Guild Wars 2

So, I’ve been figuring out WvW and I found out that it’s a really good idea to guard the dolyaks. Here’s my question: Why don’t the people who protect the dolyak get rewarded? I went through the dolyak’s entire run throughout the map before it disappeared when it didn’t have any more supplies to give, and I didn’t get anything for doing so. Come on, I’m not asking for a HUGE reward or anything on the level of overtaking a tower, but at least something would be nice. I mean, I busted by butt trying to protect that thing and I didn’t get anything from it. It even has a little quest thing on the top right that says: “Protect the dolyak” like an actual quest, so why doesn’t that give rewards when that quest is completed?

it was too easy exp an peopel were just walking with dolyaks instead fighting.

Well, that’s what I’m saying about not giving too much of a reward. I don’t care if it’s a small amount, as long as it’s something and not nothing, then it’d be better.
And plus, "they aren’t fighting’ doesn’t really make too much sense to me. If there are other enemy players in the area, conceivably they would try to attack the dolyak and the players guarding it, right? What player would just stand around while enemies attack them?

they did have a reward, but people were just escorting doylacks way in the back line, and I meen like 20-30 people, so they disabled the rewards while they rebalance them.

Okay, so they’re re-balancing them at the moment then? As in it’s already being worked on? Alright then, that’s fine.

the reward was fine. if it was just too much reward they would have reduced it. it was botters. scripted guys following the yaks. funny thing is they were still doing it days afterwards.

The same system used for defending a keep could be used, if no enemies are killed in the defense, no DE reward. If a fight happens and a dolyak was at stake, I think players should be rewarded for keeping the dolyak up. Though I agree with them giving no reward so that people push capturing a location over taking a stroll with a dolyak.

The do give rewards. The last one I killed dropped for hooves.

Lasica, “escort” and “attack” are different things, mmmmkay?

Do you pay a bodyguard only if you get attacked by a fan ? No. Dolyak missions should give a reward, attacked or not, becaus it’s a (boring) job that someone have to do. Just being present along the Dolyak prevents some attacks from soloers or duos.

I literally saw 40 people walking all day escorting a single dolyak that roams closest to our spawn. They magically stopped when dolyak escorting was nerfed.

We don’t want it to come back.

It would seem there are two main concerns about this.

1) Too many people ‘idling’ in the backlines. So make the rewards drop off (maybe completely) if there are too many escorters.

2) Botters following them. Depending on how they’re doing this you may be able to fox them by subtly changing the routes/timing/speed.

In both cases it’s “people exploiting this one thing rather than actually playing the game as intended”.

Protecting supply in WvW is VITAL, not rewarding those taking the time to do it is just plain wrong.

I would not call these “main concerns.” These were serious issues in the WvW scene. After A-net made dolyaks give no rewards people magically started to actually participate in WvW rather than yak farm.

I do dolyak escorts as well post fix and yeah having no rewards can suck. I prefer the current situation of not getting rewarded but having a good WvW experience over the alternative; watching people follow their yak rather than helping their keep that is under heavy attack and about to fall.

believe it or not, Arena net wants to keep the focus on things that matter in WvW.

currently, the reward for escorting and defending yaks is what they give you…. supply!!!!

and the reward for killing yaks,,,,,starving them of supply!

if you feel like you need rewards back just to help your team win, then you dont need to be in WvW because you are probably one of those worthless dolyak farmers that took WvW spots, caused huge problems in the rankings because of queues being taken by PvE farmers.

Arena net took away the reward because it was easily the biggest problem at the time, people would gather in groups of 40 or so just to farm dolyak exp in safe areas, ignoring the actual game around them. it was affecting the gameplay of others, so it was changed.

and i love it how it is, no reward except the WvW reward of supply or lack of supply. the way it should be

Give diminishing returns to escorting dolyaks.
After say, 5 escorts, you cant get money/exp/karma from escorting another dolyak for an hour or so. Make it so that every 20 minutes that you arent escorting a dolyak (when not at the 5 escort cap) you can escort another one.

For example:
Johnny escorts 5 dolyaks in 20 minutes. He is then unable to get rewards for the next 60 minutes.
Bill escorts 4 dolyaks, then defends Ascension bay for an hour. He can now escort 3 more dolyaks before reaching his cap.

This way players can be rewarded for ensuring supplies make it to the keep/tower/SMC, but at the same time, you wont have 30 people humping them all day long.

Perhaps they need to reinstate the reward for successfully escorting a dolyak to an objective which is under siege.

I couldn’t imagine it would be too hard to pull off. If an objective is under siege, it counts as an event. If that event is taking place then the escort dolyak event becomes available.

That way you have people protecting dolyaks when and where protecting is needed most rather then being 100 miles from combat protecting something that really doesn’t need protecting.

I’d be happy if they just made it activate if you killed an enemy player within range of the Yak. It is kind of disappointing to kill a group of 5 or so players that are about to kill your Yak and then not get a reward. However, idling next to the Yak is an obvious problem. They should just make it dependent on you killing a player that is in range / attacking the Yak.

I did some brainstorming on this issue.

Dolyak escort should be worth points if the dolyak route is deemed dangerous.

Essentially anet keeps track of how often a dolyak route is being attacked or killed by enemy players. If it is attacked on its route its +1 danger rating (dolyak takes damage from a player), killed +2. Every time a dolyak successfully completes its route, the danger rating goes down by 1. This allows anet to dynamically set the award for the route based on a probability the dolyak will get hit.

Dolyak escort rating for newly captured camps is 3, so the route will start out at danger rating 3.

