Guild Wars 2

I maybe sound pesimistic, but removing culling by 3 ways- high res models,fallback models and names only?
Really? You wont se anybody only floating red text? I cannot wait till patch so everybody will be disapointed of floating red text. Its like some monster- FRT lives!!

the end of culling and ‘the start of skill lags’

Anatolian Turk.4057:

the end of culling and ‘the start of skill lags’

Yeah … it’s truly amazing how many people don’t understand that culling and lag go hand in hand in spite of the several detailed explanations that ANet has given on the subject. There are not in any way separate issues. ANet could have turned off culling at any time … it would have just meant incredible lag if that had done so. The fact that they are now removing culling simply means that they think they have improved their data processing and transmission speeds to the point that the lag will not be objectionable … but ANet’s definition of “objectionable” could be significantly different than ours. We will find out on March 26.

They haven’t addressed the over the top spell graphics which is a huge contributor to lag…the more ooh ! pretty lights ! your video card has to render..the more it’s gonna choke on it.

And did I mention that there are times when you need sunglasses just to view a full out battle in say..the castle’s lord room (good luck locating your target or your ground target radius in all the visual clutter…)

The game needs a FX slider and the ability to turn off some spell effects or reduce particle count. None of those currently exist. And yes, you can use spell FX to choke other player’s video cards to your benefit..has Arenanet ever realized that ?

Let me tell you a story on how video works: On Second Life there’s some PvP. I deliberately dressed my avie in as much flexi and bling (combat is mouselook) knowing that I have a pretty good video card. So what happens is that I zoom into mouselook and I don’t have to render my own avatar. The opponent HAS TO. So what happens ? All the stuff I’m wearing..it counts against the other player’s video card’s rendering ability. So what happens ? I get a huge FPS advantage on him and that’s big in a FPS game. Alot of people don’t realize how that works..so I whip the vast majority of them..skill doesn’t make much of a difference when their computer is choking on trying to render my avatar and I’m strafing in circles at their sluggish avatar trying to react to my own. Rule of thumb: If I have at least 10 FPS advantage on them, it’s no contest since the human eye limit on FPS is 60.

So…Anet is gonna have to seriously throttle down on spell FX if they turn off culling.

I played a game that has all the changes they are going to implement here and it is not all that exciting as people think. Chasing names plates around is no fun and takes away any feeling of immersion for the game.

Yes, culling is bad but lag is just as bad. I think they should have given a few other options to alleviate some of the lag, like the option to turn off the skill effects of other players, it helps, if even a little.

Also, wvw is not the only place culling is a problem.

I hope they recoded their game to remove culling AND skill lag.
A game where only zergers can play (ikittenerg you press random buttons and cast random skills, so timing isn’t necessary) is a kitten.
And again, about “nameplates only” I mean LOL !! srsly?!?! It doesn’t matter who you attack as long as you attack something…

btw: thieves will continue to crush you, little noobs.

Cactus.2710:

Anatolian Turk.4057:

the end of culling and ‘the start of skill lags’

Yeah … it’s truly amazing how many people don’t understand that culling and lag go hand in hand in spite of the several detailed explanations that ANet has given on the subject. There are not in any way separate issues. ANet could have turned off culling at any time … it would have just meant incredible lag if that had done so. The fact that they are now removing culling simply means that they think they have improved their data processing and transmission speeds to the point that the lag will not be objectionable … but ANet’s definition of “objectionable” could be significantly different than ours. We will find out on March 26.

If anything there will be a small change in server performance. Bigger hit on client side. That’s why there are settings to help and if the computer can’t handle it on the lowest settings thats not their problem or other players problem that have the proper hardware.

FractalChaos.6539:

I think we all know what this means.

SUCK IT UP, THIEVES!!!! =P

No more near-perma stealth or attacking from stealth for j00. Seriously, I think that aspect of it thrills me more than anything else lol!!

The most skilled thieves won’t have a problem with it I’m afraid.
I’m just hoping it’s finally the end of dying to invisible thin air blobs and aoe RROD’s (xbox 360 pun) and I also hope the skill lag is minimized.

I still don’t buy it until I actually see it.

Those screenshots seem fake to me. Exact same players, positions and skill effects

I smell Photoshop

vespers.1759:

they’re still going to be insanely overpowered. they will still stealth every 3 seconds and still dish out 8k+ hits.

wait and see.

SHHH, nobody has to know that I’m glad that they adjusted culling since, as a scout in WvWvW, it just made my job harder. Also, I’m glad that they fixed “stealth culling”, so nobody will cry again about thieves. And I will still be able to kill anyone :P

Finally they have implemented what worked awesomely in Aion by 200 vs 200 battles. Showing name tags only.

