Guild Wars 2

Greetings!

Just want to discuss a growing problem that I’m seeing in Lion’s Arch as the population grows. It use to be that standing on the bank steps I could see all the players around the Mystic Forge and clear up to running up the ramp to the fountain area and over to the bank area.

Then the area where I was able to see other players started shrinking to where if I watched a player running over the arced bridge leading up to the ramp, they would blip out of existence about halfway across the bridge. Could no longer see players on the ramp.

Then the area got even smaller and I could no longer see players standing on the other side of the Mystic Forge.

Then the area got even tinier and I could no longer see players below the ledge.

Today I noticed that I can no longer see players unless I am standing practically on top of them. I was running towards the Trading Post from the Bank and players bleeped in and out of existence as I passed them by.

I know this is a high class problem related to the growth of the game but would love some word on if and when this would be addressed, either through an improvement in tech or by having a smaller cap on the server populations and opening some new servers.

Btw – I love the game, it’s the best MMORPG I’ve ever played. The community is outstanding, the art is amazing and the game concepts are so refreshing and fun to play. Truly impressed with everything you’ve done and appreciate all the work the ANet people have put into the game

Yeah, this is seriously annoying and it makes Lions Arch feel completely dead

I don’t mind this so much normally, but during events like Halloween it makes the whole thing seem less amazing than it could be. I was expecting a huge swarm at Mad King like in good old GW1 and instead it was just the 10 closest guys. If it is such a resource drain than why can I fight a dragon with craploads of people visible during a battle but not when we are just standing idle in town?

Granted my FPS drops like mad during the fight, but I feel that it should be at my personal discretion how much I want to sacrifice for character render distance. The same goes for WvW but that may be an issue with the engine itself.

It’s also hilarious to be running next to another player in a city, such as LA, only to have them vanish as soon as you approach a populated area, appearing again only when whatever algorithm controls the culling decides to render them.

I miss being in outposts in GW1 and being able to see everyone, though I recognize that the district system made the max number workable.

You know, come to think of it, I noticed that too and sometimes it takes a while for the entities to reload. Not sure if it bothers me that much though; less rendered people, less lag. But that’s weird! I really pay attention to it.

Same here. It keeps getting worse, or the population is decreasing alot the last past weeks.

The culling is destroying my will to play, it’s bad everywhere.. it’s mindboggling that there’s no slider or any other way to turn that crap off.

I think it might depend on your connection-the longer I stand still the more people around me show up. This makes me feel like loading the players around me is prioritized based on some system about data transfer and connection speed.

The way culling has been “fixed” is completely out of hand… And it’s not only in Lion’s Arch, it’s everywhere, I just was in Black Citadel, and NPC disappear at such a low range (maybe 20-30 meters), they’ll appear out of thin air… Seriously, I’d rather have an option to enable or disable such heavy handed culling…

It’s even worse when it keeps happening in WvW so you run into invisible zergs – it really is a shame that ANet has this problem for so long.

I really wish they would just cull the models instead or something.

Atleast show people’s names and make them targetable. Then could they maybe work on having it be an optional thing. It can be pretty useful sometimes.

on borlis pass with less than 20 people by mystic forge it is quite bad.

when you first run there for the first several seconds the area looks empty after you stop completely and wait for players to load.

then as i stand there with maybe 5-10 players on screen, i watch as players appear and vanish as they run by, often appearing while running from behind me, but appearing well in front of me, then vanishing a few seconds later less than 15 m away from my toon.

as well too often in wvw i am in battles with enemies who are not mesmers or thieves with neither of those in their group vanishing and appearing over and over through out the battle. i mean i’m talking like eles and guardians and engis doing this here.

I think the problem is there do to the vast of invisible armies in WvW. Meaning only a few players where rendered, what you think looks to be 10 people turns out to be 40 instead. People that do WvW on a basis always complained about invisible Armies. The problem is still there but not as bad as it was. So whatever the devs did to fix the invisible army problem in WvW, might had leeked over in the PVE zones. Just a thought

Invisible armies were never fixed drifter.

Why isnt there a culling slider? I want to be able to see 50+ people.

Sundial.9015:

Invisible armies were never fixed drifter.

WoW a response. most people just post away and never read what others had posted. Goes to show I had not been in WvW since my last two server switches. But from my first server people in my guild commented on the invisible armies seem to had gotten fixed some. Shrugs