Guild Wars 2

I eagerly await a fix for this issue. It has essentially resulted in the game becoming unplayable particularly in WvW but elsewhere too, and so I am very confident that ArenaNet will fix it soon.

I noticed the problem heavily in places like WvW, but even in Lion’s Arch with as few as 10 people around me the issue was very evident. My friend was standing in the same location as me and could see me, but I had no idea he was there until he materialized 30 seconds later. I noticed when he materialized out of thin air that the people (including npc’s) standing where I had just come from disappeared (except the icons over the npc’s heads). This issue is very easily reproducible as well.

It would seem the engine is only allowing a certain amount of character models to be rendered at once, or the radius for displaying them has become very small.

Whatever the case, this problem puts a serious damper on playing the game, and once fixed will restore this great game to its proper status. I just hope it doesn’t take long… cause ya know I gotta feed my addiction!

Arson.4189:

habib one of the programmers was in game in WvW (monday) actively working on the issue even going as far as using /shout to ask the entire wvw who could see and who couldn’t.

I took the opportunity to message him and he responded. He and his team are actively working on the issue as best they can.

Im the first one to crap on Anet for the issues just look at my post…but talking to habib I had some renewed faith that they are doing the best they can…you guys should too.

THE FATE OF THE WORLD RESTS ON ONE MAN…

Go team Habib!

Seems like mentionend earlier that when you see them it is alright, but as soon you leave an area they are disappearing I tryed it out and like a wonder as it is…..

Thank god I’m not the only one who was experiencing this. I re-logged to fix the problem but when queue times are high, this will not be an option and will send me to bed early.

i7 2600k
GTX 570
8G ram

In the afternoon there were also zergs, but they were not all invisble.. later on EU prime time every group became invisble.

I guess you guys need a new engine :P well for 2 mil x 60$ you can probally make a better one right

Restarting the clients helps for some time. Bute on a server with a 2h+ queue it’s really annoying.

day2 with these problems.
Getting out of a siegegolem made me enter “invisable mode” again. And therefor had to restart my client.

Also theres general delay in WvW 1sec on all abilities(not my connection). Players are warping around, even if no enemies close. But then again since they are all invisable after this patch, they might actually be near without me noticing.

I am a fan of ArenaNet too, but they deserve to get beat up over this one. This kind of problem should never make it out the door under any circumstances. I know they’ve stated “we’re aware, it’s serious and we’re working on it”, which is an important 1st step, but I think it’s only fair if players continue to voice their dissatisfaction until the problem is resolved.

Since WvW is unplayable, might as well work on leveling your pretty anime princesses

I did not have a problem before the update. Seems they are not doing full testing before releasing a new patch. Hey guys this is how you do it.

1. Develop
2. Unit Test
3. System Integration Test
4. Quality Test
5. Deploy to Pre-Production
6. Test
7. Deploy to Production

By taking short cuts you are going to kill your game. Once people leave a MMORPG they do not come back. Even when it is free. You have one chance to do this. If you keep putting out fail patches this game will be another Star Wars – The Old Republic.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/26237579/gw2/gw026.jpg

Yep thats what I’m doing, leveling other characters, playing Keg Brawl and sPvP in the meantime.

Its not like WvW is the only thing in this game. And yes its a shame its pretty broken and I hope they get it fixed soon.

Oheson.2319:

I did not have a problem before the update. Seems they are not doing full testing before releasing a new patch. Hey guys this is how you do it.

1. Develop
2. Unit Test
3. System Integration Test
4. Quality Test
5. Deploy to Pre-Production
6. Test
7. Deploy to Production

By taking short cuts you are going to kill your game. Once people leave a MMORPG they do not come back. Even when it is free. You have one chance to do this. If you keep putting out fail patches this game will be another Star Wars – The Old Republic.

I’m pretty sure that they did, but that only limits to performing on the specific areas that they were targeted to fix, however, what they probably didn’t realize is the fixes that they did created a chain reaction into other areas, causing a bigger problem, like a butterfly effect.

Also Oheson how do you know something like this would have been caught in a QA test.

What if a zerg load of 500 players in an area in wvw worked fine in testing, but when it went to live it blew up? We dont know the details, you are only making assumptions. I doubt anet wants to put out any fail patches, just testing every possible scenerio takes a lot of time. Shortcuts have to be taken or it will be months before we even see a patch.

Take this current issue, would you like them to patch it asap and get wvw back up and running tomorrow, or should they shut down wvw for 2 months till they work out all the bugs then reopen it.

I think most players would prefer the former.

Any from aNet apart from “We are looking into it?” WvW is essentially broken, I’m a fan of this game so far but this is really pushing it.

Can we have a response, as too what is actually going on? Becuase from where we are sitting, it looks like nothing much is happening. If cannot find the specific bug/issue you introduced, ROLL BACK the last patch so that WvW is at least working.

