Guild Wars 2

Geniekid.2645:

They should make the placeholder models look like trees or critters. “Oh god, look at that enormous forest heading this way. GTFO!”

Everyone is a plush griffin.

How could you kill the enemy???

Sypsy.7318:

Geniekid.2645:

They should make the placeholder models look like trees or critters. “Oh god, look at that enormous forest heading this way. GTFO!”

Everyone is a plush griffin.

How could you kill the enemy???

Or a Princess Doll.

Cower in fear!

Scarn.6810:

I wish this was stated specifically by a dev so people would notice, but can we once and for all eliminate the idea that stealth (in a smaller skirmish) is a culling issue? It is an asset load issue. When you are 1v1 against a thief and he comes out of stealth, your client knows he is there. You can’t see him for 2 more seconds because you haven’t loaded the model. This is what cause the affinity culling to suck for small groups in December.

With the fallback models, when that thief unstealths, his fallback model will load immediately (essentially). No matter how good your computer was in December, it still took time to load the detailed model. Even if it’s top of the line, you still have to load a model.

Don’t be so quick to jump to conclusions, you have not seen the system they are implementing yet. Affinity culling is not the same thing as affinity culling plus fallback models.

I hope you are right, I can’t see why they would remove the model from ram upon stealth though just for wvw and not for spvp

Whether it works or not, I want to thank Habib and the team for their efforts.

After reading all 4 pages (though I have to admit I’ve started to skip through at some point), I’m still do not understand what exactly is the problem smaller groups have with affinity culling system? Can anyone please give a clear explanation or a link to one?

Yaro.3251:

After reading all 4 pages (though I have to admit I’ve started to skip through at some point), I’m still do not understand what exactly is the problem smaller groups have with affinity culling system? Can anyone please give a clear explanation or a link to one?

Example (all numbers taken out of my mind):

Normal culling – 50 maximum characters at the same time, no matter if enemy or ally.
=> Your 5 people party will see a maximum of 45 enemies.

Affinity culling – 25 max enemy characters at the same time, 25 max allied characters at the same time.
=> Your 5 people party will see only 25 enemies, even though there are theoretically still 20 “slots” left unsused that are reserved for other allies.

This of course also applies for Zergs – but they would at least use up all available slots. Also coordination and estimation of enemy strength is likely more important for smaller groups.

Got it. I thought so initially but people are talking about 100 different things here as a “culling problem for smaller groups”.

I’d assume however that decision process for a group of 5 as to what is the next step and what would be the best tactical approach doesn’t really change if ratio is 1:5 or if it is more.

Also, actual numbers can make all the difference. 50 total seems a bit low. Is it that low really?

Yeah you’re totally right. It pretty much depends on the actual numbers.
As I said the 50 was just a guess… mostly based on what I experienced in WvW.

I personally think this step by ANet is still a good one. At least we will be able to fully judge on the culling effect, because right now you never know whether its culling or character model loading.

Another possible improvement I’d like to see implemented is to remove the fade in animation when a character comes out from stealth / culling.

Just let them just pop out from nowhere as soon as the client knows, please.

Larosh.1605:

Another possible improvement I’d like to see implemented is to remove the fade in animation when a character comes out from stealth / culling.

Just let them just pop out from nowhere as soon as the client knows, please.

I think that will be the result of this “fallback model” implementation.

I’m very bemused, wasn’t the feedback about the December trial, how much everyone hated it.

Invisible enemies, we can deal with, invisible guild mates is a much bigger problem! Guild members can not be culled.

the current system isn’t ideal but it allows us to coordinate with ally’s creating individual culling pools on either side isn’t going to help against the larger groups of enemies anyway and its going to leave us not being able to see our allies.

Kyus.3812:

I’m very bemused, wasn’t the feedback about the December trial, how much everyone hated it.

Invisible enemies, we can deal with, invisible guild mates is a much bigger problem! Guild members can not be culled.

the current system isn’t ideal but it allows us to coordinate with ally’s creating individual culling pools on either side isn’t going to help against the larger groups of enemies anyway and its going to leave us not being able to see our allies.

I’d like to point out the relatively low chance of my allies joining the fight with the intent to kill me. Or abusing the system.

