For the matchup starting on December 7th we’ll be testing out a new culling methodology. This is an interim change to the system which is intended improve player experience while we work on a more comprehensive solution. Under this new, interim system we handle culling of allies and enemies separately which should cut down on the instances of running into a group of completely invisible enemies. This is accomplished at the cost of having a lower maximum on the number of allies that players can see.
Again, this is an interim solution while we work on a longer term change. We’ll be trying out the new system for the duration of the matchup starting on December 7th and then evaluating whether we want to keep it in place until our more comprehensive solution is in place or roll back to the existing behavior. Toward that end we’re very interested in your feedback about the experience of playing with the interim system.
This sounds like a much better solution since we can still see the dots on the map for allies. Lowering ally based particle effects could also reduce the work load of the game by a lot. Just keep white circles on the ground. That’s all we need to see really.
Toons: Foreseer, Geikamir, Rapscallion, Specimen, Scythian, Zeau, Ärtifact, and Replica.
Just to clarify, will this mean that allies not shown because of the lower maximum will eventually show up (similar to how the game suddenly renders opponents after a duration of time), or is the maximum limit enforced in the sense that they will not show up until other players leave the vicinity? It may be a quirk, but from my perspective, it always appears as if everything does show up eventually with the current system; that could of course just be because players die and leave the immediate area, allowing for more characters to appear. However, a similar thing happened during the Karka event and it didn’t seem to me that players were leaving in droves to let the enemies render.
Will the “invisible” players still be able to benefit from AoE boons, and will abilities with bounces (such as the Mesmer’s staff ability) sometimes choose to affect invisible players because they are handled server side?
It sounds like a better solution to me on paper regardless, even if it is a temporary one.
All players are eligible for boons, etc. because those are calculated on the server. You’re correct that allies who are culled will remain culled until a “slot” opens up for them. That happens when the culled ally is closer to you than the currently shown ally for some small period of time.
The main difference between this and the current system is that the current system treats all characters the same while the new system has one limit for allies and another for enemies. In the new system enemies cannot impact which allies are shown and allies cannot impact which enemies are shown.
This new system is even worse for me, before I could see my allies and some enemies. Today I can only see my pet and sometimes some random allies. Maybe its because I have a low spec pc but for me its much much worse, to the point its no use playing since I cant see anything. Im still killing invisible enemies and now cant even see my own people anymore… not good. Even commander icons sometimes get culled, which is even worse.
Worse than before. Unplayable because enemies are more invis than before for myself and friends and friendlies are popping in and out. I’ve even been in the middle of a shot or cast and the enemy vanished. Happened a few times and I doubt it was an alt-f4
Unfortunately, so far the culling seems worse for large numbers of enemies. Although I do seem to reliably be able to see my own team-mates in big battles.
Still has the problem of having to wait too long for enemies to load, which makes it difficult to get an idea of numbers until you are right up in their faces.
Has this anything to do with nameplates not showing on some enemy invaders?
As I noticed after this reset for the very first time, that some invaders rather close to me would not show their name unless I target them. I have showing of all names, enemy, friendly and NPC enabled.
This happened in a situation with a maximum of 20 allies and 20 enemies around me, but not more than 5 allies and 10 enemies in my field of view.
Also I noticed micro stuttering in WvW combat for the first time today. It does not occur in PvE, only near or right in the middle of battles in WvW.
It looks like maybe players who can’t handle an entire zerg of enemies on the screen at once are seeing worse performance because previously the game wasn’t even trying to draw them all. Now it is, they’re chugging even more heavily. So it’s a two-pronged problem: streaming player movements, and making sure the game client can display all that data given limited resources.
Just curious Habib, is there any plan to make culling a hardware related option. Like when you install the game it determines your hardware capability and then enables/disables or varies the level of culling appropriately?
I’m sure you have reasons for the way you’ve implemented things, I’d just like to understand those better. I know you guys work hard to make GW2 accessible on as much hardware as possible and lowering the minspec after launch isn’t a possibility. Still, wouldn’t a system like I’ve described give us the best of both worlds?
