Guild Wars 2

WvW accolades remind me of soccer.

Those who generally win acclamation and recognition are those who score the goals. Then come the midfielders who support and supply the passes for the goal scorers. Then come the defenders who prevent the opposition from scoring. Then come the goalkeeper who is the final line of defense and usually the least recognized along with the defenders.

Goal scorers are like our Commanders.
In the lime light. Tagged up. Followed by hundereds of warriors. Leading the charge at the front. Destroying enemies. Taking keeps. Hurling abuses. They are generally seen as heroes.

Goalkeepers are like our Scouts.
Way back at the end. Nobody notices him…until things go wrong. Then they realize, someone has been refreshing our siege! Someone has been keeping watch on the keeps and towers! Someone has been yak walking and defending our camps!

I write this, inspired by one of my server’s greatest scouts, Tarnished Coast’s Pitsipopaki. I’m sure there are many more heroes in the servers, but scouts generally go unrecognized, and I hope this thread can be a platform, a start to recognize our server’s unspoken heroes. I witnessed him refreshing siege tirelessly on our home borderlands for up to 4 areas, 2 keeps and 2 towers, for hours upon hours. Whenever I see him online, he is in our home BL, refreshing siege, scouting, defending camps and objectives… Such dedication!

Share your server’s unspoken heroes and their heroic deeds!
Also, I sincerely hope Anet can come up with more benefits for these scouts who put in such a tireless shift keeping our homelands safe!

Indeed.

Scout: “inc!”
Player1: “Where?”
Player2: “Where and how many!?”
…silence…

Scout: “10 people on south bay!!!”
arrive and see 50+ pouring in

Scout: “Inc north hills!”
Commander bring 50 man zerg
Commander: “Where are they?”
Scout: “Two enemies ran north”

I sense a zergling.

When referring to scouts I am assuming we are discussing the ones sitting in objectives most of the time.

Yes, scouts, the most bizarre game dynamic ever to come out of Guild Wars 2. From a game design point of view, it is perhaps the least engaging thing you can do (and least rewarding)…it is a wonder why people would defend its existence against more automated means.

While I do not hate people that do scout well, but I find that they could be out there being more engaged in a more entertaining/rewarding interaction (‘roamers’ can do scout calls too…)

had some scouts say “50 people inner hills. lord 10%”

Fat Disgrace.4275:

had some scouts say “50 people inner hills. lord 10%”

Unless reports of that fat blob were coming in for the past 5 mins, I don’t see a problem with someone reporting it late. They may have been the first person to get eyes on that blob and their numbers, yes hills is lost in that scenario but at least you got enemy numbers to work with.

This is kinda why scouting is a thankless job in this game, much like playing a healer in other games.

Dawdler.8521:

Indeed.

Scout: “inc!”
Player1: “Where?”
Player2: “Where and how many!?”
…silence…

Scout: “10 people on south bay!!!”
arrive and see 50+ pouring in

Scout: “Inc north hills!”
Commander bring 50 man zerg
Commander: “Where are they?”
Scout: “Two enemies ran north”

;-)

Ya I imagine the list of actual hardcore scouts is pretty small. Most are just people who see something and say something and most of the time that is good enough. But grief…the number of people that claim to be pro scouts is kinda annoying. Often the same few post here on the wvw section and over the course of a month or so end up claiming to be expert scout/roamer/zerger/commander/havoc people. Not sure what to make of them some times.

Without good scouts, foxy will take everything you hold dear. Be nice to scouts.

I prefer ninja-ing than scouting these days. After they changed WvW to have the “marked” debuff and watchtowers, it is less and less useful to have multiple scouts in each objective.

Scouting is something to do in WvW when you are semi-afk (eating or watching a movie on another screen for example) plus with the new squad scout mechanic you get some credit.

Xenesis.6389:

This is kinda why scouting is a thankless job in this game, much like playing a healer in other games.

Healers pull miracles. Scouts report disasters.
And playing healer can at least be fun. Scounting, not so much.
Completely different.

Scouts are what keep you from coming in third because rampaging hoards of four or five random militia, not in a party or squad and not in comms, flipped your home borderland at will. Of course, having some militia of your own that are on playing for fun helps too.

EremiteAngel is dead on in regard to the importance of recognizing the contributions of scouts. And the militia are heroes too.

Dawdler.8521:

Indeed.

Scout: “inc!”
Player1: “Where?”
Player2: “Where and how many!?”
…silence…

Scout: “10 people on south bay!!!”
arrive and see 50+ pouring in

Scout: “Inc north hills!”
Commander bring 50 man zerg
Commander: “Where are they?”
Scout: “Two enemies ran north”

I wouldn’t consider those as real scouting. Number, server, objective – That should be the first call out. In addition if you want make sure people show up it’s best to give a play by play – Rams/catas up, wall/gate%, etc.

