[POLL] Your top reason on why roaming is dead

[devastoscz.9851]

I've experienced and enjoyed two types of roaming, both of which are now "dead". 

1.) Gank squad: I used to belong to a guild that, in its origins, would chase zerg tails and harass backlines during fights only to immediately scatter when the main zerg set its eyes on it.  Sometimes the zerg would chase after you and stop, in which case it was ideal to turn back on the over extenders and nuke them into oblivion, setting your cycle in motion again. Incredibly fun, very risk/reward oriented gameplay. Anywhere between 2-6 of us used to do this.

2.) Solo/Duo Roaming: Besides the usual cycling through camps to find fights, the main attraction here was to intercept reinfrocements/respawns to zerg fights.  Most of the zerglings cannot 1v1 or even 2v1 a well played roaming spec so they become easy pickings until you're enough trouble that they actually have to group up to fight you instead of reinforcing the zerg.

BOTH of these activities have been greatly diminished by the Warclaw. The problem is people can now choose to just plain avoid you or chase you down on their mounts while you're unmounted in combat. Try to pick a backline? They're all on mounts running at full speed. If you dismount one and try to gank it, those not in combat mount up and swarm you. Try to stop reinforcements? They're all on mounts and you only have 1 (now 2) charges on your dismount skill, which is easily avoidable if they're paying attention.

This is why people are now forming up in gank squads. Because to do what you could do alone before, you need 2-3 people to actually force a single target to engage.

Honestly, the Warclaw is an amazing QoL addition, but it completely changed the face of roaming. We've always had high stealth, high burst, high mobility classes. More classes have that now, there should be MORE solo/duo roaming not less. The problem is now its become too easy to avoid the solo/duo roamers, to the point where you need more people to be effective.

At this point its impossible to get rid of mounts in WvW. And honestly, I dont know if I would want to, but I think they need some tweaks. A good middle ground for this would be if  Warclaws were not immune to CC's. I could see the whole face of roaming change if you could cripple, chill, immobilize, pull or even knockdown people on their mounts. Have 3 dudes chasing you on their mounts? Drop a static field, fear ring, lines, etc. to delay them and give the unmounted roamer a fighting chance.  Missed your lance? A couple CC's could stop that mount if only long enough for your skills to be in range to dismount the player.

Honestly I think the warclaw is the biggest problem, and it has created and snowballed other behaviors, including super mobility, that make roaming a lot less engaging for those who attempt to do it or fight against it.

Edited Friday at 09:44 PM by devastoscz.9851

[Sobx.1758]

It's not dead though.

[solemn.9670]

Been looking at the same scenery for years.

Add a new map, or don't - change an existing map. Make everything backwards for all I care. I just want a change of scenery. Same thing, same thing every time I sign in.

[Dawdler.8521]

9 hours ago, devastoscz.9851 said:

I've experienced and enjoyed two types of roaming, both of which are now "dead". 

1.) Gank squad

9 hours ago, devastoscz.9851 said:

BOTH of these activities have been greatly diminished by the Warclaw.

9 hours ago, devastoscz.9851 said:

This is why people are now forming up in gank squads.

9 hours ago, devastoscz.9851 said:

Honestly, the Warclaw is an amazing QoL addition

9 hours ago, devastoscz.9851 said:

Honestly I think the warclaw is the biggest problem

Ah yes... I see...

[DeceiverX.8361]

On 10/8/2024 at 9:27 PM, ChrisWhitey.9076 said:

There is no incentive to run small scale content anymore except just to have fun. If you want to make small scale matter you need to make it where there is not an advantage to blob. This could be that keeps will degrade a tier if not enough yaks supply it. This means supply lines have to be maintained. Make jungle camps that give boosts and affect game play like drake in League of Legends. Also make a jungle camp that can just run through a keep like rift hearold. Mechanics like these in league of legends are why people have to split up do do things or right off the start to finish it would all just be 5v5 team fighting.

Yeah, the lack of option for overall mobility creep is the big thing here, plus the introduction of watchtower giving the blob way too much information.

Warclaw itself is only a small (but perhaps largest individual part) of the picture in terms of ruining solo and small group play from an old-guard perspective.  But it's not the sole reason people stop playing smallscale, and probably isn't even on the radar for people still playing.  Most who stopped roaming stopped playing outright and won't be here to post.

It's a combination of most of the things OP mentioned--busted builds being tied for first imho--but mobility creep in the large scale has largely defeated the entire purpose of doing small group or solo content for enjoyment.  But even then without purpose, people would still roam and pursue duels if the game was better-balanced, if overhead costs on food and stuff were lower, the meta was more favorable and fast-paced, etc. etc.