So how do you propose we follow anchors when they’re being culled on your own team? Use the map? A commander or any targeted player should never be culled to the party calling the target and this is what happened frequently during the december trial, it still happens sporadically with the current culling iteration in place.

Kyus.3812:

I’m very bemused, wasn’t the feedback about the December trial, how much everyone hated it.

Everyone? No, it wasn’t.

RoyHarmon.5398:

Kyus.3812:

I’m very bemused, wasn’t the feedback about the December trial, how much everyone hated it.

Invisible enemies, we can deal with, invisible guild mates is a much bigger problem! Guild members can not be culled.

the current system isn’t ideal but it allows us to coordinate with ally’s creating individual culling pools on either side isn’t going to help against the larger groups of enemies anyway and its going to leave us not being able to see our allies.

I’d like to point out the relatively low chance of my allies joining the fight with the intent to kill me. Or abusing the system.

Not being able to see your warband leader and main assist during a fight gets you killed. when you are fighting vastly outnumbered they will be culled regardless and the new system won’t change that, the problem it will bring if it is the same as the system we trialed in december is leaving you with your main assist/warband leader dissapearing off your screen when you are trying to follow their movement, which does get you killed.

Anet, what are you thinking? Are you even listening to the responce the community is giving you? The last test you did was gamebreaking in so many ways that the internet would be overloaded and collapse if I were to type em all here.

Please rethink this before you kill the game once and for all.

Kyus.3812:

… when you are fighting vastly outnumbered… does get you killed.

This isn’t so much a culling issue in most cases.

RoyHarmon.5398:

Kyus.3812:

… when you are fighting vastly outnumbered… does get you killed.

This isn’t so much a culling issue in most cases.

There is a threshold of players that will be sent to your screen at present based on the total number of users on a screen but this will be changed to represent two seperate pools of players one for friendlies and one for enemies.

when you fight 60-70 people with 20 ish then those 60-70 are going to be culled down no matter what under either system, but under the current one we very rarely lose sight of our warband leader.

when we were playing in the december culling trial under similar loads, we would still not see all of the enemy players but our warband leader and half the warband would be dissapearing at regular intervals. They switched it off and we went back to having a reliably visible warband under extreme loads again. The december trial also seemed to be more dramatic in chosing who was and wasn’t loaded and dropped visible players very quickly causing friendlies and players to blink in and out of shot.

I respect the efforts to make changes but if it is like the previous system it will have a disastrous effect on organised guild groups.

If culling is successfully removed, Habib Loewe’s forum title should change from “Gameplay Programmer” to “Sundry Wizard”.

Kyus.3812:

There is a threshold of players that will be sent to your screen at present based on the total number of users on a screen but this will be changed to represent two seperate pools of players one for friendlies and one for enemies.

when you fight 60-70 people with 20 ish then those 60-70 are going to be culled down no matter what under either system, but under the current one we very rarely lose sight of our warband leader.

when we were playing in the december culling trial under similar loads, we would still not see all of the enemy players but our warband leader and half the warband would be dissapearing at regular intervals. They switched it off and we went back to having a reliably visible warband under extreme loads again. The december trial also seemed to be more dramatic in chosing who was and wasn’t loaded and dropped visible players very quickly causing friendlies and players to blink in and out of shot.

I respect the efforts to make changes but if it is like the previous system it will have a disastrous effect on organised guild groups.

Pretty much this, we had the exact same problem.

Yeah, I’ve seen this during the December trial too. Target icon also disappears when you target goes out of culling basket and then goes back in. Which is not helping either.

However if you are talking about organized groups, there’s voice communication. Commander icon also stays on the map all the time.

In the end we had different opinions about new culling system back then but general consensus favored it over current one because seeing your enemy is a priority. You don’t have much of other ways to control enemy movement and assess their numbers during combat. It is not the case regarding your teammates in organized group however.

I just hope that new culling system received fine-tuning since December and it’s not exact code it was then.

Considering two edge cases (You don’t see any allies but all enemies and vice versa) I’d definitely choose former one. And I’ve seen what it’s like in latter case where you have a sizeable zerg on your side and do not see A SINGLE enemy when it is as far as 10 meters away while there’s actually A LOT of them there.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/New-Culling-Trial-Ended/page/2

This is the original thread + comments during the trial. for anyone who wants to see some of the highlighted issues and the general consensus during the trial this is probably the best source. I’d say that it suggests it was largely unfavorable but I’m willing to see the new improved system if Anet think it will help address the issue.

