Suggestion: We need incentives for guarding objectives

Disclaimer: I am not a WvW expert. Also, if there's a similar suggestion already posted, I'll take this down. This is aimed towards ANET but the purpose of this thread is to pitch in some ideas to make guarding/scouting a little bit more rewarding outside of 'PLS COMM LET ME LEECH PARTICIPATION'.

Most of the time, people will take a spot and just leave it. If a tower gets under attack, people will just run there and fight off anyone that's trying to paint "HAHA LOL [World] SUCKS" graffiti on the walls. That's the WvW definition of defending. However, there are some people (see: People that loves to inflict pain upon themselves) that are willing to sit around on spots and stare at the distance for extended periods of time while ticking any sieges that may be built. These mad lads actually want to guard objectives.

Sadly, guarding is unrewarding. Literally. No rewards. As it stands now, there is no reward for guarding/scouting out unless some random enemy comes in and accidentally sneezes on one of the guards' fancy Mist jacket, triggering the 'OMG DEFEND THE OBJECTIVE!!!11!!eleven' event. We need to somehow find a way to make guarding somewhat rewarding while making sure it does not get farmed the point that WvW turns into a 'Sit on a tower' game mode.

"Hold up, why would I guard a tower like a loser? My big biceps are better at taking SMC solo."

You're sort of right, Chad. But what if a tower is T3 and someone just spammed "OMG 50000 GREENS COMING NET [Garrison Waypoint][Garrison Waypoint][Garrison Waypoint]x50"? Surely your big biceps could be used to pwn some noobs by being at the tower when the enemy zerg arrives at the tower? Element of surprise, Chad.

"Oooh. That sounds good. But do I get pips for guarding?"

Eh...No. That's the problem.

Goal of this thread: Find a way to make people actually guard/defend objectives.

Problems with this: People might farm this. (To be fair, people will find a way to farm everything). So we need to find a way to convince people that they'll at least get some cake if they sit around in a tower/garrison while watching out for potential enemy zergs without making them afk in the said spot until Guild Wars 3: 'Now with actual guilds warring each other' comes out.

My suggestion: Basically make players get an event from the champion guard to defend a spot for a small amount of participation or some small rewards. For example, if I want to guard a tower, I'll head over to the Champion Tower Lord and get a mission to defend a spot for a small amount of time (maybe 5 to 10 minutes). Once the mission is complete, I will get a few participation, some karma and maybe 0 or 1 badges of honor. After that, I will have to go back to the lord to get the mission again. Also, this is a PERSONAL mission. Not a group event. So we don't have 1 guy activating the event and 50 guys sit on the tower afk.This way, People can get some reward for scouting in a tower without begging for participation in a WvW group. After all, not all worlds have zergs 24/7. (We know of the 'There's no tag all the time!' problem). One thing to note is that this does not reward as much as say, capturing 2 camps and just rotating between them until you get T6 participation. This just gives players SOME reward instead of NO reward. This also works well for players grumpily playing the 'Shield the walls against that guy who keeps trebbing your walls from SMC'. Also, this would give another purpose of life for champion guards other than being a damage sponge.Of course, this could be changed. It doesn't have to be exact, but the idea is still have a mission for players to watch a tower while still being on the keyboard in order to keep triggering the event.

What else could be done to convince Chad the Big Biceps Warrior to sit in a tower and scout/guard/place siege in it?

hm... I am one of those players who rather guards the objectives, and I don't mind it gives no rewards, it is not why I do it. I don't also play WvW because it is super-rewarding and showers everyone with amazing stuff, no, I play it because it is fun.

Now, to your suggestion. Can this mission you get from tower boss fail? What if enemy does show up and tower gets tagged or captured? I understand this could be abused by bots clicking 24/7 on the Lord, so how about you first talk to Lord and then you have to step into 3 circles randomly placed within objective boundaries to get the reward? This way, simply standing and clicking the Lord is not enough.

