Guild Wars 2

Skill lag is one of the signs that ArenaNet doesn’t really know how to manage a AAA title. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that if skill lag was so bad in, say, Tol Barad or Wintergrasp, Blizzard would fix it in the next patch. (Obviously those zones had some lag when they first launched, but it was never hours-long unplayable lag like has always been the case for active world vs. world.)

If it’s really as un-fixable as some people insist, then, honestly, world vs. world shouldn’t exist or, at the very least, the season idea should have been scrapped.

It seems to be a consistent issue with ArenaNet: When they run into a technical limitation — whether it’s bleed cap, lag, queues or even culling — the developers ignore it and let it stand for far too long instead of designing with the limitation in mind.

Seems like A-Net needs to upgrade their servers with all that cash they just got and optimize their game rather than let this issue persist.

Lopez.7369:

Skill lag is one of the signs that ArenaNet doesn’t really know how to manage a AAA title. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that if skill lag was so bad in, say, Tol Barad or Wintergrasp, Blizzard would fix it in the next patch. (Obviously those zones had some lag when they first launched, but it was never hours-long unplayable lag like has always been the case for active world vs. world.)

Wintergrasp was never fixed; it stopped lagging when the Vault stopped being relevant. At its peek, when Northrend launched, that place was unplayable. They never fixed Alterac Valley either, they completely gutted the original form and turned it into a 40vs40 mad rush to the lord’s room, the main forces almost never fought en-masse.

Aion had skill lag out the butt when the true Abyss keep sieges were happening in the upper layers. It was downright impossible to activate skills on the Lords and the Druagr would walk over you because they had priority in skills.

Warhammer was unplayable, keep sieges had to be locked to 200vs. and even then Brightlagstorms were unavoidable and stupid.

clint.5681:

gidorah.4960:

if you want a quick fix for the skill lag however you are welcome to transfer to a bronze league server they don’t have it.

Bronze servers have had tons of skill lag since the leagues started. Get your facts straight.

Tons of skill lag? We streamed all reset, which included a queued borderland, and didn’t have any (people can check it themselves). Haven’t had enough people to have skill lag for months, including since league.

Thor.1756:

I’m not sure whether putting it on lowest settings will stop nameplates from appearing. My understanding is that culling wasn’t about nameplates, but rather your computer trying to render all the character images at once.

There is a difference between culling and rendering. To save server resources culling did not “transmit” to clients (user computers) 100% of the players that were actually “on” the screen. Rendering refers to your computers ability to “show you” the players that they server tells your computer are there.

Culling (server side)
Rendering (client side)

That was the way it was explained/talked about back when culling was a big issue. With that in mind, that is where my original statement came from, either way Devs came out and flat-said that culling was originally implemented to save network resources if I remember correctly.

styx.7294:

clint.5681:

gidorah.4960:

if you want a quick fix for the skill lag however you are welcome to transfer to a bronze league server they don’t have it.

Bronze servers have had tons of skill lag since the leagues started. Get your facts straight.

Tons of skill lag? We streamed all reset, which included a queued borderland, and didn’t have any (people can check it themselves). Haven’t had enough people to have skill lag for months, including since league.

Apples to oranges. SF had 4 maps queued at reset, then and since then have gotten quite a bit of skill lag at the larger siege events (expected to have it there somewhat). Obviously it is a direct correlation to the influx of players with leagues going on, but the point(s) was that do not assume because “bronze is smaller” that skill lag is not going on quite a bit.

Is anyone going to read the official thread on skill lag? You guys are seriously barking up the wrong tree. It has nothing to do with culling or rendering.

Skill lag is caused by large groups of players clumped together activating AoE skills. Each skill has a lot of added calculations because of all the potential targets, and everyone is AoEing at once: 300 AoEs, all triggered in the same second, all with 100+ potential targets. Each tick of damage applied to each person requires a complete stat/trait/equipment/condition/boon calculation. This creates a massive server load in less than a second, causing CPU usage to spike to 100%, causing lag.

aspirine.6852:

gidorah.4960:

Zylonite.5913:

Hi Anet, still waiting on developer feedback on all these queue times and skills lags/ etc that have been brought up since the Seasons started? In other words any news on removing all JPs from WvW maps on the next patch?

you got your response before the season started. don’t stack on server’s. feel free to look it up in devon’s post history.

Nice try, I am on the lowest tier and it’s unplayable at times. You can even feel the difference in playing without encountering a blob.

i’m in gold league and it’s never unplayable its your settings.

I doubt they’ll change anything this season. But they might change a lot after the season is finished before the next season starts(there might be a few weeks of normal matchups before another season starts).

Also I don’t think they’ll answer. It’s a policy just not to answer certain stuff. Stuff like “removing all JP” is just out of the question. They won’t remove content. No need to answer that.