Kyus.3812:

for anyone who wants to see some of the highlighted issues and the general consensus

Just want to make it clear, when I was saying “general consensus was…” I meant “…among my teammates”, not the bigger picture.

Yaro.3251:

Kyus.3812:

for anyone who wants to see some of the highlighted issues and the general consensus

Just want to make it clear, when I was saying “general consensus was…” I meant “…among my teammates”, not the bigger picture.

no probs Yaro the link wasn’t aimed at you at all I’d been looking for the original thread for a while and finally found it. I can appreciate to a wvw team with a certain setupt you may have found it improved but I wanted to get the original thread back in as I remember many thinking it was unpopular.

anyway what I was about to post is the census of the first 3 pages of the linked thread. there were a few neutral opinions and non commital responces that were left out.

First 3 pages census on Dec Culling
Negative: 88
Positive: 13

BroScientist.9875:

EvilSardine.9635:

I guess this post means culling won’t be fixed. Since everyone I know including myself has a top of the line system and this has nothing to do with computer performance.

Many of us tested this extensively. A thief going in and out of stealth on a mostly empty server with NO ONE around for miles other than myself will have 2-3 seconds of extra invisibility. This thief was a buddy so we were testing this.

Habib Loew.6239:

The general consensus after the trial is that this system lead to a better player experience in WvW.

Thanks for your hard work on all this but honestly what feedback were you looking at? That change made things so much worse. I saw nothing but negative feedback.

Tests showed that enemies were loading when they were 20 feet away rather than the usual couple hundred when out in the middle of nowhere far away from groups of players. Tests were done using friends who were on other enemy servers.

This x1000.

Everyone hated the culling trial, please don’t revert back to that.

This is patently wrong though.

After they ended the culling trial people said the system after the trial was WORSE than the trial on the forum, even though after the trial it was changed back to the same culling as before the trial.

And frankly I agree with them, the culling trial at least let you see your enemy on a more consistent bases. And plus its antizergball code because if there are too many enemies you can only see a limited number of allies, so if you zergball you actually are at a disadvantage.

Kyus.3812:

Yaro.3251:

Kyus.3812:

for anyone who wants to see some of the highlighted issues and the general consensus

Just want to make it clear, when I was saying “general consensus was…” I meant “…among my teammates”, not the bigger picture.

no probs Yaro the link wasn’t aimed at you at all I’d been looking for the original thread for a while and finally found it. I can appreciate to a wvw team with a certain setupt you may have found it improved but I wanted to get the original thread back in as I remember many thinking it was unpopular.

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anyway what I was about to post is the census of the first 3 pages of the linked thread. there were a few neutral opinions and non commital responces that were left out.

First 3 pages census on Dec Culling
Negative: 88
Positive: 13

Check the thread announcing that culling ended. Its completely different.

Draygo.9473:

Kyus.3812:

Yaro.3251:

Kyus.3812:

for anyone who wants to see some of the highlighted issues and the general consensus

Just want to make it clear, when I was saying “general consensus was…” I meant “…among my teammates”, not the bigger picture.

no probs Yaro the link wasn’t aimed at you at all I’d been looking for the original thread for a while and finally found it. I can appreciate to a wvw team with a certain setupt you may have found it improved but I wanted to get the original thread back in as I remember many thinking it was unpopular.

---

anyway what I was about to post is the census of the first 3 pages of the linked thread. there were a few neutral opinions and non commital responces that were left out.

First 3 pages census on Dec Culling
Negative: 88
Positive: 13

Check the thread announcing that culling ended. Its completely different.

thats because the rest of us were all playing wvw again because we could see our warband. I will do a census of that post but its only 4 pages long and drew half of the attention of the first post.

the only thing I’ll draw attention to is the utter hatred for the culling system in the thread I linked and the casual fondness for it now that its gone in the other post. People really really hated the dec culling in the post whilst it was up and some people disliked it not being implemented in the other one. There was a clear more extreme opinion one way in the first post.

Remember this is the internet though, people are far more likely to take the time to post about something that upsets them than something they like.

Svarty.8019:

Whether it works or not, I want to thank Habib and the team for their efforts.

