Guild Wars 2

I’m on a highly populated server, so we tend to have epic battles. Which, in my understanding is what WvW is and what ANet intended it to be.
This is one of the reasons they changed culling, so battles would be and feel more epic, so we could see our enemies more clearly and battle with them instead of them being invisible.

So, now that culling is basically fixed, enter a new problem. SKILL LOCK and general LAG.

Many of my friends complain about Skill Lock and Lag when a large force is just ‘in the area’, and we all suffer skill lock when in big battles.

For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about by Skill Lock.
Imagine you’re in a battle and you can’t fire off any of your abilities. You can attack, you can’t heal yourself. You can pretty much only stand there and spam your heal button praying it’ll go off. haha….

Now we’ve tried the so-called ‘port fix’, but that’s ultimately of little or no help.
We’ve tried turning down all settings (and WvW settings) and that doesn’t matter either.

So honestly, WvW is broken when it comes to large-scale epic big battles.

So Anet.. Any fix? Is it even ‘possible’ to fix this?

Yamato Shinobi.4378:

So Anet.. Any fix? Is it even ‘possible’ to fix this?

In the tech section many mentioned the games engine is outdated for a 2012 release and is direct9 compatible only. DirectX9 does not utilize multi core cpu’s which is pretty much standard these days. Game will require a rewrite in code from the ground up which is not gonna happen.

Think of it this way, a huge 70 on 70 zerg meets and they are all jammed on your screen. Your poor cpu has to calculate 140+ players, pets, npc’s dodging, spamming abilities and try to transfer all that information on your end in real time……..

they released new spvp updates and a new dungeon.

What is WvW???

I never have this issue.

scootshoot.6583:

Yamato Shinobi.4378:

So Anet.. Any fix? Is it even ‘possible’ to fix this?

In the tech section many mentioned the games engine is outdated for a 2012 release and is direct9 compatible only. DirectX9 does not utilize multi core cpu’s which is pretty much standard these days. Game will require a rewrite in code from the ground up which is not gonna happen.

Think of it this way, a huge 70 on 70 zerg meets and they are all jammed on your screen. Your poor cpu has to calculate 140+ players, pets, npc’s dodging, spamming abilities and try to transfer all that information on your end in real time……..

Except that skill lag is a server-side problem ONLY, as ANet has repeatedly confirmed. It is ANet’s CPUs that are bogging down … not yours, his, or mine.

LadyLad.1389:

I never have this issue.

What tier are you in?

In tier 2 the skill lag is to the point where I can’t even change attunements on my ele in some fights. And before someone says it has anything to do with my computer and settings, I have a gtx 670/i5 3570k/8gb ram with all of the character settings on their lowest.

If it wasn’t Anet’s problem, I’d be fine.

UCF Knight.8095:

LadyLad.1389:

I never have this issue.

What tier are you in?

In tier 2 the skill lag is to the point where I can’t even change attunements on my ele in some fights. And before someone says it has anything to do with my computer and settings, I have a gtx 670/i5 3570k/8gb ram with all of the character settings on their lowest.

If it wasn’t Anet’s problem, I’d be fine.

Now, T5. I was in T1 and never had issues in the larger fights. I moved to a lower tier because of queue times.

Unless people stop stacking servers or Anet upgrades all their server hardware it’s not going to go away. You can either wait and hope Anet does it, put up with the skill lock or move to a different server

It’s a server issue wherein the map’s server bottlenecks when enough skills are being fired off at the same time. That’s why it’s mostly a problem in T1 and T2 where large zergs are very common and come into contact with each other quite often.

Edit: Also, it’s ruining my desire to stay in either of these tiers at all.

Christos de Soufre.3802:

It’s a server issue wherein the map’s server bottlenecks when enough skills are being fired off at the same time. That’s why it’s mostly a problem in T1 and T2 where large zergs are very common and come into contact with each other quite often.

Edit: Also, it’s ruining my desire to stay in either of these tiers at all.

Sounds like, if you avoid World v World, and play with Small v Small… you’ll be alright.

ANet perhaps should limit the number of players per map to 10. -.-

LadyLad.1389:

Now, T5. I was in T1 and never had issues in the larger fights. I moved to a lower tier because of queue times.

Weird. In a couple instances today, me and another d/d ele couldn’t even switch attunements. The only thing I could get off was mist form, which didn’t do much good because it wouldn’t let me heal. >.>

It’s not common enough for me to really be angry about it, but it does happen once or twice a week to seemingly everyone in our guild around the same time. Maybe the server conditions have to be just right for this to occur, but it is certainly annoying when it does.

When you have skill lag you can still use your 1 skill alot of the time if anything.

I can confirm this happens on low tier servers too. There’s no escaping it!

