Suggestions to revitalize the roaming scene

[Mik.3689]

Recently, I have decided to invest some hours into WvW roaming.

Although I know that roaming isn't the main focus of the devs in charge of WvW, it has a lot of potential to bring enjoyment, as it provides content for players that want to PvP but does not want to deal with the AFKs, bots, and toxicity of Ranked SoloQ. Unfortunately, the roaming scene is pretty bad right now, so I have brainstormed some suggestions that could help revitalize the roaming scene.

Keep in mind that I only have a few hours of experience roaming, primarily on Thief, Necro, and Rev, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

 

Lets allow players that want to roam mark themselves as a "Roamer."

As a "Roamer," you cannot use the Warclaw and you can see everyone else marked as a roamer. This is to help encourage people to actually fight. Fights often just end before they even start because of the Warclaw, as most people are too scared to dismount. Being able to see all roamers on the map, friend or enemy, will allow you to know where small-scale fights are happening. This will allow roamers to immediately go towards areas of conflict instead of just aimlessly wandering around.

 

People marked as a "Roamer" can only join parties of up to 5 people. 

I do feel that group roaming has great potential to create bonds/friendships within the game (which is kind of the point of playing an MMO).

Allowing group roaming would not only help encourage communication, but it would also allow skilled solo roamers to get into the tense 1v5 "montage worthy" situations very often.

However, roamers cannot receive healing, boons, or buffs from allies. This is to prevent near immortal combos such as "Tempest/Reaper," or "Scrapper(DPS)/Scrapper(Heals)"

 

Give better rewards to Roamers.

Well, I think WvW needs better rewards in general, but WvW roaming is the least rewarding activity in the game in terms of in-game income. Solo roamers should get bags with much better loot than a zergling, as winning a 1v1 or 1vX is much more difficult than tagging a bunch of people in a zerg. Roamers in a party should also get better rewards than zerglings, but not as lucrative as a solo roamer.

 

I believe that these suggestions could help the roaming scene in WvW very immensely, although I doubt that Anet would even consider helping the roaming scene at all. 

 

 

 

[Justine.6351]

An experienced roamer already knows where the other roamers are.

 

No magical status effect can replicate good smallscale pvp which starts with builds not just facetanking marshmallow damage.

[Dawdler.8521]

Yeah little about OP makes sense. Roamers dont need that. The entire point is being proactive as much as you can, not reactive. Being mobile. A fast interceptor, not a sluggish fighter. Having map awareness and knowing where and when the enemies will be because thats where you would be if you where the enemy. If you're not at an objective before the enemy is, you're doing it wrong.

 

Its the main failure of most roamers I see.

Edited August 21, 2021 by Dawdler.8521

[Pyraxy.1902]

23 hours ago, Mik.3689 said:

However, roamers cannot receive healing, boons, or buffs from allies. This is to prevent near immortal combos such as "Tempest/Reaper," or "Scrapper(DPS)/Scrapper(Heals)"

 

 

 

 

Wait a second you don't want to improve the roaming scene you're just deflecting for thief buffs.

 

The point of roaming is to coordinate together with builds to have answers for what different situations call for.

[gloflop.3510]

We need a better class balance from the roaming perspective. That would bring the roaming scene a bit back. Modifying the warclaw (no evade on skill 4) could be another option. Nothing big to program is needed.

 

Roaming and PvP differ. It starts with the builds but more importantly with the way how the fights occur.

[subversiontwo.7501]

I'm going to chime in with alot of the other people who have already replied.

 

Roaming much like anything else benefits from restoring the core mechanics of the mode. If the things we can do in WvW comes closer together and people start caring again then roaming's slice of the pie will also benefit (eg., the target pool will grow) and make it more fun or appealing. The mode is an eco-system after all. That may sound a little abstract so let me put it very crudely (with the disclaimer that there is obviously alot more to it than this): The mode as it is now is very polarized between a scale close to 1 and one close to 50. There is relatively little inbetween (yes, I know guilds raid).

 

If the developers can succeed in restoring alot of the core design and balance then there will also be a more even distribution between scales of 1-3-5-10-15-25-40 and 50, for example. That's a much better environment for roaming, finding more 1-5vX combinations (mediated through other factors like experience, ability and the like). That's more targets and more reason for people to go out and do other things that translate into more content for sheer roaming.

