Incentivize scouting?

[TwiceDead.1963]

EDIT:People bring up Participation bonus, but honestly that's secondary. What I want is for people to be given an incentive, or be encouraged to scout, and to do so autonomously. It's not about keeping or getting the participation bonus going. My suggestions are not the be-all end-all, if you have a good- or especially better idea, please share it.

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Scouts are more important than people give credit for, but it's no secret that scouts aren't exactly plentiful in WvW these days. One of the reasons for this is probably that there's simply no incentive to strictly scout, your participation degrades and otherwise there's nothing in it for you. You can do more ofcourse, capture camps along the way and such. What if you could incentivize scouting, though?

For instance, give a small participation bonus and 120 XP to visit a friendly camp. Gain a larger bonus if you manage to visit more camps within a certain time-frame, and put a cool-down on the bonus of maybe 10-20 minutes if you've already visited a camp to prevent running between two camps close to one-another for easy XP.

So I've given my two cents. If you have a good idea, let's hear it!

[Ayrilana.1396]

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Commander#Shared_participation

[Dawdler.8521]

@"Ayrilana.1396" said:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Commander#Shared_participationGood in theory, in practice commanders kick anyone that's not running meta zerg spec and stays on tag.

[Strider Pj.2193]

@TwiceDead.1963 said:Scouts are more important than people give credit for, but it's no secret that scouts aren't exactly plentiful in WvW these days. One of the reasons for this is probably that there's simply no incentive to strictly scout, your participation degrades and otherwise there's nothing in it for you. You can do more ofcourse, capture camps along the way and such. What if you could incentivize scouting, though?

For instance, give a small participation bonus and 120 XP to visit a friendly camp. Gain a larger bonus if you manage to visit more camps within a certain time-frame, and put a cool-down on the bonus of maybe 10-20 minutes if you've already visited a camp to prevent running between two camps close to one-another for easy XP.

So I've given my two cents. If you have a good idea, let's hear it!

There is a mechanism for true scouts: shared participation from commander squads.

Otherwise, it’s up to the scout to cap camps, take sentries, move around.

It’s not hard to keep participation up.

[Shroud.2307]

My suggestion is to enjoy playing the game instead of needing to be rewarded for existing.

[steki.1478]

It's simple. You get more loot by flipping paper keep than holding it as t3. Ppt is so overrated nowadays. It serves no purpose in era of overstacking through links and transfers. What's the point of scouting if you can do something else?

[Ayrilana.1396]

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@"Ayrilana.1396" said:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Commander#Shared_participation

Good in theory, in practice commanders kick anyone that's not running meta zerg spec and stays on tag.

That’s why you work with the commander. Typically if they share participation with you then they’re aware that you’re scouting. Any good commander will realize the benefit of having scouts.

[TwiceDead.1963]

@Strider Pj.2193 said:

@TwiceDead.1963 said:Scouts are more important than people give credit for, but it's no secret that scouts aren't exactly plentiful in WvW these days. One of the reasons for this is probably that there's simply no incentive to strictly scout, your participation degrades and otherwise there's nothing in it for you. You can do more ofcourse, capture camps along the way and such. What if you could incentivize scouting, though?

For instance, give a small participation bonus and 120 XP to visit a friendly camp. Gain a larger bonus if you manage to visit more camps within a certain time-frame, and put a cool-down on the bonus of maybe 10-20 minutes if you've already visited a camp to prevent running between two camps close to one-another for easy XP.

So I've given my two cents. If you have a good idea, let's hear it!

There is a mechanism for true scouts: shared participation from commander squads.

Otherwise, it’s up to the scout to cap camps, take sentries, move around.

It’s not hard to keep participation up.

I agree it's not hard to keep participation up, it's not what this is about. What I want is more people to scout, and to incentivize that particular activity autonomously. Reward is one of the simplest and most effective forms of incentive there is if you want something done.

If there are better ideas I'll take em'.

[GDchiaScrub.3241]

Given the recent update, then it's reasonable to assume that the "scouting" meta has changed. Place a marking trap, and venture out more in a larger area. Like flipping a nearby camp or bloodlust node or mercenaries. Also don't we gain things by walking yaks? Isn't that similar to what the OP mentions?

[Biermeister.4678]

Scout and flip camps a and sentry's= T6 participation

[Strider Pj.2193]

@TwiceDead.1963 said:

@Strider Pj.2193 said:

@TwiceDead.1963 said:Scouts are more important than people give credit for, but it's no secret that scouts aren't exactly plentiful in WvW these days. One of the reasons for this is probably that there's simply no incentive to strictly scout, your participation degrades and otherwise there's nothing in it for you. You can do more ofcourse, capture camps along the way and such. What if you could incentivize scouting, though?

For instance, give a small participation bonus and 120 XP to visit a friendly camp. Gain a larger bonus if you manage to visit more camps within a certain time-frame, and put a cool-down on the bonus of maybe 10-20 minutes if you've already visited a camp to prevent running between two camps close to one-another for easy XP.

So I've given my two cents. If you have a good idea, let's hear it!

There is a mechanism for true scouts: shared participation from commander squads.

Otherwise, it’s up to the scout to cap camps, take sentries, move around.

It’s not hard to keep participation up.

I agree it's not hard to keep participation up, it's not what this is about. What I want is more people to scout, and to incentivize that particular activity autonomously. Reward is one of the simplest and most effective forms of incentive there is if you want something done.

If there are better ideas I'll take em'.

So, beyond a commander feeling you are very useful and allotting a squad spot for shared participation...

Let’s say you can’t get a spot, and can’t flip camps or sentries etc.

