Utterly unplayable skill lag in WvW
I wish it was only SM. I’m getting hideous skill lag every evening now and many times not being anywhere near SM. Happens in Borderlands too. Whenever more than 20-30 people fight, it’s lag time and the game becomes a steaming, unplayable piece of bullstuff.
Also keeping my wallet closed until this is fixed, even if I do play other aspects of the game too.
This.
As usual, zerg blobs come hitting, and skill lag drops to where you can only use your #1 skill. Seriously, why even bother? Either add more maps, adjust caps, or increase server capacity. As it stands, the main reason I play this game, is becoming more annoying then enjoyable.
This needs to be addressed. What is the solution besides improving the server code or upgrading the hardware?
Returning culling or reducing player caps. Pretty much.
Even if I would rather take the culling back to get rid of the lag, I still don’t want that to be the solution because it would effectively mean that they gave up and WvW can be kittened forever.
I didn’t think culling did anything towards skill lag. Is it not based on the skill interactions between players overloading the server.
Anet loves big battles and wants to keep that in wvw but if the servers can’t handle it something needs to be done.
Nar: I love that it will take me time and money to
reach the same level I’m at right now… …said no one, ever.
The funny thing is that you can actually move, chat etc. and that only skills are affected. I know it’s been said that this is due to CPU limitations, but seriously, fix your kitten code, your kitten servers or whatever – at least before the season begins! It’d be a shame to start a competetive season with these server issues.
[NO] ~ Ponys Will Never Die
I assume this is something about the game graphical engine. Oh well at least this is not an Illum
Flogging a dead horse
I assume this is something about the game graphical engine. Oh well at least this is not an Illum
Absolutely nothing to do with the graphics or anything client side. ANet’s servers just cannot handle the multitude of calculations required when two big groups clash.
Flogging a dead horse
It’s not dead until it’s fixed or they close the whole WvW. So I’ll keep spamming every thread regarding this as long as it takes or they ban me.
WvW is just unplayable with the skill lag problem and they are about to introduce Leagues into it.
Competitive and unplayable don’t really belong in the same sentence in my books.
No.1 enemy of the leagues = Skill Lag!
I would also like an answer to this. I play on piken square, and ever since the last living world patch the skill lag has gotten much worse. It used to be mainly in EB, but now I find this lag in the other borderlands too. And it doesnt have to be a big zerg vs zerg till you simply cannot activate your skills.
Im surprised there’s not much more attention to this issue, unless theres a larger hidden thread out there.
I used to be a power ranger, now not sure anymore
What Nacario.9417 says is correct. After the last patch, it got much worse.
I play on a lower tier server so i don’t really experience this, is there just a massive amount of skill lag all the time? or is it just primetime when the 3 servers smash into each other?
Champion Shadow
Better Luck Next Time [BLNT]-Sea of Sorrows
As the OP mentioned, I was on the FA side of things and its real hard to do any type of skills even as simply as following the tag with fps down to 1-2. ANET fix this issue please.
1. Anet doesn’t care
2. They haven’t got a clue how to fix it
3. Anet doesn’t care
4. Keep saving your pocket money as there maybe an “anti skill delay stone in the gem store soon”
5. Anet doesn’t care
There’s really no reason for the situation to be this bad. It’s just bad game design and bad server-side capability. TESO has been doing some stress tests lately and claims that they have been able to handle more than 200 players at the same time in the same place with full graphics and full frame rates. Maybe TESO doesn’t try to push the same graphic content out to the clients (not sure since I’m not in the beta), but ANet really messed up if they designed the game to exceed the capability of the hardware they were willing to fund. Maybe Anet is simply that clueless … after all, they did admit that they originally thought WvW would handle 500 players and that has since been proven to be laughably incorrect.
What I don’t understand, though, is what the hell ANet keeps doing that makes it worse. It’s not like were seeing more players in WvW than we did right after they removed culling, but skill lag certainly has gotten worse and it even spills out into PvE.
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]
What I don’t understand, though, is what the hell ANet keeps doing that makes it worse. It’s not like were seeing more players in WvW than we did right after they removed culling, but skill lag certainly has gotten worse and it even spills out into PvE.