Good Job Anet! (Now a little bit attention to my poor ranger please! xD)

Daendur.2357:

btw: thieves will continue to crush you, little noobs.

Let the name calling begin!
Why do you people have that childlish atttude: “Who i defeat is a noob and its make me a pro”.

Back to topic:
I will belive it when I see it. Skill lag will be unbearable IMO.

Opynn.2936:

Daendur.2357:

btw: thieves will continue to crush you, little noobs.

Let the name calling begin!
Why do you people have that childlish atttude: “Who i defeat is a noob and its make me a pro”.

Back to topic:
I will belive it when I see it. Skill lag will be unbearable IMO.

oh it’s just a reply to the “thieves will suck” argument someone wrote before.

Daendur.2357:

Opynn.2936:

Daendur.2357:

btw: thieves will continue to crush you, little noobs.

Let the name calling begin!
Why do you people have that childlish atttude: “Who i defeat is a noob and its make me a pro”.

Back to topic:
I will belive it when I see it. Skill lag will be unbearable IMO.

oh it’s just a reply to the “thieves will suck” argument someone wrote before.

Thieves will not suck. There are soldi profession. Only people who dont know how to fight without culling advantege (2 sec more “stealth”) will suck. They need L2p.

Please Anet, allow us to reduce spell FX. My computer will cry next patch…

Ok, now just do something about culling in PVE. Its so annoying when half of the time you can’t see where other people are when events are running.

It’s pointless to start complaining before you can see how the new patch will work.

As far as I’m concerned, and reasoning on the limited information we have at this moment, I think this patch is pure gold and will improve game-play dramatically.

From my programming experience, this is what I expect from this patch:

1. Nameplates all over the place
   I won’t be running into zergs without even noticing it never again.

1. Skill lag won’t get worse
   The patch doesn’t change the number of players the server has to handle. The server has always had to handle all of them anyway.
   The patch will just get the server to actually forward its information to our clients, instead of keeping it for itself.

1. Skill FX won’t kill any computer
   They have never been culled in the first place.

Centrix.4065:

I still don’t buy it until I actually see it.

Those screenshots seem fake to me. Exact same players, positions and skill effects

I smell Photoshop

ArenaNet obviously uses bots to test the game. Or do you think they should hire 100 people just to have them fight each other in WvW?

Game needs powerful CPU. You can get a little more from your CPU by turning off Hypertheading in BIOS. Also get a 2500k and clock to 4.5GHz and you will be golden!

now i can use the full potential of my PC….

… still , lousy HD5570 graphic card though….

I thought Anet talked about options for reduced spell effects a long time ago, we just never got it. But would definitely rather see more full characters vs nameplates, by having simpler spell effects instead.

Finally no more Zerg surprises and no more thiefs abusing the culling mechanism!

To all those complaining about thieves in WvW: I have never had any problems dueling them. No culling unless there was a Zerg nearby. The real problem in WvW is the Zergs that’s using mesmers and thieves AoE stealth to abuse the culling. So glad it’s over now

Great to see changes like these are coming after all.
I am usually running alone or in small groups, so it doesn’t really affect me that much, but at least now i know when to run!
People thinking this will solve the “thief perma-stealth” issue is in for a surprise. You will still not be able to kill thieves, and you will still die to an almost invisible thief if you are bad.
It will probably have an effect on thieves while fighting zerg vs zerg, but the thief will still be able to dissapear forever in small fights.
Usually when fighting a thief, they initiate by spamming all of their burst skills. I break-stun and heal up, hit the thief with 1 whirling wrath aaaaaaaaaaaaand he’s gone. And i’ll never see him again.
This will still be the case, because in reality it has nothing to do with culling, it is the actual thief mechanic that allows this. I just wanted to throw this out there, because it seems people think thieves will not be able to escape anymore, that will never be the case.
But great changes indeed!

wait a moment…

Lower resolution fallback models – These are the models that we’ve been using as placeholders in WvW while the hi-res models load. They differ depending on race and armor class, though human, sylvari, and norn share the same model.

why not another option with

Lower resolution fallback models – These are the models that we’ve been using as placeholders in WvW while the hi-res models load. They differ depending on race and armor class, though human, sylvari, and norn share the same model.

so who doesn’t want to see how pretty the enemy is can break his kitten without loading problems or fps drops due to high texture loading

I am looking forward to these changes and always like to have more flexibility to tune my settings to my playstyle.

…and if your PC (or settings) cant handle the amount of grafics…
…at least as soon as you see a lot of nameplates you can start running away (from the grafic lag)… ;D

I can only see they leave culling on player choice rather than fixing. I hope im wrong

Hule.8794:

I maybe sound pesimistic, but removing culling by 3 ways- high res models,fallback models and names only?
Really? You wont se anybody only floating red text? I cannot wait till patch so everybody will be disapointed of floating red text. Its like some monster- FRT lives!!