It’s too bad that Anet changed the way objectives upgrade and the price hike of guild upgrades. I really used to like to scout.

Jeknar.6184:

Xenesis.6389:

This is kinda why scouting is a thankless job in this game, much like playing a healer in other games.

Healers pull miracles. Scouts report disasters.
And playing healer can at least be fun. Scounting, not so much.
Completely different.

Not really. The only time healers gets credit is when they do pull off a rabbit out of their hat, but even in those situations a tank will most likely get the credit over them instead unless the tank says something, or when they’re with their own guild who knows the value they bring.

A lot of times they don’t get the credit when a dungeon goes smooth but the tank wasn’t playing well, or you’re in pvp and no one notices who kept them up while they rushed into a pack of players they shouldn’t have lasted more than 5s with. But that’s their job! yeah ok that doesn’t exclude other classes from trying to play well either.

Healing is fun when you’re playing with competent players who are not slacking off and actually playing their class, when you’re not, yeah not so much, prepare to get blamed for the wipes.

Scouting might not be miraculous brain surgery, but there have been a lot of times when a stay at home scout have helped saved a fully upgrade keep, one call early enough to get their ebg zerg back to garrison to help save it from a 5 omega golem rush. Maybe the commander will give a thank you, to the masses they don’t give a kitten, they got a fight that’s all they care about.

The really good scouts are the ones that are active, repairing, building and refreshing siege in structures, popping upgrades(well old days anyways), hunting down roamers, retaking camps, checking every sword that comes up and communication properly with their team. Maybe these days it really doesn’t matter because of the watchtower upgrade, and emergency waypoints, and frankly a whole lot less players giving a kitten.

Scouting might not be fun for you but it is to some people, different strokes for different folks. Props to the scouts who put in the work for their fun, and help make the game more fun for others.

Xenesis.6389:

The really good scouts are the ones that are active, repairing, building and refreshing siege in structures, popping upgrades(well old days anyways), hunting down roamers, retaking camps, checking every sword that comes up and communication properly with their team. Maybe these days it really doesn’t matter because of the watchtower upgrade, and emergency waypoints, and frankly a whole lot less players giving a kitten.

Scouting might not be fun for you but it is to some people, different strokes for different folks. Props to the scouts who put in the work for their fun, and help make the game more fun for others.

This. I’m a scout, always have been and always will be. The key is that I’m constantly on the move doing the things listed above. Scouting definitely makes a difference, at least on Sorrow’s Furnace.

On that note I’d like to recognize Zoil The Deviceful on SF. He’s an excellent scout!

Dawdler.8521:

Scout: “10 people on south bay!!!”
arrive and see 50+ pouring in

Which is why instead of vague descriptions by scouts it would be nice to have automatic scouting feature like Detected whenever there’s scout present in objective. Maybe there was 10 first, but then 40 more came in. Scout tried to report it but got chat suppressed.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

had some scouts say “50 people inner hills. lord 10%”

Even this has value, though, particularly to opportunistic commanders and small groups.

Knowing where the enemy blob is and how much time you have estimated to take an objective makes a huge difference in what a group may or may not be able to do.

SMC at 10% with a 50-man blob during prime time could mean up to 20 minutes of the enemy being occupied if the zerg gets there in time. Quick verification in chat or TS can verify if it’s actually lost or not. If it isn’t a 5-man can go flip their hills and another group of 15 SMC while the two titanic blobs are stuck with their attention to the impending fights and maybe are forced in combat to prevent WP’ing even if they get a call-out.

But if hills is known to be lost, however, it can send the major force to a T3 tower or potentially-other impactful goal elsewhere, rather than trying to be opportunistic with no info and setting up a rush for a major objective that the enemy would also be able to defend in time, doubling the losses via the loss of territory and possibly PPK.

Fun is objective. While I don’t really scout much anymore, long ago I used to love it. Capping an offensive hills, setting up siege to defend and get it waypointed. Was lots of fun… I give big props to anyone who supplies good information in a timely manner. Whether you are just running by and see something or you are full out defending some objective. To each their own, but you guys are all heroes in my books.

Yes. Those guys we need to keep prodding for relavent information.

Aye. Encourage scouts that do not provide the proper information to do so, (which map, how many of which enemy, which guild if applicable, where they’re heading, what siege they’re using, wall & gate status etc, even available tactivators). A surpising number of people still don’t specify the map while speaking in team chat.
As well, call them out by name and thank them for their diligence. Scouts are the reason [your server] has T3 anything.

~ Kovu

GH has lost BL keeps and EB towers for 2-5 enemies because commander had decided to get our zerg ganked 20 vs 50 in most distant corner of EB map. Nobody comes to help, and scouting is thus pointless.