How will the game define you are actually scouting and not just using map or team chat?

Does every team chat troll running solo get credit?

Or if we count time in a tower, just just sitting in a tower or keep count?

Combine the two? Well, the wonderful server troll sits in a keep and trills from there?

I am not trying to be a young cat here but there isn’t a way that makes sense to credit a ‘scout’ unless that scout’s information is valuable enough to a commander to earn a shared participation spot.

[TwiceDead.1963]

@Biermeister.4678 said:Scout and flip camps a and sentry's= T6 participation

It's not about participation. It's about giving people an incentive to scout of their own will.

@Strider Pj.2193 said:

@TwiceDead.1963 said:

@Strider Pj.2193 said:

@TwiceDead.1963 said:Scouts are more important than people give credit for, but it's no secret that scouts aren't exactly plentiful in WvW these days. One of the reasons for this is probably that there's simply no incentive to strictly scout, your participation degrades and otherwise there's nothing in it for you. You can do more ofcourse, capture camps along the way and such. What if you could incentivize scouting, though?

For instance, give a small participation bonus and 120 XP to visit a friendly camp. Gain a larger bonus if you manage to visit more camps within a certain time-frame, and put a cool-down on the bonus of maybe 10-20 minutes if you've already visited a camp to prevent running between two camps close to one-another for easy XP.

So I've given my two cents. If you have a good idea, let's hear it!

There is a mechanism for true scouts: shared participation from commander squads.

Otherwise, it’s up to the scout to cap camps, take sentries, move around.

It’s not hard to keep participation up.

I agree it's not hard to keep participation up, it's not what this is about. What I want is more people to scout, and to incentivize that particular activity autonomously. Reward is one of the simplest and most effective forms of incentive there is if you want something done.

If there are better ideas I'll take em'.

So, beyond a commander feeling you are very useful and allotting a squad spot for shared participation...

Let’s say you can’t get a spot, and can’t flip camps or sentries etc.

How will the game define you are actually scouting and not just using map or team chat?

Does every team chat troll running solo get credit?

Or if we count time in a tower, just just sitting in a tower or keep count?

Combine the two? Well, the wonderful server troll sits in a keep and trills from there?

I am not trying to be a young cat here but there isn’t a way that makes sense to credit a ‘scout’ unless that scout’s information is valuable enough to a commander to earn a shared participation spot.

Tying rewards to map-chat wouldn't work. There's no way they'll code that in, and even if they did I don't know if they could create a system smart enough to separate useless and useful information. It's not a route I would take.

Eh, yeah. I admit, my suggestion leaves too much faith in the playerbase and is easily susceptible to trolling. The way I figured it'd work is simply running between points on the map to see if they're alright, and it also banked on people using their common-sense and using map-chat or team-chat when appropriate, and not just spam it with useless gibberish.

I guess they could go the Battlefield route and allow players to "Spot" in the same way a T3 tower with a radar going does, just on a much smaller scale, with the caveat that you have to be within a certain distance of the base you are spotting for so you can't just run around and tag the world. You could be able to highlight several dots at once and allow people to kind of see how many are actually attacking, which will hopefully prevent false reports on attacking numbers to an extent.

If someone refuses to use the feature, it would be time to consider that maybe it's within the bounds for entertaining the notion that it's about time to start worrying.

[Etterwyn.5263]

@"GDchiaScrub.3241" said:Given the recent update, then it's reasonable to assume that the "scouting" meta has changed. Place a marking trap, and venture out more in a larger area. Like flipping a nearby camp or bloodlust node or mercenaries. Also don't we gain things by walking yaks? Isn't that similar to what the OP mentions?

When I first ventured into BL from EotM I tried escorting a couple times. My god what drudgery. I can see why almost no one does it. Maybe if the bubble also gave the dolyak superspeed or something it wouldn't feel so soul-absorbing.

Hunting and killing them is infinitely more fun. B)

[gitflap.9031]

Been scouting for over 6 years because I enjoy it. Rewards now are huge in comparison. I don't think incentivisation is required because most players aren't interested and you can always get more zerging no matter what. Only thing I think might work, getting players to scout, is another tournament.

[Odinens.5920]

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@"Ayrilana.1396" said:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Commander#Shared_participation

Good in theory, in practice commanders kick anyone that's not running meta zerg spec and stays on tag.

Maybe, but a GOOD commander will put non-meta roam-spec-classes in the pic team group, AND assign the ones actually scouting participation.

[HazyDaisy.4107]

@Etterwyn.5263 said:

@"GDchiaScrub.3241" said:Given the recent update, then it's reasonable to assume that the "scouting" meta has changed. Place a marking trap, and venture out more in a larger area. Like flipping a nearby camp or bloodlust node or mercenaries. Also don't we gain things by walking yaks? Isn't that similar to what the OP mentions?

When I first ventured into BL from EotM I tried escorting a couple times. My god what drudgery. I can see why almost no one does it. Maybe if the bubble also gave the dolyak superspeed or something it wouldn't feel so soul-absorbing.

Hunting and killing them is infinitely more fun. B)

Not that I need the chieve, but I've found staff Tempest to be the best yak-scorter when a keep needs the supply.

AA from air 4, lighting fields from Air 5 and Lighting overload coupled with many blast utilities available from both core and Tempest utilities or staff skills as well and superspeed from Eye of the Storm really pack on speed when timed appropriatly. Water overload, water fields and Earth overload or protection in a pinch for yak health. In additon to CCs if required.

Maybe the yak doesn't make it anyway and maybe you die in the process, but so far it's given a job to my defunct Tempest.