Commanding in Guild Wars 2 - The Gaiscioch Way

Greetings Everyone,

As we get more and more commanders on the battlefield with the Gaiscioch tag above their head I wanted to take a moment to lay out some guidance and etiquette. There are some things you should know and expect as a commander and I want to make sure that each and every one of our leaders knows what to expect the moment you place that icon above your head.

Being a Gaiscioch Commander

The Gaiscioch hold themselves at a higher standard of honor than most. We do not engage in flamewars. We do not tear others down. We welcome all to join us. Most importantly we take players whether great or poor and give them the opportunity to contribute to the WvW Campaign. We welcome public groups to join in, and provide everyone an event to enjoy regardless of their guild affiliation. This means even the ones that seek to destroy our family name. Just because a guild has taken a certain stance about our family doesn't mean our family has to take a stance on their guild. We still welcome their members to join in our adventures so long as they act in a respectful maner. A lot of our members came from our enemies in the past. You'd be suprised at how often kindeness breaks assumptions and opens minds. If you wear a Gaiscioch tag while commanding you need to be a shinning light of kindness and integrity. Do what you say you will do, don't lie to people to get your way, be respectful to everyone, and most of all remember anything you say will be amplified and most likely spun to damage the credibility of our family. This is a huge responsibility and you need to take this to heart and realize that you stand before all of Sanctum of Rall as a representative and icon of the Gaiscioch Family. Everything we do, Everything we stand for. The Families we embody, the lives we share, the children we save. All of it. If you speak in anger publicly, Gaiscioch speaks in anger publicly. Everything you say will come back on us as a whole. So please be mindful of that. It's a great honor to be a commander in our family and you will have our everlasting support so long as you portray us in the right light and follow the Gaiscioch way.

Be Ready For Trolls

The second you toggle that commander icon on there will be people who set you up, and wait for you to fail. They will point at you and laugh, get on your nerves, call you names, and try to discredit you at every turn. They will not listen, they will not be accountable for their actions, their existence in this world is to give you premature grey hair. Don't worry. It doesn't matter if your Genghis Khan they would still be doing it. See in the old days of Genghis Khan if someone tried that with him, he'd be split open and he would eat his spleen for breakfast. Not so much in these days of the great anonymous interwebs. 

Practice Patience, Tolerance, Kindness, and most of all Integrity. Don't stoop to their level. Don't resort to name calling or bashing. In a campaign to destroy character their assassination attempt relies on your reaction. They set bait forth and wait for you to take it. Then wham before you know it you've discredited yourself, and are outcast from the warforce. This is a classic bait maneuver. It's used in politics all the time and has downed CEO's from fortune 500 companies. You have to have a thick skin and roll with the punches. The more the trolls badger you the more they make themselves look bad and discredit their own name. As long as you don't fuel their campaign and hold yourself at a higher standard anyone that follows you will know you, anyone that sees you will witness you, and eventually the trolls will shut up and go away. Usually at the time it all comes together and you have complete dominance of the field.

Communication And Community

If you wear the Gaiscioch Tag when you Command a warforce I want you to be mindful of other commanders and leaders on the field. You may not agree with their tactics or plans and thats ok. Do your best to find a map that doesn't have an active commander on it. If you must play with an existing commander please take a moment to send them a tell and introduce yourself and what your bringing to the table. Let them know you're there and that if they need help call out over map or send a whisper. You can also join in Teamspeak but this will add another set of voices over your earphones so you will constantly be listening to 2 conversations at the same time and it will add another layer to the difficulty of leading. My suggestion is stick to our RaidCall where you can control the language and troll access freely and use map / team chats and tells as ways of communicating with other squad leaders. If they want to join you in RaidCall great but that is not required, just as it is not required for you to join their Teamspeak or Mumble. 

Just remember to be courteous and do your best to share intel. Don't expect them to have your back, don't expect them to be your friend. Do your best to extend your arm in brotherhood but if they choose not to take your help and treat you as an equal on the battlefield don't feel bad about going about your business without them. Not everyone will want to work together, not everyone will play nice. Expect it and do your best anyways. Don't be rude, don't be disrespectful, just put on your +10 to thick skill cloak and move along. Our best is the best we can do and we have to be ok with that.

Being An Effective Commander

The first command you will want that is not documented anywhere even in the /help is the /squadinfo command. This will tell you who is in your squad and how many resources you have. You will also want to know about /d which is an alias to typing /squad every time. This will allow you to give directions quickly and not have to type /squid and wonder why it's not doing anything or /s and realize your thinking out loud. 

