Scouting without participation has become useless, arrowcarts arre useless, too.

[gohliz.9283]

Without participation scouting after 10 minutes gives no rewards from tracks, so many ppl don't do it anymore although they liked to. Also capping camps over longer time is a big loss in rewards. Why? Scouting is an important part of the game. Also weaker partys, who might benefit from it the most, get punished. That is not making the game even. If you have more ppl your advantage is even increased.

 

Same with arrowcarts, they are now so useless, you might as well take them from the game, and to stop bigger parties with less ppl has become impossible

[Ronan.9518]

That's what the Shared participation commanders can give to a few squad members was intended for.

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

[Clownmug.8357]

What is the definition of scouting in this case? Seems weird that whatever it is takes 10 minutes and doesn't earn any wxp during that time.

[Gorani.7205]

> @"Clownmug.8357" said:

> What is the definition of scouting in this case? Seems weird that whatever it is takes 10 minutes and doesn't earn any wxp during that time.

 

The classic "tower warden", who refreshes siege and is the first one to defend a tower suffers from this, because he is on a lookout inside a tower. I have to admit though that this guy could jump out from time to time and re-cap a sentry or re-flip a camp + repair a wall without jeopardizing a lot of his scouting potential of that specific tower.

 

> @"Ronan.9518" said:

> That's what the Shared participation commanders can give to a few squad members was intended for.

> https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Commander

 

That still requires a Commander to share participation. Perhaps the OP doesn't have a Commander to get the shared participation from.

[XenesisII.1540]

Scouting also involves retaking stuff, you get participation for that, not just standing around waiting to report red dots.

 

[Strider Pj.2193]

In today’s game, with watchtower and other defensive assists, people should easily be able to ‘scout’ their third. Especially with mounts.

 

Killing yaks, sentries etc should be able to assist in keeping Participation up.

 

And, if someone is that valuable of a scout, I am sure one (or the only) commander would give a participation slot.

 

Camps will likely never be defended by a Zerg, unless the keep is t-2 at 60 yaks, so flipping them back is easily accomplished by scouts worth their salt.

 

 

But just sitting in a tower? That should have died 3 years ago.

[LetoII.3782]

I did nothing and received nothing

[Bassdeff.1895]

Just escort a couple yaks, you get to scout the camp, the tower, and the keep all the while earning participation. Doesn't take long when you give them speed boosts.

[sneakytails.5629]

Escorting yaks was nerfed due to commanders complaining about it, same thing with arrow carts. Now throw in weaker walls, and the soon to be slower Warclaw and the Zerg crybabies have basically won.

 

Decay happens pretty fast, and when you are scouting you are doing a ton of moving around and keeping track of enemies, on DBL its hard to keep participation up sometimes.

 

Scouting has never been respected, and zergs want it that way along with all small-scale play. They want the rules to favor only them.

 

They are getting their wish.

 

 

[Sinfullysweet.4517]

It’s a hit and a miss as a scouter. Sometimes I am gifted with that blessed participation points, some forget I exist.

[Sinfullysweet.4517]

> @"Gorani.7205" said:

> > @"Clownmug.8357" said:

> > What is the definition of scouting in this case? Seems weird that whatever it is takes 10 minutes and doesn't earn any wxp during that time.

>

> The classic "tower warden", who refreshes siege and is the first one to defend a tower suffers from this, because he is on a lookout inside a tower. I have to admit though that this guy could jump out from time to time and re-cap a sentry or re-flip a camp + repair a wall without jeopardizing a lot of his scouting potential of that specific tower.

>

> > @"Ronan.9518" said:

> > That's what the Shared participation commanders can give to a few squad members was intended for.

> > https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Commander

>

> That still requires a Commander to share participation. Perhaps the OP doesn't have a Commander to get the shared participation from.

 

Yes. THIS! I put out so much siege for defense, then run yaks, go tap an enemy’s keep, constantly watching for zergs to give our commander a heads up if they can take it or not.

[L A T I O N.8923]

1. Drop a trap to the 'sneak route' and you be good

2. Profit

[Dawdler.8521]

> @"LetoII.3782" said:

> I did nothing and received nothing

Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

 

Here's the thing - for scouting to be rewarding, it requires responses. It requires **content created by players**. Because players are the only ones that can respond to scouts. Not NPCs and definetly not Anet. This means your commanders and the others on the border.

