Why is roaming dead? what happened?

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

I main thief, I think I was playing S/D at the time. I was stood at the duel spot on the cliff between SM and green keep, keeping an eye on what was around me while talking to guildies on discord when I saw a guardian run up the road. He saw me, then went the long way around the cliff to avoid getting too close to me. Fair enough I think, he doesn't want to fight so I'll let him be.

I carry on watching him to find he's run to another player on the same server. He looks at them, then at me. The other player looks at me, then at him. The guardian moves towards me a bit, but the other player doesn't move, so they stand there looking at me. I keep watching them because usually peeps would have run up to SM and their zerg by now. 

A few seconds later another player comes over. The guardian looks at the new guy, then looks at me. The other two look at me, then the guardian, then at me again. You could almost hear them counting how many players they had now. They start to shuffle forwards, each making sure the others are moving too so they're not alone, and eventually, the three of them come up the hill to attack me. 

Might be rose tinted specs but I remember players in the past being more willing to take a 1v1 than this if they wanted me dead. Take what you will from this, I just found the whole thing hilarious. 

[Aeolus.3615]

17 minutes ago, Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

(snip) 

Might be rose tinted specs but I remember players in the past being more willing to take a 1v1 than this if they wanted me dead. Take what you will from this, I just found the whole thing hilarious. 

@Jugglemonkey.8741

As i tend do joke in map chat...  " in gw2 50 solo players  vs  1    still  counts as  duels... "

I think  the  most times i get ganked hard is by several  condi  tanks  like 2-3 necros  + 1 condi rev  and some other  condi    spec, but   most time 4-6  vs 1 situations.

Heavy condi sturdy builds m8 be the only  ones that  most time actually try to 1vs1 since some can burst targets with  a condis.

Edited October 28, 2021 by Aeolus.3615

[Khenzy.9348]

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.

[KrHome.1920]

2 hours ago, Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

I main thief, I think I was playing S/D at the time. I was stood at the duel spot on the cliff between SM and green keep, keeping an eye on what was around me while talking to guildies on discord when I saw a guardian run up the road. He saw me, then went the long way around the cliff to avoid getting too close to me. Fair enough I think, he doesn't want to fight so I'll let him be.

I carry on watching him to find he's run to another player on the same server. He looks at them, then at me. The other player looks at me, then at him. The guardian moves towards me a bit, but the other player doesn't move, so they stand there looking at me. I keep watching them because usually peeps would have run up to SM and their zerg by now. 

A few seconds later another player comes over. The guardian looks at the new guy, then looks at me. The other two look at me, then the guardian, then at me again. You could almost hear them counting how many players they had now. They start to shuffle forwards, each making sure the others are moving too so they're not alone, and eventually, the three of them come up the hill to attack me. 

Might be rose tinted specs but I remember players in the past being more willing to take a 1v1 than this if they wanted me dead. Take what you will from this, I just found the whole thing hilarious. 

Two typical duel spot scenarios (esp. since participation exists):

1. You and your 4 friends disrupt the duel and run over the whole group because when it's red it's dead. The 3 spectating duelists start to flame you like crazy, what kind of an idiot you are cause duels and honor and stuff.

2. You are alone and try to pass the duel at some distance and leave them alone. The 3 spectating duelists will chase and kill you 3v1.

[Justine.6351]

8 hours ago, subversiontwo.7501 said:

Don't get me wrong when I jab at some of your comments here, because I can definitely understand where your frustrations come from and share some of them myself.

However, I think you are pointing to the wrong causes while the results or experience it ends up in is more widely accepted. If you look into it, I'm sure you'll see that the stereotypical "peekaboo masters" were already gaining the upper hand over the the equally stereotypical traditional "speed roamers" so even before the so-called february burst nerfs you had started to see a split and gravitation for several classes away from typical solo-duo play towards small groups, pocket support and the like. The power burst changes may have been the final straw for some hold-out players but balance wise and behaviour wise things were already in motion. That's been my experience but also verbatim what I've been told by friends who were/are eg., Warrior or Elementalist roamers. So the power-burst nerfs did not cause this, it was already a thing.

The same kind of goes for the tanky and condi stuff now. There are obvious balance issues with some of those builds (certain shroud builds, certain barrier builds, certain condi/cc builds etc.) but they are also a bit of a double-edged thing as they now occupy that same spot that certain stat-friendly power burst builds had before. They also, in my oppinion, and what I think is the most interesting bit in your posts and Kash's posts, kind of suffer the same balance issues if we distinguish roaming from straight up duelling.