The next thing to know is the Alt+Click on your main (large) map. This will allow you to set 3 icons on the map. A regroup icon (Down Arrow), a Defend Icon (Shield) and a Attack Icon (Cross). These marks can be used to chain people to objectives your going after.

WvW Event Planning Etiquette

We have quite a few commanders now and we share a server with dozens more. It is important that we do not "Hog" the battlefield or limelight. I would like to request that all of our Gaiscioch Commanders work together to schedule around each other. We want to only have 1 Gaiscioch lead WvW event up at any time. Please do not schedule all day events, keep them under 3 hours. If someone else has an event on the calendar please yeild to their event or discuss with them your plans respectfully. The "Family Community Events" in the 6-9PM timeframe are there to attract new community members and are kinda like sitting down at the table for dinner. They are events we'd like as many as possible to attend as it is our chance to stand up in front of the community and shine.

As we get more commanders on the field that we feel confident in their ability to lead and more importantly their attitude in leading to be on par with that of a Gaiscioch we will start incorporating more commanders in the events. We additionally want to start having some off primetime events for Oceanics, Europeans, and East Coasters. If we all use 3 hour blocks to schedule our events it's quite possible for us as commanders to pass off the torch from 1 family member to another giving us full coverage of a zone the entire day.

To make all this work I ask that commanders schedule at maximum 3 hour events. If you can be around more often than most, please yield time slots to those that can not. By the time you get your commander book you should be able to get into the Event Leader discussion forum and that is where we can start opening dialog for scheduling events. Just remember that we need to have open blocks for new leaders to have a chance to lead and we also want to focus our families efforts onto 1 map at a time giving our leaders our full support. Do not trample on each others event or try to poach members for your own event away from someone with one on the calendar. Be courteous and respectful to your kin. Together we can make epic memories and have thrilling adventures.

In Closing

The world is not always going to be fair, it's not going to be kind, it's not going to help you be your best. It is only in our darkest moments that we have the potential to do something remarkable. Let the darkness, hate, and negativity storm on the horizon. In the darkest of night the smallest light shines bright. When you prevail with such adversity people remember it. Those who doubted you will be embarrased by your success and the best words you can never speak is in your victory. Focus on doing your best and let the trolls be trolls. Don't feed them and they will starve. Keep your chin up, learn from your losses, and build a better plan for the future. Failure is often the path to success. You don't get stronger without working your muscles and the same is true with skill. You don't learn it by standing on the sideline. You gain it by experience. Trial by fire and all that jazz. In the end no matter what the outcome you have a legion of Gaiscioch at your back and we're here to support you. The rest will fall into place in time. 

If anyone has any questions or needs a bit of guideance please don't hessitate to post here or contact me sometime. I'm here to help and am more than willing to share some insight if requested.

» Edited on: 2012-11-29 09:54:04

» Edited on: 2012-12-27 14:46:15

Thank you for taking the time to post this. It helps to answer a lot of questions that I've been having and will be a great source to refer back to.

This is a quote from Miasmic - leader of Caedas from the sanctumofrall.enjin.com forums. --- I use team chat alot, more so than teamspeak 3 server. Both Indo of TW and Elthuzar of GSCH can attest to my effectiveness as a Commander. If GSCH doesn't wish to use Teamspeak, so be it that is their choice. I only ask that your leaders post into team chat to allow the Militia of Sanctum to know your plans. Something I've come to adapt to make typing much less painful are short intel reports. Indo can attest to how well we (CDS and TW) worked together today in green map. Examples of how I communicated without using teamspeak. Team chat - CDS > fog camp > Titan camp > distract at sunny Team chat - CDS > attack gar watergate It's short and informative, and is easily understood by all within the map. I ask that such methods be passed along to all leaders of all guilds. ---

I prefer to use /team chat, too, as well as /say to let locals know what I want done or plan to go. I never use Map chat, because a lot turn it off, but everyone has /team on. Personally, I visually filter chat spam and only pay attention to the bright, bold red of Team channel or the white of /say and ignore everything else. I have problems with voice chat, folks might notice that I pause and/or stutter often, because its difficult for me to get my thoughts to my mouth. Its ... well, an autistic issue, to tl;dr it. So yea, love that idea, very glad to see someone pushing for more /team chat usage. This is what I'd commented about in another thread, but decided to delete, so heh, I guess now is a good time to re-write it. :)

This is intended to be constructive criticism: Mistakes need to be addressed before or after an event IMO. ex: "Before we start tonight, I would like our squad to focus on releasing corpses when we are spiked down, and getting back to the battle A.S.A.P." Heck, maybe it can be set to the MotD temporarily. ex: "Please everyone take a moment before we begin and read the MotD." ex: "Those of you just joining tonight's event need to read the guild MotD." Would like to see leadership on Trinity nights be more CONCISE with instruction, completely remove the lecturing, and allow for the other leaders to be able to get a word in. I think Fog and especially Prissy had a hard time trying to communicate with their squads last week, and it was a challenge for me personally, to hear Prissy throughout most of the event. It was exhausting. Would like to see the raid team also keep the channel clear for instruction. I think the events are fun overall, but I bet every one of us can make room for improvement in various ways.

