Guild Wars 2

I noticed something in WvW that I found a bit worrying. I’m not positive that it was deliberate, but I found it highly suspicious. That tactic was corpses hanging around far longer than made sense, as they had no hope of rescue. However, there is one logical explanation for it, scouting. Several of these player corpses were in areas where they could get a good look at the battlefield, and could be used to spot out enemy locations, especially for artillery strikes from trebuchet and other indirect fire weapons. They could just call out “a bit more to the right” to a friend to correct aim over long distances, while being completely unstoppable by the defenders. I see this as a problem. In the spirit of that, I offer two potential solutions:

1. Seriously, Finish him. This would be an added ability, above and beyond the typical “finish” move. The original version would still be in, and still result in the basic “defeated” status. This second move would appear once an enemy is in this state, and would take three to four times as long to execute, but would wipe them off the map entirely, forcing them to respawn at their base. The time it takes to do this would make it practically impossible to do while a battle is going on around you, but in cases where a corpse is well behind enemy lines there would be plenty of time to pull this off.

2. “Death vision.” While in WvW, when you die, your vision would be completely obstructed. Either fade the screen to black (not counting UI elements), or force the player into the map screen or something. If they want to wait, they can wait, but there’d be very little intel to gain by doing so.

What do you guys think, good plans?

A successful stomp should should fade a player to black or even the full screen map with waypoints that they can resurrect at flashing or something.

[Edit]

Corpse scouting has been going on a while and yes, I agree with you that it is no bueno. Either method you mentioned would fix the issue although I think that it is tough enough to kill a guy twice without adding yet another death to the list of tasks that I have to perform in combat.

I think a better solution than fading completely to black would be to instead fade to grayscale (to clearly distinguish “death vison” from normal vision) and simply hide all enemy players from view. This will allow you to see your allies (and ask them nicely to revive you) while preventing you from doing any scouting.

Why not forcing them into the map screen? Enemies don’t appear on the map, and it encourages them to respawn.

And if they are forced to map, if they absolutely want to wait for a teammate to revive them and waste everyone’s time, then it does give the prompt on screen a “noble soul is healing you” . Noble indeed for rezzing your lazzy kitten lol. Anywho, straight to map after a minute or so and call it a day. All we need really.

What they NEED man, is to let you pick up badge/loot bags when you’re dead. It makes no sense for them to, obviously, but GEEEEZ is it frustrating to have like 8 bags floating around your dead body. Furiously dragging them into your inventory or spam-clicking them in the hopes it might, just that one time, actually work.

I can agree on the say, 2 minute, timer before it kicks you to map after you die. That’s a solid implementation that wouldn’t leave to many complainers on either side, and enough happy campers in the middle.

Solid solution:
When you die, you slowly zoom out of the scenerie. Up up and away, until there is a sort of tunnel appearing in front of you, with a warm golden light at the end. You feel peaceful and free and walk into that light were a friendly voice …hold on, I was dragged away.
Ok, 2 minutes until kick to the map, sounds good to me.

Maybe death should draw up the map on your screen, unable to close it, forcing you to select a respawn point.

But honestly, I haven’t really had a problem with corpse scouting thus far.

When I suspect an opponent is corpse scouting, I jump on them hoping their loss of dignity causes them to respawn. Never works.

Yeah its really ridiculous, I saw some guy corpse scouting when they managed to break into a keep and we forced them out for almost an entire hour, just laying there inside the keep. I guess he was really hopeful his team would capture the nearby tower again and spot for the trebs they would no doubt build there again.

Maybe they could allow you to spend a few silver to clean up the corpse. ;-)

You get timed out of wvw after the usual amount of afk-time if you stay dead. I’m not really seeing a problem here.

If someone feels that they can best contribute to their cause by just laying dead somewhere for an hour while their teammates have all the fun, let them.
If some commander or guild leader told me to corpse spy while they attack a keep, I’d tell him to go screw. I’m playing this game to have fun, not so that everyone else can have fun while I act like their stationary camera.
And to the people who willingly do this…have some dignity. If you want to take one for the team, do it in real life, not in a freaking game that doesn’t matter.

15 minutes of free unobstructable scouting is the problem.

Bring up the map after being stomped. Nuff said.

It can wait for around a minute or so, but it should happen regardless.

kesayo.6031:

If someone feels that they can best contribute to their cause by just laying dead somewhere for an hour while their teammates have all the fun, let them.
If some commander or guild leader told me to corpse spy while they attack a keep, I’d tell him to go screw. I’m playing this game to have fun, not so that everyone else can have fun while I act like their stationary camera.
And to the people who willingly do this…have some dignity. If you want to take one for the team, do it in real life, not in a freaking game that doesn’t matter.

most of what corpse scouting is useful for isn’t someone laying dead for an hour taking one for the team. just one of the useful scenarios is running into a garrison/keep that is heavily defended and dropping dead on the outer wall. you can then guide a friendly trebuchet on where exactly to shoot to pop every arrow cart/ballista/catapult on the inner keep.

takes about 2-5 minutes depending on how good the aim and communication is and its well worth it if it gets the job done.

then its just a quick rez and run back to storm the much less well defended keep right alongside the others.

there are quite a few short and easy ways to use corpse scouting that don’t involve long periods of boring inactivity. i don’t personally have a problem with it, just pointing out how laying dead for hours scouting enemy movements isn’t really the most common use for such a thing.