 

The balance of classes sits in a similar place. It is very important for roaming and small scale overall suffers a worse balance than large scale does now. However, I'd like to think that it is an iteration problem more than anything else. Alot of people in roaming raves about the "pre february" (25, 2020) balance. However, I still stand by what I've said in the past about it. I think that patch needed to come and alot of the larger goals in it are still good. Large scale needed to take precedence over small scale then, stats and pools needed to matter more relative heals and strikes etc. Even the "elite specs should have trade offs" approach was good direction.

 

Again, the issue with small-scale balance is rather tied to the lack of iteration so all these things have been left unfinished and uneven. Only some classes felt the trade-off changes. Only some abilities/classes have felt the leaning out of buttons (eg., some stun/knockdown or mobility skills sits in some very weird first test phase with placeholder figures like 9 damage, while other abilities have been left intact with mobility, debuffing, buffing and damage components all rolled into one). That doesn't mean it wasn't a good idea to lean out buttons. It needed to be done because it had crept up to quite ridiculous levels of buttons doing too many things at once. It is just unfinished and has been applied very unevenly. The same goes for the balance of power versus conditions or the class-class balance over conditions.

 

There are also a bunch of very punishing and "unfun" mechanics that have been left to fester (eg., changing stuns from just being something you could overpower counterplay with was good, but we have similar issues with things like immobilisation builds that have just been left to fester even though they essentially are played with the same approach of just overflooding counters with control and the control being far too powerful and decisive for how accessible it is).

 

Edited August 22, 2021 by subversiontwo.7501

[Svarty.8019]

I get the impression that they abandoned all semblance of balance when they introduced The Breakbar (HoT). The competitive modes got buried under an avalanche of CC abilities and we've never really recovered from it.

Edited August 22, 2021 by Svarty.8019

[Gwaihir.1745]

50 minutes ago, subversiontwo.7501 said:

However, I'd like to think that it is an iteration problem more than anything else. Alot of people in roaming raves about the "pre february" (25, 2020) balance.

 

There is very little defense for some of the hardest skills in the game to land doing no damage, as well as ridiculous long cooldown times on proc traits that made them useless. Take banish on guard hammer 4, among the hardest skills to land in the game is now utterly useless to the class. It was a skill that was designed to supplement the hammers damage, but now it just knocks your opponent away and without the heavy hit attached to banish you basically gave your opponent a free out. They should have reviewed these skills on a case by case basis not just high orbit nuked cc skills. 

[Za Shaloc.3908]

Honestly I really dislike these ideas, and I spend more time roaming than anything else. There is no need to attempt to artificially separate roamers from the rest of the game mode. Roaming is such a loose and grey-area term anyway. I agree with what a lot of what  @subversiontwo.7501 said and think that roaming is suffering moreso because of the bigger picture and grand scheme of issues that affect WvW. That, combined with a lack of initiative from "roamers" to actually make content happen. You can't expect much content when you run the SWC-SC-SEC racetrack over and over again without providing reason for the enemy to come. I think it's definitely a complicated issue, but I don't think your ideas would provide any benefit to the health of the roaming playstyle.

[Hot Boy.7138]

I really like your ideas OP. It would definitely bring me back to WvW

[primatos.5413]

Roaming has become mostly a bunch of clowns with cheesy nearly undestroyable builds/gear so the can run from evereything if they want ... so .. nvm

 

Edited August 22, 2021 by primatos.5413

[displayname.8315]

7 hours ago, Za Shaloc.3908 said:

Honestly I really dislike these ideas, and I spend more time roaming than anything else. There is no need to attempt to artificially separate roamers from the rest of the game mode. Roaming is such a loose and grey-area term anyway. I agree with what a lot of what  @subversiontwo.7501 said and think that roaming is suffering moreso because of the bigger picture and grand scheme of issues that affect WvW. That, combined with a lack of initiative from "roamers" to actually make content happen. You can't expect much content when you run the SWC-SC-SEC racetrack over and over again without providing reason for the enemy to come. I think it's definitely a complicated issue, but I don't think your ideas would provide any benefit to the health of the roaming playstyle.

^     ^

 

A true roamer posts you guys should listen.

 

Dont just wait for singles you can gank and ignore call outs because they are "zerg" territory.  When you finally learn to wuv it's all on the table.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

I thought roaming declined because every time you try to fight a player there's suddenly five more players, and then roamers started to build for this so we ended up with troll builds instead of dueling builds.