Edited Saturday at 08:04 AM by DeceiverX.8361

[RlyOsim.2497]

there's loads of reason tbh and you could write a book on this topic but i think for me personally the 2020 balance patch is what killed roaming.

prior to this patch roamers posed a legitimate danger to zergs, particularly coordinated. the important point here is not that roamers were dangerous but that they could interact with the zerg gameplay and be a factor in that regard. with the changes to healing, cc and damage output the 2020 patch essentially removed roamers ability to damage/interact with zergs. the gameplay became kinda pointless. today this is really exaggerated and it's at a point where roamers realistically cannot interact with an organised zerg in any meaningful way (there are exceptions, cloud is still very dangerous ofc with the the right players and the wrong enemy commander).

the 2020 patch also opened the door to a lot the clown builds we see today in that it was a major step down the anet road of 'better for bad players, worse for everyone else'.

that said, the warclaw was also a major negative to the roaming ecosystem, it altered the map presence roamers could have, in a similar sense to interacting with zergs in the above example - removed/diminished the whole purpose of the gameplay in a wider wvw gameplay context.

roaming is dead tho, make no mistake, fully dead.

[TheGrimm.5624]

 

9 hours ago, DeceiverX.8361 said:

plus the introduction of watchtower giving the blob way too much information.

WT has made taking a number of structures even easier since its made a lot of player think they don't need scouts. Since most structures can be attacked out of sight of the WT it makes them easier to drop. Players need to use them to their advantage. What I see mostly in both warband and zerg groups is groups just getting lite up by them. When you see them do it, you know you can counter their WTs since they disregard them anyway so use that play against them. They will assume, no dots, no issues. That makes the WT an asset in your favor.

[Sonork.2916]

The most surprising thing to me on the list is warclaw with so many votes.  So having a mobility option to traverse the map, one that everyone can use is killing roaming?   Shakes head,  okay.  😄 lol

[Silinsar.6298]

5 hours ago, RlyOsim.2497 said:

there's loads of reason tbh and you could write a book on this topic but i think for me personally the 2020 balance patch is what killed roaming.

prior to this patch roamers posed a legitimate danger to zergs, particularly coordinated. the important point here is not that roamers were dangerous but that they could interact with the zerg gameplay and be a factor in that regard. with the changes to healing, cc and damage output the 2020 patch essentially removed roamers ability to damage/interact with zergs. the gameplay became kinda pointless. today this is really exaggerated and it's at a point where roamers realistically cannot interact with an organised zerg in any meaningful way (there are exceptions, cloud is still very dangerous ofc with the the right players and the wrong enemy commander).

the 2020 patch also opened the door to a lot the clown builds we see today in that it was a major step down the anet road of 'better for bad players, worse for everyone else'.

that said, the warclaw was also a major negative to the roaming ecosystem, it altered the map presence roamers could have, in a similar sense to interacting with zergs in the above example - removed/diminished the whole purpose of the gameplay in a wider wvw gameplay context.

roaming is dead tho, make no mistake, fully dead.

Some good points, though I'd say part of that isn't only balance changes, but also meta in general and the increased average skill, build and gear of pugs in WvW. But yeah, I miss the days where you could jump in, down a couple of backliners and watch your zerg roll in when the opponents melee train was trying to get them up again. Agree on Warclaw, in general it's more risky now to roam with small numbers, many changes have been in favor of the bigger group and I don't really get why. If you don't look at the overall point balance, but what the population and action on a map at any given moment during different times of the day, it's just detrimental - Bigger groups quickly drive smaller ones off the map because they don't see any ways to fight back. They even removed things like outnumbered extra pips that encouraged putting up a fight anyway and made it easier to spot attacks on objectives even when not scouted. A lot of WvW players are more fair-weather and reward oriented now, so they're just looking to join a group racking up easy kills and objective captures. That makes maps feel lifeless, even when there's plenty of people around.

However, I don't think it's fully dead, its best days are over but you can still do it and achieve little (personal and/or strategic) victories 🙂

[devastoscz.9851]

11 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Ah yes... I see...

Your deliberate exclusion of any nuance is a perfect example of a reductive, simplistic and smooth brained though process.

[zinkz.7045]

22 hours ago, devastoscz.9851 said:

I've experienced and enjoyed two types of roaming, both of which are now "dead". 

1.) Gank squad: I used to belong to a guild that, in its origins, would chase zerg tails and harass backlines during fights only to immediately scatter when the main zerg set its eyes on it.  Sometimes the zerg would chase after you and stop, in which case it was ideal to turn back on the over extenders and nuke them into oblivion, setting your cycle in motion again. Incredibly fun, very risk/reward oriented gameplay. Anywhere between 2-6 of us used to do this.