For me, this is later where it gets interesting because this is where a perspective of from-small-to-large meets the perspective of from-large-to-small. The reason we do not see more variety scaling up or down (or cross scaling) or, as you put it, "just karma train zerging" being so prevalent, has much less to do with balance and more just to do with the state of WvW as a mode. So of these two extremes ("solo-ish roaming" and "karma train zerging") one is driven by balance issues and the other is simply driven by ambition issues as a result of overall ambition and attention issues.

Whether you scale from 1-2 to 5 or from 50 to 15, whether you look to find a target pool within your scale or if you opt to cross-scale in various ways (guild/zerg busting, havocking etc) all of that requires effort and it has mostly been effort that players have been unwilling to put in. I'm not saying that players are lazy (or just that) but rather that it is understandable that players see little point in putting in that extra effort into a game mode that the developers do not to care about or signal to not care about. That is largely why we have such a polarisation of low-effort roaming and ganking as well as low-effort zerging. I've always considered the game to shine inbetween and WvW as mode is at is best when there is cross-scaling and a broad variety of content and group sizes but I can also understand why there is not because those are the things most sensitive to the abandonment of the mode and they have been the things first sacrificed by the developer (when they have focused on making WvW appealing to existing players in other modes, encouraging tourism and taking tags for granted, etc.).

So, from my perspective, the health of casual roaming as an isolated thing is a balance issue and that classes pushed towards small-group roaming content is not healthier than it is, is more of a broad WvW effort and attention issue.

I don't disagree with anything you said there.

As I said, with nerfing power builds so hard they left roaming wide open to peekaboo masters and gank groups. The few counters that existed to combat those things got thrown under the bus. Effective hp for glass stealthers went up drastically and gank groups can now get on top of you without fear of getting blown up with a counter, never mind the carry of downstate in an Xv1.

 

I suppose you could simplify it as, the final nail in the coffin...for some people anyhow. I doubt its a coincidence that some of the new elite specs are dps sticks.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

6 hours ago, KrHome.1920 said:

Two typical duel spot scenarios (esp. since participation exists):

1. You and your 4 friends disrupt the duel and run over the whole group because when it's red it's dead. The 3 spectating duelists start to flame you like crazy, what kind of an idiot you are cause duels and honor and stuff.

2. You are alone and try to pass the duel at some distance and leave them alone. The 3 spectating duelists will chase and kill you 3v1.

Yeah, I was more telling you where I was in my post rather than what I was doing. 

[Aeolus.3615]

On 10/25/2021 at 3:42 PM, ollbirtan.2915 said:

Wow we must be playing different games --- I'm yet to meet a SOLO ROAMING minstrel chrono / zero damage immortal weavers etc. Are you sure you are not confusing strayed zerglings with roamers? 🤣

 

Dont think so,   players   that are   alone  or wait to a friend to enter  in persue of target, or even  got direct into offensive,  i  assume   they are roamers.

I think i  even had some one  from  a guild  that  also has streamers and youtubers  blocking me since he could not kill me ... i even tough he  was celestial since its burn and   gs2  were the only thing  that could hit me....and actually do decent  damage, he  said  he was power, and most guardians dont even know how  easy is to counters  sword3, focus,  and  GS,  its actually funny when they do the perfect rotations that ventari  domes absobs their stuff and they  think  im using minstrells.

Somwhow i was doing 600-800  damage with 2.6k power  and  he told me he  was  full zerker.

 

Besides  this situation that happened quite some  time. its  morsly condi tanks or very  very weird  builds.

Theres even some wvw guilds that are runing misntrells necros minsrell rangers  and  everything, atm wvw in terms  of builds and stats and its metas are a disgrace IMO.

 

Edited October 29, 2021 by Aeolus.3615

[ArchonWing.9480]

On 10/28/2021 at 10:55 AM, KrHome.1920 said:

Two typical duel spot scenarios (esp. since participation exists):

1. You and your 4 friends disrupt the duel and run over the whole group because when it's red it's dead. The 3 spectating duelists start to flame you like crazy, what kind of an idiot you are cause duels and honor and stuff.

2. You are alone and try to pass the duel at some distance and leave them alone. The 3 spectating duelists will chase and kill you 3v1.

Ah, screw no. 2s. The moment I see that, they're just getting run off the map. You don't get to toggle on this honor thing arbitrarily.

Also on Reddit I once read a post suggesting new players do south ruins for their daily. Seems legit!