All these fancy Bling Animations and skill effects/aura’s/flashing weapons all in one place at one time.
That coupled with a server probably manufactured by Alba.
Custom cool your GPU so it wont get higher then 60c
Cactus and Colly, graphics have nothing to do with server side lag. The server doesn’t push any graphics to your machine.
Cactus and Colly, graphics have nothing to do with server side lag. The server doesn’t push any graphics to your machine.
No but is all stress on Anets server trying to compute everything, I never said anything about it being client side.
Went against JQ and FA zergs in SM and it was a lag fest….Couldn’t even heal or do anything….I was getting around 2-5 fps…
My PC specs are ATI 7970 3GB and AMD 8-core 8350 and 8GB of RAM on my network connection is on a 50 Mbits LAN line (not shared) in case if you going to blame it on my PC spec.
It’s the kitten conditions that get you in an SMC battle (you Necros know what I mean). As long as I have condition removal I can waltz through a huge SMC battle without a scratch. I thought this lag demon problem would have been solved years ago but gaming companies just keep piling on the bullkitten.
Cactus and Colly, graphics have nothing to do with server side lag. The server doesn’t push any graphics to your machine.
No but is all stress on Anets server trying to compute everything, I never said anything about it being client side.
Read again.
Graphics has nothing, absolutely nothing at all to do with the server lag, OR client lag for that matter. All it affects is your own FPS, which is completely independent of the skill lag.
The server does not compute graphics. In fact, it probably doesn’t even have a dedicated graphics card in it.
Cactus and Colly, graphics have nothing to do with server side lag. The server doesn’t push any graphics to your machine.
No but is all stress on Anets server trying to compute everything, I never said anything about it being client side.
Exactly.
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]
Cactus and Colly, graphics have nothing to do with server side lag. The server doesn’t push any graphics to your machine.
No but is all stress on Anets server trying to compute everything, I never said anything about it being client side.
Read again.
Graphics has nothing, absolutely nothing at all to do with the server lag, OR client lag for that matter. All it affects is your own FPS, which is completely independent of the skill lag.
The server does not compute graphics. In fact, it probably doesn’t even have a dedicated graphics card in it.
The server doesn’t “compute” graphics, but it does have to process the information that tells the client what graphics to generate. If you had the slightest clue how the server computational requirements quadratically scale with player count AND the actions of each player (position, ability, buff, condition, etc) you’d know that every effect represents an additional nail in the coffin.
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]
Cactus and Colly, graphics have nothing to do with server side lag. The server doesn’t push any graphics to your machine.
No but is all stress on Anets server trying to compute everything, I never said anything about it being client side.
Read again.
Graphics has nothing, absolutely nothing at all to do with the server lag, OR client lag for that matter. All it affects is your own FPS, which is completely independent of the skill lag.
The server does not compute graphics. In fact, it probably doesn’t even have a dedicated graphics card in it.
The server doesn’t “compute” graphics, but it does have to process the information that tells the client what graphics to generate. If you had the slightest clue how the server computational requirements quadratically scale with player count AND the actions of each player (position, ability, buff, condition, etc) you’d know that every effect represents an additional nail in the coffin.
The graphical effects are just a byproduct created by your client according to the actual information that the server sends to the client. It could be represented as ASCII graphics on your client and the lag would still be just as bad. I understand perfectly how many calculations there is to be done, but it still doesn’t have anything to do with graphics.
Or are you telling me the server is sending the client information how and what kind of graphics the client needs to draw?
I’m not an expert in game client-server communication but the lag generated is probably due to all the calculation that must be done to process the use of skills (damage, buff etc.) on every involved players.
The server CPU simply doesn’t have enough calculation power to process everything so a queue is created (I guess there will be some kind of priority involved here that’s why skill 1 usually works longer).
The possible data sent to clients to inform them to show effects is just a result of these calculations. If your skill is not cast you see no effect.
In conclusion, the game could have effects of a 8 bit console, it wouldn’t change anything to the issue.
Last night the lag was horrible. And not only in WvW, was lagging in a dungeon too.
New bunker meta sux
They felt like deleting my entire post due to my inappropriate tone. This is garrison “fight” from last night you decide whether or not I have every reason to rage at Anet.