2.) Solo/Duo Roaming: Besides the usual cycling through camps to find fights, the main attraction here was to intercept reinfrocements/respawns to zerg fights.  Most of the zerglings cannot 1v1 or even 2v1 a well played roaming spec so they become easy pickings until you're enough trouble that they actually have to group up to fight you instead of reinforcing the zerg.

So you basically like low risk, low skill "PvP" with fights stacked in your favour against people who have little experience of small scale and/or are in zerg builds which are generally ineffective against roaming builds. Meanwhile any mention of fighting other roamers is conspicuous by its absence. It speaks volumes.

Edited Saturday at 07:46 PM by zinkz.7045

[ArchonWing.9480]

24 minutes ago, zinkz.7045 said:

So you basically you like low risk, low skill "PvP" with fights stacked in your favour against people who have little experience of small scale and/or are in zerg builds which are generally ineffective against roaming builds. Meanwhile any mention of fighting other roamers is conspicuous by its absence. It speaks volumes.

And we have the winner of the thread.

[DeceiverX.8361]

8 hours ago, Sonork.2916 said:

The most surprising thing to me on the list is warclaw with so many votes.  So having a mobility option to traverse the map, one that everyone can use is killing roaming?   Shakes head,  okay.  😄 lol

Warclaw use inherently favors larger groups by preventing disengages if juggled correctly, and allows what was historically a pretty low-mobility blob to traverse the map rapidly for fast defenses.

The overarching issue is Warclaw + mobility powercreep, but "mobility powercreep" is the sum of a large number of things including the poll categories of changes to runes, powercreep in specializations, and boon potency all combined.

[DeceiverX.8361]

8 hours ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

 

WT has made taking a number of structures even easier since its made a lot of player think they don't need scouts. Since most structures can be attacked out of sight of the WT it makes them easier to drop. Players need to use them to their advantage. What I see mostly in both warband and zerg groups is groups just getting lite up by them. When you see them do it, you know you can counter their WTs since they disregard them anyway so use that play against them. They will assume, no dots, no issues. That makes the WT an asset in your favor.

Not really.  Curious players will still check swords and mount a defense.  Blobs don't care about WT when attacking or killing sentries, so unless your server has no major attacking force, what the effect does is more or less immediately let the opponents know where your blob isn't and that the issue probably won't be a big deal for a good long while.

A major part of smallscale skillgroups was misdirection and coordinating with the blob to confuse the enemy.

If the blob was just scouted by WT by Durios because a bunch of pugs went after the sentry and ran into WT range by OW, it's pretty easy to discern the simultaneous swords on Anz or Mendons or a different BL entirely *isn't* them.

Reality is unless a zerg is bored they usually just wait to flip an objective immediately after it falls if it's already paper because it gives more loot than killing a random roamer.

[Sonork.2916]

1 hour ago, DeceiverX.8361 said:

Warclaw use inherently favors larger groups by preventing disengages if juggled correctly, and allows what was historically a pretty low-mobility blob to traverse the map rapidly for fast defenses.

The overarching issue is Warclaw + mobility powercreep, but "mobility powercreep" is the sum of a large number of things including the poll categories of changes to runes, powercreep in specializations, and boon potency all combined.

Everything favors larger groups...  Don't see your point there.  Yeah picks can be harder when the movement options are leveled, but it's still very doable.

And i'd much rather have a flat, across the board fast movement option for OOC traversal, then going back to swapping to kitten that gives swiftness and just running.  

[devastoscz.9851]

9 hours ago, zinkz.7045 said:

So you basically like low risk, low skill "PvP" with fights stacked in your favour against people who have little experience of small scale and/or are in zerg builds which are generally ineffective against roaming builds. Meanwhile any mention of fighting other roamers is conspicuous by its absence. It speaks volumes.

 

On 10/11/2024 at 5:42 PM, devastoscz.9851 said:

2.) Solo/Duo Roaming: Besides the usual cycling through camps to find fights...

It's literally right there. I didn't feel the need to describe roamer vs roamer in detail, because those people actually want to fight roamers and don't run away on their mounts. It seems unnecessary when I'm trying to make a point about the problems with the Warclaw.

Love the "holier than thou" attitude though. "It speaks volumes" 😂

[TheGrimm.5624]

7 hours ago, DeceiverX.8361 said:

Not really.  Curious players will still check swords and mount a defense. 

