Guild Wars 2

Once again, I have crap stuck in my head and need to write it down to make room for more crap. This will probably never happen, as it will require quite a bit of work on Anets part.

The lord at all structures would have a new conversation option, something like “select a scout.” Once that conversation choice is selected, a small event circle will start. A minimum of 5 people must be standing in the event circle, one of which MUST be an active commander.

After a short amount of time, lets say 10 seconds, the commander will have a new skillset consisting of one skill, naming a scout. The commander would then select one of the people that was in the event circle, and use the name scout skill, which will place a BUFF on that player. The commander can not choose him or herself.

This buff will be a scout buff and will get specific benefits, all of which are open to balance. I’m thinking that something like every 3 minutes, the scout receives a small amount of gold, xp, and wxp. I know all of this is complicated, but this is a fantasy, so to go even farther, the scout would also get a very small amount of percentage of wxp and xp shared by any fights that are occurring on the map. Also, maybe a scout can have a new color in chat so that if they type something in map, it stands out. Another idea would be to have the buff provide permanent swiftness. Anyway…

This buff would only stay on the scout while they stay within the confines of the structure. This means that a new boarder would have to be made specifically for this buff, that is 900 units from the outside of the structure. Sometimes it is necessary for a scout to leave to clear siege or fight someone on a catapult. Camps would have to have a much larger area, as the ideal scouting locations are often on the thatched roof wall on the entrance to the camp.

The buff would not last for more than an hour. After which time, a new breakout event would have to be started.

Large structures, like SMC and keeps can have two players with the buff.

If the structure is captured, the buff goes away.

Why am I making this so complicated? I’m trying to conceive of possible abuses and griefing. One shouldn’t be able to simply go up to the lord and get the buff. That means that whoever clicks it first would get it. At least, if there is an active commander, then the odds are that someone is being responsible. I also wanted to keep it no more than 5 for the event, because there are often lots of small groups that do a lot of great work or are often responsible for scouting. I can still forsee abuse, but I think that with the steps I outlined above, it would be very rare, and if it did happen, would be reported very quickly.

Thanks.

You should be more worried about fewer and fewer people playing WvW/Gw2 than few people scouting

Community initiatives that reward Players are the best way to do things to avoid abuse.

I don’t mind scouting the way I do as I don’t feel entitled to any rewards as often as it ends up like this screenie, other peeps deserve the reward more such as guys who are pretty stationary for hours everyday refreshing siege, so they miss out on the fun and loot.

how about players get rewarded just for staying in wvw.

afkers get kicked of course

As someone who scouts for my server, I cant say I’ver ever felt the need to be rewarded for it.

Also, this seems to be a great way for commanders to let their friends AFK and early gold + WXP :s

It’s actually a pretty common issue. If one looks through the forums and CDIs, the lack of rewards for scouting comes up frequently. I myself play and sometimes command on a T1 server. It’s like pulling teeth to try to get people to scout places, even important ones, like your home garrison.

Scouts that tag a structure and kill at least 2 guards on it will get the event completion if this structure get flipped at any time as long the scout don’t leave the map. Sometimes it doesn’t work, but I get lots of rewards from towers which I forgot that I tapped them.

It’s not much, but it’s what we have so far…

There’s that modern Western sense of entitlement that has been so well instilled in the youth of today: it’s not enough that you get to enjoy a relaxing and entertaining activity, you should be rewarded for doing it.

Very simple: freeze some of the Maps when there aren’t enough players to fill all of them.
Less space = less need for scouts = more fights on the objective that are scouted.

I think the main problem with sentry duty is that it’s dead boring most of the time. I’m not sure rewards can really fix that. Some people have the personality for it, but most just don’t.

For scouting around, I think it’s just a matter of convincing people that “roaming” isn’t just about trying to start fights and ninja the occasional camp.

There are some commanders on Blacktide and my old server that used to pay scouts for sitting in a tower while they commanded. They would pay 10g for the time while they commanded, plus they got a lot of loot from the commander coming with a blob and steamrolling them.

best reward for scouting: keeping your waypointed keep up all night and getting loot bags while defending with a good commander

2nd best reward for scouting: seeing an enemy zerg melt when they get ambushed from behind while they are busy trying to ram the gate (and still getting bags because you tagged everyone with your arrow cart)

or do what i do and “actively” scout. there are always roamers to kill, dolyaks to speed up and camps to take back. with enough experience and map awareness, scouts can actually leave whatever it is they’re guarding and do other things nearby so it doesn’t get boring.

i find scouting for short periods pretty rewarding in itself (especially if you have a bunch of friendly scouts to chat and take turns with), so i don’t feel the need for an in-game mechanic to reward scouting.

some commanders on my server do offer to pay scouts for their efforts upgrading and sieging stuff up, but that’s up to the individuals involved.

I’d expect a intricate system to like this to be put in way after they introduced things like colored/guild tags. Lol.

In all honesty, due to the nature of scouting that makes it virtually indistinguishable from afking I think the best solution is to let it be regulated among the players themselves. When I was still playing this game some commander collected a scout silver from each PUGer, for the scout. Or the commander/the players donate directly to the scout. If we had better organization tools there would ideally be a server high command that could take donations or even “taxes” and distribute them to their trusted scouts directly.
I think things like this are best left to the self-regulation of the players rather than contrived systems that are ripe for abusement.
Of course you will only get this going if you create actual WvW server community, i.e. community spirit, something that ANet has been desperately attempting to destroy the past two years.