Cactus and Colly, graphics have nothing to do with server side lag. The server doesn’t push any graphics to your machine.
No but is all stress on Anets server trying to compute everything, I never said anything about it being client side.
Read again.
Graphics has nothing, absolutely nothing at all to do with the server lag, OR client lag for that matter. All it affects is your own FPS, which is completely independent of the skill lag.
The server does not compute graphics. In fact, it probably doesn’t even have a dedicated graphics card in it.
There is a thread somewhere that a dev replied to stating that large scale fights and all the skill effects and AOE played a part in the “skill delay” issue and the load on the servers CPU being able to compute all that info.
So maybe it’s that DEV you need to tell Read Again
Cactus and Colly, graphics have nothing to do with server side lag. The server doesn’t push any graphics to your machine.
No but is all stress on Anets server trying to compute everything, I never said anything about it being client side.
Read again.
Graphics has nothing, absolutely nothing at all to do with the server lag, OR client lag for that matter. All it affects is your own FPS, which is completely independent of the skill lag.
The server does not compute graphics. In fact, it probably doesn’t even have a dedicated graphics card in it.
There is a thread somewhere that a dev replied to stating that large scale fights and all the skill effects and AOE played a part in the “skill delay” issue and the load on the servers CPU being able to compute all that info.
So maybe it’s that DEV you need to tell Read Again
Effect != Graphics effect.
Give up already. You know nothing of server-client programming. I do.
What I don’t understand, though, is what the hell ANet keeps doing that makes it worse. It’s not like were seeing more players in WvW than we did right after they removed culling, but skill lag certainly has gotten worse and it even spills out into PvE.
All these fancy Bling Animations and skill effects/aura’s/flashing weapons all in one place at one time.
That coupled with a server probably manufactured by Alba.
You sure you didn’t say anything about graphics?
And yeah, calling others kids is totally making you more mature
Stop it already, you’re embarrassing yourself.
There is some problem that has come up since the patch. Recently whilst running with a float team of ~50 about 30 players all disconnected at exactly the same time whilst the other 20 continued on. This then happened about 30 minutes later. The first time I disconnected. The second time I didn’t. Ive been experiencing this outside of WvW also. The game actually crashes as well, its not just a disconnect.
There are 12 types of Conditions and 9 types of Boons, many of which are reduntant. My guess is that a great deal of server-side computation and net bandwidth goes into keeping dynamic track of all those buffs/debuffs, their stack numbers and durations. And when a large number of players clash in a small area the servers go nuts.
A simple suggestion would be to rethink and merge the condition/boon numbers and effects.
For examble:
- Bleeding and Torment do almost the same thing. Merge.
- Cripple and Chill also. Merge.
- Poison and weakness could also be merged, by removing the damage per second and adding the weakness debuffs.
And so on.
Sanctum of Rall [NA]
www.warinccommunity.com/forum/
Cactus and Colly, graphics have nothing to do with server side lag. The server doesn’t push any graphics to your machine.
No but is all stress on Anets server trying to compute everything, I never said anything about it being client side.
Read again.
Graphics has nothing, absolutely nothing at all to do with the server lag, OR client lag for that matter. All it affects is your own FPS, which is completely independent of the skill lag.
The server does not compute graphics. In fact, it probably doesn’t even have a dedicated graphics card in it.
The server doesn’t “compute” graphics, but it does have to process the information that tells the client what graphics to generate. If you had the slightest clue how the server computational requirements quadratically scale with player count AND the actions of each player (position, ability, buff, condition, etc) you’d know that every effect represents an additional nail in the coffin.
The graphical effects are just a byproduct created by your client according to the actual information that the server sends to the client. It could be represented as ASCII graphics on your client and the lag would still be just as bad. I understand perfectly how many calculations there is to be done, but it still doesn’t have anything to do with graphics.
Or are you telling me the server is sending the client information how and what kind of graphics the client needs to draw?
“Or are you telling me the server is sending the client information how and what kind of graphics the client needs to draw?”