You were talking large scale reacting to small scale. I have found that its even easier to fool large scale due to WT. I agree scouts will be scouts. Have found that large scale trust their scouts less now if they don't see dots on the WT. So small scale can use that. When running large scale, and being a roamer/havoc player main I have found a lot of roamers and havocs trying the same. Its a good tactic for roamers to hit a an objective since a lot don't trust their scouts to their own determent. 

7 hours ago, DeceiverX.8361 said:

Blobs don't care about WT when attacking or killing sentries, so unless your server has no major attacking force, what the effect does is more or less immediately let the opponents know where your blob isn't and that the issue probably won't be a big deal for a good long while.

Agree, which is where I use this to myside's advantage since they assume others will also not worry about it. And then they don't check. So 1-3 can undo what 60 did. I see this as a plus.

7 hours ago, DeceiverX.8361 said:

A major part of smallscale skillgroups was misdirection and coordinating with the blob to confuse the enemy.

What changed here? I do the same now as before. I am not sure I follow.

7 hours ago, DeceiverX.8361 said:

If the blob was just scouted by WT by Durios because a bunch of pugs went after the sentry and ran into WT range by OW, it's pretty easy to discern the simultaneous swords on Anz or Mendons or a different BL entirely *isn't* them.

Reality is unless a zerg is bored they usually just wait to flip an objective immediately after it falls if it's already paper because it gives more loot than killing a random roamer.

 

But how has this impacted roamers? A roamer goal was to use 1 to impact more. How has that been impacted?

To be fair I think you might be more replying to roaming (verb) versus roamer (noun) play. Which is a different discussion. 

 

[Zyreva.1078]

6 hours ago, Sonork.2916 said:

Everything favors larger groups...  Don't see your point there.  Yeah picks can be harder when the movement options are leveled, but it's still very doable.

It's not just about "getting picks on lonely zerglings". It is more about being able to kite and split larger grps, as well as the ability to disengage from zergs and the ability of a zerg to quickly intercept multiple smaller grps before they can get anything done on a map.

Mobility was basically the only advantage roamers had over zergs - and the warclaw took it away. So yes, now everything favours larger numbers.

6 hours ago, Sonork.2916 said:

And i'd much rather have a flat, across the board fast movement option for OOC traversal, then going back to swapping to kitten that gives swiftness and just running.  

How about reducing its hp to 1 and removing the evades? Don't need those when out of combat, right?

Also with templates it is very easy to swap to a build that is better suited for traversing the map alone than your average zerg build, so all those poor zerglings that are worried about getting picked off on their way to the zerg without a mount, don't really have an excuse anymore.

Edited Sunday at 10:16 AM by Zyreva.1078

[apharma.3741]

I voted warclaw as it's a root cause of the other issue, "roaming gank groups".
By this I don't mean Hunt, roam or all those guys, I mean the packs of 7-20 that will immediately show up once a mapchat hero says "4 people necro tower" or just there are dots on the map. The warclaw has meant we see zerglings running around as half support and like 3 zerk reapers, holos or warriors turning what would either be a roaming even fight into fighting a small zerg with all the issues of support being so dumb these days. This would have never flown back in better days of roaming as these builds are too slow and would get picked apart, but now, everyone is a speedy with no trade off.

A close 2nd is willbender though, seriously, someone slap Roy and tell him to nerf this.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

9 hours ago, devastoscz.9851 said:

2.) Solo/Duo Roaming: Besides the usual cycling through camps to find fights...

It's literally right there. I didn't feel the need to describe roamer vs roamer in detail, because those people actually want to fight roamers and don't run away on their mounts. It seems unnecessary when I'm trying to make a point about the problems with the Warclaw.

It's been my experience that people trying to cap camps are not interested in fights. Some are even running pve builds to fight guards, not players. Or they might even be there just for the daily/weeklies. Occasionally I see dedicated roamer groups flip a camp if it's convenient, but ganking someone fighting NPCs isn't what I would call a real roamer fight. 🤷‍♀️

I for one love warclaws in wvw. They let my firebrand get into pug roamer fights without having to switch to willbender. I really don't like willbender. They are less ideal on my mirage, and that's fine. It's a good balance for different playstyles. And we obviously play the game differently. That's okay. I'm glad the game mode is large enough to accommodate different interests. We've all had to adapt at one point or another. Good luck to you finding something you enjoy that enough other players don't find too hostile. 😅

[Silinsar.6298]

2 hours ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

It's been my experience that people trying to cap camps are not interested in fights. Some are even running pve builds to fight guards, not players. Or they might even be there just for the daily/weeklies. Occasionally I see dedicated roamer groups flip a camp if it's convenient, but ganking someone fighting NPCs isn't what I would call a real roamer fight. 🤷‍♀️

Camps and sentries are amazing for roamers, because attacking them helps you get fights with opponents that wouldn't otherwise engage with you 😄 

[Sonork.2916]

7 hours ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

It's not just about "getting picks on lonely zerglings". It is more about being able to kite and split larger grps, as well as the ability to disengage from zergs and the ability of a zerg to quickly intercept multiple smaller grps before they can get anything done on a map.