» Edited on: 2012-12-04 00:37:17

I have a request. I'd like a reference set. It would involve getting a group of us together, and having five people stand in one place. Take the picture. Then seven people. Take the picture. Etc. Then I'd memorize them. When reporting enemy sightings, we are frequently asked 'how many,' and I can never estimate properly. Back in Camelot we counted 'one, three, squad, f$#% me!, zerg' but these days commanders want more accuracy. And by the time you type 'two no six no two mesmers' you're dead. Channel flipped past a WWII film last night where they were training pilots to identify ships by silhouette and I thought 'aha.'

I find the info contained here to be awesome because it shows what our family is all about. I have noticed a HUGE difference in grouping with other players and grouping within our family. I have noticed that joining with fellow family members is a better time for me personally. I am very thankful for this family and all that I have learned. Thank you for your awesome leadership Fog in teaching officers how to conduct themselves. I am a new member to this family but have played with several officers and have always enjoyed learning their personal play style but have never experienced any rudeness of any kind. What our family stands for is a HUGE reason I joined. ;-)

@Roac Its easiest to just estimate by groups of five. I count quickly 1,2,3,4,5 - 1,2,3,4,5 - 1,2,3,4,5 while mousing over a a zerg. Then i type in "15+ headed here or there". It might be 15 or it might be 18. Estimating is all you can do because mesmers and pets can throw off the numbers easily. BUT: its better to be as accurate as possible rather than just yelling "HUGE group going to spiritholme". Its been many times Ive seen that exact wording in /t and then actually only encountered a group of 5-7. The definition of "Huge" seems to be subjective on the battlefield. Instead giving an approximate number with specific coordinates is best; ie "8-10 IoJ headed to stargrove from hills". @Sklurb : I agree, the less chatter the better. When you have three commanders on one channel its too hectic to have to try and explain things and therefore tie up the whole channel for the 30 seconds it takes to do so. This is why we need to encourage groups to /p with each other to get questions answered. Even if its "did he say everyone port back??" then it clears the airwaves for the 3-5 seconds it takes our leader to answer. If more experienced players group with the lesser experienced then they can more easily answer the trickier questions. Heck, even /g in Na Rall could be used these questions. Should really encourage people to do that IMO. Rarely ever are these questions so urgent that they need to be answered instantly by the leader.

For my events I prefer the following Small Group = Smaller than Us Zerg Inc = Larger than Us my problem comes when someone yells Zerg Inc! and I pull everyone off an objective to attack them and theres only like 5 - 10 people. We don't need 60 to kill 10. Refined numbers allow me to pull off minimal groups to counter an offensive. I don't like to use more than we need as it delays our successful attacks on keeps.

Exactly why I want to improve my ability to estimate group size at a glance. Want to make a reasonable estimate, not have to correct, I'm frequently by myself, sherpa-ing supplies or oiling siege in Woodhaven (the only keep with the Starbucks upgrade), and I see a roiling boil of red going past. If I'm with a group of any size, I just go AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA and start shooting at them, that usually gets the message across. It's when I'm alone, running my weenie butt off (also going AAAAAAAAAAA) that it is inconvenient to answer commanders who ask 'how many, what direction, is siege up, server of origin, name of guild, what are they wearing, because the answer is "What part of AAAAAAAAAAAAA did you not understand?" Actually, there's a thought: practice on our own zergs. "How many of us are here? That's how many that looks like." Next up: Accurate geographic markers. Keep, Tower, Supply, Those Guys that Stand Around with the Nice Flags, Zee switchbacks. That slope north of Woodhaven, the sewer gate in the Eternal Battlegrounds (who knew?), etc. We need more landmarks. Where's the Emain Thimble when you need it?