Yes loco, you can read this VERY THREAD it has more information in it, if you would just read it before you posted.

Prior to Oct 7, I would only encounter the invisibility issue a few times per day … now it’s almost non-stop during large-scale battles or when two small forces meet.

Draygo.9473:

Take this current issue, would you like them to patch it asap and get wvw back up and running tomorrow, or should they shut down wvw for 2 months till they work out all the bugs then reopen it.

I think most players would prefer the former.

In either scenario the game is dead. Sure they got the game back up and running but in a failed state. The next few days will be critical to the survival of this game. If they can not fix this in the next 24 hours this game will go down with SWTOR as one of the biggest failures in MMO history.

GW2 is currently at a fork in the road. One sign at the fork is failure and the other is success. We will know in the next 24 hours which way this game will go.

Oheson is 100% correct in that this was preventable and should have been prevented. Now, clearly ANet doesn’t want things like this to happen, and I think it’s a bit of an overstatement to say or suggest they don’t test at all, but this should not have happened. Their testing processes were not sufficient to catch this one, they should have been, and let’s hope they are next time around.

This is likely pretty hard to test for. I don’t believe Internal QA testing can easily be done on a large scale, and this glitch kicks in when theres a large group of players present.

Testing is hard, but not testing is even harder. It’s something that if you go into it with the mindset of “there’s no way to catch this”, then you won’t.

I’m sure they will add the process into their QA tools after this is fixed.

What probably happened in QA is a tester loaded 500 ‘players’ into a zone, saw them all, checked it off.

But this bug is created by something happening to the user, like death, or waypointing several times, and its inconsistant, but when it happens its consistant. So I can see it being missed by a QA process.

And no, its not possible to test everything in a game for a patch, it just isnt.

Think about it, every zone, every skill interatction, dye colors, player armor combinations, every DE, voice acted line etc. Its just crazy.

Kintari.4172:

Testing is hard, but not testing is even harder. It’s something that if you go into it with the mindset of “there’s no way to catch this”, then you won’t.

My point is, I do not believe Anet has the capability to test something that happens when a large number of players gather like this. They simply cannot replicate the number of concurrent users and connections that seems to trigger the glitch on their own. The only was to do this is open up a public test server to test changes to code, but that in itself has issues.

QA teams never have the numbers required to do a large scale test, hence why we have public betas. It’s also next to impossible to predict what a code change may effect on the long run.

I suppose they can run a test server, as mentioned, but I assume there are all sorts of roadblocks behind that. Nothing is as simple as alot of people on forums these days assume.

Draygo.9473:

I’m sure they will add the process into their QA tools after this is fixed.

What probably happened in QA is a tester loaded 500 ‘players’ into a zone, saw them all, checked it off.

But this bug is created by something happening to the user, like death, or waypointing several times, and its inconsistant, but when it happens its consistant. So I can see it being missed by a QA process.

And no, its not possible to test everything in a game for a patch, it just isnt.

Think about it, every zone, every skill interatction, dye colors, player armor combinations, every DE, voice acted line etc. Its just crazy.

They can load 500 player models, sure, but that wont replicate 500 concurrent connections, so that probably has alot to do how it was missed. The issue doesn’t tend to be immediate, it happens over time.

I don’t remember saying it is possible or even desirable to test for absolutely everything. This particular behavior isn’t 100% consistent, but it happens enough, and to enough people, and results in a game so broken, that their processes need to be able to prevent stuff like this.

Yeah, it may require more things than just zoning in, but if these are things that happen to a normal user over the course of an average gameplay session … ?

Had this happen as well. Guild group on comms during peak PST, NA hours. It started happening to random people in the group. Using the Citadel port locations and going through keep door portals seem to refresh the screen to help draw the missing NPC/Players. It’s just not been totally consistent using this method.

tkalamba.2541:

Kintari.4172:

Testing is hard, but not testing is even harder. It’s something that if you go into it with the mindset of “there’s no way to catch this”, then you won’t.

My point is, I do not believe Anet has the capability to test something that happens when a large number of players gather like this. They simply cannot replicate the number of concurrent users and connections that seems to trigger the glitch on their own. The only was to do this is open up a public test server to test changes to code, but that in itself has issues.

QA teams never have the numbers required to do a large scale test, hence why we have public betas. It’s also next to impossible to predict what a code change may effect on the long run.

I suppose they can run a test server, as mentioned, but I assume there are all sorts of roadblocks behind that. Nothing is as simple as alot of people on forums these days assume.

As someone who has built tools to automate exactly this kind of process, I can tell you that it is possible to do a lot better. Further, there is nothing to be gained by simply saying “oh it’s too hard, we’ll never catch something that requires a lot of people playing the game”. And yes, a PTS is invaluable for all the stuff you’d never think to test for internally, which is sort of my point.

