Guild Wars 2

Haven’t noticed a thing better or worse, except I see more enemies and less allies, like the December fix, and invis no longer hides you for 5 seconds after it’s supposed to wear off.

Which is what they promised this time around.

Is it a fix for culling?

No, but it’s the groundwork for a fix AND a fix for something commonly mislabeled as ‘culling’, which is stealth load time.

But I am killing stuff at the same rate and dying when I do dumb stuff at the same rate.

Some folks love to bash a game when they don’t play well. Pffft.

Thobek.1730:

it seems better for me except one of the most important issues, thieves still aren’t appearing instantly after doing damage.

And you do not appear to me at all to try and damage you. Sounds fair.

EnRohbi.2187:

The “majority of players” did not say it was worse.
People don’t seem to grasp that the people who make the effort to come post on the forums (especially in threads related to new features/technical stuff) are usually the ones who are dissatisfied. Most people who have had their culling experience improved with this patch are in WvW playing the game, not posting here.

What you read in the other thread were a vocal minority.

FYI, this patch helped culling a lot for me.
Everytime you see one of the fallback models, what you’re seeing is an instance where you would have seen nothing before this patch.

I agree that people with issues are far more likely to come to the forums and complain. and the December culling trial thread was full of people complaining. However, anet said
“Based on all the feedback we received, both during and after the trial, we will be transitioning to the updated culling system that we used in the trial. This update allows the culling system to handle allies and enemies separately so that being surrounded by a group of allies will not impact the culling of enemies (and vice-versa). The general consensus after the trial is that this system lead to a better player experience in WvW.”

If not from the forums, where did they collect this feedback? I don’t remember being asked in game (like they had in the beta). My guess is that they used their own feedback and disregarded the community feedback in that trial thread.

They didn’t say they were “fixing” culling but improving it, as we are endlessly being reminded in WvW whenever anyone complains how bad it is now. Unfortunately it hasn’t been improved that I can tell.

My impression is that they made it worse. Before, I could at least see some of the enemy and know they were there, even if I couldn’t see how large a force they had until it was too late. Now it seems like the enemy just pops out of nowhere without warning.

I was going through the water near Lowlands keep, just admiring the scenery and looking at the drakes and sharks before logging off when suddenly I got ganked by a huge zerg. The drakes in the water gave no indication anyone was there until boom, they appeared in the water out of nowhere.

Maybe I am misinterpreting what I saw, but am I correct in assuming that that if NPCs don’t immediately react to the zerg, it is not just a graphics display issue, but a coding one?

Since the last patch I have heavy culling issue.

Before I had culling only when we were fighting massive number on the map. Now I have culling even on smaller scale, so always.
An other wierd exemple is when I’m on our wvw base, (sometime) allies players load when I’m 600ft to them, then they unload when I go away. That shouldn’t happen for a couple of ppls.

It was really more confortable before the patch. Maybe it fixed the issue of low connections/setup players…

Culling was personnaly a minor issue, now it’s a big one.

In my opinion its worse than before. And i cant imagine who told Arenanet that their “December Culling Test” was better than the “normal culling”.

I really enjoy GW2 but this issue lasting for months is disturbing.

50 v 50 or less should be NO PROBLEM. That is what makes of most up of the fights. That has been done before and with today’s machines being faster than ever, I have no idea why a decent PC isn’t seeing at least a good percentage of approaching enemies. How solo players or small groups remain hidden is quite simply unforgiveable. This is bad code and they seem to not know how to fix it.

100+ v 100+ in an area and some are not showing up, I could understand. As is, this game seems 5+ years behind the times. Considering how well the rest of the game functions, I can only guess that they made some really poor design choices.

Time to do a big overhaul because it is clear that the current system cannot be fixed.

Its much worse for me, we run in a group of about 10 and we’re not seeing people until they are well and truly upon us. I know its bad for them too because I’ve spent 10+ seconds running around multiple fights without even being touched which is making it even easier to kill people with impunity than before.

P.S. I’m a Thief.

Its even worse now.

I think all the complainers are thieves and others who abuse the old culling system.

Because this system is quite better.

Spitjaw.2987:

For me new system is like..10 million times better.
And no..i am not running in zergs.
Also…thiefs are insta rendered now as soon as they start attacking out of stealth.

ALSO..this is just my personal experience.
Love those changes.

This has also been my experience. Thieves are no longer stealthed for 5+ seconds. I also see more enemies when there’s a group, though not all.