I tryed to reach out to arenanet, so we maybe could get some answers.
Post got deleted within 5 min. Guess arenanet dont like that the community tells the truth ;P

A moderator moved a message you posted to the forum ‘Trashcan’ with the reason:

The thread “What are you doing Arenanet?” has been removed from the forums and all posts responding to it have been removed with it. We understand that you want get our attention about an issue you feel passionate about. All ArenaNet staff members, from designers to moderators, continually pass along feedback and suggestions to the rest of the development teams. Addressing a thread directly to ArenaNet Staff members tends to cause disruptions on the forums, and therefore, is not allowed.

Threads which violate the Forum Code of Conduct will be removed from the Guild Wars 2 Forums

titanlectro.5029:

The queue issues are due to more people playing. There is nothing wrong with the queue, it is working just fine.

Um Devon Carver has admitted there is a problem with the queue system. Mike Ferguson admitted it on Reddit 8 months ago. This should have been a near top priority to fix and wasn’t. It is a major stuff up by anet and speaks volumes about their lack of regard for WvW.

And I strongly suspect the Edge of the Mists map will not be an actual fix for the bugged queues but merely a way to deflect it because players will be in the new map.

The problem with queues are too many people running to Tier 1 servers because they are too impatient to build up a winning server (like SoR did and TC are).

On SoS we talked to a lot of guilds that were interested in moving to us, but they all ended up going to Silver League servers or running to T1.

The result is that I can log in at any time and find at least one borderland without a queue and kick stuff off with people and the bags I’m collecting because the skilled server groups are mixed with ungeared casuals has been a windfall for my personal income. I’m averaging almost 5G a night.

Thor.1756:

Just not true. I’ve been on JQ, been in tier 1 since day one. I’ve had full queues against two other servers who also had full queues constantly. There’s certainly been a lot of lag over time fighting in t1 wvw.

But this lag almost always occurred in 3-way fights, almost always in keeps where npcs and siege were adding to the calculations, and almost always involved 120+ players. I never complained about this lag, I accepted it as a natural result of such massive fights, and, frankly, our own kitten fault for running such large zergs and for forcing 3-way fights.

Since the launch of season 1, every server on every tier is reporting massive, unplayable lag, resulting from minor zerg fights of 30v30. Something DID magically change. I don’t know if its the achievements, or some kitten spilt coffee on the wrong computer. Whatever it is, Anet kittened up. Bad.

Hmm…I dunno if this helps or not, but I honestly have rarely noticed this issue except in the former three way situation, just liked it used to be. However, I run an AMD card.

My fellow players who talk to me about their lag experiences said that just around the same time as the season’s start, NVidia popped in a new update for its drivers, if you happen to use that graphics card supplier. I’d suggest anybody who’s using them for their graphics look into that and maybe see if the issue is on that end. I’m completely useless on computer tech, so I don’t think I can really elaborate further on what the issue was, exactly. Only that stuff don’t quite work right.

It’s really not fun to play once I get into WvW I play for 20 minutes skills don’t work, zergs drop fps like crazy. I’m on an i7 with a gtx 770 card. So I log out and play on my Ps3 which is solid lol Sorry anet but it’s not enjoyable. I feel bad for classes that rely on combo skills and such. That’s why everyone plays tanks.. run around hitting #1 and hoping for the best.

i don’t know what lag what queue you guys are talking about.. i’m experiencing none since monday….

Omnitek.3876:

Wait… So if I don’t want skill lag, I should transfer lower?
OK, but I like fights. I don’t play NA times. I’ve been in t4 and below. It is dead in oceanic/sea times I play. Pvdoor isn’t fun to me.

I see you are on SoR.

Transfer to Mags or SoS. You can still play against the top five servers, lots of oceanic players, have no queues and get your achievements.

Omnitek.3876:

Wait… So if I don’t want skill lag, I should transfer lower?
OK, but I like fights. I don’t play NA times. I’ve been in t4 and below. It is dead in oceanic/sea times I play. Pvdoor isn’t fun to me.

right , then you should transfer to NSP.. they are in need for SEA/Oceanic players.. if you join them you’ll surely have a great fight against all the other servers….

in fact any SEA/Oceanic guild in T1 who think they are “so pro” should try fighting for NSP….

Zylonite.5913:

Hi Anet, still waiting on developer feedback on all these queue times and skills lags/ etc that have been brought up since the Seasons started? In other words any news on removing all JPs from WvW maps on the next patch?

JPs aren’t causing skills lags. The amount of players, playing in WvW is causing the lag. They need to optimize the code, and probably upgrade the servers, in order to alleviate the skill lag.

As far as queues go, well, you just have to deal with that. It is nice that there are enough people playing WvW to make all the maps queued.

skullmount.1758:

Daendur.2357:

Meanwhile we are overwhelmed by unrequested PvE content…

How is it PvE content? Nothing in the achievements requires stuff outside of WvW maps. If you’re talking about achievement hunters (like I am), they’ll be wherever the next set of temporary achievements are, so you’ll have to get use to them. And they have just as much right to be in WvW as you do, even if they are new to it or not.

I’m talking about a biweekly living story update.

I have nothing against achievement hunters, it’s not their fault if they get amusement that way, even if I think it’s a poor way to get satisfaction.
I blame ANet for not having servers big enough for everyone.