What if you made it so that the support got gold when a sightstone ward times out, or gets replaced after a certain portion of it's duration?
Nothing significant, but maybe like 20 gold, as a means to both tell the player a ward has timed out, as well as get support players (generally off role support players) to better associate ward coverage with gold income.
Elite4Runner3 votesFirst of all, it is not only the supports responsibility to ward, so if you are blaming supports because you don't have enough vision, you can stop right there. Use your trinkets and buy a pink ward. Hell, if you have to get your own sightstone. It's better to spend your own gold and save yourself from dying than to place the blame on the support.
Second, people should really not need any form of encouragement to ward. Being ganked constantly because you are playing up to far without vision should (and I'm emphasizing should) help to press that lesson home. Unfortunately some people are slow learners.
And lastly, and most sadly, this would really just encourage people to place wards in base and let them time out for the free gold.
deadlychuck1 votesI never claimed it was only the support's job to ward. I simply said that supports are often the ones who are encouraged to purchase sightstones. Though the only incentive is not very straight forward.
I thought i made it pretty clear that this is not so much about encouragement as it is association, which is why the actual gold return is so low. Most people associate ward coverage with a vague benefit of information, as opposed to the physical benefit, gold advantage, which that information provides. Basically the idea is that by giving a more immediate and identifiable apparent benefit, they will see success and be more likely to associate the success with the act of warding because they feel they are seeing the gold benefits of warding.
As far as people placing wards in base to get free gold... that was the point of the statement "Nothing significant, but maybe like 20 gold", that was an estimate, but remember this gold would only apply to sightstone items. So if i were to actually calculate the amount of gold which would be needed to make it insignificant...
A base sightstone costs 800 gold. A normal ward lasts 2.5 minutes. Max of 3 wards. (These are done assuming all 3 are placed for gold gain and none of the 3 are being used for lane vision via trinket)
f(x) = (800/x)/3 * 2.5min = break even; where x is gold gained per expired ward
f(10) = ~67 miutes f(15) = ~45 minutes f(20) = ~35 minutes
This equation factors in the stat cost of the health on a sightstone, but i'll leave most of those calculations to you. HP value is 2.67/pt.
Equation: f(x) = ((800 - 150*2.67)/x)/3 * 2.5min = break even; where x is gold gained per expired ward
f(15) = 36.315
Maximum Morde1 votesI still wouldn't. I don't like spoilers.
Plus, I'd just drop 3 on the platform every time I backed.
deadlychuck1 votesI mean if the gold is set to 15 gold per timed out ward, you'd take 30 minutes to get a gold return, even factoring in the cost of the HP on the item.
If you were to set the gold to 10g/ward, that'd be the same rate as the 2g/10sec on 
given ideal conditions. Except it cost significantly more.
It's like giving someone a placebo, which is instructed to be taken with food, in order to help their anorexia. They might attribute the changes to the pill, but really it's just the other things that are done parallel to the placebo which are causing a significant benefit.