 

I've seen so many times when you literally give 3 minutes warning to a measly 2-4 inc to a camp, you delay them, you fight them, you warn again... no one is coming. No one is saying a word. As you fail to defend the camp, you run to the next enemy camp with a sigh... and see 10 of your "allies" standing there AFK waiting for a 1 minute timer.

 

And then there are moments when you call out 30 on bay, the commander on the border does a 180, comes to defend and say "thanks for the call out". That makes it more worth it.

 

TL;DR players are the problem, fix retards please.

[ArchonWing.9480]

> @"LetoII.3782" said:

> I did nothing and received nothing

 

We can't have that in Guild Wars 2. Most of the player base prides themselves on being useless, so that would hurt their feelings.

 

As for the topic itself, hugging a tower and occasionally peering outside is not scouting. Consider the nodes a consolation prize.

[Shroud.2307]

> @"XenesisII.1540" said:

> Scouting also involves retaking stuff, you get participation for that, not just standing around waiting to report red dots.

>

 

> @"LetoII.3782" said:

> I did nothing and received nothing

 

^

 

Sure seems like a lot of people love sitting in towers on Arrow Carts, Ballistas or Trebuchets all day despite the apparent lack of rewards. Can't seem to pass a tower or cap a Sentry without being shot from afar with some form of siege.

 

Scouting has never been about sitting AFK in towers all day. I used to love doing it once upon a time, pre automatic upgrades, and it was a very busy hobby. You're constantly on the move recapping/defending Supply Camps, escorting Dolyaks, building/refreshing siege, relaying info to chat, delaying attackers, repairing damaged structures, killing or capturing Mercenary Camps, etc. Or if you want to be more aggressive, you can also branch out to capturing the other sides supply camps and Sentrys as well as occasionally throwing a Catapult or Ram down to see if you can snipe a paper tower.

[Yasai.3549]

Hiding in towers isn't scouting.

 

Now with mounts, players can instead patrol areas of interest.

 

It literally takes seconds to ride from each way point out at each far side of the map provided it's controlled.

 

And from there, yu could take peeks into uncontrolled territory to seek out the enemy zerg and report back, all under a minute ane back at yur favourite tower before tea time.

 

And while yur out, just flip a sentry or something.

 

There's this loser on my server which sits in Bluebriar for hours on end doing nothing.

 

He only reports on Bay and Bluebriar and nothing else.

 

 

[Strider Pj.2193]

> @"Yasai.3549" said:

> Hiding in towers isn't scouting.

>

> Now with mounts, players can instead patrol areas of interest.

>

> It literally takes seconds to ride from each way point out at each far side of the map provided it's controlled.

>

> And from there, yu could take peeks into uncontrolled territory to seek out the enemy zerg and report back, all under a minute ane back at yur favourite tower before tea time.

>

> And while yur out, just flip a sentry or something.

>

> There's this loser on my server which sits in Bluebriar for hours on end doing nothing.

>

> He only reports on Bay and Bluebriar and nothing else.

>

>

 

It could be he doesn’t care about participation nor pips. And likely isn’t in here complaining about it like the OP.

 

If someone wants to do it, I’m fine with it. Just don’t complain that you don’t get WxP or Pips or pretty much any reward .,,

[Dinas Dragonbane.2978]

> @"Ronan.9518" said:

> That's what the Shared participation commanders can give to a few squad members was intended for.

> https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Commander

 

The majority of commanders do not use this because they want another person to stack on the tag, not somebody else that could still be a scout in map chat. Even the zergs that are looking for fights do not semd out scouts to find these fights, they just use the map and anything flagged or not their color.

[Dinas Dragonbane.2978]

Regarding arrowcarts they are fairly useless in the times you need them the most-holding off a large enemy force to buy time, like this thread explains. More than one AC is pointless based off of ac damage rules, and one is not enough because standard groups have solid healing to handle it.

 

Best way to buy time is disablers but that is another tread entirely.

[Bassdeff.1895]

> @"Dinas Dragonbane.2978" said:

> Regarding arrowcarts they are fairly useless in the times you need them the most-holding off a large enemy force to buy time, like this thread explains. More than one AC is pointless based off of ac damage rules, and one is not enough because standard groups have solid healing to handle it.

>

> Best way to buy time is disablers but that is another tread entirely.

 

They aren't so bad once you've leveled up the AC mastery and siege might mastery. They are good at keep pressure on their healers and people trying to res downed players but don't expect to break up the zerg at your door with them. What they do excel at is tagging enemy players for sweet sweet loot.

