How can ArenaNet solve this roaming problem?

[Elementalist Owner.7802]

The roaming playstyle has been an important part of WvW since the launch of the game. Without roaming, the game mode would be nothing but zerg vs zerg (or zerg vs gate) fights , which can get stale after a while. Roaming brings much-needed variety into the game mode and introduces different types of pvp encounters into the open world. The excitement of never knowing who you'll run into is what makes open world pvp so great, and WvW nailed this at launch.

 

Since the launch of the Warclaw mount, the roaming experience has had the enjoyment sucked out of it, particularly in populated maps like EBG. Some of you might read this and think, "Oh he's just mad because he can't gank players who are running back to their group!" but this is not true. While I do think that ganking should be a valid part of the open world pvp experience, that is not the main reason why the Warclaw is so harmful to the roaming playstyle.

 

I define roaming as playing WvW solo or with a small group while looking for fights, kills, or taking objectives. Before the Warclaw mount, what made this playstyle possible were the types of builds that roamers use. They typically use builds with stealth and/or superior mobility, so that when a bigger group comes along, they can hopefully flee.

 

When the Warclaw mount released, that all changed. Roamers can't escape from bigger groups anymore because everyone runs around at maximum speed with the Warclaw. I'm sure everyone is familiar with the situation where a roamer is locked in combat with an enemy, whose mounted teammates catch up and zerg the roamer down. Roamers will always get zerged down and there is no counterplay. Big group eats small group every time. That's just boring.

 

I think that we can all agree this is a problem, but the question is how do we solve it? I want to hear your suggestions, because quite frankly I cannot think of any. What can ArenaNet do to save roaming?

[SleepyBat.9034]

8 minutes ago, Elementalist Owner.7802 said:

I think that we can all agree this is a problem, but the question is how do we solve it?

I don't think it can be solved. The just want anet to give rewards to Edge of the Mists.

[Xenesis.6389]

Well, we all could give our opinions on why roaming has failed and the solutions for it........ but none of us will agree with each other. I don't agree warclaw killed roaming, it killed ganking zerglings, but roaming was downhill even before the mount, and it's even worse now because of certain things people don't like to admit, or discuss, so I won't bother.

 

15 minutes ago, Elementalist Owner.7802 said:

Roamers will always get zerged down and there is no counterplay. Big group eats small group every time. That's just boring.

If you are roaming without some sort of movement or stealth in your build these days, sorry but that's not really a game problem anymore, that's more of a you problem now. There's an overabundance of movement in the game now, which btw kinda makes the warclaw a none issue also. Big groups eat small groups because of the thing we don't want to discuss and anet continues to buff. 🤷‍♂️

[MysteryDude.1572]

Roaming on ebg isn't roaming . Its fiesta smc clown mode 24/7.  When i que ebg i expect my team to gank and behave like apes. (at least when we cloud)

Alpine Borders/desert are places better suitable for roaming/dueling .

And isn't, turning the 1vX  around and winning, the goal anyway? And beeing outnumbered in general? Getting zerged down is unfortunate but when the situation is reversed? Isn't the opposite boring anyway as well..?

Edited January 28, 2023 by MysteryDude.1572

[Gehenna.3625]

If you can't escape with stealth and superspeed, then I don't know what to tell you... I see thieves do it all the friggin time and the warclaw has nothing to do with it at all.

The warclaw cannot even keep up with the amount of mobility options some classes have. When you are out of ranged distance and you get on your mount and they still get you ...guess what: it's not the mount.

[coro.3176]

The main reason Warclaw is bad for roaming + small fights is that it neutralizes mobility as a defensive tool.

Before Warclaw, you could use CC and positioning in an outnumbered fight to stretch out and separate opponents and engage them on more even terms. Eg. most of the time a 1v3 is done by turning the fight into a series of three 1v1s. With Warclaw, the players farthest behind break combat, mount up, and catch up with you, and then you're right back where you started 1v3-ing

[Xenesis.6389]

Mobility is so abundant now it doesn't matter, you're not stringing anyone out for those kills because there are roaming specs that will keep pace with you anyways. There's been plenty of times I've had people run away from fights and I couldn't catch up to them even when I eventually got on the mount, because they get so far ahead they too can get out of combat and mount away, it's a two way street sometimes.