Essentially it lets players who invested heavily in gaming pc hardware get the benefit of their investment while still letting players with older machines enjoy GW2.
Thanks in advance!
Keg – 80 Guardian | Mini Keg – 80 Mesmer
Strike Force [SF] Stormbluff Isle www.strikeforceguild.com
It’s good to see the devs are actively working on the culling problems (which for me personally are one of the most frustrating things in the game).
Sadly, as others already reported, there seems to be no improvement. I’ve run into at least 3 invisible enemy zergs since the new matchup, lying face down in the dirt before I could see any player models. And of course the thiefs… 3sec “revealed” debuff + 5sec culling = “perma invisible”. And we are talking about small fights without a large zerg nearby (I prefer small group fights over zerg clashes).
I’d be very interested in what other methods you (= the devs) plan to use to resolve this issue.
Brains over Brawn [Geek]
Eine familiäre, erwachsene, PvX-orientierte Feierabend-Gilde auf Flussufer/Riverside
First and foremost, thank you for both the effort and the communications. I can not speak for anyone other than myself, but I would much rather see effort that demonstrates progress than evasive portends of potential fairy dust. As many know, I’ve had very few kind words to share on the developmental progress in the WvW space. So, I say with confidence, “Kudos… well done, please continue to trust us and we’ll keep trusting you.”
Second, if it is not in the current implementation or considered for the future roadmap, please insure that pin’d commanders with their TAG ACTIVE are given first priority for rendering. It is critical that if we can see no other ally on the field, we absolutely must know and see our commanders. This could open up a potential bug if it is not selective to “allies.” It would be a potential tragedy if commanders rendered to the enemy with highest priority! Please keep this in mind.
Worse then before. Being in charge of a warband is a horrible responsibility when you can’t rely on what your eyes see on the screen. I walked my ~20 man group into a 60+ clusterkitten that didn’t render on my screen until we were in the middle of them, very much brown-alert time.
I haven’t tested this out yet, though it seems like there are definitely bugs/issues with the new system, as it sounds like people are having issues that they shouldn’t be having as much if the new system does what was explained in the OP.
That being said, I have a question. Does the system prioritize downed/dead allies more so than living allies? If not, that’d probably be a good idea to have in the system.
I’m getting a lot of ability lag that I’ve never had before also. Might be a one off thing but ill try again tomorrow, it might just be because of the the high wvw population tonight.
This is much better. I’ve been able to play on high with a respectable frame rate compared to before, so this change has been awesome for me so far. I will continue playing though and see how it goes.
Could you make this as an option instead? Also for those with a low-range to a mid-range system, could make separate graphics settings for PvE/sPvP and for WvW. Changing the graphics setting every time one enters WvW could get tedious for others.
I’m glad to come to the forums and see this post, because I jumped into WvW today and experienced some bad lag and worse culling than before, and I was wondering what was going on. Previously, I had moderate culling but I never felt like I was lagging. Today, WvW seemed much laggier and choppier and it really chugged when all 3 servers were at Stonemist.
Seeing that there’s a new test for this out, I’ll pay attention more the next time I play WvW to see if I can see more enemies, but from my gut reaction without knowing what was going on, WvW felt worse today.
I’m happy to see Anet actively trying to tweak the problem, though!
Is it possible to at least display the names of players despite them being invisible? Just so that we could at least have an idea of their numbers and location and avoid running senselessly in the midst of a million zerg.
This is a band aid solution but atleast they accept that. Is not really a very good one since its just as important to know how many allies you have around you as much as enemies.
Also they still have failed to address the issue that has destroyed server and WvW communitys and turned WvW balance into a joke making any ranking tables completely pointless until they address this issue. Free WvW Server Transfers……its killing WvW.
