Guild Wars 2

thank you for the change

Habib Loew.6239:

If you have feedback regarding the trial, or if you have feedback regarding our switch back to the old method, please leave that feedback in this thread.

I am just curious for curiosity sake, but why the switch back? I am sure lots of people would want to know this too.

Personally, I wasn’t a huge fan of the trial method but it might have grown on me. Not that anyone should have to let an imperfect system grow on them, but “That’s life.”

invisazerg’d, the change was actually working a lot better for me.

for some reason i lagg alot more now i can walk or i jump around could this be becasue of the culling? but another wierd thing is i lag just as much in best apearance ( all high settings) as i do in best performance.. any solutions?

the whole culling thing caused multiple issue’s of meny people. i just wish they would remove the culling rendering completely till they come up with something better that also works

So….the culling system, which did not work adequately, has been put back into place…because the solution you thought would fix it…inadvertantly turned out to be worse.

I guess, thank you for reinstating the inadequate system.

I think there is an improvement. I wouldn’t switch back to the old system.
Get’s some time to get used to but atleast you can see some of the enemies instead of none. It can still improve but the old system was worse then this one.

this does actually bring up a good point. last week, there was an epic battle at stonemist, all 3 servers were there fighting. it would have been magnificent.

however, the battle was as laggy as the karaka event.

so tell me…what sense does it make to create a game that is Server vs. Server vs. Server, with player caps for each server, if anet cannot handle it?

Just a question … is there no way that you can have the coding in place so people can pick:
No culling
old culling
new culling.

That way you can truelly see what works best for people as they can manually change it. Make default new culling and that way you know that if people are switching to the others then there must be a reason.

I know it was a temporary test solution thingie, but I prefered that… Even though I wouldn’t be able to see most of my allies, atleast I can see them on the minimap. And I rather not be able to see my allies than not being able to see my enemies… I mean… I don’t think I need to explain why.

Habib Loew,
Thanks for the update.

I have a question I really wish a DEV would answer, and a lot of people have asked the same question.

Why not put this in the hands of the players? The game obviously runs in WvW with minimum settings (at around 30 FPS, most of the time). However, there are players with far better computers who are stuck with culling anyway.

Is there some reason we can’t improve the game for those with better computers and leave the game as it is for those who don’t?

Thank you! Giving us a week on the old vs the new will help us pick which works best.

Can you explain how culling works and the best guess as to the system requirements for having less culling. If a new computer is needed to have more field information in WvW, it might be a good investment if anyone intends to play the game for a while.

It was better with separate system. I hadn’t run into enemy zerg and saw them beforehand. Didn’t notice any problems

I was run over by easily by a zerg of 15 they other night that came out of no where. Guess it varies highly on which servers and our personal computers.

Culling Explained (as requested).

The following is the reason you generally don’t see the enemy until it is too late, or later.
Culling is done at the server.
It reduces data sent from the server.
It reduces data sent to your client.
It reduces data received by the client because it hasn’t been sent.
It can not have a setting in the client because the client cant affect the server in such a fashion.
Culling is simply the server being directed not to send information to your game client.
Culling occurs when there is more data to be sent to the client than what Anet have allowed out of their server at a given time. A large number of enemy (The Zerg) can trip this setting so that your game is oblivious to the large number of people around you.
Culling stops when the amount of data is reduced to a smaller amount, or can be sent over a longer time frame, or a mix of both.

What data are we talking about? Data is all the details that allow the enemy to be displayed on your screen, before your client (on your PC) knows that there is anything to display (draw). Obvious details like;
Character race, height, weight, colorings (the things you set at character creation),
Guild and server, along with health pool,
Each individual armor piece and its selected dye colorings, skins and effects ,
Each weapon (skin and effects) that is wielded,
The characters location and direction heading,
Spell/skill/ability effects esp. in relation to casting origin,
Character animation details.

The things that aren’t so obvious may include (as guess-work allows);
Rings and accessories (graphically),
Effect locations (destination),
Name/account (was before when we could report and chat with the enemy).