 

Sure, I'll 1v1 you, but we both know your kit is set up so you can run away like the Gingerbread Man. 😛

Edited August 22, 2021 by Hannelore.8153

[displayname.8315]

9 minutes ago, Hannelore.8153 said:

I thought roaming declined because every time you try to fight a player there's suddenly five more players, and then roamers started to build for this so we ended up with troll builds instead of dueling builds.

 

Sure, I'll 1v1 you, but we both know your kit is set up so you can run away like the Gingerbread Man. 😛

How can they hold a ring or kill a catapult when they run away?  If your looking for 1v1 duelists just stand still all day outside east SMC.  That's how it's done in NA most times.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

9 minutes ago, displayname.8315 said:

How can they hold a ring or kill a catapult when they run away?  If your looking for 1v1 duelists just stand still all day outside east SMC.  That's how it's done in NA most times.

This thread is literally about roaming, not objectives or siege. The only objectives roamers tend to be able to capture solo is camps, rarely a tower if its extremely dead.

Edited August 22, 2021 by Hannelore.8153

[hobotnicax.7918]

Turn EOTM into a solo, squad of 3 and 5 battleroyale map, roaming is great again, GW2 turns into a esport game (it's what they pushed for so hard back in the day). Everyone wins.

[displayname.8315]

35 minutes ago, Hannelore.8153 said:

This thread is literally about roaming, not objectives or siege. The only objectives roamers tend to be able to capture solo is camps, rarely a tower if its extremely dead.

Maybe the roamers on your server.  Sure they probably don't care about a tower as much as the enemy roamers it brings.

 

If your good you'll win the fight and the tower.  If a blob comes and you tunnel vision that's on you.

[Shroud.2307]

Roaming used to mean; 
* Responding to scouts to defend objectives
* Relaying information to chat or directly to Commanders
* Being as annoying as possible to the enemy by tying up as many players as you could manage

And various other things like;  
* Destroying any reachable siege in objectives
* Ensuring Supply Camps never upgrade
* Damaging or opening Towers/Keeps when possible

Due to; automatic upgrades, Mounts, Gliding, the potential of various Elite Specs, general stat power creep, etc., roaming now basically means two things,
chasing clout, and killing zerglings.

While not entirely the fault of the players, it is still very much on the community for fostering this attitude of roaming means fighting. There is so much more to the activity that people refuse to engage in, and as a result the community becomes further divided.
Scouts that don't want to leave objectives because they only care about defense, and roamers that hate anyone behind a wall.

Start participating in other roles and it'll stop breeding people who ruin what you love to do.

I started this game and WvW 8 years ago, and I began WvW exclusively as a roamer. Everything I used to do then I still do now, (albeit often with less success due to mechanics that reward numbers over strategy. But that's a discussion for another topic...) and the only thing that makes me feel like it has worsened are the people that take their goals to the extremes; defending and killing.
Sitting inside objectives all day and refusing to fight without numbers or siege, or being completely obnoxious by playing things that ensure your chances of losing are at their absolute lowest.
It's weird because I can draw a lot of parallels between those...

[subversiontwo.7501]

3 hours ago, Hannelore.8153 said:

I thought roaming declined because every time you try to fight a player there's suddenly five more players, and then roamers started to build for this so we ended up with troll builds instead of dueling builds.

You're not wrong but that is where balance comes in, right? Balance can affect where builds end up. Not to say that roaming just have to be duelling but balance can certainly affect what makes troll builds troll.

2 hours ago, Shroud.2307 said:

Roaming used to mean;
And various other things like; 

 

3 hours ago, Hannelore.8153 said:

This thread is literally about roaming, not objectives or siege. The only objectives roamers tend to be able to capture solo is camps, rarely a tower if its extremely dead.

Quote

 @displayname.8315 said: Maybe the roamers on your server.  Sure they probably don't care about a tower as much as the enemy roamers it brings.

 

If your good you'll win the fight and the tower.  If a blob comes and you tunnel vision that's on you.