 

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

scouting? that's the only thing where "is dead" really suits. people either ignore reports, or cannot make it in time anyways, or don't care about the specific settlement (which is sometimes valid, since defending spawntowers is often barely possible - you'd need a squad of 10 people that's always ready to jump to do this effectively) ... and even keeps get "stolen" because either nobody scouts, or after reports nobody comes for 10-15minutes. or, if a zerg comes, nobody spends his supp to repair the walls.

 

overall, defending objectives as such alone is worthless. which leads to the next point, winning gives no real rewards (winning your matchup pointwise), therefore objectives (keep/tower/camp) feel often worthless, and this leads to scouts barely existing anymore.

 

even t1 servers only defend stuff if there's no fights around or no comm to walk past, and even then there's way too many afk pipfarmers across the maps. or some groups of 10-15 people (which is good numbers and enough to strike back many attacks) just skirmishing with other roamergroups instead of acutally helping real threatened objectives.

 

then again, many "scout" reports are quite flawed, because people type faster than they think. starts at "blob at XYZ" when its 10 people, the bigger flaw is yet that there comes not call but only a tagging of the settlement, without any info. if you ask for wall% or numbers, people often even get angry... while this unprecise reports are just bad and unproductive, because either too few or too many people come to help the linked location. leading to 40 people jumping 10 attackers, or 6 people watching 30 at catapulting, without much ability to react.

 

 

[ArchonWing.9480]

"They're at lord's room halp. "

 

Or they spam EWP when inner hasn't even been touched.

 

Or there's only 2 attackers.

 

All I can say is read this story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Who_Cried_Wolf

[Celsith.2753]

> @"Dawdler.8521" said:

> > @"LetoII.3782" said:

> > I did nothing and received nothing

> Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

>

> Here's the thing - for scouting to be rewarding, it requires responses. It requires **content created by players**. Because players are the only ones that can respond to scouts. Not NPCs and definetly not Anet. This means your commanders and the others on the border.

>

> I've seen so many times when you literally give 3 minutes warning to a measly 2-4 inc to a camp, you delay them, you fight them, you warn again... no one is coming. No one is saying a word. As you fail to defend the camp, you run to the next enemy camp with a sigh... and see 10 of your "allies" standing there AFK waiting for a 1 minute timer.

>

> And then there are moments when you call out 30 on bay, the commander on the border does a 180, comes to defend and say "thanks for the call out". That makes it more worth it.

>

> TL;DR players are the problem, fix kitten please.

 

Reeeee yourself.

 

I scout... a lot. I don't have any problem keeping participation at max. With watchtowers, carefully placed stealth traps, being aware of what just flipped and where the enemy was last reported, you barely need to spend any time sitting alt tabbed in the tower watching netflix. Scouting, especially now with all the tactics, enemy reveal, tricks and traps, is not just about sitting at one place doing absolutely nothing other than listen for that ram noise while you are alt tabbed. Do nothing, get nothing.

 

Probably the same people who link an ewp without calling it first and give no other information. Class A scouts.

 

 

[Celsith.2753]

> @"Dinas Dragonbane.2978" said:

> > @"Ronan.9518" said:

> > That's what the Shared participation commanders can give to a few squad members was intended for.

> > https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Commander

>

> The majority of commanders do not use this because they want another person to stack on the tag, not somebody else that could still be a scout in map chat. Even the zergs that are looking for fights do not semd out scouts to find these fights, they just use the map and anything flagged or not their color.

 

Tell them you are a ranger, they'll be more than happy to have you off tag scouting instead of at the fight ;)

[Justine.6351]

> @"Dawdler.8521" said:

> > @"LetoII.3782" said:

> > I did nothing and received nothing

> Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

>

> Here's the thing - for scouting to be rewarding, it requires responses. It requires **content created by players**. Because players are the only ones that can respond to scouts. Not NPCs and definetly not Anet. This means your commanders and the others on the border.

>

> I've seen so many times when you literally give 3 minutes warning to a measly 2-4 inc to a camp, you delay them, you fight them, you warn again... no one is coming. No one is saying a word. As you fail to defend the camp, you run to the next enemy camp with a sigh... and see 10 of your "allies" standing there AFK waiting for a 1 minute timer.

>

> And then there are moments when you call out 30 on bay, the commander on the border does a 180, comes to defend and say "thanks for the call out". That makes it more worth it.

>

> TL;DR players are the problem, fix kitten please.

 

I can confirm people waiting on timers as an enemy roamer. I check the RI on my camp and then I see yak icons moving...yep something to kill rofl.