There is probably more, but that is a more in-depth area to go into, so I culled it.

Culling can not be affected by your PC, because it happens at the server.

It is a way to reduce network data requirements from their server, and to the client. This would reduce the need to have a very fast (a relative term) internet service for the customer, reduce the outgoing bandwidth requirements from the server, and most likely reduce Anets running costs as well. It just happens that it stops a lot of us from seeing the enemy in a timely fashion.

How to Reduce Culling.

To reduce culling, or even remove culling, Anet need to reduce how much data is needed to be sent to the client. The following are some examples;
Enemy are seen as a single type of creature (a single race type),
Stop sending data relating to each individual enemy’s dye selections,
Stop sending data relating to each individual enemy’s armor,
Stop sending data relating to each individual enemy’s weapons.

Make all the enemy the same creature model (while accounting for class) without all the pretty details (that each individual selects and modifies to their own taste) that we currently have.

The test you ran last week was 300% better than what you switched back to this week.

Last week we could see the enemy for miles and was able to plan our attacks/defenses accordingly. WvW ran smoother than it ever has (FPS and “lag” wise) and while it was sometimes annoying not having friendlies render during big fights, we are all on VOIP anyways and know where everyone is on the battlefield.

This week our large guild group has been running smack into groups our same size and larger with literately NO warning (with the exception of major FPS drops). My (and most of my guild member’s) FPS has dropped on average about 20%. This week the only way we know that there is a large enemy group near is through our Spidey-sense of our FPS dropping through the floor.

To wrap it up, go back to last week’s method of rendering. It was infinitely better than the system currently in place. The candy cane projectiles are cool though lol!!

~Thork [FoE]

Thank you so much for the rollback, keep trying though! It is good to know y’all are behind the scenes working your tails off!

With the trial system in place I found the culling was much better than the old system, but I suffered more lag when in big battles. But because the lag was not too bad, and it was still playable (for me at least), I preferred the trial system.

Suun.2856:

How to Reduce Culling.

To reduce culling, or even remove culling, Anet need to reduce how much data is needed to be sent to the client. The following are some examples;
Enemy are seen as a single type of creature (a single race type),
Stop sending data relating to each individual enemy’s dye selections,
Stop sending data relating to each individual enemy’s armor,
Stop sending data relating to each individual enemy’s weapons.

Make all the enemy the same creature model (while accounting for class) without all the pretty details (that each individual selects and modifies to their own taste) that we currently have.

After that, Anet only needs to tell me about ’playerXXXX" given the low amount of players on each map, this can all be reduced of 1 byte of information (for the purpose of identification) as the amount of players your side has on the map is lower than 255 or 2 bytes if all players of the 3 servers are in one pool.

Anet’s priority seems to display a selection in full shinny glory above displaying everything at lower graphic settings. is the fear for non impresive screenshots which might hurt sales bigger than the game experience of current users ? is it more important to clearly show the legendary weapons than to show everyone ?

culling should not exit ! Anet seems to fiddle around with some settings and hope that people one day say “hey, this is slightly better” and the people grow complacent about culling while Anet should be trying to get rid of culling.

muylaetrix,
My sentiments exactly. Why is there culling in a game in 2012 when other games fixed this problem with weaker hardware and slower internet connections close to a decade ago.

Yeah, I think it’s much better if instead of culling we get all characters besides yourself loaded with a generic model when under high load. Usually when that happens the screen would be too busy and all the characters just becomes silhouettes because the human mind cannot actually perceive that many details rapidly shown on screen.

This whole pretty shiny epic huge battle thing is a fine vision, but let’s be realistic here, the technology is not ready yet.

The problem. This is a game, not a cinematic. You do not sacrifice functionality to craft a picture. Like seriously, this is the only game that does it this way. Other games like EvE and TSW go the function-first approach, because in order for a game to be fun, it first needs to work.

I’d like to voice my support for what Heinel just posted. The culling issue does seem to be caused(or at least worsened) by the huge customizability of our avatars/armor/weapons. I would be totally fine with using generic models for WvW.