Edited October 29, 2021 by ArchonWing.9480

[frareanselm.1925]

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.

As a thief I choose to roam in the map that my server have less territory conquered, because:

-I hate the desert map.

-In EB I'm constantly interrupted by zergs and good fights are ruined by them.

-In the map that my server owns the big citadel there's not enough enemy presence to roam.

That being said, stealth is constanty ruined by unveiled bc enemy watchers are everywhere. I just dont understand how you can say stealth is broken where is the only thief advantage and in enemy zones is neglected.

[Dawdler.8521]

12 minutes ago, frareanselm.1925 said:

That being said, stealth is constanty ruined by unveiled bc enemy watchers are everywhere. I just dont understand how you can say stealth is broken where is the only thief advantage and in enemy zones is neglected.

Lol.

No really what I just read is so dumb thats all I can respond with.

Lol.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

16 minutes ago, frareanselm.1925 said:

As a thief I choose to roam in the map that my server have less territory conquered, because:

-I hate the desert map.

-In EB I'm constantly interrupted by zergs and good fights are ruined by them.

-In the map that my server owns the big citadel there's not enough enemy presence to roam.

That being said, stealth is constanty ruined by unveiled bc enemy watchers are everywhere. I just dont understand how you can say stealth is broken where is the only thief advantage and in enemy zones is neglected.

Non-stealth roamers: Learned the range of every single watchtower marked to avoid being "seen" on the map if needed to take/sneak something or use it to "show yourself" to enemy if want to fight them.
Poor weak stealth abusers: AlL tHeSe WaTcHtOwErS, UnPlAyAbLe, CaNt GaNk PeOpLe. 😢
Are you for real?
Why roaming is dead:
- Stealth: people are fed up with that kitten mechanic and refuse to even fight against anything with it, thus no point in roaming
- Balance: so many broken things that are still waiting for nerfs
- No purpose: what's the point of roaming if there's literally 0 reason to do so
- Ganking groups: imagine to even try roaming if enemy is always running in a group of atleast 5 people, mostly some teefs or other kitten

[Shroud.2307]

Okay so, this is kind of off a rant, and not entirely on point with the OP, but about roaming -

A lot of things over the years have made it less enjoyable and harder to make an impact. Although I still enjoy doing it a lot of the time, the thing that has made it the worst for me is group roamers.

I don't blame people for being in parties of 4 - 8(+). They want to chill with their friends, do their own thing, and get some sweet dopamine. I get that. And I get that roaming solo or duo sucks for a variety of reasons, so why not hang with friends.

But I really wish these players would learn to leave solo roamers alone unless they plan to offer a fair fight.
I don't expect people to follow my personal rules, and I'm not going to angrily whisper someone for ganking me. It isn't a matter of "you're mean if you don't do what I want", but rather a matter of courtesy.

Like, you get how much it sucks to be zerged/ganked. It's probably a part of why you're in a group with friends in the first place. Once you've seen that I'm alone and trying to find my own fights, maybe you and your friends can pick fights with groups closer to your numbers, or at least gank some zerglings that will only have to suffer it one or two times rather than the same person 20 times in a row.

There are a lot of times I'll refuse to roam strictly because I know of a group that's on the map that will do this. Then I get siege buried or angry whispers for hugging gates because I don't want to be a free bag for these players that think it's their right to make me miserable.

If you're patient and smart about reading the map, solo roaming is still perfectly doable. Passive upgrades, Tactics, and Mounts have all made it significantly harder, but not impossible. It's roaming groups that won't give solo roamers some space that are the biggest issue.
Individually they offer the best fights you can find, but because they refuse to do so you're left with pissing off tower defenders and dodging zergs.

[Cuks.8241]

I don't think roaming is dead. Also expecting honorable fights in a game mode like WvW is futile and these complaints have been around since the first mmos.

Still what they could is to give better rewards (wxp, participation) if you accomplish something on your own or in a small group. For example camp gives 200 wxp baseline. This could be normalized to 5 people taking camp. If you take camp solo you get 400 wxp, in a group of 2-4, 300 wxp and in a group of 10+, 100 wxp. 

Same could be done for killing supervisors, enemy players...

Now the impact would probably be small. Zergs with veteran players don't really care for wxp or even participation but those don't really care for camps or objectives in general unless they need supps or want to bait enemy zerg. Most of these zergs just look for good fights and mostly ignore roamers. It might have an impact on pug ppt zergs. But even if it doesn't decrease the appeal for zergs, it might increase appeal for small scale roaming. 