Lets say you just took godsword and the dolyaks leave to resupply garrision. They would have a DR of 3, as you just took an enemy camp and thus it is probable that the route may be contested.

If it makes it to garrision uncontested, players are awarded at the level 3 spot, and the DR drops to 2.
If the enemy attacks it, but fails to kill it, players are awarded at the level 4 spot.
If it is attacked 3 times, but the enemy fails to kill it, players are awarded at the level 4 spot (as being attacked increase can only happen once per route)
If the dolyak is killed, defending players are awarded a fail at the level 5 spot. and the DR of the route is updated to 5.

Danger rating is a scale of 0-7. Any hits on the dolyak after it is at 7 doesnt increase the rating at all (that way a route cant rack up a very high DR because it was highly contested). Every successful uncontested delivery lowers the rating by 1. If you lose the supply camp and retake it, it is reset to 3.

Awards compared to previous system.
DR0: 0%
DR1: 20%
DR2: 40%
DR3: 60%
DR4: 80%
DR5-7: 100%

This way dolyaks that bots would ‘farm’ the ones that arnt ever attacked are not worth anything.

Obviously a system like this will take a while for arenanet to implement, but can be a solution to end the botting of the routes, and reward those willing to defend vunerable routes.

Arenanet can tweak the system so that consecutive uncontested deliveries lower the DR rating even faster, so by the second uncontested delivery it lowers the DR by an additional point.

they do give in the past but people abuse it =/

I always liked how it worked in Planetside 1. You had to grab a vehicle to load up on that game’s equivalent of “supply” and transport it to a base. You couldn’t bot it, because the vehicle had to be driven manually.

It’s not just “PvEers” who this kind of gameplay appeals to. People like playing logistical roles in warfare.

Make supplying a more active role, and inactive people won’t do it. Then you can reinstate rewards.

Kracin.6078:

believe it or not, Arena net wants to keep the focus on things that matter in WvW.

currently, the reward for escorting and defending yaks is what they give you…. supply!!!!

and the reward for killing yaks,,,,,starving them of supply!

if you feel like you need rewards back just to help your team win, then you dont need to be in WvW because you are probably one of those worthless dolyak farmers that took WvW spots, caused huge problems in the rankings because of queues being taken by PvE farmers.

Arena net took away the reward because it was easily the biggest problem at the time, people would gather in groups of 40 or so just to farm dolyak exp in safe areas, ignoring the actual game around them. it was affecting the gameplay of others, so it was changed.

and i love it how it is, no reward except the WvW reward of supply or lack of supply. the way it should be

ok then … please let us know why there are still rewards for killing harpies and big grubs.

Kracin.6078:

believe it or not, Arena net wants to keep the focus on things that matter in WvW.

currently, the reward for escorting and defending yaks is what they give you…. supply!!!!

and the reward for killing yaks,,,,,starving them of supply!

if you feel like you need rewards back just to help your team win, then you dont need to be in WvW because you are probably one of those worthless dolyak farmers that took WvW spots, caused huge problems in the rankings because of queues being taken by PvE farmers.

Arena net took away the reward because it was easily the biggest problem at the time, people would gather in groups of 40 or so just to farm dolyak exp in safe areas, ignoring the actual game around them. it was affecting the gameplay of others, so it was changed.

and i love it how it is, no reward except the WvW reward of supply or lack of supply. the way it should be

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

@Kracin

Actually the reward for killing yaks is 1. Starving them of supply AND 2. A little bit of xp/karma/moment when you complete the event

So if we really want to eliminate the reward…then attacking them should provide nothing by the satisfaction of starving people of supply.

But then again…why should defending a keep reward xp/karma? Shouldn’t the reward for defending the keep being the satisfaction of keeping the keep under your control? And similarly, shouldn’t attacking a keep be satisfying enough without a reward?

WvW has rewards outside of the “WvW mechanic” (holding as many towers/keeps as possible to earn points). So the argument that something shouldn’t provide an xp/monetary reward because the WvW mechanic is “enough” is silly, since plenty of other things in WvW offer similar rewards.

While I understand the reason why they eliminated the reward, I do think it would be nice to add a little something back to it. This evening I spent a good 3 hours escorting the Dolyak to the Garrison my team controlled in an opposing borderlands. For those 3 hours the Garrison’s walls were perpetually down and we were struggling to upgrade it the walls to give a better chance at defense (we kept having pitched fights in the keep lord’s room….no fun). So we decided to have 5-10 of us break off and make sure that yak got to the garrison from the Northeast Supply Camp. We escorted it many times. About 50% of the time it came under attack and we repelled the enemy all but I believe twice. It was fun, but EVERYONE in the group recognized that we were all taking a “hit” on our rewards for not running with the teams defending/taking towers. Yes we were getting kills, but after every successful pitched fight protecting the dolyak (which is a hard fight mind you, since the enemy focuses right on the dolyak when they attack), we got nothing and it honestly didn’t make me feel that great.

While I understand that you wouldn’t pay a bodyguard only if you got attacked…I still think that would be a simple way to avoid the “botters”, while at least giving SOMETHING to people dedicated to the Yaks. It makes sense, just like you get a reward for attacking and defending a keep/tower. You get a reward for attacking/defending a Yak (and obviously you only defend a Yak if there is something to defend against).

If you REALLY wanted to be strict you could also add in the requirement that the target location of the Yak be in need of supply…so defending a Yak to a full Tower EVEN if it comes under attack yields nothing. However, defending a Yak that is heading to a Garrison under siege that is low on supplies…that should give something. In some situations that is MORE useful than being another being on the keep wall.

An exploit is still wrong and that is how Anet viewed the yakking off. Instead of banning people they just didnt give a reward.