[POLL] Your top reason on why roaming is dead

[Zyreva.1078]

11 hours ago, Sonork.2916 said:

And I would never wanna go back to hot swapping weapons/builds to just to get around the map.
[...]
I mostly solo roam or sub 5 people small scale fights.

If you'd roam on a roaming build, you'd not have to swap build to get arround ...

And even if you do for some reason, templates make it easier than ever, just requires 1-2 buttons.

And class is no longer an excuse, because all of them have pretty decent mobility nowadays.

[Sonork.2916]

1 hour ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

If you'd roam on a roaming build, you'd not have to swap build to get arround ...

And even if you do for some reason, templates make it easier than ever, just requires 1-2 buttons.

And class is no longer an excuse, because all of them have pretty decent mobility nowadays.

Nah, the Warclaw, is fine.  Completely disagree with ya.  I don't wanna mirco manage movement all the way across the goddamn map again.  it's boring as hell and annoying to do.  Also, not all roaming classes get perm swiftness or great movement skills without swapping to mostly useless skills aimed only for movement.

Edited Monday at 07:31 AM by Sonork.2916

[coro.3176]

The most annoying problem with Warclaw for me is that it inherently favours a large group chasing down a solo. The people at the back get out of combat and they mount up and leap ahead to chase down the roamer.

A roamer wants to be able to pick their fights - always take a 1v1, maybe take a 1v3, but definitely don't take a 1v10. But Warclaw means the 1v10 is near-impossible to escape if you're in combat, unless you have a stealth eject button.

[TheGrimm.5624]

14 hours ago, DeceiverX.8361 said:

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.

Note lunch time and I might need coffee, but this reads double negative so not sure I am getting this point. Buff to offense, as in nerfs to defense? Guilds stopping to defend? Guilds didn't defend before, tags did, but not certain guild did. On the response aspect your seeing more defense when you try and havoc a tower or less? This came out as more.

While testing I am seeing more large scale play in prime time, and they are a bit sloppy in getting flagged by sentries and WT, so it make it easier to avoid them if you are solo or running in a havoc. The question is for those not roaming or running in a havoc, is the why since I am seeing less roamers and havocs in prime time. That I might think is WR spreading them about or if they are roamers or havocs in a community guild it might be due to community rules. Again I am testing WR by floating to see what it looks like from an non-community guild view.

14 hours ago, DeceiverX.8361 said:

2.)  What changed, as stated above, is that the large groups tend to know what's happening

I find this actually the opposite since a lot I have seen aren't checking in with scout nor deploying them, but that could be mileage varies.

14 hours ago, DeceiverX.8361 said:

and just choose not to bother unless there's no content. 

I think this more goes back to your previous statement. It's easier to attack so they just retake it.

14 hours ago, DeceiverX.8361 said:

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.

Again this sounds like a double negative which should mean positive. So I get WT might impact small scale if they don't use WT to mask movements. WR adding to that... if WR means less people defending, I don't get it. Cycling past also doesn't sound like defending. Repairing, outside of tags that are defense tags, its still quite often for large scale to repair. So are you running into more community guilds that defend or are you seeing more pure guilds that are already more likely to defend that will drop their attack to react to a defense?

14 hours ago, DeceiverX.8361 said:

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.

^^^^ This.

I do see less small scale during prime time now. When running solo I am not seeing differences when taking towers. I see more reactions when I try and solo keeps. But that makes large scale easier to bait. I also see less map chat scout reports until you get other scouts to start reporting in by engaging them. WR, while testing, has seemed to impacted public and invis tags. There seems to be more invis tags in prime at times, which impacts scouts. Why scout and report when there is no one, that you know of, to report to. And at the same time it impacts pugmanders since if there invis tags that have people in play you also don't see there are open players to group with. So that is a weird combo. We are only a number of sorts in so that might change or it could be the sorts I have seen. Still testing

Outside of prime there is more roamer and small scale activity, it actually feels more active since there is less map sized groups moving around. But again that could be the sorts I have seen.  

[devastoscz.9851]

22 hours ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

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.

18 hours ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

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

I honestly don't know what you guys consider "roaming" at this point. All of you seem to believe that "true" roamers only fight other roamers? Never kill people flipping camps? Never interrupt reinforcements? Never pick backlines? Somehow you've extrapolated my post away from my point, which is the actual warclaw being a problem to roaming, not the quality of roamer you perceive I am.

 

 

[ArchonWing.9480]

1 hour ago, devastoscz.9851 said:

I honestly don't know what you guys consider "roaming" at this point. All of you seem to believe that "true" roamers only fight other roamers? Never kill people flipping camps? Never interrupt reinforcements? Never pick backlines? Somehow you've extrapolated my post away from my point, which is the actual warclaw being a problem to roaming, not the quality of roamer you perceive I am.