Just one example is my server desolation, we hanged in the middle tables for a while, then a US guild of hundreds of players called RUIN server jumps onto our server and begins to night cap everything every single night, we rapidly rise to the highest ranking EU server and the number 1 slot which dragged us to a tier fight that deso should not of been in, RUIN begin to lose against blacktide so they again server jump after recruiting hundreds of desolation players and take a large chunk of there own players and deso players with them to blacktide. Once we started to lose due to the huge number of server jumpers, even more players jumped ship from deso because of the abuse of free server transfers by a certain guild…
We drop 7 places very rapidly after that knocking us back down to where we should of been in the first place if it wasn’t for free server transfers. We then lost for every single week since then in WvW constantly dropping in the ranking due to being dragged to tier one by a US guild that jumped server the minute they lost. This then had another effect as noone wanted to play WvW on our server anymore and even more players left the server since we will continue to lose until we get back to our original ranking before RUIN jumped servers to deso.
Other servers have also exploited the server transfer system a number of times. It damaged the desolation server communnity and it damage the desolation WvW community aswell as many other servers that have been damaged by similar effects of mass guild and players server hopping because of free server transfers.
Yet Arena Net still do not address this issue and still let it continue. Until they address free server transfers, lock players out of WvW on there new server after the transfer, make it expensive to change servers, make it so only change once a month, put it many other incentives to stay on one server win or lose and just grow your own server instead of server hoping to other timezone servers to win like RUIN does.
Once those issues are addressed then WvW can start to grow again, right now with free server transfers in WvW, trying to grow a server or community in WvW is 20 times harder and alot more pointless.
TL:DR
Get rid of the bloody free server transfers and start putting in restriction, heavy ones, also put in incentives to stick with one server and help it grow. Probably the most important issue with WvW right now. Would much rather have Free server transfers fixed right now than band aid fixes on culling….
One guilds actions should never have be allowed to have such a negative effect on servers and WvW community’s / rankings and players. Anet allowed it because of not adressing these issues and it almost wrecked desolation as a server and many other servers.
Please fix these issues before it ruins pun intended WvW for good.
I really like it. I think it helps mitigate fps drops (which is hard for us to recreate) and it promotes effective scouting. If you scout a large force, it’s best to scout it alone or with a small party to get a good idea of the size of the enemy. I play with a large group (50+ tonight) and it wasn’t detrimental to not see all of us at once because it was really just screen clutter. When we came upon large forces, my fps didn’t drop like it usually does (and I have a weak amd 5770 video card). It was fairly hard to judge the size of the force until about 30 seconds into the battles, but it was better than before- although not 100% there yet. I am glad to see improvements in the system and this seems like a positive small improvement.
Also, when I saw the enemies appear- I noticed that I was seeing the ones closest to me appear first and then as I went deeper into the enemy force I would see chunks more of the force appear. I think this is good because before it seemed like random players were appearing everywhere as we engaged a large force, but I can’t quite say for certain how different it is now. I prefer enemies nearest me to appear first and I think that it is working better now than before.
If this is mostly client side, then perhaps you could offer an option for all these people complaining so they can toggle it off or on. But I’m guessing it is more complicated than simply ‘client side’ or ‘server side’.
I’d just like to report that the new culling system seems to be a failure. There was only 2 of us in an enemy map, no other allies in sight. Yet we ran into a zerg of 15+ without seeing any of them until they were right on top of us.
I think everyone appreciate your effort in improving culling, but no matter what you gonna do… The one and only good (and actually acceptable) solution is no invisible allies nor enemies at all when you are done with that culling topic, at least the player should have the control about if and how many would be shown concurrently! Yes, I know it’s not just a client side thing, but what about games like Planetside 2 and even older games that are/were capable of handling many, many players on one screen, also on server side…
Yeah, that’s easy to say, I know, but I still hope that this is your goal in the end, no matter how long it takes. Thank you again for your most likely hard work and I cross my fingers to get THE solution in the future…
Concerning your current interim change, I can’t give any feedback, because I haven’t find time to play yet.
But the best solution for me would be no ZERGs, WvW would be much fun if people were spread out arround all the WvW Map, and not only zerged in a area of MASSIVE confusion.
If ANet manages to improve that, no more issues with culling, awfull zergs and perfomance issues in WvW. But by how the WvW was designed it looks impossible.