[ArchonWing.9480]

It's just hard sometimes. It's hard as a solo because most people don't want to fight 1v1s which is fine and limits your options. With a few people you can knock on a tower to get fights. However, that may no longer be considered roaming.  But then people are afraid of losing and just OOC if they get hit. It's not just a small scale issue-- when you see most people ready to engage, you know they have a distinct advantage (probably like another group around the corner waiting to stealth bomb).  A lot of that bravado only shows up then.

But the other problem is when your other friends/mates/guildies also want to play with you and that bloats the numbers. And you can't really tell them to kitten off or you have no friends. It doesn't help that most of my friends are terrible at roaming and spend like 6 hours talking about imbalance every time they die or blaming you because they did something stupid. (much like these forums) and then suddenly it's zerg town again, making it fun for nobody. So sometimes I just rep no guild and vanish. But hey, with Amazon Prime giving an alt, it may be better (wait no mounts tho).

Tl;dr It's an mmo.

Edited October 31, 2021 by ArchonWing.9480

[frareanselm.1925]

9 hours ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

Non-stealth roamers: Learned the range of every single watchtower marked to avoid being "seen" on the map if needed to take/sneak something or use it to "show yourself" to enemy if want to fight them.
Poor weak stealth abusers: AlL tHeSe WaTcHtOwErS, UnPlAyAbLe, CaNt GaNk PeOpLe. 😢
Are you for real?
Why roaming is dead:
- Stealth: people are fed up with that kitten mechanic and refuse to even fight against anything with it, thus no point in roaming
- Balance: so many broken things that are still waiting for nerfs
- No purpose: what's the point of roaming if there's literally 0 reason to do so
- Ganking groups: imagine to even try roaming if enemy is always running in a group of atleast 5 people, mostly some teefs or other kitten

There are more hateful mechanics than stealth that come to my mind, for example chill from reaper, perma-stun from mesmers, root from druids...

[Xenesis.6389]

6 minutes ago, frareanselm.1925 said:

There are more hateful mechanics than stealth that come to my mind, for example chill from reaper, perma-stun from mesmers, root from druids...

 

Eh, those have come and gone over the years when the meta changes, but stealth has always remained the top offender through it all, although it's not as bad these days since damage was reduced and mesmers were buried, and players are running more cc, groups, immobilize these days.

[Zyreva.1078]

Stealth did not hurt roaming (stealth =/= SA d/p daredevil). It enables (solo) roaming, because it is the only thing that gives a chance at getting away from mounted zergs and is probably a reason why roaming isn't actually completely dead yet.

The warclaw was definitely one of the most detrimental changes for roaming. It completely nullifies what once used to be the only! advantage of roamers over zerglings (mobility).

Edited November 1, 2021 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[ASP.8093]

3 hours ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

Stealth did not hurt roaming (stealth =/= SA d/p daredevil). It enables (solo) roaming, because it is the only thing that gives a chance at getting away from mounted zergs and is probably a reason why roaming isn't actually completely dead yet.

The warclaw was definitely one of the most detrimental changes for roaming. It completely nullifies what once used to be the only! advantage of roamers over zerglings (mobility).

You can still juke the flood of zerglings pretty easily using misdirection, vertical movement, or terrain. This privileges certain classes over others (thief, e.g.) but even Guardian and Necro builds have some really strong escape abilities. IME it's the people doing "group roaming" who have better chase skills and way more vested interest in catching 1-2 players who tend to actually run you down. But it's also much easier to turn the tables on them.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

5 hours ago, frareanselm.1925 said:

There are more hateful mechanics than stealth that come to my mind, for example chill from reaper, perma-stun from mesmers, root from druids...

I did write this:

14 hours ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

- Balance: so many broken things that are still waiting for nerfs

That also include what you wrote, but there's so much more broken kitten in WvW that writing them all down in forum would take like 5 pages alone.
Also I hate when people use this: "Hey, but these things are also broken, so focus on them and leave my broken alone!" arguments, like why you even do that, what's the purpose of this?

[Skada.1362]

Thieves and stealth ruined roaming. Anyone who actually roamed knows this.

They are and have been, for years,  a far bigger issue than degen condi bunker builds. 

And no, pepega watchtowers and sentries aren't enough to "fix" it.

Destroy the d/p set and shadow arts and roaming will improve for literally every player in the game. 🙂 Thieves would still have infinite disengage using the most overloaded skill in game, Shadowstep, and other oh kitten buttons like Skill storm, so do not worry you are still gonna be perfectly safe. Imagine if Thief players would l2p s/d again.. amazing!