Liking the new system. Yes, allies appear and reappear, but they’re not (usually) trying to kill me. It could obviously be improved, but still, better than the old system.

I have seen an improvement. I can now spot enemies from a great distance. However, like others have noted, friendlies render last.

The culling was really improved the evening right after the patch, but today it was really bad. No patch since then happened, nothing changed on my side. Even less enemies then usual.

Its worse now its exactly same as the 1 week trial even tho anet said it was going to be different. Me personally i think there was not much issue with previous culling. The only ones whining where people who run with zerg 40-80 people. Yes you have culling!.

It’s just as broken as it’s always been, and probably always will be.

For me, it’s working a lot better for spotting enemies but I have some trouble spotting allies. Still, this is a good start at fixing the culling issue.

Its a ton worse, when I get off Jury Duty tomorrow i’m going to make a video of it to just Embarrass Anet….Seems that’s all that really works anymore…

Okay, first night it was fine for me but we were doing at most 10v40 fights. Tonight we went to a busier zone and OMG, it is horrible. Just like the December trail. People not appearing until they are on top of you. People disappearing and reappearing all around you. It’s ridiculous.

We had to move. As a small group, we absolutely MUST know what the hell is going on around us.

I really hate the new affinity culling system. It received pages upon pages of negative feedback during the short trial yet they still implement it. smh.

please remove “new-old culling system”.

I’ve been seeing and reading these threads since Launch… and I have yet to experience this issue.

Must be a GPU/CPU issue… low end maybe? Didn’t notice it with a ATI HD 5870… certainly aren’t seeing it with a GTX 660 Ti…

Wondering how much of this is hardware issues…?

Now do not see any of their on opponents. Well done, what to say. Fixed called!

Dear Anet, your new culling system is completely worse.
Even old system was much better!

God, even in the PVE we have culling now!
Especially in Cursed Shore.
Please turn old system back!

Thank you.

And if we talking about WvWvW, Anet must listen to big guilds, not to random soloers.
That’s my opinion.

Until yesterday i didn’t see the enemy zerg. Now i don’t see my zerg too

Instead of:

Culling (invisible enemies) → Long load time → Visible enemies

it’s now:

Culling (invisible enemies → Long load time → Placeholders → Visible enemies

Same culling happening. Placeholders aren’t really placeholders, just another step in between.

Dear developers,

since you implemented the last patch, the game became unplayable for me. Not only are even small groups of allies and enemies disappearing and reappearing randomly but the performance went overall so low, that I am just not able to play anymore (below 10 frames during heavy encounters, lowest settings).

The fun part is, before yesterday, I never fell below 20 frames at medium settings, even during massive fights in stonemist castle. The situation mirrors my experience during your december trial and there is not a single person in my guild I asked that feels the culling / performance situation improved at all. Their feedback is either “nothing changed” (high end pc) or “went worse” (low-medium end).

Please consider to readjust the culling method back to its old standard or to implement culling changes that have been properly tested and benefit everybody. As it is right now your patch absolutely destroyed my playing experience.

Best regards,

As for me, I haven’t noticed anything new. It’s still lagging at WvW. I still don’t see my enemies. Why can’t you make the nicks appear first and then load the textures?

Can’t say that I see a big difference. Not like any of my opponent servers are trying; seems like a lot of servers just gave up because of the coming reset.

Everyone should see own target + all nicknames (or caption “**** invander/defender”) of allies/enemies around first. Nicknames => simple standart models => usual models.

As for now: we see models first => loading nicknames.

Pls do checkbox in game settings: Use super-experemental culling system
I want turn off it

It’s pretty terrible system…before the patch culling and loading were better.

Now, when i’m standing with my war-band i cant see another ally war-band in 10 meter radius. CANT SEE AT ALL, you understand? It’s hard to organize, when u dont see where your ally and what they do…

Sometimes our commander goes out 10_meter_radius and just disappears – dissolves in the air…
What about enemies? Well, thats not funny, when i’m running with war-band, listening TS…and enemy zerg suddenly appears in front of my nose!

There were no such problems Before patch…except may be on slower machines, now situation turns.

“Bugfixed” system of rendering the characters – a complete failure.  I dont know, as they are generally able to put it on combat server, even without testing in approximate terms – PTR, because they do not have it … or they tested by all the office, 20×20? 
Playing in the beta again.

Much much worse! I saw 5 people out of nowhere, we engaged.. all of a sudden you’re inbetween a zerg of 30+.