Something I've learnt over the years is that people often have a combination of strong and differing oppinions of what something is. The definition of roaming stands out among such things. Personally, I prefer to keep is as close to the word as possible or at least base my perspective and go from there. Roaming in that sense is just moving around across the map looking for opportunities to fight. That is distinguished from raiding which implies that you use the objectives to force fights. Then of course we all know that people tend to refer to smaller scale as roaming and mid scale as raiding (ie., guild raiding) but that is more so the result of the aforementioned. Many times even larger groups just "roam" or "duel" and don't shake to coconut trees to see what falls out.

 

Anyway, my point being this, roaming can be used rather broadly and can encompass the things you mention (that lines up with what I said before about content leading to content), but once you go into specifics and say that roaming is this, this and this then I think you begin to wander off the mark. At the end of the day, scouting is scouting, clouding is clouding, havoc is havoc and roaming is roaming. It is just that they are content for content (eg., a scout can be a roaming target, a clouder can be roaming target or havoc can be roaming targets, etc.).

 

They are all descriptions of something you do. It is fair to talk about them as part of the same eco system but when people become too exclusive with it, we end up with these situations of some people suggesting that roaming is 5 but cannot be 10, others suggest it is 1 but cannot be 5 or that roaming is just duels etc. That's why I like to keep it as close to the root as possible and look at it from that perspective of it being navigating maps, looking for fights and not necessarily shaking the coconut trees (even if you obviously can take/tag objectives to entice fights). It can be more in a larger perspective but it can't really exclude that in a smaller perspective. It can't be just duels or just scouting, ignoring the root definition of "roaming" (moving around, looking for fights; which you do not necessarily do if you just duel, cloud, havoc or scout).

 

Edit. Just to underline: I do agree with the general message of @Shroud.2307 post though. Yes, people should appreciate all the other things people do more because, again, content leads to content.

 

Edited August 22, 2021 by subversiontwo.7501

[kash.9213]

WvW is just a large match with time constraints so a blob or two are probably going to form and dredge most of the action across a map towards itself. The maps aren't open or lived in so WvW roaming from the opposite perspective of a roamer can look like loosely defined dueling which a lot of people aren't about, there's not much of an open world survival aspect to it that might otherwise entice more people. 

[Shroud.2307]

44 minutes ago, subversiontwo.7501 said:

Something I've learnt over the years is that people often have a combination of strong and differing oppinions of what something is. The definition of roaming stands out among such things. Personally, I prefer to keep is as close to the word as possible or at least base my perspective and go from there. Roaming in that sense is just moving around across the map looking for opportunities to fight. That is distinguished from raiding which implies that you use the objectives to force fights. Then of course we all know that people tend to refer to smaller scale as roaming and mid scale as raiding (ie., guild raiding) but that is more so the result of the aforementioned. Many times even larger groups just "roam" or "duel" and don't shake to coconut trees to see what falls out.

 

Anyway, my point being this, roaming can be used rather broadly and can encompass the things you mention (that lines up with what I said before about content leading to content), but once you go into specifics and say that roaming is this, this and this then I think you begin to wander off the mark. At the end of the day, scouting is scouting, clouding is clouding, havoc is havoc and roaming is roaming. It is just that they are content for content (eg., a scout can be a roaming target, a clouder can be roaming target or havoc can be roaming targets, etc.).

 

They are all descriptions of something you do. It is fair to talk about them as part of the same eco system but when people become too exclusive with it, we end up with these situations of some people suggesting that roaming is 5 but cannot be 10, others suggest it is 1 but cannot be 5 or that roaming is just duels etc. That's why I like to keep it as close to the root as possible and look at it from the perspective of it being navigating maps, looking for fights and not necessarily shaking the coconut trees (even if you obviously can take/tag objectives to entice fights). It can be more in a larger perspective but it can't really exclude that in a smaller perspective. It can't be just duels or just scouting, ignoring the root definition of "roaming" (moving around, looking for fights; which you do not necessarily do if you just duel, cloud, havoc or scout).

 

Maybe a poor choice of words on my part, but what I meant is that roaming has become much less complex and has created a stronger divide in player habit.

I'm not trying to say that roaming equals X, I'm saying the less people choose to do as a roamer the more it exacerbates the problem of a lack of content. 
Or, what ever roaming means to you is what it means to you. The more basic you make it the less content there is to enjoy.

Edited August 22, 2021 by Shroud.2307

[Rod.6581]

On 8/21/2021 at 2:34 AM, Mik.3689 said:

Keep in mind that I only have a few hours of experience roaming

 

 

 

Play more than revisit your ideas.