L2 read before bashing.

You choose what will you load…full models, backup models, name only. On top of that, you can choose the number of loaded full models and the rest backup.

If people will choose name only, well, that’s what they’ll get. Still better than invisible enemies. And I guess people with very low end system will be happier than now with that.

Sacrx.6721:

Be nice to hear of the commander changes i hope it will have guild only option to be seen by guild only. Raid UI?

I’d just be happy if they allowed commanders to hide the pin AND still retain the functions of a squad. Pretty hard to do guild WvW night or private guild events when you have no control over who joins the squad or how many flock to the commander. Trying to stay under the 25 person limit for orange swords is hopeless with a commander pin up… just no other options in the game to coordinate over 5 people.

The Emperor Glory.3927:

Game needs powerful CPU. You can get a little more from your CPU by turning off Hypertheading in BIOS. Also get a 2500k and clock to 4.5GHz and you will be golden!

Are you kidding? I run a 2500k O’Ced to 4.5ghz. I have a 560ti Twin Frozer, an SSD, 8gb of RAM and the game still runs awful in WvW. Perhaps you’re “golden” if you turn all the graphics to the worst but running at anything reasonably good looking is impossible to maintain 40fps or higher.

CriSPeH.8512:

I have a feeling there is going to be alot of QQ when Thieves start getting murdered trying to use the same ole tricks.
It will be like after the first Rogue nerf.

I don’t see that happening. It would surprise me the least. People will still cry about thieves after. They not removing stealth. They are fixing culling. A thief fully traited for shadow arts and traited to gain extra intiative will still be able to perma stealth. That is how it is set up. What culling will help fix is being able to see a thief once he hits you.

Big battles I can see it being a lagfest worst than it has been. I can see myself playing with only nameplates. The culling fix is a step in the right direction though.

Thiefs aren’t really being fixed with this you know.They can still remain perm stealthed,thats a trait/build issue,unaffected by culling although culling Does make it worse in Large zergvszergs,but you also see thiefs 1vs1 in perm stealth,not related to culling at all at that moment.

I read most of these posts and still people going on about thieves. This is why we love being thieves. We strike fear into your very soul.

Sleep with one eye open,
Clutching your pillow tight.

This sounds like something that was used in Aion and if that’s the case then why didn’t they do this sooner. All they had to do is reach out to their NC Soft colleagues.

Either way i hope it works the same way as it did in Aion.

Lewis Burnell.2493:

The Emperor Glory.3927:

Game needs powerful CPU. You can get a little more from your CPU by turning off Hypertheading in BIOS. Also get a 2500k and clock to 4.5GHz and you will be golden!

Are you kidding? I run a 2500k O’Ced to 4.5ghz. I have a 560ti Twin Frozer, an SSD, 8gb of RAM and the game still runs awful in WvW. Perhaps you’re “golden” if you turn all the graphics to the worst but running at anything reasonably good looking is impossible to maintain 40fps or higher.

Funny game runs fine at max settings 60-90 fps in wvwvw with choo zerg around on my system – i7 8320 (stock speed atm overclocking this weekend ) 32gb ram ssd and 670gtx.
Looking forward to no culling myself now if only they could fix ability lag.

sweet, i normally roam in small parties due to my system limitations with it being quite old now (in computer terms) now more than ever i want a more powerful system to have everything in high quality

DrixTrix.7168:

sweet, i normally roam in small parties due to my system limitations with it being quite old now (in computer terms) now more than ever i want a more powerful system to have everything in high quality

I only upgraded two days ago from a q6600 4gb ram 295gtx its a different game without all the frame rate lag (even on lowest settings) upgrading was a major game changer for me well worth the money spent.

Not sure why people are complaining about having weak cpus for this. GW2 Is a GPU intensive game. I constantly monitor my system resources on my Logitech keyboards lcd screen. I run an i7-3820 and a GTX 660 TI both of which are approximately the same price. Cpu usage is around 15-20% while gpu is consistently at 80-99%. Running at 60hZ 2560×1440 ultra settings.

Is this all for the next patch is no more culling I wonder.

Daendur.2357:

I hope they recoded their game to remove culling AND skill lag.
A game where only zergers can play (ikittenerg you press random buttons and cast random skills, so timing isn’t necessary) is a kitten.
And again, about “nameplates only” I mean LOL !! srsly?!?! It doesn’t matter who you attack as long as you attack something…

btw: thieves will continue to crush you, little noobs.

