Solution to condition damage cap...
That’s what I said a long time ago. The live computing of condition damage (and other things) COULD be left out to reduce some stress. It’s still a design choice.
But well, it wouldn’t allow indefinite stacks on world bosses. There even criticals care left out for lower stress. Yet, it might increase the cap from 25 to like 40. Not much help, but probably nice for dungeon parties.
Why not double the stack limit per enemy tier?
player and normal mobs 25
veterans 50
silver ones 75
Champions 100
bosses 125 (5*25 would make a condition bases group possible)
Worldbosses 150
And if this calculation is true for every tick, than ofcourse calculate the damage onse.
A condition is a normal attack, that deals damage over time, I see no point, why it should be calculated every tick of the condition.
That’s what I said a long time ago. The live computing of condition damage (and other things) COULD be left out to reduce some stress. It’s still a design choice.
But well, it wouldn’t allow indefinite stacks on world bosses. There even criticals care left out for lower stress. Yet, it might increase the cap from 25 to like 40. Not much help, but probably nice for dungeon parties.
Let’s call one unit of condition damage computation a “condi-compute” — in other words, all the computations that goes into calculating condition damage (player stats, might, super veggie pizza, etc.)
Currently, for every tick of a condition, one condi-compute must be made — because the player’s stats may have changed, his boons may have changed, is food may have changed, etc.
There is a 25 stack limit on conditions. Presumably that’s because Anet’s servers can handle up to 25 condi-computes per second.
With this alternative method, because conditions would be fire and forget, condi-computes only need to be made once — when the condition is applied. So the 25 stack limit would become, under this new method: “a maximum of 25 new conditions can be applied per second.” In this way, the server only has to do a maximum 25 condi-computes per second, just like with the current method.
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Think of it also this way, in terms of upkeep: currently, for each player who has a condition, the server must do a computation (and/or data retrieval) for every single player who has put a condition on him. This amount of computation/data retrieval gets big really fast — on the order of (# players)^2.
For the alternative method, for each player who has a condition, once the initial condi-compute is done, the server only needs to retrieve/compute information for that player (if he has eaten condi-duration reducing food, for example). This amount of computation is only on the order of (# of players) so is gonna be smaller.
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I’m very surprised that Anet chose the current method in the first place. It clearly makes everything much more complicated — is there something wrong with fire and forget conditions that I haven’t thought of?
(edited by Lord Kuru.3685)
TLDR for post above:
Using fire and forget conditions might allow to removal of the 25 stack cap, to be replaced with a 25 new conditions/second cap. (Roughly)
The solution is the same as in every other game. Condition damage simply needs to be managed by player just as direct damage is. Other games have tried solutions similar to GW2’s. It doesn’t work. The fact that it doesn’t work should have been known by any experienced developer. It wasn’t.
There is a 25 stack limit on conditions. Presumably that’s because Anet’s servers can handle up to 25 condi-computes per second.
That’s the assumption you’re basing this topic on and it’s at least partially wrong. Why? Let me explain.
Let’s say there are two players and both are able to maintain 25 stacks of Bleeding. They’re on the same map and near each other, but fighting different mobs. ANet’s server now has to calculate the damage for 50 stacks of Bleeding.
These players notice a champion and start fighting it together. Now, for some reason, ANet’s server can only hande 25 stacks of Bleeding on that champion? Can’t be true.
The only reasonable conclusion is that we don’t know the whole story. With that in mind, we can’t really suggest a solution other than “fix it ASAP”. Because that’s what they should do.
There is a 25 stack limit on conditions. Presumably that’s because Anet’s servers can handle up to 25 condi-computes per second.
That’s the assumption you’re basing this topic on and it’s at least partially wrong. Why? Let me explain.
Let’s say there are two players and both are able to maintain 25 stacks of Bleeding. They’re on the same map and near each other, but fighting different mobs. ANet’s server now has to calculate the damage for 50 stacks of Bleeding.
These players notice a champion and start fighting it together. Now, for some reason, ANet’s server can only hande 25 stacks of Bleeding on that champion? Can’t be true.
The only reasonable conclusion is that we don’t know the whole story. With that in mind, we can’t really suggest a solution other than “fix it ASAP”. Because that’s what they should do.
This is what I figured and it highlights one of my biggest gripes with ArenaNet and the GW2 developers as a whole: they are not transparent about what’s going on with the game.
Take Riot Games, the guys behind League of Legends, for example. They will readily pop into the forums and drop tidbits of knowledge about the game on players. If something works funky in game, a dev will go to the forums and try to explain why it’s happening and what they’re thinking about doing about it. Doesn’t happen all the time, but it’s enough so the players aren’t completely in the dark about what’s happening. People notice that sort of thing, and it’s one of the reasons why LoL is as big as it is today.
We do not get that in GW2 and it’s honestly killing my faith in this game. There is no legit reason why we as players don’t know precisely why the condition cap is 25 after a full year. There’s also no reason why we don’t know if there are any plans to correct it either, as it’s admittedly a server issue.
There is a 25 stack limit on conditions. Presumably that’s because Anet’s servers can handle up to 25 condi-computes per second.
That’s the assumption you’re basing this topic on and it’s at least partially wrong. Why? Let me explain.
Let’s say there are two players and both are able to maintain 25 stacks of Bleeding. They’re on the same map and near each other, but fighting different mobs. ANet’s server now has to calculate the damage for 50 stacks of Bleeding.
These players notice a champion and start fighting it together. Now, for some reason, ANet’s server can only hande 25 stacks of Bleeding on that champion? Can’t be true.
The only reasonable conclusion is that we don’t know the whole story. With that in mind, we can’t really suggest a solution other than “fix it ASAP”. Because that’s what they should do.
It’s not that the servers suddenly can’t handle 25 stacks on a champ, it’s that they have to cap the stacks assuming the worst case scenario — which would be something like your example: multiple people all fighting different mobs and giving 25 conditions to each mob. (Of course, they could have variable caps depending on how many conditions have been applied on that map, but that would be really confusing to players.)
In any case, fire-and-forget conditions are certainly less computationally intensive and actually more intuitive (why are newly placed might stacks changing condi damage on a mob after you’ve put it on him already?). The only issue I see is that balance has been done assuming the current system.