Guild Wars 2

Just a thought regarding a possible non-AFK-farmable incentive for map objective scouts.
The biggest reason Anet is likely not giving direct reward-like incentives for scouting is that there is a great danger of farming abuse by players who are not in fact scouting. So this is a certain way that players remaining near an objective can “get paid”, as it were.

Scout Buff Option Idea:
Players have the ability to inform the objective supervisor/lord (via the dialogue window that already exists) of their intent/wish to scout that particular objective. After selecting the appropriate response(s) in that dialogue they are then given temporary buff only for that particular objective that persists until the next upcoming PPT calculation. If said player with said buff is within the “event range” of that objective at the moment the 15m map PPT is calculated, then said player is awarded WXP and/or loot equivalent to that of standing in a camp ring as it flips (or something like that). Only 1 such buff can be active at a time – acquiring a different objective’s buff would overwrite any current buff.

After the PPT is calculated and said player with said buff has been awarded (or not awarded if they were not within objective event range when PPT was calculated), the buff gains a 1-14m despawn timer that has 2 stacks. With this new buff the player has 1-14m to interact with at least 2 different pieces of any siege equipment that are within that objective’s event range (oil, cannon, arrow cart, catapult, etc). Doing so before the secondary buff expires will remove the 2 stacks (1 per siege piece), automatically reinstating the buff to its previous state for the next upcoming PPT tick.

This method allows a player to speak with the supervisor/lord once and subsequently needs to only interact with siege to refresh the scouting contract, provided the 1-14m buff timer hasn’t expired first. This also allows the player to leave the objective to get supply or other things, so long as they return to the objective by the PPT tick for their award.

The scouting award would also be affected by event/promotional/booster increases and the player would of course also receive any objective defense ticks from repelling enemies.

Why 2 pieces of siege to interact with? It would prevent people from standing at one piece of siege and botting the interact key repeatedly or at intervals. They would be required to move to and/or interact with a different siege piece to remove the 2nd buff stack. Sure, this could still be abused, but the chances are much slimmer at if it’s obvious that something is fishy then reporting players is the next step in that direction.

And the 1-14m range is just a suggested range. Anywhere from 1 to 14 minutes.

I’m bored at work – can you tell?

I actually really like the premise behind this. With the white swords gone, scouting is more valuable than ever, and there should definitely be some reward for those who do.

There should be a cap to the number of people who can be “scouting” an objective, though. Would be a bit silly if a zerg came into a friendly tower to resupply and happened to see only :20s on the timer, so they all “scouted” it.

I’d like to see an option for scouts who move between objectives, though. Checking on nearby camps shouldn’t strip you of your reward!

True. Maybe the offer to acquire the scouting buff would only be available from 15:00 down to the 2:00 mark of PPT countdown, keeping groups like that from lingering. I mean they could still linger but hanging around 2+ minutes for a tick when the group likely wants to keep moving isn’t gonna be feasible for most of those players. Good loophole catch.

The main issue I see with scouting multiple objectives (and receiving multiple scouting buffs/rewards) is that during the PPT tick there’s really no knowing whether the other objective the player is not presently at is actually safe. In essence said player would not technically be scouting that location while away. That player wouldn’t lose their buff though simply by leaving the objective – so long as the player returns by the PPT tick, or instead get a new corresponding buff for present location for that present PPT tick. By being at the objective for the PPT tick that player is actually making sure that the objective is safe during the PPT rollover for their team. I get what you’re saying though, especially on lower tier servers.

I also think the opportunity for abuse with multiple buffs, or even a common buff for all objectives, is that roaming/purposed groups would be getting scouting rewards for not really scouting, per se. The result from those groups’ activity would just be them doing what they were already going to do but getting an “undeserved” bonus. At that point they are getting an additional bonus on top of what else they are capping which makes the notion of solely staying at the objective for a single scouting bonus pale in comparison to the roaming groups that are getting the scouting bonus plus their regular bits. It needs to be a reward for scouts only.

Player psychology can be tough to predict, especially when trying to prevent abuse.

Stop asuming and getting new ideas ANet only listen to the voices in there own heads only.

New ideas are healthy, even if they never come to fruition.

A simplified recap:
- scouting buff acquired via dialogue with objective supervisor/lord
- scouting buff turns to timered debuff after receiving scouting reward at 15m PPT tick
- scouting debuff is reinstated to regular scouting buff upon interaction with siege equipment, if done before debuff expires
– some limitations apply (see original and subsequent posts)

i approve of this

I like the idea, however the reward amount I would like to see become a bit progressive.

Like for the 1st 15full minutes you have the buff, have it reward like a sentry cap would, next 15 like a camp’s rewards, following tower, and then last Keep take rewards. Once the level has been achieved for the rewards equal to taking a keep, have it maintain those rewards.