[Kylden Ar.3724]

20 hours ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

 Big groups eat small groups because of the thing we don't want to discuss and anet continues to buff. 🤷‍♂️

 

Well, looking at your signature, it's Boons, and I agree. It's stupid easy to stack boons to high levels with no counterplay. No way to strip them fast enough.

[SFShinigami.1572]

21 hours ago, Elementalist Owner.7802 said:

I think that we can all agree this is a problem, but the question is how do we solve it? I want to hear your suggestions, because quite frankly I cannot think of any. What can ArenaNet do to save roaming?

I do not, in fact, think it is a problem.  In fact, I've long hoped for a mount system that lets you use pve mounts in controlled zones like gliding as special event weeks.

[Zyreva.1078]

1 hour ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Mobility is so abundant now it doesn't matter, you're not stringing anyone out for those kills because there are roaming specs that will keep pace with you anyways. There's been plenty of times I've had people run away from fights and I couldn't catch up to them even when I eventually got on the mount, because they get so far ahead they too can get out of combat and mount away, it's a two way street sometimes.

While it is sometimes possible to get out of combat and mount up to escape, especially with stealth, at that point the fight is over. But there is a lot less "kiting and seperating enemies" anymore, and that is mainly because of the mount. It is impossible to continuously outrun it while in combat and so the slower ones - that still exist - will always catch up eventually when actually trying to fight, and they won't even have to expend any cooldowns or be afraid of counter pressure, with free mobility, evades, total cc immunity and opening dmg.

Edited January 28, 2023 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[Chips.7968]

You assume it's a "problem" in their eyes.

 

It isn't. It's intended.

[Mell.4873]

Honestly I'm glad it died, nothing is worse than running back to your Zerg only to have some teleporting theif one shot you and run away when anyone tries to help. 

Now at least there is option of redemption or atleast the ability for someone to help you. No one should be punished for not play a roaming class when riding solo. 

[Zyreva.1078]

16 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

No one should be punished for not play a roaming class when riding solo. 

Why shouldn't players be punished for not bringing a build that is suited for whatever they are doing? It's like running full minstrel then complaining that it takes too long to kill stuff ...

Edited January 28, 2023 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[Silinsar.6298]

52 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

Honestly I'm glad it died, nothing is worse than running back to your Zerg only to have some teleporting theif one shot you and run away when anyone tries to help. 

Now at least there is option of redemption or atleast the ability for someone to help you. No one should be punished for not play a roaming class when riding solo. 

Before mounts, you either just waited for others to respawn, so you could run back in a group (and no one wants to gank you if a supporter makes it take forever), or you learned to defend yourself and dodge enemy players on the way back to your zerg (don't take the most obvious route from the nearest spawn to the swords on the map). Sometimes zergs would come to fight a group of gankers which blocked respawning players from joining up again. So that required some effort, but why should traversing the map be risk free? Are you and the zerg you are running to only attacking other groups of players when they want to fight and are perfectly equipped to do so?

 

I don't know if this is still a thing in the current meta, but WvW guilds used to train squishier backliners to survive vs burst builds. At least delaying getting downed, kiting, sustaining and evading bursts was considered an essential skill for the game mode. And there was banter if someone was failing at getting back to the raid.

[Xenesis.6389]

We have templates now too, not like you couldn't just load up a mobile or stealth build to get back to your zerg without harm regardless of mounts... 🤷‍♂️

[Mell.4873]

1 hour ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

Why shouldn't players be punished for not bringing a build that is suited for whatever they are doing? It's like running full minstrel then complaining that it takes too long to kill stuff ...

I mostly mean catching up to a Zerg, the mount levels the playing field a little. I mean sure people can still gank or duel but at least if you don't want to you have some means of escape.

Edited January 29, 2023 by Mell.4873

[Mell.4873]

24 minutes ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

We have templates now too, not like you couldn't just load up a mobile or stealth build to get back to your zerg without harm regardless of mounts... 🤷‍♂️

True but barely anyone uses them like that. I mean I sure do, which i know is ironic but I'm thinking of the little people.

Mounts don't really prevent it anyway since a dueler can also ride them and dismount you. Its honestly only helps prevent one shotting from something like the stealth Engineer or Thief. I don't think anyone would class that as Roaming, would they?