I don’t really have a problem with corpse scouting. I would rather have a guy dead ‘scouting’ then coming back and taking the keep. In fact I would say there are very few instances where this is actually really helpful. But more of then not its a waste of man power.

A forced map-view would be perfect. There’s no sound reason why anyone should be allowed to corpse scout.

I wanna see the Workers in keeps/towers pushing around a wheelbarrow collecting corpses. Would be epic lul

kweetni.1023:

15 minutes of free unobstructable scouting is the problem.

I agree. Unless you’re in the puzzle. :p

I don’t mind any “fix” to this issue, but I just want to point out that I often tab out of gw2 when I die. So the person may or may not actually be actively scouting.

A lot of games give you a 1-2min chance to get revived; if not, you’ll get spawned to your nearest Waypoint. Simple is that!

I assume that the GMs have way more things to do than trying to optimise little nasty game features people take advantage of.

I see this happening on purpose in big LoS obstructed fights in the Battle of the Titans (i.e. VZ vs Deso vs BT) very often. Especially against the big Deso guild.
Got an amazing position to strategically place siege against a tower? Not long before a naked player runs up to a spot which overlooks the close area and dies there to scout.
Clever use of an ingame mechanic (no compliment intended).

I think a better solution than fading completely to black would be to instead fade to grayscale (to clearly distinguish “death vison” from normal vision) and simply hide all enemy players from view. This will allow you to see your allies (and ask them nicely to revive you) while preventing you from doing any scouting.

That would help, but players could still “terrain spot,” allowing better precision for chokepoints and walls and that sort of thing. Maybe though, instead of just making other players vanish, it could also make all effects vanish, so that they could not tell where a Treb shot landed.

How about the ability to light the corpses on fire with a torch?

Might actually get someone to use the torch weapons.

Corpsecam. Doesn’t really bother me. Its usually a giveaway the enemy is up to something and I don’t mind the occasional use of it as misdirection against us.

That said, I won’t miss it either if it is removed.

Death should instantly display a picture of a penguin until you respawn, a nice one, not to fat or anything. No fat penguins in heaven.

Fade to black or map screen after 1 min or so solves this, I hope ANet can make this happen.

I don’t agree it should automatically stick your face in the map screen. You need to be able to see if your teammates are around and can revive you, etc.

They really do just need what someone above mentioned, some type of death cam system. Either make it so you can’t see enemies, but can see your allies… they already have this in game, they call it “culling” when you are alive still
Or, they could make it so you can’t speak/type at all while dead… but this is too easy to avoid with voice chats and crap, so it wouldn’t completely stop spying.

I think making enemy players and such invisible while you are dead is really the ideal solution. It solves all those problems. It lets you still use your camera and look around for allies and ask for a rez, but not see/do anything else.

Perfect opportunity for Ranger pets to become useful. They can sit of the faces of the dead.

I thought being downed was the proper time to use the restroom, refresh your drink, put food in the microwave.
Not all of them are spies lol

As I already mentioned in another thread, the defeated state should automatically waypoint the defeated player to their base waypoint.

This would immediately solve both the corpse-scouting and the endless reviving of defeated players (so it will actually matter if someone ‘dies’).

If you hadn’t killed me I wouldn’t be scouting your movements! So don’t blame me.

kweetni.1023:

15 minutes of free unobstructable scouting is the problem.

Exactly. In fact, a dead scout can be worth more than a live one, since enemy can’t obstruct your vision at all and they can’t move siege once its placed.

I thought being downed was the proper time to use the restroom, refresh your drink, put food in the microwave.
Not all of them are spies lol

If you’re in a situation where a rez is highly unlikely, you can do all the bio stuff after having rezzed back at base. That’s one of the nice things about WvW, unless your team is going horribly wrong, the waypoints are perfectly safe.

I think even 1-2 minutes is too much time. In 2 minutes a dead scout can easily determine how many people are defending, the amount of siege defending, and the amount of supply in a fortification. 2 minutes is even enough time for a spotter to help a treb user zero in on targets.

buki.3108:

I wanna see the Workers in keeps/towers pushing around a wheelbarrow collecting corpses. Would be epic lul

“Bring out yer dead!”
“Here’s one…”
“I’m not dead yet!”
“Hey, he says he’s not dead yet”
“He is”
“I’m not!”
“He isn’t”
“He will be soon, he’s very ill”

On a more serious note… just give the attacking player an option to burn the corpse after killing it. Automatically send it back to spawn. That also removes the desire for players to try and revive dead comrades, which usually ends up in more dead players

OldRodKS.9758:

On a more serious note… just give the attacking player an option to burn the corpse after killing it. Automatically send it back to spawn. That also removes the desire for players to try and revive dead comrades, which usually ends up in more dead players

I agree, although the burning should take a similar amount of time to reviving so its an “after-combat” action. A mate mentioned they had a similar mechanic in WoW where you could burn the body to prevent undead-scouting.

I seem to remember a force respawn ability present somewhere…

Wasn’t there a force respawn in sPVP that takes care of this ?
so why is this force respawn not present in WvW ?

And it needs to be instant, no long cast needed he already completely lost the fight and the downed fight !