Skill-laags is not a WvW-only problem. It also happens quite often on Dragon (or other bosses) kills at prime time as well. The worst skill-laags I ever experienced was the karka-attack on lion’s arch.

I guess there are only two ways to handle that:
- better servers = expensive
- reduced no of players on map = more queues or overflow maps

I notice it now more than ever after the culling fix was put in place. A fix which basically allowed your computer to no longer ignore players over a certain capped limit and allowed more players to render on your screen, whereas prior to the culling fix the client would limit the amount of players your screen would render and as well(from what I understand) limit the amount of other players their server would communicate to your client. Now the limit has been relaxed a lot and thus skill lock is very prevalent in large battles or with many enemy players in the area.
You’ll likely notice this more in EB versus the BL.

You may not notice this so much in lower tiers, as the population as a whole in WvW is likely much lower than higher tiers. I’m in a higher tier because I enjoy WvW a lot and enjoy playing with a high population of WvW players.

Ultimately Anet’s implementation of WvW in my opinion is broken and is not ready to accommodate a high population of WvW players having ‘epic’ battles on their WvW game maps.

Also, for this skill lock situation to occur, it leads me to believe there was little to no stress testing done prior to the culling patch implementation. If there was it wasn’t sufficient, or they chose to go ahead with the culling patch anyways, regardless of the skill lock impact.

Regardless, this NEEDS to be fixed. It’s killing the experience in WvW when having epic battles with a large number of enemy forces.

Some acknowledgement from Anet would be welcome, as well as comments on what they plan to do to address this issue.

IF we have that on t7, i cant imagine how many times it happens on t5 and upper tiers…..

LadyLad.1389:

UCF Knight.8095:

LadyLad.1389:

I never have this issue.

What tier are you in?

In tier 2 the skill lag is to the point where I can’t even change attunements on my ele in some fights. And before someone says it has anything to do with my computer and settings, I have a gtx 670/i5 3570k/8gb ram with all of the character settings on their lowest.

If it wasn’t Anet’s problem, I’d be fine.

Now, T5. I was in T1 and never had issues in the larger fights. I moved to a lower tier because of queue times.

This is an issue in T7 EU. I can’t comment on T1 but in 30v30ish fights skill lag is ridiculous.
A few weeks ago there was a huge fight at Hills on a BL map with 40+ on either side, was struggling to activate skills up near Garrison!

MarkusParkus.8467:

LadyLad.1389:

UCF Knight.8095:

LadyLad.1389:

I never have this issue.

What tier are you in?

In tier 2 the skill lag is to the point where I can’t even change attunements on my ele in some fights. And before someone says it has anything to do with my computer and settings, I have a gtx 670/i5 3570k/8gb ram with all of the character settings on their lowest.

If it wasn’t Anet’s problem, I’d be fine.

Now, T5. I was in T1 and never had issues in the larger fights. I moved to a lower tier because of queue times.

This is an issue in T7 EU. I can’t comment on T1 but in 30v30ish fights skill lag is ridiculous.
A few weeks ago there was a huge fight at Hills on a BL map with 40+ on either side, was struggling to activate skills up near Garrison!

I’ve seen it once, in a three way battle for SM, but I had something running in the background. Since then, using Advanced System Care 6; “Game Booster” I have yet to see these issues again.

Lag is common in every game, and usually it is client side, rarely server side. If this is one of those few instances it is server side, I’d wager they’ll get it fixed if they can. It isn’t as simple as buying more, bigger servers though. The biggest bottleneck they have to cross is the internet, and peoples computers.

Do something to disperse the zergs and these issues will resolve themselves.

LadyLad.1389:

MarkusParkus.8467:

LadyLad.1389:

UCF Knight.8095:

LadyLad.1389:

I never have this issue.

What tier are you in?

In tier 2 the skill lag is to the point where I can’t even change attunements on my ele in some fights. And before someone says it has anything to do with my computer and settings, I have a gtx 670/i5 3570k/8gb ram with all of the character settings on their lowest.

If it wasn’t Anet’s problem, I’d be fine.

Now, T5. I was in T1 and never had issues in the larger fights. I moved to a lower tier because of queue times.

This is an issue in T7 EU. I can’t comment on T1 but in 30v30ish fights skill lag is ridiculous.
A few weeks ago there was a huge fight at Hills on a BL map with 40+ on either side, was struggling to activate skills up near Garrison!

I’ve seen it once, in a three way battle for SM, but I had something running in the background. Since then, using Advanced System Care 6; “Game Booster” I have yet to see these issues again.

Lag is common in every game, and usually it is client side, rarely server side. If this is one of those few instances it is server side, I’d wager they’ll get it fixed if they can. It isn’t as simple as buying more, bigger servers though. The biggest bottleneck they have to cross is the internet, and peoples computers.