Could possibly revamp it to be a “quest” (Yes I said it.) Given by the Tower/keep lord and you have to complete the pre-requisites to move to the next one, which is repeatable for unlimited times. (Now on leaving a map, the entire set would reset, so players could just relog to do on alts at the max rewards.)

Now I would also state that the rewards highest level should be equal to the location being scouted. (Meaning Keep would have a highest level of rewards, tower 2nd, ect..)

Scouting itself is a very passive activity, so i’m not sure if rewarding something on a passive activity is a good idea. Ppl will abuse this and just park all of their acc at the same twr. At the end, the home server will have more ppl afking rather than ppl who’re actually doing wvw. I’d say leave scouting to those who are really willing to do it.

The thing is if you are required to do something (talk to xx npc, be within xx range) It counters going afk non stop. True not perfect but there are ways we can come up with which might help keep people from afk’ing. It just takes ideas, and such.

Also servers will lose scouts as is in the long run, due to lack of any incentive for someone to scout. While there are scouts now, after enough times of a tower/keep flipping no one might scout it anymore. The thing is ideas to help prevent worst case scenario’s is better done prior to the worst case coming about rather than later.

True white swords being gone is only a test currently, but if in game non stop, unless servers, or anet do something to reward scouting, many current scouts would get burnt out after a while.

The idea of incentivising scouting or at least making it more worthwhile doing is, in my opinion, long overdue.

I do feel there are a lot of issues with trying to incentivise scouting to avoid undermining the ability to get players out on the ground or in fact to avoid trolling /min maxingh for rewards.

I was thinking tat scouts can tend to get a wee bit bored and some of the ideas here are great but quite in depth.

How about instead of the NPC’s building the upgrades scouts can participate in events to upgrade the forts and towers that keep the building process speed at its maximum (or increase it). This produces an event that can be rewardsed wit the same basic system that still exists

Instead of having to include additional scout buffs and program systems in how about the guards and NPC’s in a fort have additional ambient audio recorded that triggers when either white swords or in fact any enemy hits a door. So a scout can be chekign a fort actively and hear some ambient audio from an NPC or guard “they’re hitting the north gate” etc.

It allows scouts to be rewarded for doing something, it helps the team and it undermines afking to just deploy and siege without requiring massive amounts of reworking

OK I’m aware it’s not exactly low reach and it requires new audio but it might be more realistic than some of the other excellent ideas which require a lot of resource time to complete

Screenager.7804:

The idea of incentivising scouting or at least making it more worthwhile doing is, in my opinion, long overdue.

I do feel there are a lot of issues with trying to incentivise scouting to avoid undermining the ability to get players out on the ground or in fact to avoid trolling /min maxingh for rewards.

I was thinking tat scouts can tend to get a wee bit bored and some of the ideas here are great but quite in depth.

How about instead of the NPC’s building the upgrades scouts can participate in events to upgrade the forts and towers that keep the building process speed at its maximum (or increase it). This produces an event that can be rewardsed wit the same basic system that still exists

Instead of having to include additional scout buffs and program systems in how about the guards and NPC’s in a fort have additional ambient audio recorded that triggers when either white swords or in fact any enemy hits a door. So a scout can be chekign a fort actively and hear some ambient audio from an NPC or guard “they’re hitting the north gate” etc.

It allows scouts to be rewarded for doing something, it helps the team and it undermines afking to just deploy and siege without requiring massive amounts of reworking

OK I’m aware it’s not exactly low reach and it requires new audio but it might be more realistic than some of the other excellent ideas which require a lot of resource time to complete

Actually I like the ideas. (At least the idea of having things for scouts to do.)

It not only allows scouts to stay a bit busier, and not just afk in a place, but it also adds more to wvw, which is much needed.

I also like the idea of rewards for scouts and such as well.

Here’s my idea: A telescope/binoculars bundle, and a flare gun.

Basically this is how you would scout. Turn the telescope on, scan the landscape and when you see enemy players (not inside of a tower they own of course) you can “ping” them on the map using a skill from the telescope. When you ping successfully (i.e. ping contains an enemy player) you get a reward.

Obviously there would need to be some limitations:
No pinging when X number of friendlies are near by
Xminute cooldown timer on ping skill

There’s a simpler idea: bring back white swords.

Grav.3568:

There’s a simpler idea: bring back white swords.

Scouts were needed before white swords were removed as a test. This thread has a lot of good ideas for scouting and rewards even once white swords are back in game.

Mishi.7058:

I like the idea, however the reward amount I would like to see become a bit progressive.

Like for the 1st 15full minutes you have the buff, have it reward like a sentry cap would, next 15 like a camp’s rewards, following tower, and then last Keep take rewards. Once the level has been achieved for the rewards equal to taking a keep, have it maintain those rewards.