I like what Sklurb stated. We need to have fun, but we need to be cohesive also and this can be a very thin tightrope to walk and if placed too high above the ground or there isn't a safety net - then no one will wish to walk it. Keeping the channel clear is very important - I think everyone knows Fog's voice - if not they need to learn it and this can be said of all of our commanders'. The lead and co-lead, if there is one, should give a short speach before we begin and let everyone know that if the lead or co-lead states "clear channel" then no one talks or interrupts. "Open channel" then have a grand time and tell jokes. (I often hear Fog state "clear channel" before he speaks.) Also everyone should know that unless the commander gives an order - don't do it. I follow orders - if someone yells charge, I charge - if someone yells turn and fight - I turn and fight - and it often isn't the commander. This was unfortunate for me... I died - a lot :) but I didn't mind. Note ... I used past tense. I have learned our commanders' voices - so it is easier for me now. Each commander also has a slightly different style of leadership - and you have to learn their styles also to be a good follower (and great leaders need great followers), but new people don't know all of this and we have many new people. We need to make it fun for them and provide them direction so that they can enjoy WvWvW. It can be an amazing experience but it can also be very intimidating and confusing. I realize we have "Breaking the Ice" as an event but even then if you haven't participated in any type of PvP action previously - you can feel lost and alone even in a crowd. Much the same as any new person can in any new position surrounded by unfamiliar faces - then people shoot at you and dance on your corpse. We have a huge family. We are a very diverse and unusual group which is great. We just need to acknowledge this sometimes then the path we share will be much easier to walk.... or run while screaming AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

» Edited on: 2012-12-06 03:15:23

Every leader has their own style. I mean just look at Spartan, Me, and Prissy. Prissy excells at teaching, and keeping people calm, while I prefer to bait my opponent to fight where I want them to fight, then Spartan like to beat a man with his own shoe until he begs for mercy. Each of us have our own style. Prissy may be forgiving, but when a unit relies on it's people listening such as spartans it's imperative that if your following them your following them 150%. They say jump you jump now. Spartan's tactics rely on full and complete cooperation. If you've noticed he's one of the only leaders we have that can literally take a group half the size of a zerg and make the zerg turn and run. Thats why I have him as the Hammer in our Trinity. Think of it this way. Spartan = Advanced PvP Foghladha = Seasoned to Advanced PvP Prissy = Intro to Seasoned PvP Each of us have our strengths and our weaknesses. None of us are flawless. But together we make magic happen on the battlefield. One thing im noticing is that people are starting to get in the habit of basing our entire ability to do something on whatever the last event was. For example a lot of the above uses last weeks trinity event where we had to rush onto the battlefield to save a fully upgraded keep from falling. Not typical situation and we ended up being hurt all night because of it. You seem to forget the past 6 weeks of trinity nights where we met up, grouped together and went out and facerolled our opponents including Blackgate the week before. Please don't judge our entire history on 1 event. We went 3 weeks in a row blueing out the entire map and your bringing up the one time we had to scramble. I realize that a Wide Receiver can catch 100 touchdowns but if he drops 1 everyone points and laughts and calls him crap. Lets try to focus on the positive and stop beating down our leaders. It makes them second guess themselves and ultimately makes them want to quit leading all together. If you want these events you need to support your leaders not tear them down.

"Spartan like to beat a man with his own shoe until he begs for mercy" Love this comment! Go Spartan! your my hero!

To go along with what Fog penned... and I stated earlier ... it isn't just our leaders that have different styles of command - our opponents that we face also change tactics. What amazes me to no end is that our commanders know their tactics also and adjust based on who we are facing from week to week. One likes golem zergs, one likes to hunker down and defend with huge amounts of siege equipment - one likes to run the open field - one likes to send out what we term "dagger" groups to take supply camps and check points - killing along the way anything of the wrong color.... I have seen our groups do amazing things under all our leaders - and listening to orders is critical. You want to be good, even great at WvWvW - then follow orders even when you don't agree - that is what a good follower does. If we're meant to disrupt the enemy so that another commander can take a keep - then we just might wipe - "greater good" and all that. Realize as I do - that if you get too far from our main group - you just might get lost or picked off by a thief. The army keeps moving with or without you - be safe and hook-up with a few others or even another commander until you can get back to our forces. Just let the commander know what you're up too so that they can adequately predict the size of their force. There is nothing worse for a commander than to go to a keep to defeat an incoming zerg and look behind him/her and see half their squad missing - because they stopped to harvest - went AFK without them knowing - followed the wrong zerg - or a samll group went off chasing one or two invaders - all of a sudden your force of 40 is now 20. Lions, and tigers, and bears oh my.... Think with your brain, feel with your heart, and have a little courage or we all wipe. Just my thoughts....

Here is a fantastic post from an SBI member that I am sure we can all take something away from: The Golden List of WvW Do's and Don'ts

» Edited on: 2012-12-06 17:53:41

Nice reminder Sklurb!

Fog, this was very helpful information for those of us wondering about where to start with WvW commanding. Great stuff!