Not everyone will be a nameplate lol. You WILL load the avatars that you can load, just like now, and the rest of the avatars that shouldve been affected by culling will show up only as nameplates. At least, that is what I understand from what they said.

“Nameplates only – We don’t render the model at all and instead only show the nameplate for that character.”

loneknight.8425:

Elochai.1280:

Nameo.6842:

fivekiller.1432:

Nameo.6842:

So, using lower resolution fallback models will make legendary weapons useless, because nobody will see those weapons ?
Good enough.

true if the game setting you speak of applies to all characters at all times in all places from all points of view!

Culling affect PvE area, lowering setting should let you use those fallback models everywhere.

I think most people prefer their game perform better than see your flashy legendary. Besides those who want to see them can adjust the settings such that they can.

Well, it’s a good reason to invest in a more powerful gaming rig & faster connection so as to enjoy the visual at its intended fullness.

hmm,

with my Alienware 17X R4 gaming laptop and Verizon FIOS (fiber optic) connection, I am experiencing skill lags in big zerg fights in T1 WvW. I wonder if will get worst with the culling changes.

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

FractalChaos.6539:

I think we all know what this means.

SUCK IT UP, THIEVES!!!! =P

No more near-perma stealth or attacking from stealth for j00. Seriously, I think that aspect of it thrills me more than anything else lol!!

The most skilled thieves won’t have a problem with it I’m afraid.
I’m just hoping it’s finally the end of dying to invisible thin air blobs and aoe RROD’s (xbox 360 pun) and I also hope the skill lag is minimized.

^^ Very true. Good players on thieves won’t be affected too much.

To fix Stealth, they need to increase the re-stealth timer from 3s to 15s-20s. This is across the board, not just for 1v1’s.

20man squads running 3-4 mesmers and 2-3 thiefs being able to stealth every 5-10s is what the problem is.

The 1v1’s or 1v4’s that a thief does is just the top of the iceberg.

Elochai.1280:

NeHoMaR.9812:

What about the lag (skill lag) when a lot of people are inside SM?

… No matter what game you play you will usually have some serious lag of some sort with 100 people that close to each other. …

Well, it is server side lag, because you still get the lag wherever you are in the map, even solo, when people is fighting in SM. I suppose this problem will be now worst with the culling fix, unless they also reduced the resources and bandwidth used by each player on server.

Kamata.5762:

Daendur.2357:

I hope they recoded their game to remove culling AND skill lag.
A game where only zergers can play (ikittenerg you press random buttons and cast random skills, so timing isn’t necessary) is a kitten.
And again, about “nameplates only” I mean LOL !! srsly?!?! It doesn’t matter who you attack as long as you attack something…

btw: thieves will continue to crush you, little noobs.

Not everyone will be a nameplate lol. You WILL load the avatars that you can load, just like now, and the rest of the avatars that shouldve been affected by culling will show up only as nameplates. At least, that is what I understand from what they said.

“Nameplates only – We don’t render the model at all and instead only show the nameplate for that character.”

Not quite. You will be able to control three different things: what kind of models to use (if any), how many “high resolution” models you will see IF you elected to see them, and the total number of models the game will render before doing only faceplates.

So for example, if you choose “High resolution models”, set Character Quality to 50, and Character Limit to 70, then 50 players near you will use the high-quality models, 20 will use the cheapo fallback models (for a total of 70 character models on screen), and the rest will be nameplates.

Pihtt.4360:

Please Anet, allow us to reduce spell FX. My computer will cry next patch…

I would love that, although I don’t think it will get worse with this patch.

I would love to be able to get more fps by seeing fewer rainbow arrows. Two birds with one stone.

Amins.3710:

15s-20s.

lol … balance Chief at work here…

I’m really excited by this new culling system, but am now more concerned with the recent increase in incidences of skill lag. Been quite a few times now where I’ve just logged off because it’s not been enjoyable at all.

I think many people rolling Thieves and Mesmers will notice a subtle difference in how effective their initial out of stealth attacks will now be and generally Thieves will be a little less ridiculous to fight now.

Still, I’m going to continue to avoid Thieves like the plague as currently they seem to be drawn to me like a kittening bee to honey. Heartseeker 4K, Heartseeker 6K? Umm, no thanks, Ima gonna go find a Necromancer for a tickle fight. Toodles!

It is the balance of WvW? It does not matter if all the world without Full status!

I’m glad culling is being removed in general. I do think people who think this is a miracle fix for the thief issue are going to be disappointed.

It’s a start but its not enough , Thieves and Mesmers have far too much advantages to builds than others do. So let’s hope Anet really do the work and work to balance all classes equally to have fair 1 v1 survivabilty. Sorry Anet but your classes are not equal and do need addressed :/