I also guard towers because I like it and it is fun, like the noble and selfless FogLeg. I also, however, understand that Guild Wars 2 is a game with lots of awesome and shiny long term goals, and working toward long term goals is one of the major points of an MMO, and shiny MMO goals require mats and gold, SO;

I like your idea. As it stands, running yaks, repairing walls, and actively raining arrows down on invaders does get participation, which is nice. However, scouting and building/refreshing siege do not. The tower defense events we already have seem to be weirdly uneven; sometimes I'll run by a tower and get credit, sometimes I'll frantically build and man siege, run supply, nearly get pulled to my death, and throw siege at the enemy, and not get credit.

I like the idea of triggering an event by asking the Lord in the tower. I am thinking it could be somewhat like the Silverwastes events (OMG Tactician Mansell NOOOO), in that you have to keep the place alive for the duration of the event. You could prevent people from abusing it too hard by scaling the rewards the way you do with HoT meta events; if you trigger the event and literally not a thing happens during the event, you get a low reward. The more hot mess goes down the during minutes of the event, i.e. the more tags you get, damage you do, walls you repair, etc. etc., the better your reward is. Bronze/Silver/Gold level event rewards already exist in the game.

Maybe every ten minutes the Lord gets that little 'I have a quest!' orange star over his head, and you can trigger a defense event lasting five.

Interesting idea, but I am not sure rewards will make more people guard objectives at this point. Also, just because someone is guarding an objective doesn't mean they will be a good scout.

I do it because it needs done. My server(s) respect and trust me. That means more to me than any event reward. :)

I like new content and I want something like this to work out. But always keep in mind of those that abuse such content. There is a thing called multi boxing in this game. It is allowed to multi box and here in lays the most abuse of them all in WvW. You have some multi boxer with one of his account on a balista script to target and attack any one that tries to take the sentry near by in the safety of the tower. While on his other account roaming/zerging with his friends. In the same way instead of a balista its a treb or mortar. Anet may say they don't allow scripts/macroing but they don't enforce it because it is hard to know if the person using a script is using a script. But if there two accounts from the same IP in WvW where one account seems to always be at a fortification. I can say with 100% certainty abuse is happening. Anet has a big job on their hands when it comes to WvW content because they have to many content creators and no content annalists that meet the adequate criteria. There for no content for WvW for years. FYI rewards isn't new content.

There is other abuse like multi boxers that tag watch. In short they have a 2nd account on the their enemy server they are matched up vs. So they can watch where the enemy tag/commanders are. This is why you have lots of people that ask Anet to allow the option to hide our commander tags. This is where Anet doesn't understand the public opinion. Anet want's to be user friendly but the in doing so its abuse friendly. Where the public see a problem and want to fix it to better the game mode. Anet and people that don't know better think we need more WvW content. This is true but before new content we need quality of life changes. In short that means to fix the current game modes with in the mode to have synergy Synergy in such away that the game mode itself counters bad behavior. Anet policing WvW will not solve the problems. Don't get me wrong it would help but a better solution is to create a system that can't be abused.

Lets be honest here. Anet's WvW dev team struck out quite a few times. It got to a point where they gave us polls to choose what they should work on so not all the blame would be on them. Now the blame is on us as well. We choose server balance. In other terms more freakwent and different match ups that seem more balanced based off a previous match ups with a reordering of a few allied server each few months. In my eyes this never would have stopped people from leaving the WvW game mode because it isn't content nor is it fixing core mechanics that players have to deal with at a day to day basis.

So as you can see we don't get content in this game mode. How can it still be alive you may ask. One way is build diversity. Veterans test their wits based off of how they can structure one self or a team of people vs their opponents. Most people enjoy the game mode because of the hunt. Search and destroy or for you lot defend and preserve. I will give examples on why people stop playing. 1st off... build diversity is only so fun till there is an extreme unbalance cheese builds. 2nd off... The hunt is only so fun till there is an extreme unbalance in numbers or tired of karma training. 3rd off... Defending is only so fun till you come to understand how pointless and unrewarding it is.

I'll sum it all up in these few words. The mechanics we deal with in a day to day basis has to be ether changed or limited and structured in such away that bad behavior that give unfair advantages to NOT dominate this competitive game mode. If and when fixed then start working on new WvW content with the same ideals.