Yes … that. Every action and effect that a player performs needs to be communicated to all other players within the affected area. The more effects that occur, the more the communication required between all parties involved … one that grows quadratically as a function of the number of players AND the number of actions/effects/buffs/conditions/responses that occur. The graphics themselves are generated locally at the client, but it is the burden on the server CPU and related systems (server capacity sharing software, server-side network bandwidth, etc) to communicate everything that causes lag. ANet themselves have admitted that, and every additional thing they try to communicate exacerbates the problem. It’s an n-squared issue, and the commands to execute fancy graphics add to the “n”.
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]
Cactus and Colly, graphics have nothing to do with server side lag. The server doesn’t push any graphics to your machine.
No but is all stress on Anets server trying to compute everything, I never said anything about it being client side.
Read again.
Graphics has nothing, absolutely nothing at all to do with the server lag, OR client lag for that matter. All it affects is your own FPS, which is completely independent of the skill lag.
The server does not compute graphics. In fact, it probably doesn’t even have a dedicated graphics card in it.
The server doesn’t “compute” graphics, but it does have to process the information that tells the client what graphics to generate. If you had the slightest clue how the server computational requirements quadratically scale with player count AND the actions of each player (position, ability, buff, condition, etc) you’d know that every effect represents an additional nail in the coffin.
The graphical effects are just a byproduct created by your client according to the actual information that the server sends to the client. It could be represented as ASCII graphics on your client and the lag would still be just as bad. I understand perfectly how many calculations there is to be done, but it still doesn’t have anything to do with graphics.
Or are you telling me the server is sending the client information how and what kind of graphics the client needs to draw?
“Or are you telling me the server is sending the client information how and what kind of graphics the client needs to draw?”
Yes … that. Every action and effect that a player performs needs to be communicated to all other players within the affected area. The more effects that occur, the more the communication required between all parties involved … one that grows quadratically as a function of the number of players AND the number of actions/effects/buffs/conditions/responses that occur. The graphics themselves are generated locally at the client, but it is the burden on the server CPU and related systems (server capacity sharing software, server-side network bandwidth, etc) to communicate everything that causes lag. ANet themselves have admitted that, and every additional thing they try to communicate exacerbates the problem. It’s an n-squared issue, and the commands to execute fancy graphics add to the “n”.
Everything you said is true, but it still does not have anything to with graphics, as you insisted before. The “commands to execute fancy graphics” do not exist. They execute damage/buff/debuff effects on the players in the area and your client just draws the graphics there for you to visualize it.
I’m telling you one last time, your screen could be showing you 1s and 0s and the skill lag would be just as bad, without a single graphical effect.
And still with massive skill lag Anet is adding Leagues soon to WvW.
I for one can not wait to see a live broadcast of the match where both teams are unable to use any skills and have the esport commentators going LOL on the air. This is a recipe for disaster and a potential PR nightmare.
Any competitor could use that as a stab in ads. i could see ESO going: “Our servers can support 200 people…unlike some other guilds mmos”
Well if they can’t solve the skill lag, they’ll just drop player caps and we’re sitting on queue for a couple of hours again. PR problem solved.
no guys, we need to continue updating gear, money/wallet systems, update visual of legendary weapons, and gemstore items instead of fixing a game breaking wvw issue/limitation.
best statistical loot in the game. We want everyone on an equal power base.”
no guys, we need to continue updating gear, money/wallet systems, update visual of legendary weapons, and gemstore items instead of fixing a game breaking wvw issue/limitation.
By the way the issue is affecting PvE more and more aswell. I’m getting skill lag in invasion zones and also in Orr when the temple events are on at prime time.
Of course, it doesn’t really matter in PvE since you can just autoattack and finish the event anyway.
Yesterday night I was unable to swap attunement or even autoatack in EB, we in Piken had no queue, or a small one in that particolar time. It seems to me anet servers are slowly dying down.
Yesterday night I was unable to swap attunement or even autoatack in EB, we in Piken had no queue, or a small one in that particolar time. It seems to me anet servers are slowly dying down.
Something is definitely wrong at their end, as it is getting worse and worse. I wonder if they are gradually downgrading their servers to reduce their operating costs?
@Tom Gore I think its more like they are deciding which activity has priority, like they give more resources to places like sm, or when 2+ zergs fights, this is my personal opinion, but could be it, ‘couz a friend was with the zerg and he had less problem than me fighting 3vs3, and I leave in a country where internet connections are very reliables, he doesn’t .
