Why is roaming dead? what happened?

[Burial.1958]

On 10/28/2021 at 7:07 PM, Khenzy.9348 said:

Two things killed the roaming scene.

1-Thief.

2-Stealth.

 

Thief has been the undisputed king of roaming for 9 years and is not going to change for the forseeable future. Which ties in well with my next point, stealth. Stealth and the spammable nature it has with the Thief profession is absurdly broken and with a clear lack of effective, rewarding and enjoyable counterplay. It's a mess of a combo that frustrates players that want to try all other professions, and when they do, they end up fighting Thieves that have constant blind spam, endless disengage, endless sustain through stealth, constant detarget through stealth, constant invisibility with incredible and mostly unpredictable burst damage, no other class can compete with this in roaming unless you have something niche or broken your self: SIck 'Em+Wolf Stance one shot combo, or Holo/Scrapper granade spam; those broken or niche cases get nerfed eventually so Thief is always left alone as the king, so as to nerf Thief you'd have to redesign how stealth works with them or the entire profession, which is not going to happen, ever.

 

In time, those other players eventually quit or start playing Thief themselves. Then you have this mess of Thieves vs Thieves fighting eachother endlessly either unable to kill themselves or disengaging at will which frustrates all parts involved, so they end up quitting too. That's it.

 

Lol and thats why every dedicated roaming group runs Engis today. It does have everything: Stealth, reveal, Barrier, Blocks, Heal, invul ,speed, secure stomp, group support and of top of that decent to high dmg output. But sure thief is OP and killed roaming.

Edited November 1, 2021 by Grebcol.5984

[Za Shaloc.3908]

Pretty clear based on the posts here that everyone has different opinions. For me, the single biggest factor that "killed" roaming for me was the Warclaw. When solo roaming, there is nothing more frustrating to me than juking and outrunning people but still being kept in combat by that one person on a Warclaw who lanced me, and then to be caught up to by the other people who OOC and Warclaw back up despite having no build investment into mobility.

 

Not trying to make a campaign to remove it because clearly that will never happen, but them introducing Warclaw was the one change since my WvW career that has turned me off the most to roaming. At this point roaming can be fun still but it is generally not worth it if you are playing solo. The amount of time actually searching for good fights is much higher than actually getting good fights. Unless you wanna play omegacheese builds to be able to handle outnumbering more easily, which is only fun for so long.

[ASP.8093]

"Groups killed roaming." "Zergs killed roaming." "Thieves killed roaming." "Warclaw killed roaming."

At the center of this Venn diagram is a person who waypoints to citadel, runs directly to the nearest contested camp, dies to a single quick burst, and logs off for the day. Their dodge button is covered in cobwebs.

Edited November 1, 2021 by ASP.8093
forgot the warclaw, lol

[Xenesis.6389]

19 minutes ago, Za Shaloc.3908 said:

Pretty clear based on the posts here that everyone has different opinions. For me, the single biggest factor that "killed" roaming for me was the Warclaw.

 

Eh roaming was already on the decline before warclaws came in. The mobile classes hate it because suddenly they were missing free gank meals. Everyone else gets to pick their fights now.

 

Quote

When solo roaming, there is nothing more frustrating to me than juking and outrunning people but still being kept in combat by that one person on a Warclaw who lanced me, and then to be caught up to by the other people who OOC and Warclaw back up despite having no build investment into mobility.

 

Pretty funny. Guess who begged for warclaws to have that lance? The gank roamers who cried about people getting away on warclaws. Not much different than before warclaws when the none mobile classes who had to experience frustration trying to juke and outrun gankers who could easily stay on them. Double edged sword.

[Za Shaloc.3908]

11 minutes ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

 

Eh roaming was already on the decline before warclaws came in. The mobile classes hate it because suddenly they were missing free gank meals. Everyone else gets to pick their fights now.

 

 

Pretty funny. Guess who begged for warclaws to have that lance? The gank roamers who cried about people getting away on warclaws. Not much different than before warclaws when the none mobile classes who had to experience frustration trying to juke and outrun gankers who could easily stay on them. Double edged sword.