It’s hideous on my side, the old culling was much better, now 15 enemies appear instantly in ~200-300 range. Even the client “hiccuping” is doubled.

I have no knowledge about the Havok game engine, but in Warhammer RvR, we never had any culling issues, even in 150 player battles just lag.

Since the fix, on an old computer, it’s really A LOT better.
Playing in a tier 1 server, the fights between large groups were just unplayable with good conditions.

Typically, against organized groups using the culling mechanism to become invisible for everyone (always in movement/portals), it was really tough. Autoattack spamming from those group was sufficient to down many people before they even realize that there is someone hitting them.
Now, we see that this kind of tactics are no more as efficient as before, because of this change in the culling system.

Personally, I didn’t encounter the problem of not seeing a whole enemy zerg from long distance. Maybe once or two time yesterday, but I think this was mainly due to the mesmer veil and the extension of the stealth duration which allows to play with culling again (some guilds are very good on exploiting culling weaknesses…)

comics “New culling system”

Force player names to always be visible, if:
- Player is within appropriate range
- Player is not in stealth
(and ofcourse if not behind objects)

Culling won’t be fixed, but I’m sure it’ll fix the problems it causes.

Seems like less than a days work to me

It’s not gone, but I’m seeing a considerable improvement thanks to the prioritising of enemies over allies.

The new culling system is really awesome, not only i can’t see enemy zergs, now i have people from my realm disapearing right in front of me, hell i even have npc’s and mobs appearing out of nowhere. Who the hell designed this? And who tought that it was a good idea to implement it in game?

My impression is that people on higher end machines have seen a massive performance downgrade while people on low to mid machines have seen an upgrade. Personally, I have a higher end machine. Accordingly targets and friendlies now cull and uncull seemingly at random. Worst of all, enemies and friendlies get far enough away from me to render-stealth at less than 1500 range.

Hadn’t WvW since October after constantly running into large groups popping up until two feet in front of me so I decided to try again with the last patch and I haven’t noticed an improvement. IMHO since the patch I’ve seen even worse results. Oh well, guess I’ll put Gw2 back on the shelf until they get this fixed.

It’s better for me now. At least I can see enemies from distance even if I can’t see the real number.

Predictable. Game company fixes something: OMG WORST BROKED!!!

Have fun zerging. What little playerbase you had trying to salvage something competitive out there other than mass green name auto attacking was just destroyed by your fix. Congrats, we told you so.

I don’t know. Now I have allies disappearing and reappearing and the enemy groups still appear out of nowhere.

This is no better, it’s just different.

Tiglie.5834:

Have fun zerging. What little playerbase you had trying to salvage something competitive out there other than mass green name auto attacking was just destroyed by your fix. Congrats, we told you so.

Uhhh we still have queues on weekdays. Nice try.

Well i think balistas are now useless. If you will set it on wall, you cannot shoot straight down because of wall, and you wont see enemies in longer distance because of this new system.

new culling is terrible. same story as it was with enemies and in additional now i can’t see my allies.
turn it off. ty

nalenb.1425:

EnRohbi.2187:

The “majority of players” did not say it was worse.
People don’t seem to grasp that the people who make the effort to come post on the forums (especially in threads related to new features/technical stuff) are usually the ones who are dissatisfied. Most people who have had their culling experience improved with this patch are in WvW playing the game, not posting here.

What you read in the other thread were a vocal minority.

FYI, this patch helped culling a lot for me.
Everytime you see one of the fallback models, what you’re seeing is an instance where you would have seen nothing before this patch.

I agree that people with issues are far more likely to come to the forums and complain. and the December culling trial thread was full of people complaining. However, anet said
“Based on all the feedback we received, both during and after the trial, we will be transitioning to the updated culling system that we used in the trial. This update allows the culling system to handle allies and enemies separately so that being surrounded by a group of allies will not impact the culling of enemies (and vice-versa). The general consensus after the trial is that this system lead to a better player experience in WvW.”

If not from the forums, where did they collect this feedback? I don’t remember being asked in game (like they had in the beta). My guess is that they used their own feedback and disregarded the community feedback in that trial thread.

And the thread about the trial after they put it back was full of people saying they loved it and it should go back to the trial.

Forums (and the internet in general, actually) are a terrible way to gather player opinions because the majority of responses will always disagree with whatever just happened.

I did not experience this performance downgrade during the trial. That trial was an improvement. This does not appear to be the same change.