 

 

And I honestly don't know what you consider to be  a fight.

Like I said before, most of the things are unremarkable and not really specific to roamers. With the exception of picking backliners , you're mostly describing   PvE with extra steps. and hardly relates to the death of roaming should these activities be harder with warclaw.

Also backline picking is usually done as a large scale thing in conjunction with a larger group. Just because you're not in the same squad from them doesn't mean you're roaming either.

As a simple example to easily counter your point "All of you seem to believe that "true" roamers only fight other roamers? " , sure, roamers gank people taking camps, but they may be facing an entire group of them. What's the difference between that and the examples you describe, and also what zinks memed upon you? You might actually fail, because there's some degree of risk involved. Which makes it a little more than pve with extra steps.

Edited Monday at 09:30 PM by ArchonWing.9480

[Gaiawolf.8261]

1 hour ago, devastoscz.9851 said:

I honestly don't know what you guys consider "roaming" at this point. All of you seem to believe that "true" roamers only fight other roamers? Never kill people flipping camps? Never interrupt reinforcements? Never pick backlines? Somehow you've extrapolated my post away from my point, which is the actual warclaw being a problem to roaming, not the quality of roamer you perceive I am.

 

 

I think the disconnect is that your post seemed to boil roaming down to just easily ganking the bottom of the competitive barrel (or at least heavily focused on it), but there is much more to roaming than ganking non-roamers for a lot of us. Sure, roamers can gank. That's part of it, but there are also roamers that like competitive open field fights, havoc squads (which you also touched on but then complained when it wasn't super easy), small scale capping, and patrols/scouting.

Secondly, when another poster asked about other roaming activities or entertaining any sort of challenge, you seemed to think that was implied in your first post, but if you intended to include that, it was not conveyed well. We all missed it.

The final point others had is that without a warkitty, your presented type of roaming was just too easy. Warkitties help to partially bridge the mobility gap between dedicated roamer builds and non-roamer builds at least a little bit, which I count as a win. It's still not trivial for a non-roamer to escape when they don't want a fight, but now it's not all one-side in favor of a roamer. I'd say this last point is just a direct disagreement with your opinion, rather than a discrepancy of terms. Which is fine. Everyone is allowed their opinion, but that doesn't mean everyone has to agree with it.

So to answer your question on what do I think is roaming?

1. Open field GvG/solo fights
2. Havoc squads
3. Small-scale capping/defending
4. Ganking and disrupting supply/reinforcements
5. Scouting

Others please fill in if I missed anything. (I didn't forget dueling, I just think that's its own thing, not really roaming.)

Edit: Oh, I forgot my main tl;dr point. I don't think warkitties kill or even hurt roaming. They make ganking somewhat harder and open up roaming to more builds and specs which have lower mobility. And that's better for more diverse, fun roaming in general for more players.

Edited Monday at 09:35 PM by Gaiawolf.8261

[TheGrimm.5624]

Solo play, small scale and large scale all have the same activities. It just varies in level of challenge. How many do you use to do a thing and how likely can it be done. The smaller the group the potential to be more mobile since you have less to wait for to get together and move. A solo player, a roamer, has only to wait on their own mind to figure out where they are headed next. A Havoc is the next most mobile followed up by a Warband and then a full squad. But all of them can do the same activities, its just not as efficient versus using the right size for different activities. A single player can take a keep, it takes a lot longer, has more chance for discovery, more chance to be interdicted and the challenge of taking the lord. Not as efficient as using a Havoc when defended and potential more needing as there are more players at the structure. If a Warband (for none Warhammer players picture a half squad in GW2) doesn't need supply but wants a camp, they only need to send a single member or a few if they want to account for the other side being there at the same time. Taking the full Warband is just zerging down a camp if they aren't expecting resistance versus they could send 1 and use the rest to hit the enemy Warband at the next structure or just take the tower associated with the camp. Likewise a lot of groups don't employee their roamers that aren't with tag, which is a loss for them. Roamers are more defined by players that are just going to try and do a thing without direction. Which again has times for potential efficiency and times that they aren't efficient for the tasks at hand. 25 players attacking solo against a keep that is defended by a coordinated group can still get it done, but it might have been better to do it together. The activity is the same for both the solo players and the grouped ones, take or hold the keep.

