A LOT of people have been complaining about lag but it’s my experience that while there is always going to be some lag in mass events, many people don’t acknowledge that some of that is their own responsibility and the product of the limitations of the hardware they’re running.
So. For the record and for the future, for those who are not aware if you go to Options -> Graphic Options and select ‘Best Performance’ a great deal of this lag can be reduced. Now, it’s not sexy, all the shadowing and smooth edges are stripped away but it is functional.
You too can take control of the lag. Please remember this in the future and stop blaming ANet for the limitations of your own hardware.
Golemancy 101: total and complete catastrophic
failure is still a monumental success, assuming
losses remain within acceptable parameters.
The intention of the OP is helpful and pointing out the obvious solution can remind people what they can do.
But I lowered all my settings to the absolute MINIMUM after the first few minutes of the event and there may have been some very minor improvement there were still major issues that inhibited gameplay. Inviso mobs not rendering and slow down on skill activations were the most prevalent for me. I’ve heard of rubber-banding and other lag-associated issues from others.
I have a decent system and while playing the game before this event I’ve only ever had minor lag problems running at very high settings once in a while. The lag in this event was an order of magnitude worse even at the lowest settings.
Players are responsible for some of their experience but the lag in this event was not solely the fault of the players (well, it was sort of their fault for logging on and playing I suppose). Trying to absolve ArenaNet of any blame is not helpful criticism. There were real issues in this event (from the basic design to the implementation) and blaming players is not the way to see them fixed.
Check my GW2 Comic Dynamic Events http://goo.gl/JyB3J (Short Google Link to Fan Content Forum here)
Oh I’m not trying to absolve anyone, just remind people they do have the power to influence some factors. Someone was complaining to me about the lag yesterday, I asked what their settings were on and they said Best Appearance, on a two year old laptop. Of course in those situations it’s going to lag like all hell.
I did find especially during the reinforcement parts of the fights with a billion young karka and hatchlings running around even at low settings it was rough, but for the rest of the event it was manageable and that’s my point. You can do things to help make these things run smoother, and the truth is most of us are running comps towards the bottom end of what is required to process the kind of crazy workload being shoved at them in this kind of event.
In the future it would be great if Area Net reduced the population threshold per overflow and used less zergy enemies to reduce the number of moving bits on the screen at any time too. That would be more ideal. It’s a trial and error thing though. Hopefully this is a learning experience for everyone.
Golemancy 101: total and complete catastrophic
failure is still a monumental success, assuming
losses remain within acceptable parameters.
I always drop levels a bit for events..This time I even dropped to 1024 as well (By the way why does the view seem better in this resolution than widescreen – its almost as if this engine works/looks better on 4:3)..
Yes Lag can be helped at your end but this was beyond that.. Bad management on the server side and some of the most bizarre culling ever seen (remove effects not the bloody npcs your trying to hit/avoud)
Like I said, it is sometimes good to remind people obvious steps they can take and this is a good one.
In the future it would be great if Area Net reduced the population threshold per overflow and used less zergy enemies to reduce the number of moving bits on the screen at any time too. That would be more ideal. It’s a trial and error thing though. Hopefully this is a learning experience for everyone.
I agree with this particularly because lowering the settings did little to really help.
ArenaNet limiting population thresholds on main and overflow servers would still be the best solution.
Check my GW2 Comic Dynamic Events http://goo.gl/JyB3J (Short Google Link to Fan Content Forum here)
To OP, it wasn’t a problem with Graphics (FPS) it was network lag causing skills to be unplayable.
There were even ANet employees playing (had the ANet symbol beside name) and they were also getting DC’d and skill lag.
The game engine/network/servers just cannot handle that many players and things going on in such a small area.
My nick download speed was max of 35kbps with upload around 6kbps which is nothing, but when you have 100’s/1000’s of people going at it all at once and all those kbps add up and Anets network/game engine just cannot handle it unforunately.
To OP, it wasn’t a problem with Graphics (FPS) it was network lag causing skills to be unplayable.