So is there any update as to when they might have a fix? within the week?
Next week?
Anything other then were working on it, not complaining im just wondering how long it might be, gives me time to do some PvE.

Dear ArenaNet,

Can you give us an update as to how soon you’re going to fix this issue? You’re making it literally impossible to control maps…and you’re going to lose more players. How can you let something this bad go live?

Glad to here in it’s being addressed, but it’s getting annoying. thx!

Let us just stick to the facts. People supposing why it is broken only confuses the issue.

1) I spent many hours yesterday playing against invisible foes. Effects often rendered, but without seeing any enemy I cannot say what % of effects rendered. Effects use the player position as a start point right? Damage numbers return at the player position. The program knows where every player is, but does not render. The auto-target bound key always found the next enemy. The red arrow was above the invisible spot. The enemy hitbar showed properly.

2) All this insinuation about it being draw distance is nonesense. One time, after rezzing at the keep, the three nearest NPCs were invisible, but all other NPCs rendered.

3) My character and my animations always rendered.

4) My death sometimes cause some of the unseen enemy/friendlies to appear.

5) Rezzing from death usually excacerbated the problem, and usually started the problem.

Died to an invisible Zerg earlier today, respawned and all of the NPCs and friendlies in the start area were invisible. Lots of others on the map saying the same thing.

Hard to play WvW when you can’t see any people! I’ve given up on WvW until it’s fixed.

tkalamba.2541:

They simply cannot replicate the number of concurrent users and connections that seems to trigger the glitch on their own. The only was to do this is open up a public test server to test changes to code, but that in itself has issues.

Sorry, but I don’t think this is the case at all. I’ve worked on projects where we’ve emulated tens of thousands of simultaneous connections as part of the development process. It’s expensive and time consuming of course, but entirely possible.

Whatever the case me be, us bleating on about how ArenaNet didn’t do something in testing isn’t going to help now. I am sure they’re intelligent enough to learn from their mistakes and fix them. Hopefully sooner rather than later because right now WvW is really suffering, and dare I say it, dying.

I couldn’t even see myself today. Had to relogin to solve the issue.

I had to say it but I had more fun “WvWing” in 15yr old browser game.

I hadn’t had a chance to play WvW since the update (work) but I did tonight and really, it is just totally unplayable. I couldn’t see anyone around me, at all. Good times.

I hope they get this fixed soon. WvW is unplayable right now for me and a lot of the guild I am in. The only thing worse than not seeing anyone, is reporting bad information to a commander about enemy numbers because you weren’t able to see the rest of the 50 person zerg the 3 that DID render were with.

Prior to the Oct 7th patch, I occasionally had some rendering problems, but nothing like has occurred since its release. I would always be able to see what was in the immediate vicinity and things at a distance would render slower. Now it takes a long time to render anything at any distance.

Until this is fixed I intend to do other things that have been suggested in this thread such as level up other characters, sPvP, Personal Story, and Dungeons.

Just curious as to what settings people are using if they are NOT getting the new invisibility bug?

So far I’ve had no additional rendering issues apart from what was implemented at launch. I’m using the lowest possible graphics settings.

So, it’s been two days and WvW is still unplayable…can we at least get an update that you guys acknowledge a major part of your game is broken?

Anti.5642:

So, it’s been two days and WvW is still unplayable…can we at least get an update that you guys acknowledge a major part of your game is broken?

they’ve done a “we know its broken” blah blah blah post.
I’d like an update though. even if its “we still havent found a problem” would LOVE a “we found the problem and are close to fixing it” but wishful thinking right?
Mesmers and thiefs love this though. its sooooo easy lol.
Get on it Anet, a daily update isnt that hard to do. Especially for a problem that can and will end this game fast.

They made a “we’ll let the tech guys know” post.

I logged onto WvW for the first time in 2+ weeks last night. It’s definitely a lot worse than before. I was playing at like 5 am Eastern and my side actually had the outmanned buff so it’s not like the system was being taxed at prime time with full squads on the map. I tried to man the cannon, then 5 guys just appeared 3000 range in, one shot later,10 guys magically appeared right up against the wall.

It’s the same for my enemies. In an earlier wave, a mage was nuking our gate by herself and I thought, ok, surely you’re going to run away now that we’re here, right? Nope, she just stood there and kept nuking and didn’t move until 5 of our guys were ontop of her. She never saw it coming.

Is it possible to just revert the code back to a mid/late Aug build just for the WvW portion? The problem was there too back then but at least it wasn’t this bad. It’s like we’re fighting an army of thieves that can cloak.