I do see less maps working together post WR launch, but that could be for familiarity with others as another factor of the WR. This goes back to from servers, I see they jumped Bob, Bob would back me up if I got jumped, I am going in, yup here comes Krim and there is Steve, lets get em, do a map shout we have a fight forming up. Versus post WR, less open players since they might have more scheduled raid times and they need to be on the tag scheduled for this hour and night. So less spontaneous fights at times. Does that mean small scale or roaming is dead? No. If one side is using a map squad to move around it. It's easy, run rings around them, when they go mass to take a camp, take 2 towers and 2 camps from them while they go to the one spot. 

[Dinas Dragonbane.2978]

On 10/13/2024 at 6:01 AM, Zyreva.1078 said:

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

Too true 

[Zyreva.1078]

8 hours ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

I don't think warkitties kill or even hurt roaming. They make ganking somewhat harder and open up roaming to more builds and specs which have lower mobility. And that's better for more diverse, fun roaming in general for more players.

Warclaw does not make ganking harder whatsoever. It just means you might have to bring more people and that's exactly what's happening. More ganking, less actual (solo) roaming and (outnumbered) small scale fights. It also doesn't open up more build diversity. Just makes stealth more important, because mobility alone doesn't cut it anymore. Unless you are a willbender i guess.

It only makes roaming fun for "more" players, because it means people can run arround in larger numbers and have an easier time zerging those few actual roamers remaining that dare to engage without numerical advantage.

And when looking at the poll, the main pain points seem to be gank squads, stealth and the warclaw. And while ganking and stealth existed long before the mount ofc, it's exactly that sort of gameplay that is fostered by it.

Edited yesterday at 05:43 AM by Zyreva.1078

[Bleikopf.2491]

A bit into the thread now, I'd like to ask the group some (genuine) questions:

What is roaming "supposed" to look like? 

What do you want it to achieve? 

What would be ideal circumstances for roamers?

[TheGrimm.5624]

2 hours ago, Bleikopf.2491 said:

A bit into the thread now, I'd like to ask the group some (genuine) questions:

What is roaming "supposed" to look like? 

What do you want it to achieve? 

What would be ideal circumstances for roamers?

Both roamers and havocs have similar goals, do as much as you can with as little of numbers as possible to achieve goals and draw more of them than there are of you. The more you draw to your group means less of them elsewhere for your side to take advantage of.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

5 hours ago, Bleikopf.2491 said:

What is roaming "supposed" to look like?

 

[One more for the road.8950]

7 minutes ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

 

Add towers to that, one or two can easily take a tower these days.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

6 hours ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

Warclaw does not make ganking harder whatsoever. It just means you might have to bring more people and that's exactly what's happening. More ganking, less actual (solo) roaming and (outnumbered) small scale fights. It also doesn't open up more build diversity. Just makes stealth more important, because mobility alone doesn't cut it anymore. Unless you are a willbender i guess.

It only makes roaming fun for "more" players, because it means people can run arround in larger numbers and have an easier time zerging those few actual roamers remaining that dare to engage without numerical advantage.

And when looking at the poll, the main pain points seem to be gank squads, stealth and the warclaw. And while ganking and stealth existed long before the mount ofc, it's exactly that sort of gameplay that is fostered by it.

That might be how it's working on your alliance, but in mine we have several groups of roamers and even a few guilds dedicated to small scale roaming and taking on outnumbered fights. No larger groups required. Maybe that's the key you're missing. Maybe try finding a small guild or tight group of friends to roam with you.

I must be reading the poll differently, or at least at a different time, because right now gank squads are the clear outlier and the only other option that's even close to within a standard deviation of it is the "roaming is not dead"  option. Everything after that is almost another standard deviation lower, beside unique answers, so pretty much no consensus there.

Edited 22 hours ago by Gaiawolf.8261

[Zyreva.1078]

3 hours ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

 Maybe try finding a small guild or tight group of friends to roam with you.

I already have a guild to roam with, but it doesn't change anything in regards to the warclaw. Instead of getting ganked by a few, we are getting run over by 30+ then. Kiting or escaping impossible, because ... well, you know why.

Edited 19 hours ago by Zyreva.1078

[Gaiawolf.8261]

1 hour ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

I already have a guild to roam with, but it doesn't change anything in regards to the warclaw. Instead of getting ganked by a few, we are getting run over by 30+ then. Kiting or escaping impossible, because ... well, you know why.

That sounds like an awareness issue. If you're getting overrun by a group that size, you're either not paying enough attention or they're out maneuvering you with good ambush tactics.

[Zyreva.1078]

46 minutes ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

That sounds like an awareness issue. If you're getting overrun by a group that size, you're either not paying enough attention or they're out maneuvering you with good ambush tactics.

Or maybe it is simply not possible to get out of combat faster than a mounted zerg can close the gap. This often even applies when reacting to fps drops and before the zerg actually renders. Because we don't run a gank squad full of thieves. Lack of awareness and good ambush tactics, sure ...