Edited November 1, 2021 by Skada.1362

[jaif.3518]

When a side attacks a tower/keep, get yourself on the line from a spawn point to the objective and gank people heading to the team fight.  I see this often, and it leads to truly chaotic engagements, like 3 people with crappy team builds trying to catch a sneak-thief, with people joining and then leaving the fight.

 

This works if you're on any team - you can be a 3rd party, and still get ganks.

 

I'm not saying you should avoid supply camps, but it's not a great way to get fights.

[nthmetal.9652]

2 hours ago, Skada.1362 said:

Thieves and stealth ruined roaming. Anyone who actually roamed knows this.

They are and have been, for years,  a far bigger issue than degen condi bunker builds. 

While that is true, I don't think that this is what actually kills roaming. Yes, stealthing and especially RESTEALTHING is a bad idea, but it seems, it is here to stay.

What hurts roaming way more than that, though, is the fact that WvW is a numbers game - and by that I primarily mean number of players. Yes, playstyle and quality differences do have an impact, but if you've ever fought a group of 35 with a group of 25, you know exactly even how much of an impact even such a difference has. Even only 5 players more have a big impact. The days of zergbusting are gone. Despite last year's balance attempt to emphasize skill use, all it did was further cement the numbers-meta, as important passive and active support was crippled. 300s cooldowns on traits was meant to be a temporary replacement until we had a proper solution in place. Nerfing the damage of CC skills was a good idea, but no thought was given on any form of compensation.

AoEs, and especially pulsing / multiple hit AoEs still reign supreme over any other form of ranged or melee combat, and since stacking AoEs is still very effective, the more numbers you have, the better you can attack - while defensive abilities in comparison are usually capped. Capping on boons is probably a good idea, but since we have found no way to somehow compensate on the attack side, it means attacks which reach a lot of people are very effective. Stacking such attacks only improves the effect. And to stack these assaults, you need numbers. Hence the zerg.

To defend against that, you also need people for damage mitigation (apart from counterattacking). Hence ...  the zerg.

[Arheundel.6451]

What ruined roaming?.....easy....it's people losing any sense of honor and self-respect. People who still roam alone are super rare, people who act like a respectful human beings are even rarer, what killed roaming is the downward descense into degeneracy of this community.

It's not mainly powercreep what killed roaming(even though it greattly affected it) it's how low people act these days, players these days for the vast majority have not got a single shred of decency in them

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.

In the past there was more skill and less ganking...now it's the other way around and ofc people always try to use "your class" as an excuse to group up and attack a lone player. Thieves and condi heralds  are the biggest offenders by far, excessive stealth and broken condi bunkers builds with mobility, 50% dmg reduction, blocks etc etc etc.

Yeah ..."roaming" as people still call it, it is nothing more than a shitshow ....

P.S personally I adapted, I either run 1shot builds hiding near closest tower or some unkillable ele bunker build...just for the sake of it, people hate both playstyles..but any attempt at legitimate gameplay has always been met with the same outcome, 1vsX....so I said :"screw it", I play specs you'll regret even attempting to gank in the first place

Edited November 1, 2021 by Arheundel.6451

[ArchonWing.9480]

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.

[Zyreva.1078]

3 hours ago, nthmetal.9652 said:

AoEs, and especially pulsing / multiple hit AoEs still reign supreme over any other form of ranged or melee combat, and since stacking AoEs is still very effective, the more numbers you have, the better you can attack - while defensive abilities in comparison are usually capped. [...]

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. It is not aoe dmg that empowers zergs, it is rather the aoe cap that does that (and it's been like that since forever).

2 hours ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

What ruined roaming?.....easy....it's people losing any sense of honor and self-respect. People who still roam alone are super rare, people who act like a respectful human beings are even rarer, what killed roaming is the downward descense into degeneracy of this community.

Don't look through rose-tinted glasses. Gank squads, "cheese" builds , whatever "shitshow" you are complaining about, it has always been there, no less than now. Players haven't really changed. The game did and ofc that affects player behaviour, eg. if solo play becomes more frustrating, ofc less players are going to play solo. But blaming the decline of (solo) roaming on the fact that less players play solo is like saying grass is green because it is green.

Also i wouldn't label condi herald "mobile". It is one of the slowest builds in the game.

 

Edited November 1, 2021 by UmbraNoctis.1907