 

Sure it was on the decline, I am not denying that. But I am speaking from my personal experience. I am not trying to make any sort of statement on why Warclaw is bad for the game mode, but how it really killed a lot of my own personal enjoyment for WvW. I know there are many who feel otherwise and I understand why. Sounds like you are speaking from the perspective of a bitter Necro who couldn't enjoy roaming as much pre-Warclaw due to your lack of mobility. Makes sense. I am speaking from the perspective of a bitter Shiro Rev.

[Xenesis.6389]

17 minutes ago, Za Shaloc.3908 said:

Sure it was on the decline, I am not denying that. But I am speaking from my personal experience. I am not trying to make any sort of statement on why Warclaw is bad for the game mode, but how it really killed a lot of my own personal enjoyment for WvW. I know there are many who feel otherwise and I understand why. Sounds like you are speaking from the perspective of a bitter Necro who couldn't enjoy roaming as much pre-Warclaw due to your lack of mobility. Makes sense. I am speaking from the perspective of a bitter Shiro Rev.

Hm true, but way before warclaw I wasn't roaming on necro much, thieves would eat them in those days, so I parked the necro to zergs, and took up mesmer. So I was mostly on my mirage which could eat thieves back then. You can probably see how much thieves dictated what class I played for roaming, as I'm sure for many other players. 🙂

I don't care about the warclaw, I was never one to chase someone down half a map desperate for a single kill, just like I'm not interested in trying to 5v1 gank people. I'd rather fight someone who was interested in a fight to the death, and the warclaw helps sort that out beforehand.

P.S roaming on core necro is pretty enjoyable these days.. well until you get the days of nothing but groups around... 🙂

Edited November 1, 2021 by Xenesis.6389

[TinkTinkPOOF.9201]

2 hours ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

What's even funnier is those 5-people groups that just go around running down 1-2 people also moan about being run down by groups of 20. Even though that's really the same thing they're doing to other people.

I almost always solo roam, and I get run down by 5+ groups all the time, I will pick one and PM them "Good GvG". Sadly I mostly only get back "Huh?" "What?" or "Do I know you?". No one is fun to mess with anymore.

[ArchonWing.9480]

2 hours ago, TinkTinkPOOF.9201 said:

I almost always solo roam, and I get run down by 5+ groups all the time, I will pick one and PM them "Good GvG". Sadly I mostly only get back "Huh?" "What?" or "Do I know you?". No one is fun to mess with anymore.

Well, usually you'll only get an earful if you catch one of them out before the rest come to help. Which is  hard if you just solo and they just don't leap like 3 times away from you when you dismount. Depends on when you roam too. Weekends are saltier

 

Edited November 1, 2021 by ArchonWing.9480

[RangerThings.9810]

Warclaw + damage nerf = always outnumbered 

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

Roaming is dead because no one likes fighting condi/boon bunkers, SA thieves, and guild groups that run 3 supports in a 5 person party.

Edited November 2, 2021 by Paradoxoglanis.1904

[rune.9572]

"why won't anyone 1v1 me anymore" says thief player who runs away 20 times to reset HP and swap templates until one oftheir 3 copypaste builds works

Edited November 2, 2021 by rune.9572

[Gorani.7205]

"roaming is dead", because there is no definition of "roaming" -  because every "few people, high mobility" activity is considered roaming at some point, by someone being dead.

Is it suppressive roaming (to keep enemy presence low on your map) or oppressive roaming (to gain presence on an enemy map)?

Is it player targeted (you keep hunting enemy players) or structure targeted (you flip camps and kill dollys)?

When does roaming transition (you operate on a larger area) to camping (you sit inside a camp/position and wait for enemies to come to you)?

Does roaming involve attacking towers (and keeps)? Is scouting and relaying information to e.g. a commander considered a roaming activity?

If I would sit down,thinking about it a bit longer, I would find more points of what could be considered roaming.