Could possibly revamp it to be a “quest” (Yes I said it.) Given by the Tower/keep lord and you have to complete the pre-requisites to move to the next one, which is repeatable for unlimited times. (Now on leaving a map, the entire set would reset, so players could just relog to do on alts at the max rewards.)

Now I would also state that the rewards highest level should be equal to the location being scouted. (Meaning Keep would have a highest level of rewards, tower 2nd, ect..)

This progressive reward system is a good idea, provided that the progressive nature of such is on a per scout basis so people just getting to the objective aren’t able to “horn in” straight away on the advanced reward. They would themselves instead have to scout the appropriate amount of time to achieve that level of reward as well.

Though I’m half in the boat on whether or not to have a differing ceiling rate for rewards depending on the objective though. While it would be nice to progressively reward higher at more valuable locations (i.e. keeps) that may detract from players getting “stuck” scouting a lesser objective that is less lucrative. Not sure…

BlueBoy.1236:

Scouting itself is a very passive activity, so i’m not sure if rewarding something on a passive activity is a good idea. Ppl will abuse this and just park all of their acc at the same twr. At the end, the home server will have more ppl afking rather than ppl who’re actually doing wvw. I’d say leave scouting to those who are really willing to do it.

I agree, and that’s arguably the biggest reason there isn’t presently a scouting reward system in place. But as the original idea and those of others have shown, there are ways of ensuring that a scout is not completely AFK farming. There would have to be interaction with, I believe, at least 2 interactables (siege equip, NPC, etc.) to display such non-AFK activity. The reason at least 2? Because 1 would be fairly easy to bot and would allow AFK’ers to do that which you’ve rightly noted.

Valentinus.3412:

Here’s my idea: A telescope/binoculars bundle, and a flare gun…

That’s an interesting take! I think the “pinging” of targets might be slightly farmable if rewarded per ping, but that’d be neat to see maybe 5 or so seconds of a pinged enemy’s orange map dot for your map to see (GW2 already has orange dots for enemies on minimap as this sometimes happens to players temporarily after they respawn – believe it’s a bug). The thing with that though is that it doesn’t notify anyone of the activity, but I suppose that could still be done via map/team chat.

If white swords aren’t in the game in the future, something such as the flare gun you’ve suggested could be used to mark a yellow or such colored exclamation mark (“!”) on the map at your present location for a short time. Though again, the use of map/team chat would be needed to give further details.

Mishi.7058:

Scouts were needed before white swords were removed as a test. This thread has a lot of good ideas for scouting and rewards even once white swords are back in game.

^^^ Yes.

I think they could make a “scout” tag (similar to a commander tag) for people interested in scouting. Once tagged up, maybe those scouting should have access to new ways to gain points through their activities by doing “scout” things (spotting enemy movements, small scale conflicts, etc…), giving a buff to those in a designated scouting party, and/or having access to ways to make scouting easier (scout-specific upgrades for structures, new equipment that aids scouting/detection,etc.). There are many things that could go wrong with this, but i think the idea is worth exploring and refining (I also think there should also be similar benefits for commanding, and more emphasis on party/group roles).

SEE ANET, SEEEEEEE.

This is what your development team should be doing, USING IT’S BLOODY BRAINS.

Half of your community has considerably better ideas about the same change than you do, lazy skumbags.

I was thinking about more rewarding scout play the other day and one thought that crossed my mind was starting an event that required you to scout certain places.
So for example:

1. Zone into the borderland and get handed a new event to scout out certain areas.
For example:
a. Scout out the poi of north camp, nw camp, ne camp.
b. Scout out the poi of south camp, sw camp, se camp.
c. Scout out the poi of nw tower, ne tower, sw tower, se tower.
d. Scout out the poi of garrison, bay, hills.
Optionally you can do one side of the map instead, north camp, nw tower, nw camp, bay (reverse for east), also sw camp, sw tower, south camp, se tower, se camp, lastly garrison, nw sw s se ne ruins.
Optional option make it four points for every event, with the four being random all the time, but might be a pain to receive something like nc, swc, hills.

2. Once completed you receive a wvw champ bag as a reward.

3. Handed another event to scout out more areas.

You can either hand the new events out random order(probably better to avoid bots) or build them up(camps then towers and keep events) so that the final scout event before it all repeats offer an additional bag or something.
No afk rewarding, you gotta move around the map if you want your reward.

Other things to consider, motion detectors are already in eotm, offer them in wvw as well now, or make it a new trap to show the red dots on the map for the limited time.

I also like the idea of a signal flare built anywhere, but it might be abused. I suggest signal flares activated from the lord of towers or keeps. Once a structure is under the repel the attackers event you will be able to talk to the lord to ping the minimap much like orange sword of an attack, maybe red swords, this can only be done once per event.

The ideas in this thread are nice to read through. I hope Anet also reads them.