@Lionwait.4815 said:This is why you have lots of people that ask Anet to allow the option to hide our commander tags.

Not really. Many people are actually happy to tell enemy where commander is and where he is going so enemy can join and fight (depends if the commander and server is playing for fights or for points). The main reason to ask option for hiding commander tag is to allow guild raids without pugs from your own server tagging with you. In our server there are not that many public commanders so when closed guild raid happens pugs always run with tag. I mean, you can ask them nicely to leave but not all do.

@FogLeg.9354 said:

@Lionwait.4815 said:This is why you have lots of people that ask Anet to allow the option to hide our commander tags.

This is why I believe parents should spank their children.

Now just what is wrong with guarding an objective by roaming nearby it and being within range to respond to a defense event? You'll also be getting participation by keeping nearby yaks, camps, and sentries your color. This sounds like a suggestion for players who never want to take the risk of running into enemy players out in the open, something that Chad the Big Biceps Warrior would rather do. The best scouts on my server IMHO are the players I see roaming home borderland to defend it.

Anet already removed the need to "guard" when they added sentries and balloons. So that part is over with.

If you want to make it fun defending objectives then stop dancing around the subject (defend quests because we truly need more questing in WvW) and just realize its players fighting players that make it fun, active and engaging. The objectives are a playground, a place of focus, not some place where players should stand around looking out waiting for that one random player to run past so they can unleash the full fury of their arrowcart.

And the only way to make it fun is reducing the ability for "guards" to make already OP objectives impossible to touch. Far weaker T2/T3, no more passive ubertactics making players redundant and weaker siege and best of all - no kitten avalanching PPT due to tier based scoring.

Make fighting at objectives great again.

Good idea tbh. (Solo quest lines)A lord can give quests like:1-Build pieces of siege (The lord can drop build sites in known spots)2-Spawn a small force to defeat in the vicinity before they attack your guards , without contesting the tower*.3-Build one Trap4-Rebuild destroyed static siege5-Fill up the supply depot to max. (by running supplies from camps or 'other' objectives & deposit them at lord to complete quest)6-Refresh siege build in quest 17-Familiarize quest. (seek and destroy, like mini krakas in LA) lord spawns small critters you have to clean out. these are at spots known to be used to hide and/or siege. (sneaky spots)8-Talk to all npc's in the tower. (small story for each tower/history etc)9- Recruit villagers to do something useful.10~Don't touch quest.. (Automatic quest where the lord requests you not to touch tactivators for the duration of the quest line) If you do, he smites you.11-Bonus quests that show up when uncontested in relation to the tower HP;Wall damaged > Repair with supplies from other objectives within x minutesEnemy Siege build in zone > Destroy siege12-Spawn a spy glass and mark out spots around the tower to spy on. (iow long range siege spots )

Nb:Personal rewards~ Name recognition for those who completed the quest line trough title for a day or a small icon/effect or commemorative plaque for those who do these things every day.. something fun.

~ Reward players with either siege, supplies, extra guard spawns, Engie Golem suits or something to play with inside the tower. (Small Banquet, mini games)

I know..I know.. pve, npc's etc. but could be used for educational purpose.

tldr: good idea

*tower/objective

@Dawdler.8521 said:Anet already removed the need to "guard" when they added sentries and balloons. So that part is over with.

If you want to make it fun defending objectives then stop dancing around the subject (defend quests because we truly need more questing in WvW) and just realize its players fighting players that make it fun, active and engaging. The objectives are a playground, a place of focus, not some place where players should stand around looking out waiting for that one random player to run past so they can unleash the full fury of their arrowcart.

And the only way to make it fun is reducing the ability for "guards" to make already OP objectives impossible to touch. Far weaker T2/T3, no more passive ubertactics making players redundant and weaker siege and best of all - no kitten avalanching PPT due to tier based scoring.

Make fighting at objectives great again.

its a ktrain gamemode reason they did that, ADerp is fine how dumb WvW is ....