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

imo it is simply because these days there are groups roaming around, like 3-8 people aren't uncommon.

 

and kills take a lot of time, thanks to the damage nerfs only specfic builds wield decisive dmg, and ofc unless one is an expert and the other one a newbie.

 

afaik seeing real roaming is pretty rare.

[nthmetal.9652]

19 hours ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

They will roam in groups chasing single individuals, you see 5-6 people including support, stealth cover...all ganking on a single target actively and for the whole day, these same people will then run off to the nearest tower or simply log off when alone occasionaly.

You do realize this is a team game, right? It's exactly what I like to do. Smallscale groups are super fun! I see nothing wrong with using what design the game offers and using that.

There is also no inherent advantage to acting "honorable". There are arguments for your line of thinking, but allow me to counter this thought: Imagine you have a group of 5 or so people, roaming, keeping camps safe and co. Trying to assure a nearby keep or tower gets tiered up. Now there's that single enemy roamer. This roamer is going to flip camps away from your faction, kill dollies, so you are actually doing your server a disservice by NOT disrupting his actions. Now, if you're not salty kitten, you should feel some kind of attachment to your community and thus allowing that roamer to continue is actively betraying your community. That likewise does not sound very honorable to me.

17 hours ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

Complaining about WvW being a "numbers game" and aoe dmg at the same time does not make much sense, considering the whole puprose of aoe is to be able to fight "numbers". Single target dmg is by design never going to be as effective at dealing with multiple enemies at once.

While that itself is true, that's not what I was complaining about. Of course some people should bring AoEs. Of course AoEs should be used to dealt with numbers. I was pointing to the fact that these AoEs can be stacked for all practical purposes indefinitely. If you would have some kind of diminishing returns for stacking AoEs, you would still have tools to deal with numbers (like you might need for PvE too), without those instabombs.
Also there is the design problem of some professions being given plenty of AoEs, and others almost none. And the fact that single target damage is not only less effective, but often the discepancy of effect per target is in no relation to the number of targets reached by an AoE. And then there is the effect that a pulsing AoE is unlikely to be disabled by aegis or blindness. That will only affect a single pulse. But with a melee or ranged power fired into a block, aegis or reflect, that skill is completely wasted. Cooldowns OR effect when succesful do not reflect this discrepancy either.
There is also a discrepancy of powers that you can use at range, and powers you can only use at melee range. The latter are inherently more dangerous to use, as you are not only subjected to all defensive abilities, but also all offensive abilities, too. This, too, is not reflected.

Lastly let me say that I am not toally sad about how things are. I like grouping up and zerging, but seen objectively, these factors all impact roaming and generally contribute to the numbers game WvW has become.

[Aeolus.3615]

1 hour ago, kamikharzeeh.8016 said:

imo it is simply because these days there are groups roaming around, like 3-8 people aren't uncommon.

 

and kills take a lot of time, thanks to the damage nerfs only specfic builds wield decisive dmg, and ofc unless one is an expert and the other one a newbie.

 

afaik seeing real roaming is pretty rare.

The only groups ic "roaming" are the  pvd blobs  🙂  always 30-50+ while i have a  zerg of 3 players...

WvW became a blob ktrain fiesta, entire queues omniblob swap map to kill even 3  players atacking a tower...

Population imbalance in 1st player killed roaming, also map design and how  simple WvW has becomes towards no fights and just ktrain for rewards.

[apharma.3741]

On 10/24/2021 at 9:58 PM, Dawdler.8521 said:

Except pretty much everyone has it. 

Instead, I've seen people getting lazier and lazier when it comes to intercepting enemies and roamers. The roamers are there, it's just that the "roamers" nowadays are slower than slugs nailed down to a wall. kittens sake I've given 5 kitten minutes warning sometimes on small groups - maybe 2-3 people - coming towards or attacking an objectives. And no one comes to help. At best maybe 1 other person - often a familiar roamer.

You'd think that oh this means the border is dead? LOL! ... No. You go to a camp or something near the enemies you cant beat because they're too many and there's 10 kittening "roamers" waiting for a 2 minute timer to expire.