Why? After the failed trial attempt, they need to show us something that actually works, instead something they “assume” would work. Too early to cheer anything Anet has done about the issue, imo.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Original-culling-behavior-has-been-restored/page/3#post1269257

census of culling thread from after the trial

Pro for the return of origional 14
Negative wanting dec culling back 45

bit harder to call some of the opinions in this thread as loads of people wer ejust complaining about culling in general and a lot more talking about lag over culling.

so yes in the after thread there were more votes for the revision away from the trial system, but there was dramatically less people in total voting that way and a smaller percentage of the total results.

rchu.8945:

Svarty.8019:

Whether it works or not, I want to thank Habib and the team for their efforts.

Why? After the failed trial attempt, they need to show us something that actually works, instead something they “assume” would work. Too early to cheer anything Anet has done about the issue, imo.

Yeah, that’s true. There’s not much of anything we can see atm that addresses an issue. The final goal however, that is to get rid of culling for good, is the thing, I’d hope, everyone would support.

Seren.6850:

Remember this is the internet though, people are far more likely to take the time to post about something that upsets them than something they like.

I think this should be an announcement on the forum homepage. Except it shouldn’t go away the next time you load the page.

How about some fixes for the rallies of nearby/AOEd mobs?

This is great. Hopefully some improvement. Especially dealing with Thieves…

Though, asset load times. How is the client going to know a machine’s load time accurately in order to know if to implement the lower based model, or the full rendered on? Perhaps all machines will have the lower based model and simply overwrite it when ready.. So I guess, higher based machines won’t have this issue as much and we wouldn’t see it.

Again about asset loading though. When can we get a 64bit client? I know tons of us are running around with extra memory that the game client COULD use if only there was a 64bit version. This extra memory could definintely be used to reduce load times from disk. I suppose someone could go through all the trouble of setting up a RAM disk, but really wish we had a 64bit client.

I’m running the game on a high speed SSD and I’m still bottlenecked because of the bridge speeds and SSD read speeds. RAM disk or preloading more of the game into available memory (64bit client…) would be the best.

Please push a 64bit client.

In a game called Vindictus, there is an option to only see other characters in robes.

Well, so far I’m not impressed with the changes made for culling.

In fact, it seems to have made the rendering of players on my screen even slower.
However, this is mostly in PvE, and places like Lion’s Arch.
There are times I run into (not using the waypoint) the Mystic Forge location in Lion’s Arch, only to arrive there and wait up to 3 seconds for all the NPCs and 3 other Players to render completely on my screen.
Now, if there were hundreds of players there, then sure, I’d totally agree about the results, but just three!? umm…… something’s not right.
It’s not only me, by my friends who play the game as well.

I don’t have a slouch of a system IMO. GTX580, Core i7 cpu, 8gb ram (which the game only uses 2gb of….). Running the game off an SSD drive.

Perhaps make an option in the game client that allows the user to inticate if they wish to have the character models scaled down automatically in areas with a lot of character model rendering. I.E. in Dragon encounters with 30+ people, one doesn’t need to or really have much time to sit and enjoy the beauty of character models during the encounter. In WvW zergs, one also doesn’t have the time to do the above either.

I’d make an OPTION in the client to allow the player to select if they want the game to only render HIGH-MED-LOW character models in locations where there’s 10+ players in a given radius around the character.

ALSO, where is the PARTICLE EFFECTS sliders? We should be able to adjust the particle effects we see our character do, other players do, and NPCs/Game does.
This will help players fine tune their experience. Lots of other MMOs have this. What’s the issue here Anet?

Sometimes it seems better and sometimes it seems worse with only haveing a few peeps on screen and still they “flicker in and out of existence”.

Some ally ranger running in WvW beside me blinked away every 1-2 seconds, even was already fully loaded before, while other allys in the distance “stayed”… my impression its a camera fault/error.
Especially if you look around this happens a lot to nearby players and even enemys.

Therefore if some player already got fully loaded, it shouldnt be culled away again as long as the char stays in range… especially melee to mid range.
…But extend the transition phase between fallback model → full model for chars at long range. Would result in more fallback models / culling on long range and less in your CIRCULAR vicnity.

(Contrary to game developers & engine designers believe…players TEND TO TURN AROUND in games a lot and not always heading into a straight direction…thats why circular is important at least on melee range)