Yes, it is possible to avoid zergs if that's the primary goal, but it is be very limiting and therefore usually results in unfun and boring gameplay.

So it sounds more like you don't spend much time alone or with a small grp fighting in enemy territory. Otherwise you'd know what i'm talking about.

Edited 16 hours ago by Zyreva.1078

[RisingDawn.5796]

I used to roam and scout on my thief back in the day, but that was before scout balloons from towers and sentries were a thing, not forgetting mounts, which you can say they do or don't make things easier.

It wasn't very rewarding, not that wvw was that rewarding then or now if you just solo roam or scout, without some community initiative.

Even upgrades to towers, camps and keeps cost coin, although to discover things like zergs and get into small scale fights was always enjoyable as at least a core thief, especially when wvw was Active, during events like the WvW tournaments.

 

Edited 12 hours ago by RisingDawn.5796

[ArchonWing.9480]

17 hours ago, Bleikopf.2491 said:

A bit into the thread now, I'd like to ask the group some (genuine) questions:

What is roaming "supposed" to look like? 

What do you want it to achieve? 

What would be ideal circumstances for roamers?

I generally define roaming as small scale activities that are not objective based and are in favor of seeking fights or "content", favoring the sandbox style of things.  Havoc is where the goals are objective based, eg tapping a keep to help your zerg or taking camps behind where your zerg doesn't go.

The two can seem identical to onlookers, but the intents are different.  Attacking a camp while your zerg does something else is havoc, while attacking a camp just to see who shows up is roaming. In general, the more havoc minded would aim to capture the camp asap, while roamers don't care about the camp as much as the potential fights it may bring.

There is sometimes overlap though. But it's also a source of conflict because people have their own interpretations and expectations of how the game should be played. Eg.  A roamer may be annoyed that a havoc group runs them down mercilessly and trying so hard when they approach a camp while the havoc group wonders why the roamer insists on coming to that particular camp they're guarding

This is not to say one is better than  another; it trains different skillsets and it's rare to know a WvW that couldn't use help improving in one area or more

Edited 11 hours ago by ArchonWing.9480

[TheGrimm.5624]

10 hours ago, RisingDawn.5796 said:

I used to roam and scout 

It wasn't very rewarding, not that wvw was that rewarding then or now if you just solo roam or scout, without some community initiative.

WvW can be rewarding if you don't; Roam, Havoc, Scribe, Tag. Else its still a loss to play the game mode. Even if you don't do one of the previous, you will not make as much coin in WvW versus other modes so you are better off in other game modes if looking to make coin. 

[Dawdler.8521]

10 hours ago, RisingDawn.5796 said:

I used to roam and scout on my thief back in the day, but that was before scout balloons from towers and sentries were a thing, not forgetting mounts, which you can say they do or don't make things easier.

It wasn't very rewarding, not that wvw was that rewarding then or now if you just solo roam or scout, without some community initiative.

Even upgrades to towers, camps and keeps cost coin, although to discover things like zergs and get into small scale fights was always enjoyable as at least a core thief, especially when wvw was Active, during events like the WvW tournaments.

 

Thief still had 40% uptime on stealth under perma marked (more if they timed it well). But I think the PvP version is active in WvW since last week so less than that now? Ah can’t remember.

[TheGrimm.5624]

10 hours ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

I generally define roaming as small scale activities that are not objective based and are in favor of seeking fights or "content", favoring the sandbox style of things.  Havoc is where the goals are objective based, eg tapping a keep to help your zerg or taking camps behind where your zerg doesn't go.

The two can seem identical to onlookers, but the intents are different.  Attacking a camp while your zerg does something else is havoc, while attacking a camp just to see who shows up is roaming. In general, the more havoc minded would aim to capture the camp asap, while roamers don't care about the camp as much as the potential fights it may bring.

There is sometimes overlap though. But it's also a source of conflict because people have their own interpretations and expectations of how the game should be played. Eg.  A roamer may be annoyed that a havoc group runs them down mercilessly and trying so hard when they approach a camp while the havoc group wonders why the roamer insists on coming to that particular camp they're guarding

This is not to say one is better than  another; it trains different skillsets and it's rare to know a WvW that couldn't use help improving in one area or more

I would disagree my friend. The noun conversions to the verb indicates the number versus the activity. A roamer, single player might be roaming. 2+ would be havocing, both are looking to do what they can with the numbers they have.  We can agree to disagree. But it impacts the poll.

Roaming, nor small scale such as havoc is not dead. I was using pugs in a havoc to counter more numbers while typemanding again... I wouldn't say smallscale, nor roamer play is dead. Not saying you were making that point. But I wanted to further counter its all or nothing. Its not.