But noooooo... it's mounts. Because of course it is. Cant possibly be the kitten players.

I didn't say mounts were the cause of this, they are part of the problem but may not be the whole problem.

You do understand that right? That there can be multiple contributing factors to a problem that on their own may not seem a big deal but have a compounding effect.

[Sylvyn.4750]

23 hours ago, Grebcol.5984 said:

 

Lol and thats why every dedicated roaming group runs Engis today. It does have everything: Stealth, reveal, Barrier, Blocks, Heal, invul ,speed, secure stomp, group support and of top of that decent to high dmg output. But sure thief is OP and killed roaming.

But...not everyone roams in a group, and unless you've got a build specifically to deal with thieves, then solo roaming is rough when you come across an enemy thief.

[Justine.6351]

20 hours ago, RangerThings.9810 said:

Warclaw + damage nerf = always outnumbered 

rofl yep.

Kill quick or eat a +1 or 2 or 3.

[bigo.9037]

TLDR:

1, mounts and gliding made movement based builds lose all their value, pugs being able to clear jumps faster than you with mounts/ gliding. 

2, removal of hiding spots in towers, keeps. (revert certain changes to towers. instead of being marked on the map inside a keep, just make it impossible to stealth so you actually have to hide well)

3, Zero sum game. MU lasts  a whole week, 2 enemy guilds of 5 roamers will be forced to play blob-builds (multiple supports, aoe based dmg). If one team keeps bringing 10 players to kill 3 ppl, 3 players will inevitably want to stop playing for the rest of the MU, leaving everyone without content. I would say a lot of these issues are actually player based. I couldn't care less about ""honor"" or whatever, but it goes without saying youre killing the gamemode if you keep bringing a semi-automatic rifle to a knife fight over and over again. 

4, the massive gap in build capabilites is discouraging people from playing non "meta" builds while roaming. 
Sure it is fun to learn a less optimal build with a more fair risk/reward , but after dying over and over again while barely being given the chance to actually get any rewards from your non meta build, youre gonna get tired of dying to perma stealth thieves on condi or power, instakill nade scrapper that still have passive stunbreaks from traits, 1shot SMC-beast with sicem and unblockable, or literally any class that runs celestial or commanders stats with durability runes.


 

[Dawdler.8521]

6 hours ago, bigo.9037 said:

TLDR:

1, mounts and gliding made movement based builds lose all their value, pugs being able to clear jumps faster than you with mounts/ gliding. 

2, removal of hiding spots in towers, keeps. (revert certain changes to towers. instead of being marked on the map inside a keep, just make it impossible to stealth so you actually have to hide well)

3, Zero sum game. MU lasts  a whole week, 2 enemy guilds of 5 roamers will be forced to play blob-builds (multiple supports, aoe based dmg). If one team keeps bringing 10 players to kill 3 ppl, 3 players will inevitably want to stop playing for the rest of the MU, leaving everyone without content. I would say a lot of these issues are actually player based. I couldn't care less about ""honor"" or whatever, but it goes without saying youre killing the gamemode if you keep bringing a semi-automatic rifle to a knife fight over and over again. 

4, the massive gap in build capabilites is discouraging people from playing non "meta" builds while roaming. 
Sure it is fun to learn a less optimal build with a more fair risk/reward , but after dying over and over again while barely being given the chance to actually get any rewards from your non meta build, youre gonna get tired of dying to perma stealth thieves on condi or power, instakill nade scrapper that still have passive stunbreaks from traits, 1shot SMC-beast with sicem and unblockable, or literally any class that runs celestial or commanders stats with durability runes.


 

So 2 points that bring more balance, 1 point with failure to escalate combat because muH RoAmiNg and 1 point of the game encouraging you to get good with a build for roaming.

Yep sure sounds like a death knell.

[Shroud.2307]

20 hours ago, nthmetal.9652 said:

You do realize this is a team game, right?