It’s great that you test out a short term fix, because it was a big issue. It did, however, have the downside that for example sometimes you don’t see allies that are downed, which makes it quite difficult to res them. Still, it’s much better than running into an enemy zerg completely oblivious to it.
Also for those with a low-range to a mid-range system, could make separate graphics settings for PvE/sPvP and for WvW. Changing the graphics setting every time one enters WvW could get tedious for others.
I haven’t seen customize-able option profiles since EQ2 over 5 years ago. When there are
different environments in a game like WvW, dungeons, open world, etc. it makes so much sense to be able to define individual profiles for each, in order to get a good player experience.
Majority of the people that play WvW are serious about their gaming and have the tech to run an uncensored game. Those that don’t should really be left to suffer. They won’t be able to do all of WvW, but they can still do small stuff like guard camps and escort supply. It only costs $30 bucks to get a reliable video card that can handle the work load of GW2. And eventually when people want to do more, they just upgrade their tech.
GW2 is a beautiful game and it is worth the extra coin on upgrading one’s system to enjoy it. Culling really is unnecessary.
Please revert this change its awful. The culling was eh before but at least it wasn’t shoved in my face every time I rolled with my zerg.
edit: Imo the culling wasn’t even THAT bad before, only accidentally running into zergs or fighting thieves were a problem. Now all the fun of large scale battles seems reduced. I’d rather see my team than theirs.
So far, I had a worst experience compared to the old method: in different occasions I’ve decided to attack a small group only to find out they had 50 more friends just behind them
What about a pretty simple solution (already used in another NCSoft mmo ;-) ?
There is an option (accessible via shortkey too), that hides all bodies, but all character names remains visible.
Several hundreds people caused horrible lag too, but by activating this “bodyhidder” option the lag just disappeared.
Majority of the people that play WvW are serious about their gaming and have the tech to run an uncensored game. Those that don’t should really be left to suffer. They won’t be able to do all of WvW, but they can still do small stuff like guard camps and escort supply. It only costs $30 bucks to get a reliable video card that can handle the work load of GW2. And eventually when people want to do more, they just upgrade their tech.
GW2 is a beautiful game and it is worth the extra coin on upgrading one’s system to enjoy it. Culling really is unnecessary.
The thing is that the performance isn’t just centric on your GPU alone. You have to count in the RAM, the CPU, the health of your hard drives, and the state of your motherboard if you want to upgrade to a decent preformance. Granted I’m running a crappy Radeon HD 5775 on a computer with a Dual Core, but you have to remember that upgrading JUST the GPU just might not cut it for some people.
I’m lookign at a $475 upgrade for my rig just to render the game high enough to play in the laggy WvW content.
Nice to see that they are trying but sadly I am still getting the same old issues of being killed by a vast horde and not seeing them till after they have trampled my body into the ground to feed the worms.
Might be that the problem lies with foes been coloured the same making the game engine work to hard to do this, but then I’m not a computer geek.
All I know is that I’m looking to upgrade my system just to try and cope even though the one I have is a quad core 3.6 ghz, 16 gig ram with a 450 gtx 1ghx graphics card.
All I have to worry about is telling the wife now.
Co Leader & Founder “Privateers Uk” [PUK]
Gandara
Eno Live (Ele)
I’d rather have stick figures or even flat, immobile impostor sprites that look like cardboard cutouts than culled models.
In any case, someone you can’t see should not be able to see you or interact with you altogether, unless affected by stealth, yet they still do, even when you set graphics to the max.
Can’t you set something like an invisible effect or a variable to make sure two players can potentially see each other before allowing interactions between them?
And I have an 8-core i7 processor and a 6xx nVidia videocard and plenty high numbers and decent quality of any other thing you can mention, the thing tha slows down the computer the most is the disk drive, which isn’t slow either. We are not exactly talking lower end here.
SUGGEST-A-TRON says:
PAY—ONCE—UNLOCKS—ARE—ALWAYS—BETTER.
No exceptions!
Unlike many folks, I actually saw noticeable improvement with this change. When an enemy zerg came up behind my allied zerg, I was able to render most (if not all) of them.
I have a fairly high-end rig, so that surely has something to do with it.
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