First of all, I would like to testify that Breakclaw did a great job yesterday at the off-peak WvWvW, and I believe his insights are very good.
Second, I surely agree with Fogh. We need to be patient. We all know we have a lot to learn and develop about our tactics, in terms of flexibility, effectiveness and precision. But we are all still learning the rules here, and each one of us has a different learning curve. Some are more apt for complex tactics, while others may still feel a little uncomfortable with the more complex aspects of WvWvW (and I confess I include myself among these).
That takes us to my third and, I think, more important point: maybe we should focus some more energy in developing chains of command in our WvWvW efforts. In my past leading experiences (nothing compared to some of our more experienced leaders here), I had a hard time (most of the time) keeping track of the responsiveness of my team to my commands, and it was quite impossible for me to know how many people who would be better at this or that job we had. But maybe if we had chains of command, we could not only ease the commander, but act much more effectively.
What do I mean is pretty simple. WvWvW naturally groups us in 5 people groups. So this could be the base unit, led by a Sergeant. 2 to 4 of these groups would make up a task force good enough to take supply camps and even hold upgraded towers against minor attacks. So maybe we might have some kind of officer responsible to command 2 to 4 groups, giving the orders directly to the Sergeants (who would be in charge of making sure his 5 person group would be doing what it should be doing). Above that, we might still have 1 or more posts of command responsible for larger groups, and they would be taking orders directly from the Commander.
The commander would be responsible for the overall tactical view of the battleground, and his main function would be to order his officers to take this or that objective, secure this or that supply area (camps and roads), and so on. Each officer would have a certain flexibility on how to execute his orders, sending as many 5 person groups as he deems necessary. In their turns, Sergeants would have the field responsibility to make their groups execute their orders as best as they can.
These 5 person groups could be general all purpose groups, or even more specialized ones, like "engineering and siege units", specialized in dealing with sieges, or "rogue groups", specialized in quick tactical movement and objective taking. Due to the small size, each sergeant would know pretty well their groups capabilities, and would be able to keep an eye on each of his soldiers, making sure they are being as effective as then can. For their part, the officers responsible for deciding which of his groups to send for each task would be relieved from the task of watching closely every soldier and making sure they were doing what they should, and the Commander would be free to focus on strategical decisions, not having to worry about which groups to send, and would be informed by his officers on the advances of the tactical groups.
In bigger sieges, this chain of command would make easier not only to hit different gates at the same time, but to have specialized groups taking care of specialized areas of the siege (building and operating siege engines, infantry vanguard, guarding the rearguard, tactical management of the enemy siege engines i.e. elementalists and mesmers doing what elementalists and mesmers do in a siege). Chains of command would enable quick changes of objectives too, as a change in the battlefield could be answered with an order to certain groups to stop what they are doing and moving to a new objective. Since you already have the units sorted out, they would be much more responsive than a instant mob formed after a "please, some people go to Godsword and take it back"). All the commander has to do is tell one of his officers to send two groups to retake Godsword (in the former example), and the officer would decide which groups, and elect one of the sergeants of the two groups to lead the movement.
This is not simple, and I know this is already what we have with Trinity and other Gaiscioch tactics. My point is only that maybe if we stressed the chain of command format a little more, we would have more flexibility and effectiveness, and people would have a closer leader to refer to when in doubt, not overburdening the Commander with the task of taking care of each squad member's needs and questions.
I'm sorry for the rather long idea dubbed simple. I think most of us are familiar with the concept already, but I think it should be explained like I did so to make clear why I think this might be a way to improve our results and make commanding easier.
If there is interest, we might move this to a new topic. And excuse me if I'm "raining on the sea", as we say in Brazil when someone says something that was needless to say.
» Edited on: 2012-09-30 17:07:28