Mobility was basically the only advantage roamers had over zergs - and the warclaw took it away. So yes, now everything favours larger numbers.

How about reducing its hp to 1 and removing the evades? Don't need those when out of combat, right?

Also with templates it is very easy to swap to a build that is better suited for traversing the map alone than your average zerg build, so all those poor zerglings that are worried about getting picked off on their way to the zerg without a mount, don't really have an excuse anymore.

Eh, I'd take having a warclaw over it being removed any day of the week.  Map traversal is just too painful without it for many classes.  And I would never wanna go back to hot swapping weapons/builds to just to get around the map.  I'm so glad that is far behind us.

Yeah I wouldn't care if Warclaw's HP were reduced or something, but really, it doesn't bother me how it is now.

Again, hard disagree on Warclaw, it's only made wvw better for any class that isn't thief to simply get around.  I mostly solo roam or sub 5 people small scale fights.  If you're worried about people breaking into towers/keeps too fast to respond, I'd rather they simply give walls more HP or something.  The recent change to only showing swords on towers/keeps from a % of wall/door damage has been a step in the right direction, now you actually know when someone is hitting a tower/keep instead of just a tap.

[ArchonWing.9480]

16 hours ago, devastoscz.9851 said:

It's literally right there. I didn't feel the need to describe roamer vs roamer in detail, because those people actually want to fight roamers and don't run away on their mounts. It seems unnecessary when I'm trying to make a point about the problems with the Warclaw.

Yes but when you follow it up  with commenting with warclaw making it harder to gank zerglings, it kinda overshadows the point and frankly is a very unimpressive topic to devote that many words to. Practically any wvw role naturally runs players like that over  just by playing the game so it's barely a roaming topic at all.

You cannot really blame people for focusing on it when it is a sizable chunk of your post.

Edited Sunday at 09:20 PM by ArchonWing.9480

[Gaiawolf.8261]

7 hours ago, Silinsar.6298 said:

Camps and sentries are amazing for roamers, because attacking them helps you get fights with opponents that wouldn't otherwise engage with you 😄 

Oh for sure. I was seeing from the other perspective, when roamers hide to gank players trying to flip a camp. Which is totally fine, btw, and seems to be more in the spirit of what the other poster was getting at, but it rarely turns into a real fight. It's just another straight, cheap gank from the bottom of the feeding pool like the rest of his post. It's part of the game mode; just be honest with what your doing. LOL

[DeceiverX.8361]

16 hours ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

You were talking large scale reacting to small scale. I have found that its even easier to fool large scale due to WT. I agree scouts will be scouts. Have found that large scale trust their scouts less now if they don't see dots on the WT. So small scale can use that. When running large scale, and being a roamer/havoc player main I have found a lot of roamers and havocs trying the same. Its a good tactic for roamers to hit a an objective since a lot don't trust their scouts to their own determent. 

Agree, which is where I use this to myside's advantage since they assume others will also not worry about it. And then they don't check. So 1-3 can undo what 60 did. I see this as a plus.

What changed here? I do the same now as before. I am not sure I follow.

 

But how has this impacted roamers? A roamer goal was to use 1 to impact more. How has that been impacted?

To be fair I think you might be more replying to roaming (verb) versus roamer (noun) play. Which is a different discussion. 

 

1.)  Large scale reacting to small scale is one of the reasons why people don't do it nearly as much anymore.  With buffs to offense a lot of guilds stopped putting as much value in defending, so it also wouldn't surprise me if they're just letting people get away with a lot in favor of more content.  Prior to these changes, I'd pretty regularly get the 50man on me when making a play in a solo or duo situation on a T3 tower, which before WC, I would regularly take.

2.)  What changed, as stated above, is that the large groups tend to know what's happening and just choose not to bother unless there's no content.  In the interim of  WT+WC prior to the buffs to attacking, you'd get rolled a lot more by the blob cycling past the objective to wipe you and repair before just porting and responding to the other blob's attack.  Often times, commanders looking for content want outer or even innter gates down as they come into the fray to maximize the fighting.

3.)  I think a big issue is like many, we do not have a common definition of roaming.  I am referencing groups of 1-3 seeking fights and making captures while the enemy blob is occupied.