Hell, this is kind of already done in structured PvP. Why not in WvW? It’s like a big battle ground. Give us uniforms! I’m more than cool with it. The gameplay is so much more important than our ability to customize our look, especially when you can hardly notice those details during a big battle.

Why did you roll back ? The temporary fix should have remained in place until the issue is entirely fixed. I can’t believe some people didn’t like the new culling. The fights were a lot more enjoyable. I guess some players like being attacked by invisible enemies… or maybe they just liked exploiting the fact that the enemy could not see them.

Wrong move, Anet.

I liked it last week. This week it’s back to OH GOD WHERE DID THEY COME FROM?!!! … again.

Four times today on two characters I was lied to by the rendering engine.

Oh there’s just three at that ballista site… OH GOD FIFTEEN… Dead.

Looks like they’re testing Garrison’s defenses, just a handful at west gate guys… OH MY GOD THEY’RE ALL HERE… Gate melted Garrison outer breached… Dead.

Oh no mah Guardian bro is in some trouble below the tower with a couple enemies… leap down to charge to the rescueOH GOD OH GOD THEY’RE ALL RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW… Dead.

There’s just a couple defenders here let’s blast this tower with our smallish group … OH GOD THE WALLS ARE FILLED WITH RED TEXT… Wiped.

All i knew is that the new culling works better than the old one. The old one i got more invisible enemies than the new one. The new one work just fine. We would like the see enemy first more than our allies… Use this logic and fix it! PLEASE BRING THE NEW CULLING BACK!

WvWvW is finally playable again.

Trial was better for me…

Generic uniforms would be cool, it would make WvWvW raids looks like real armies rather than undisciplined mob.

While culling was bad, it got worse with the change and now it’s just back to being bad again.

Just happened: 1 thief vs 10

I was getting shot for about 2 seconds before the thief appeared – constantly. Because of the culling she was only visible for 1 or 2 seconds at a time and then gone again (damage/dots didn’t matter). While I have issues with the stealth in this game this is more about the god awful invisible enemies in WvW due to your rendering issues.

Please fix this crap already. It’s more important that the breakout thing, or the wall thing or just about anything else in WvW.

curtis.8976:

for some reason i lagg alot more now i can walk or i jump around could this be becasue of the culling? but another wierd thing is i lag just as much in best apearance ( all high settings) as i do in best performance.. any solutions?

In WvW the GPU is almost never the limiting factor unless you have a weird match of Hardware, thus changing your graphical settings doesn’t matter. Your problem is more likely to have to do with the connection on your end, or your just unlucky and there is problems in connection between your computer and the server.

This is worse. In the trial culling system, I could at least see those enemies closest to me better. With this old system, I can’t see squat until I can see them all. This is horrible considering how many stealthed thieves run to the back of our group just to try to kill my little ele toward the end of the pack even though they aren’t in full stealth anymore but just can’t be seen due to culling.

I thought the newer system might have been worse, but it was much better. Again, at least I could see those enemies closest to me and I felt like I could see the theives better.

The current system is terrible. Please find a fix or at least allow us to choose between the old or new system (although this doesn’t sound possible as the changes are on the server side for all players at once?).

Suun.2856:

How to Reduce Culling.

To reduce culling, or even remove culling, Anet need to reduce how much data is needed to be sent to the client. The following are some examples;
Enemy are seen as a single type of creature (a single race type),
Stop sending data relating to each individual enemy’s dye selections,
Stop sending data relating to each individual enemy’s armor,
Stop sending data relating to each individual enemy’s weapons.

Make all the enemy the same creature model (while accounting for class) without all the pretty details (that each individual selects and modifies to their own taste) that we currently have.

What you are asking here will have no effect on why culling is in place.

Appearance data is only sent once and has no effect on the long term bandwidth load that anet is trying to combat with culling. In effect, blocking apperance data would have such a MINOR effect, it isnt even worth a programmers time, at all. (which is why they now send you dye color data, which is awesome).

Its obvious you think you have a solution, but that solution is so far off base, it wouldnt fix a thing.