Edited January 29, 2023 by Mell.4873

[LSD.4673]

24 minutes ago, Logan.4796 said:

You'll make nice prey in WvW

Not for a Ranger though.

[Greviathan.6107]

If only that was the problem....

First of all they should balance the classes, some have too much everything and some have almost nothing.
 

After over a year, I'm back on GW2, and currently I've been roaming for several hours a day for 2-3 weeks.
There is no more variety, I mostly find myself fighting against the same 4 classes/specs: willbenders (it's an invasion, seriously, sometimes I see small groups of only willbenders fighting!), rangers (all but core), mesmers (virtuoso and mirage) and mechanists. The first few days I returned I had also met quite a few harbingers and holosmiths, but currently they seem to have dropped in number drastically.
 

Another thing that ruins roaming in my opinion is toxicity:
Do you kill someone? You get hate messages.
Are you being killed by someone? You get hate messages.
So you play with offline status to not receive messages? You get emails.
 

I think also the downed state is bad for roamers.

How many times have you been chased by a gank, forced into a fight, managed to put someone in downed state but only to have them revived just a moment later? And then end up being killed by the gank and trolled by the same people you downed?

[Dawdler.8521]

52 minutes ago, Greviathan.6107 said:

I think also the downed state is bad for roamers.

How many times have you been chased by a gank, forced into a fight, managed to put someone in downed state but only to have them revived just a moment later? And then end up being killed by the gank and trolled by the same people you downed?

Counter question - how many times have you won 1v2, 1v3 etc, or if in a small group vs 2x the numbers?

Because for some weird reason, people that think downstate is bad are usually also the same people that claim they always win, never die and will never accept that the enemy needed numbers to kill them.

The rest that dont mind... well they kill 2x the numbers anyway on a daily basis, dont they, lol.

Edited January 29, 2023 by Dawdler.8521

[loverboy.9180]

When the game was new it only took 5 people in combat to create an orange X on the map. If they brought that back or even a smaller number than 25 people in combat, it would probably encourage more small-scale battles. 

[andrewlcl.8176]

2 hours ago, Greviathan.6107 said:

 

Another thing that ruins roaming in my opinion is toxicity:
Do you kill someone? You get hate messages.
Are you being killed by someone? You get hate messages.
So you play with offline status to not receive messages? You get emails.
 

I suppose we are being overly optimistic, since these trolls live in their mother's basement, have questionable health and hygiene, and are totally lacking in class. 

Additionally, Anet should scrap the /sit emote in WvW and replace it with /teabagging, which is just the /sit emote played in a loop. Those trolls would use it a lot. 

Other than that, yes, I completely agree with you. 

Edited January 29, 2023 by andrewlcl.8176
Fun and giggles

[Greviathan.6107]

1 hour ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Counter question - how many times have you won 1v2, 1v3 etc, or if in a small group vs 2x the numbers?

Because for some weird reason, people that think downstate is bad are usually also the same people that claim they always win, never die and will never accept that the enemy needed numbers to kill them.

I've never said it and I don't presume to, and I also lose 1vs1 without problems.
After all, getting better is part of the game and we always talk about a game that is anything but balanced!
 

1 hour ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

The rest that dont mind... well they kill 2x the numbers anyway on a daily basis, dont they, lol.

Not all classes and not all situations allow it, not every roamer plays meta builds that have tons of mobility, active defenses, sustain and damage. For solo roamers it only narrows down the choices of what to play if you don't want to be punished. I simply want to roam with what I like and not what I'm forced to use.

[TheGrimm.5624]

On 1/27/2023 at 7:12 PM, Elementalist Owner.7802 said:

Since the launch of the Warclaw mount, the roaming experience has had the enjoyment sucked out of it

Sorry, lets hold here for a second and discuss if you don't mind. By allowing all roamers the same rate of speed, how has that impacted the balancing in roaming versus neutralized it by making more classes into roamers? I see more diversity in roamers after Warclaw than I did without it. And I say this while I roamed on all classes and not just those with speed options. Prior to Warclaw there was less diversity in the fights and now am seeing a lot more diversity IMO. So would you mind expanding on this?

[SFShinigami.1572]

1 hour ago, loverboy.9180 said:

When the game was new it only took 5 people in combat to create an orange X on the map. If they brought that back or even a smaller number than 25 people in combat, it would probably encourage more small-scale battles. 

 

 

This sounds like fun.