Yeah, lag is common in a lot of MMO games, and when it’s client side, it’s almost always something to do with the client frame rate which is directly related to the user’s PC, the graphic settings being used, the demands the client is making (stressing) on the user’s system.

However in this case it’s almost a certainty it’s server side and to some extent user’s internet bandwidth. The client is ready and willing to kick off a skill, in fact the client reacts to when we try to kick off a skill. The issue is, the client isn’t getting confirmation that the skill could be kicked off (acknowledgement from the server).
This points to a bottleneck in Anet’s network and likely server, and to some extent internet connection (however IMO less likely). All of which could have been spotted proper stress testing. Heck, I guess we’re stress testing for them now in the ‘live’ environment. :/

LadyLad.1389:

MarkusParkus.8467:

LadyLad.1389:

UCF Knight.8095:

LadyLad.1389:

I never have this issue.

What tier are you in?

In tier 2 the skill lag is to the point where I can’t even change attunements on my ele in some fights. And before someone says it has anything to do with my computer and settings, I have a gtx 670/i5 3570k/8gb ram with all of the character settings on their lowest.

If it wasn’t Anet’s problem, I’d be fine.

Now, T5. I was in T1 and never had issues in the larger fights. I moved to a lower tier because of queue times.

This is an issue in T7 EU. I can’t comment on T1 but in 30v30ish fights skill lag is ridiculous.
A few weeks ago there was a huge fight at Hills on a BL map with 40+ on either side, was struggling to activate skills up near Garrison!

I’ve seen it once, in a three way battle for SM, but I had something running in the background. Since then, using Advanced System Care 6; “Game Booster” I have yet to see these issues again.

Lag is common in every game, and usually it is client side, rarely server side. If this is one of those few instances it is server side, I’d wager they’ll get it fixed if they can. It isn’t as simple as buying more, bigger servers though. The biggest bottleneck they have to cross is the internet, and peoples computers.

Bingo. I read the tech forums daily. Many gamers share their “High End” pc stats. Let’s just say it probably was high end 9 years ago….

Yamato Shinobi.4378:

This points to a bottleneck in Anet’s network and likely server, and to some extent internet connection (however IMO less likely). All of which could have been spotted proper stress testing. Heck, I guess we’re stress testing for them now in the ‘live’ environment. :/

More, server architecture only goes so far and is only so advanced. Depending on how things are calculated, it could simply be physical technological limitations wrapped in awkward optimization, but even then there’s only so many servers you can stack atop one another before it becomes pointless.

Stress testing with bots is different from stress testing with a truly chaotic system (i.e live).

I am still LOLing at the people even remotely saying that it is client side…ANET has even come out on these forums if I remember correctly and said: “hey its not you, its us”, luckily they didn’t break up with us afterward….

This has been confirmed by ANET, proven by logic from posters, yet still people continue to throw the old: upgrade ur PC….

Sometimes it has nothing to do with rendering/loading etc…Which even further points to a server side issue. I said this in another post, but I have personally gotten skill lag on reset night, and instantly knew that a an enemy zerg was near. They were actually on the other side of a mountain from me where I couldn’t even see their tags. So here I am, alone, capping frogs, and got 1+second skill lag and some skills won’t activate at all. And it is all because there are 100 people near me that aren’t even supposed to register on my (client) side of the game. That is a server issue folks, let ANET take the blame when they admit to it, carrying the banner for them all day surely is bad on your back.

Accusing everyone of running a Gateway computer with XP on it, and integrated graphics, will not motivate any kind of productive effort to enforce a change….All it does is provide faulty information, and possibly cause people to spend money on something they do not necessarily need.

I still think its tier based. Even in queued maps it’s very mild in T3 and only happens in the biggest fights. At least for me.

Maybe it also depends on how many other big battles or events are happening on the server (or the server that’s hosting that WvW map).

My skill lag has gotten much better recently. I did upgrade my computer but people say its server side.

Are you sure it is ONLY server side? Nothing else has changed but my computer. (Unless Anet is making improvements that just happened to coincide with my upgrade.)

They really need to fix this. The most epic battles I have ever had in this game has been ruined every time by horrible skill lag. Huge 3 way battles at SMC or keeps where all we can do is spam 1111111111111.

Maybe some bad PCs add additional laags but ANet already said that:
Skill laags are caused by the servers hitting 100% CPU during battles:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Decrease-lag/1662663

An this ANet post was before the culling fix, skill-laags existed before but the removal of culling likely increased them (as the transmission of all data to all clents adds to the servers CPU load).

So please stop blaming each others PCs. Pray that ANet fixes this long known problem on their side.

If they encouraged people to reduce the zerg sizes to 30-40 instead of 70+ it would be a quick fix to a lot of these situations. Obviously not around SMC or when bunches of zergballs come together, but most of the time just splitting up the forces would solve the problem.