Habib Loew.6239:

Our trial of a new, interim culling methodology ran from 12/7 – 12/14 and has now ended. The primary change that we were testing was giving allies and enemies distinct culling pools such that allies couldn’t impact enemy culling and enemies couldn’t impact ally culling. We have now reinstated the prior system which uses a single culling pool for all characters.

Habib, did you revert this change all the way back to how it was at release of the game? It seems to be worse now than before the last test -and- the prior change to it a few weeks ago. Can we get some clarification on this?

Anyways, here is my opinion in large scale WvW fights:

Original Culling – Worst
First Culling Change – Best
Recent Culling Test – Medium
Current – Seems pretty bad

Show enemy names at all times
Show allies on mini map

Win? No one looks at character models during a mass pvp fest.. Tbh I didn’t even know the enemy showed a different color until I read it on the forums….

The current system is terrible, killed by invisible enemies all the time.
The game was more enjoyable last week with the trial culling system, it was not perfect but you could at least see enemies and be ready to fight them, instead of being wiped without seeing anything.

I liked trial system better I only had a slight lag once at stonemist. Which wasn’t too bad, at least we could see enemies.

Now we’re back at system where no one can see anything.

Culling + mesmer portal = no wvw for me
I will avoid fight and just repair, fire with siege, upgrade etc.

Suun.2856:

How to Reduce Culling.

To reduce culling, or even remove culling, Anet need to reduce how much data is needed to be sent to the client. The following are some examples;
Enemy are seen as a single type of creature (a single race type),
Stop sending data relating to each individual enemy’s dye selections,
Stop sending data relating to each individual enemy’s armor,
Stop sending data relating to each individual enemy’s weapons.

Make all the enemy the same creature model (while accounting for class) without all the pretty details (that each individual selects and modifies to their own taste) that we currently have.

+1 this. Giving each class and profession one skin and dye colour according to team colour. They could even make this an option which 80% of people would use.

Trial system worked much better for me.

Same, trial system worked much better for me. Now we tried the trial, and you reverted, it really shows that the trial worked better.

The trial system makes it harder to use lag and culling to fight, which of course is a good thing (fights are actually fights and not lag fest).

Covenn summed up the progress on lag pretty well.

The trial culling system should be put back into place. We’ve gone from being able to see enemies portal-bomb us to missing mass zergs right on top of us.

Whoever asked for it to be reverted back wanted to exploit the culling to their own benefits. Being able to see your enemies is a first priority in a battle.

Trial culling was awesome, i could run around and see all the enemies to kill.
Reverted to crap culling means i died 4 times before i saw anyone.
What a joke, one step forward and reverted to a game that makes me not want to play

Feels way better now. Was finally able to see my opponents again yesterday o.O

Provac.3598:

Suun.2856:

How to Reduce Culling.

To reduce culling, or even remove culling, Anet need to reduce how much data is needed to be sent to the client. The following are some examples;
Enemy are seen as a single type of creature (a single race type),
Stop sending data relating to each individual enemy’s dye selections,
Stop sending data relating to each individual enemy’s armor,
Stop sending data relating to each individual enemy’s weapons.

Make all the enemy the same creature model (while accounting for class) without all the pretty details (that each individual selects and modifies to their own taste) that we currently have.

+1 this. Giving each class and profession one skin and dye colour according to team colour. They could even make this an option which 80% of people would use.

Except it wouldnt fix culling at all. Not even a tiny amount.

same for me, trial system worked much better.

Last week’s system was better

Corran.4957:

is there no way that you can have the coding in place so people can pick:
No culling
old culling
new culling

No. If it was possible to have no culling, then that solution would have been in long ago.

I think that the problem is that if you are with 200 people in a small area (each with their own armor and skills and pets and what not) than GW would have to sent that data about 200 people to all 200 people, 2-3-4 times per second.

I am not sure that this is the reason why there is culling, I never read a DEV explaining it, but as IT-person, my guess is that this is not as easy as it sounds.

The Trial system was great.

I miss it already. I hope the new system to replace the trial system is similar but better.