Yes, and playing together, especially if you're all friends, is the best way to enjoy it.

Personally I've no problem with people being in groups, or even using numbers to their advantage. It isn't about whether I think roaming groups are doing something bad/wrong, but rather that it cannibalizes it's own players.

You can kill or escape pugs and you can dodge zergs but you can't lose a roaming group that's only objective is kills. It ruins what fun is left in roaming and the group gains nothing from it.

Ganking begets ganking and it makes things worse for everyone.
If you can't have respect for a solo player as a group, why do these sorts of groups often complain most about zergs?

All it is is courtesy. You can't kitten off roamers then ask why roaming is dead.

Edited November 3, 2021 by Shroud.2307

[bigo.9037]

5 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

So 2 points that bring more balance, 1 point with failure to escalate combat because muH RoAmiNg and 1 point of the game encouraging you to get good with a build for roaming.

Yep sure sounds like a death knell.

? It is fairly common that roamers end up “comping” up to be able to deal with a group of 5 cus it’s more effective. it can go like this in some cases:

team 1 of 5ppl against team 2 of 5ppl.  

Team 1 gets tired of losing or going 50/50 > they all pull out their comp builds of scrapers, fbs, aura minstrel tempest and necros. 
> having no chance vs blob comp on their roamer builds, team 2 either quit, or comp themselves. Either scenario in this case is bad imo, as blob comps with 3 supports (which is very common) is just a pathetic and unfun play style. 

 

 

Edited November 3, 2021 by bigo.9037

[suialthor.7164]

4 hours ago, Shroud.2307 said:

Personally I've no problem with people being in groups, or even using numbers to their advantage. It isn't about whether I think roaming groups are doing something bad/wrong, but rather that it cannibalizes it's own players.

Solo roaming is also cannibalizing the player base.  Being forced to play one of a few specs to stand any chance of being something other than a free kill isn't a good way to keep or grow a player base.  As players who would be roaming quit, others are not sticking around to replace them.  

WvW needs more maps that cater to specific types of gameplay.   Expecting a single map to cater to everything is also an issue.

[Dawdler.8521]

32 minutes ago, bigo.9037 said:

? It is fairly common that roamers end up “comping” up to be able to deal with a group of 5 cus it’s more effective. it can go like this in some cases:

team 1 of 5ppl against team 2 of 5ppl.  

Team 1 gets tired of losing or going 50/50 > they all pull out their comp builds of scrapers, fbs, aura minstrel tempest and necros. 
> having no chance vs blob comp on their roamer builds, team 2 either quit, or comp themselves. Either scenario in this case is bad imo, as blob comps with 3 supports (which is very common) is just a pathetic and unfun play style. 

 

 

Yes, thats called escalation. Its literally what WvW is built for, what makes it playable and keeps it fun and unpredictable instead of being a single player game.

If you 1v1 someone and cant win you 2v1 him.

If you 2v1 him and still cant win you 3v1.

If you win 3v1, he brings 2 friends and win 3v3.

You bring two more and win 5v3. 

He bring a whole border zerg.

You call upon your zerg.

This is WvW yet people always seem to see something wrong with it. Is there always people around to counter the enemy? No. Because we're not 24/7 bots. But we still fight in WvW regardless.

[Burial.1958]

On 11/1/2021 at 7:43 PM, ASP.8093 said:

"Groups killed roaming." "Zergs killed roaming." "Thieves killed roaming." "Warclaw killed roaming."

At the center of this Venn diagram is a person who waypoints to citadel, runs directly to the nearest contested camp, dies to a single quick burst, and logs off for the day. Their dodge button is covered in cobwebs.

 i would like to expand it with "WTJ Killed roaming" (i know peoples who transferred over 80x times). There are simply to much "Pros" which love beeing carried. Most such grps centering on 1-2 Servers. Its time for the ally system where those WTJ dudes  get punished. Its Pay to Win simple as it is. Kudos to the good players who stick to their servers and keep the wvwvw a bit alive.

Edited November 3, 2021 by Grebcol.5984