Niim.9260:

If they encouraged people to reduce the zerg sizes to 30-40 instead of 70+ it would be a quick fix to a lot of these situations. Obviously not around SMC or when bunches of zergballs come together, but most of the time just splitting up the forces would solve the problem.

No doubt it would, but….The servers should be able to hold the maximum number of allowable players on the map all fighting in the same spot at the same time…That should be the benchmark on what they used to determine the “queue” numbers…My fear is that number was so low that it gave us the current “free for all – enjoy the lag” issues we have now.

Skill lag is server side. If in a large fight your framerate drops and the game becomes a slide show that is client side.

Tier 1 EU, whenever there’s a blob v blob fight your skill bar becomes useless, simply because your skills often won’t activate until after the fight is already decided. For some reason I started noticing it after the culling patch (either it hadn’t existed or was so minor I never paid any attention to it). Now imagine a 3-way in SM lord room. Yeah…1 minute to pop your heal. After I managed to pop out of combat @ 10 hp and was 80% done regenerating. “I see you don’t need to heal anymore, but here it is anyway” says the server and plops the heal. That’s how bad it gets in T1 sometimes. You either kill your enemies fast enough, you die or you manage to somehow get out of combat to regen.

Niim.9260:

If they encouraged people to reduce the zerg sizes to 30-40 instead of 70+ it would be a quick fix to a lot of these situations. Obviously not around SMC or when bunches of zergballs come together, but most of the time just splitting up the forces would solve the problem.

That’s a cool idea. The Skill-Laag is ANet way of encouraging (map limit would be enforcing it, at the cost of longer queues) smaller groups. I think the effectiveness of this encouragement could be increased by:

Give the smaller zerg the higher processing priority!!

The larger zerg may still spam 1 but the smaller zerg has all skills working
(not absolutely, but likely based on relative zerg-sizes)

Dayra.7405:

Niim.9260:

If they encouraged people to reduce the zerg sizes to 30-40 instead of 70+ it would be a quick fix to a lot of these situations. Obviously not around SMC or when bunches of zergballs come together, but most of the time just splitting up the forces would solve the problem.

That’s a cool idea. The Skill-Laag is ANet way of encouraging (map limit would be enforcing it, at the cost of longer queues) smaller groups. I think the effectiveness of this encouragement could be increased by:

Give the smaller zerg the higher processing priority!!

The larger zerg may still spam 1 but the smaller zerg has all skills working
(not absolutely, but likely based on relative zerg-sizes)

Umm… It’s hard to see ANet’s ‘encouragement’ in this area, simply because of how WvW maps are designed. In order to take Keeps in all BLs (and even Towers for that matter) requires a certain amount of offense given a certain amount of defense, which equates to in large part the numbers of players. Major points on the map that provide higher PPT will be defended heavily. All those players cramped into a Tower or a Keep’s ‘inner’ location(especially) simply promotes the Skill Lock. Those players will want to keep their assets and will send as many troops as necessary to defend it.

You’ll never be able to get enemies to form some sort of ‘truce’ where each side promises to only send 20 ppl to attack and defend a location, especially home keeps.
30-40 zerg sizes X 3 (on EB) all going for a Keep (and defending it) will still create skill lag.

I believe it’s either ANet somehow updates the game/servers on their side, or lower and hard lock the numbers each map can hold (which would destroy WvW IMO).
They could make ‘instances’ of each BL and treat them like how PvE zones in the game used to be. Though I see that also seriously downgrading the WvW ‘Feature’ of this game.

The game can’t control how many players gather in one spot, and honestly for the game to try to identify small zergs and prioritize them (constantly in real-time) would likely take up more CPU resources than current.

At this point I think a lot of our problem comes from two things, there are always more variables but I think these two are at the core of the issue:

1. Like it or not, this game was built around culling being in play, once it was removed it loaded down the resources significantly. Many say there was server lag before the removal and that is fine, but I would think that it has gotten worse with the added strain of removing culling.
2. Overall map design (predominantly on EB). If you have resource issues when large groups of players get in tight areas, then placing the “jewel of WvW” (SM), in the center of a map, with a relatively tiny enclosed area to fight in (lord room), is probably not the way to go. SM defenses that end up in the Lord Room, during heavy sieges will almost always guarantee skill lag.

But again, there is not much you can do to change either, culling was terrible, and the design of the game regarding SM will not likely change (nor should it really). Being able to siege up the lord room is one of the defensive benefits, and given that it is a small area that is only accessible through choke points is no mistake.

One thing could be done relatively easily:
Less number of players per map (i.e. only 50 per side and map).
Probably it is best combined with more maps, i.e. overflow maps for
WvW, or the queues would be horrible.

Anet please fix your game. This infection needs a cream or something. Don’t even need to be near the “epic”(pressing 1 over and over) battles for skills to stop working.