Had problems a couple weeks ago with enemies slowly appearing, but never invisible for the whole fight. Now even allies and enemies alike are invisible. All I’m getting is spell effects and no bodies whatsoever. This is really making WvW unplayable for me

Have tried restarting client, rebooting computer, moving to a “less populated borderlands”, nothing helps.

Ooooh, this problem was extra nasty in my super duper new ultra squishy armor/rune setup (yes, I am an ele.) When I could see people, fine, I was murdering them, but it was tough to get away. I felt like I was surrounded by an entire army of thieves, which is absolutely my worst nightmare. Perhaps stick to my trusty old Valkyrie/Knights mix while this issue persists.

This is no longer just a bug, its now an exploit. If you are a Commander, you must know of this problem by now. If you don’t, I would expect you to react in a responsible way once your are told.

Exploiting this bug is the same as exploiting any other bug. It is the wrong choice. We all agree that this must be fixed, and its unfortunate that the Commander feature is not an option until it is fixed, but that is the reality.

It would be really awful to get banned after spending 100 gold to get the Commanders manual. I hope that those people have the ability to discern their priorities.

The problem is simple and i know something bad was going to happen to kitten of the entire player base. the only thing i was wondering was when was it going to happen. now here is a quote from their own wiki

Guild Wars 2 uses a heavily modified version of the proprietary game engine developed for Guild Wars by ArenaNet.

this is the root of the problem. Square Enix did this and boy that was such a bad idea. they lost millions because of an unplayable game. they have basically re-written most or the whole game engine and have a version 2.0

modifying something you have already in my opinion is always going to cause more problems than its really worth. taking GW1 and slapping a turbo on the graphic = bad

people think it all comes down to the PC spec. the only thing the PC spec is effecting is frame rate nothing else.

here is a comparison, i also own all the following systems:-

Dual Xeon oc to 4.5Ghz (9Ghz total), 2x nVidea GTX 690, 64Gb Ram, 6×120Hz monitors = average 160 FPS

Intel i7 oc to 4.1Ghz, 2xAMD Radeon 6990, 32Gb Ram, 6x 60Hz monitors = average 60 FPS

AMD Phenom II 3.4Ghz, AMD 6450, 8Gb Memory, 1x 60Hz Monitor = average 15 FPS

in all situation changing the graphics settings has no effect on FPS except maybe the rendering sampling on the lower end PCs. you can have the game looking like kitten but have the same performance as having pretty graphics.

now with this new issues its totally broken the game on all spec PC’s listed above as have been mentioned by everyone with the invisible enemy/npc’s this happens on all the listed systems above. it also feels like they are not doing proper tests before releasing a patch. they should roll back to before the recent patch asap before they fix the problem

Lightvision.9357:

now with this new issues its totally broken the game on all spec PC’s listed above as have been mentioned by everyone with the invisible enemy/npc’s this happens on all the listed systems above. it also feels like they are not doing proper tests before releasing a patch. they should roll back to before the recent patch asap before they fix the problem

This and this again, I don’t know why they didn’t roll back this portion of the code. It’s killing our server in WvW, noone wants to fight invisible zergs.

Sure relogging fixes it, but face a potential queue every 20-40 minutes of gameplay. Well, for me it seems to last until you get into the first big zerg on zerg and have to rez at a WP.

I’ve played WvW just about every day (that I’m not away for work) since release and I find myself not wanting to log in. It’s just not fun. Especially when your rival has 3xorb advantage. Invisible pew pew where I go splat in seconds when I have 2.8k armor unknowing where to dodge/run/hide.

Please don’t wait until next week to implement a fix for this. By then our server will have completely given up.

I tried every graphics setting I could last night; from basically nothing to everything and it persisted consistently.
I’m very much convinced it is an engine issue. However because it is also an issue that got blown completely off the scale with the last patch; it should ammendable to at least the situation prior to the patch.

But I would also seriously like an update; I like this game, I like WvW – but I’ll not stay in this game just for the PvE ‘cause I don’t want to grind mobs. And getting some update about how far they are in the troubleshooting would be nice, so I know when I should expect to play the game again.

Luckily PlanetSide 2 beta is running.

Yes Planetside 2 is awesome and i can see enemies

At the moment i regret to invest in the shop of gw2, cause i dont have the feeling they invest it right, it is all for doing profit and not make bugfixes, buying better hardware or anything else what would make WvW Performance better. No it even gets worse!

A Fix is coming very soon, they’ve been testing it to make sure that it doesn’t make things worse. Don’t worry!

Lol like they test the last patch? i am scared

Youhou?!? Is there a pilot in the plane? Anet, your last patch completely broke 1/3 (considering PvE, WvW and sPvP) of your game and you don’t communicate more about it than two small posts on these forums?
If the WvW community needed more proof that you don’t care about us, I think that we are now completely aware. That say, I understand why you don’t bother, we’ll soon be back to games where guilds can play together and won’t annoy you anymore.