastery points for a Success rate.

[Neutra.6857]

If you want to reward commanders beyond what they already get you can always mail them. I lead meta events because it means the even gets done.

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

I got a commander tag, because people don't listen to advise otherwise.

[Khisanth.2948]

Hmm ... if good ones are to be rewarded then should the awful ones get punished?

[SheN.7145]

@Josiah.2967 said:I tip a great commander. We should reward them, not the game.

What about a hint in chatbox remind ppl to tip their commander ;)

[SheN.7145]

@Yggranya.5201 said:If you make it about rewards, it will turn to the same garbage that it is in FFXIV. In FFXIV if you do enough mentor roulette you can get rewards, like mounts and achievements. What does that mean? It means that most mentor don't want to mentor anyone, they just want the rewards and screw all the sprouts (beginners) that make it slower for them.

That's a good point! The more I think about this, the more I cling to the idea that the game encourages people to tip. Instead of the system directly reward comms or a new UI showing people that that can tip, which might cause a lot of development overhead, just a little char message telling people there's an option that the tipping option exists.