Hi there,
I’m sorry if i’m bothering anybody with these suggestions, i just thought that it wouldn’t hurt to hear it from another person’s point of view =)
I have no intentions of offending anybody so if my wording is poor, i’m very sorry. Thank you for taking the time to read this!
I understand that GW2 is heavily CPU dependent and these settings that i’m about to mention would be a direct FIX for most computers using your game that lack the processing power and they would certainly help with Latency as well!
First off i’ll start with Spell Detail since it is the major lag cause in the entire game. My wife’s laptop has it running on 640 resolution with every video setting set to the lowest possible and her laptop is hooked in directly to a CAT-6 cord so i know it’s not a latency issue. Her PC handles the game just fine even in other pvp but when it comes to WvW it gets bad with the huge battles. Not only is it nearly unplayable for her in that situation but the Spell Detail is almost just as flawless as it is on a 1200 resolution. If we could customize the spell detail to the point of even being able to disable it completely, i’m absolutely positive that 60% of your players would experience less than half as much lag in WvW battles by implementing just one setting option.
Secondly in terms of general terrain i’ve noticed that on my laptop, i have 1200 resolution and the lowest settings on everything else. I have seen in just one screen shot, texture on a grassy ground to be really choppy and hard to perceive while the mountain detail and texture, right beside it, were absolutely flawless and shiny. Also i have noticed that the water detail is simply too high to not be able to reduce much further than the current options. Even on the lowest settings, i’ve never seen water detail look that nice in an MMO which is amazing but for lower end pc’s, it would help to keep people interested and having a happy experience if we could severely reduce the water detail. I have also noticed that once the water splashing effect turns off, my pc immediately runs smoother with no lag.. There should definitely be an option to take that off, just like you can take off the camera shake =)
I Think if we could customize different types of terrain detail it would help just enough to relieve people’s systems while in the midst of having to process these huge battles, castles crumbling, all the water and mist around it, etc.
Last but not least would be weather detail. I have noticed in WvW in the wide open terrains with minimal weather, there is no lag for me whatsoever and barely anything for my wife’s laptop as well but the moment we’re in the PVE world and the storms start brewing, or for example how The Grove has so many floaty, shiny, particles flying around, all of a sudden things get choppy and just turning the camera to find your direction becomes slightly difficult. Though these are absolutely breathtaking visuals, they also lag up every pc more than they need to, especially when there could be the option to disable them.
All in all if i were to generalize how to improve computer performance for every player on your servers, i would review people’s gaming experience and all of the different visual effects that come with it and simply create a sliding bar of a numerical measurement for customized options. Everything from maximum detail down to completely disable would be the best for smooth gameplay.
Even though the game is not intended to be played that way, simply because it was meant to have amazing visuals, a lot of people don’t care for the visuals as much as they care for the game itself.
Most games that i have preferred in the past and have absolutely loved, have very little visual appeal but the functions of the game are amazing. The Guild Wars 2 functions in the game are by far the best i’ve ever experienced with any MMO so once the visual settings are implemented i’m positive it will be a full home run for nearly everybody who plays it =)
Thank you so much for your time reading this, as well as all your time making this absolutely wonderful game!
Everyday i become a bit more addicted
Take care,
Joseph