True, there were network issues, and ANet should work on those, but there are different kinds of lag, and in my case my video was lagging (PC is almost six years old and is due for a rebuild), so lowering video settings changed my gameplay from painfully unplayable to totally lag free. OP’s point is valid.
I had to log in and out a few times until I found an overflow where the lag was bearable. After that the event went pretty smooth with only a few lag spikes.
Overall it could have been better but was still very playable so I cant complain.
People need to learn how to use “LAG” in MMO terminology. LAG has nothing to do with players hardware. Its caused either by internet connection or by the game servers. Getting NASA PC wont prevent you from lagging in big events.
Period.
And please stop giving ppl advice if you dont understand the issue. You are just confusing them and then we have the threads like “So I bought new PC for 2k bucks and the game is still lagging. BAD GAME”
…well, if my brand new GPU hadn’t decided to go down the drain on saturday…>_>
Seriously though, I know that some of the lag was due to my system (mostly the fps drop) and my not so stellar internet connection. However, that doesn’t explain 1minute skill delay
I think OP should just learn what lag is….
And how is easy to determine if is server or client side, and if its hardware or bandwidth issue.
(or even geographical etc).
Players cannot do anything regarding event lag…….
GW2 balance:
A PvE player is supposed to avoid a 1-2 second 1 shotting aoe.
A WWW player is considered uncapable of avoiding a 5,75 second aoe for half his health.
I think the OP should jus realise that not only kids play this game, and many of the players are actually working in IT or know a fair amount abt computers, the assumption that ppl who lag jus didnt configure their PC properly is a bit insulting, its like when calling IT department and they ask did u switch ur machine on?
Not only did I lag in main event, I lagged in Arah dungeon during the whole weekend, and on sunday I even lag in PvE on cursed shore which had like 4 ppl doing plinx, and come monday everything went back to normal, so tell me this is evidence that my PC couldnt handle it.
Yes, the game is badly optimized so only people with really high-end computers can enjoy the game with minimal lag. However, the lag during this event was purely due to the badly optimized server, and not being able to handle hundreds of players in one spot, to be expected. I’m just surprised that some people had no lag whatsoever, and others couldn’t even play normally. That only tells us that their technology can’t handle this yet, and need proper testing and introduction of some new systems to the existing servers before they even think about giving such huge events again.
I run a high-end PC and on a regular basis have + 55 fps and fast connection, so it was definitely not my fault for being unable to participate.
P.S I found out that reflections and shadow options in graphic settings are badly optimized, like – really bad. So even on high end computers you can experience lag in watery areas or if you have them maxed out. I tried doing the event on lowest settings possible and I still had massive problems.
A LOT of people have been complaining about lag but it’s my experience that while there is always going to be some lag in mass events, many people don’t acknowledge that some of that is their own responsibility and the product of the limitations of the hardware they’re running.
So. For the record and for the future, for those who are not aware if you go to Options -> Graphic Options and select ‘Best Performance’ a great deal of this lag can be reduced. Now, it’s not sexy, all the shadowing and smooth edges are stripped away but it is functional.
@charrgirl NO
A minimum requirement computerwill have other issues…
What is referre to as lag is just a server side issue…
Some people also call lag that rendering problem that makes the technical quality of the game questionable…..
Expecially if you see what happened during event:
A vet karka decide to use his 1shot rolling attack:
A HUGE zerg just die …
That is the sum of rendering issues with server lag…..
Basically you didn t see the karka, and a lag spike prevented you to even see his attack because usually when you are near an opponent it’s slowly rendered.
Those events are completely unplayable, ruins the game even for those playing the game in other areas and just shows clearly huge technical issues of the game….
But it drop precursors and exo stuff so its cool…if the drop wasn t that huge we’d have thousands of players asking to stop those events on the forum.
GW2 balance:
A PvE player is supposed to avoid a 1-2 second 1 shotting aoe.
A WWW player is considered uncapable of avoiding a 5,75 second aoe for half his health.
), so lowering video settings changed my gameplay from painfully unplayable to totally lag free. OP’s point is valid.