I had taken a break for a month and a half and came back today. I had hopes things would have improved somehow. I was disappointed.
JQ and FA just attacked SM… It was unplayable !
Sure one can move around and jump but that is it
- Could not swap weapons
- Could not cast anything but skill 1 (if lucky)
- Could not cast heals
- Could not cast any down state skillsEven skill 1 would show an animation but basically do nothing. WvW in SM is simply unplayable. People with escape skills due to lag are able to use such skills for 20+ seconds. You work on upgrading SM for hours only to have it taken in minutes due to blob creating skill lag. Not really motivating.
Can we expect any changes in the near future to fix this issue?
I am unwilling to spend any money on the game until this issue is fixed since I only play wvw.
Thanks in advance
Play against SoR some time… it’s worse. JQ was using a lot of necros last time we plaid them though… and that’s a lot of calculations that need to be done (the cause of server lag). Idk if that’s still the case or not.
They should make it less beneficial to just ball up into a group and spam 1 (since you’ll lag so hard you won’t be able to do anything else). But with how things are now, the game pushes you to ball up… the more numbers you have the bigger the advantages are that the game mechanics give you. Not a good thing.
Salvage 4 Profit + MF Guide – http://tinyurl.com/l8ff6pa
If it wasn’t for queues whenever you want to swop toons whenever this terrible lag happens I’d switch to my staff spammer guardian for these fights- don’t need the heal button as regen takes care of that and I can still use an aoe and run around killing all the soft targets who can’t use any of their decent damage skills and can’t use thier heal buttons…
ANet needs to invest in some much better servers for wvw – maybe ditch the left over Pentium 2’s they are currently running it on and buy something a little more up to date?
Processing power really should NOT be an issue, unless you really just don’t care.
If it wasn’t for queues whenever you want to swop toons whenever this terrible lag happens I’d switch to my staff spammer guardian for these fights- don’t need the heal button as regen takes care of that and I can still use an aoe and run around killing all the soft targets who can’t use any of their decent damage skills and can’t use thier heal buttons…
ANet needs to invest in some much better servers for wvw – maybe ditch the left over Pentium 2’s they are currently running it on and buy something a little more up to date?
Processing power really should NOT be an issue, unless you really just don’t care.
If you think about all of the calculations being done at the same time in a 60 vs 60 fight… it’s a LOT. IMO the better solution is to just make these 60 vs 60 cluster kitten fights disadvantageous vs advantageous as they are now.
Salvage 4 Profit + MF Guide – http://tinyurl.com/l8ff6pa
If it wasn’t for queues whenever you want to swop toons whenever this terrible lag happens I’d switch to my staff spammer guardian for these fights- don’t need the heal button as regen takes care of that and I can still use an aoe and run around killing all the soft targets who can’t use any of their decent damage skills and can’t use thier heal buttons…
ANet needs to invest in some much better servers for wvw – maybe ditch the left over Pentium 2’s they are currently running it on and buy something a little more up to date?
Processing power really should NOT be an issue, unless you really just don’t care.
If you think about all of the calculations being done at the same time in a 60 vs 60 fight… it’s a LOT. IMO the better solution is to just make these 60 vs 60 cluster kitten fights disadvantageous vs advantageous as they are now.
Doesn’t matter if it’s a lot or not. They designed the game as it was, took our money, so it’s their job to make it work. If it means investing in more calculation power, they should invest. It’s just that plain and simple.
The fact that they are not investing tells me that WvW players don’t buy stuff from the gem store and are thus regarded second class citizens.
If it wasn’t for queues whenever you want to swop toons whenever this terrible lag happens I’d switch to my staff spammer guardian for these fights- don’t need the heal button as regen takes care of that and I can still use an aoe and run around killing all the soft targets who can’t use any of their decent damage skills and can’t use thier heal buttons…
ANet needs to invest in some much better servers for wvw – maybe ditch the left over Pentium 2’s they are currently running it on and buy something a little more up to date?
Processing power really should NOT be an issue, unless you really just don’t care.
If you think about all of the calculations being done at the same time in a 60 vs 60 fight… it’s a LOT. IMO the better solution is to just make these 60 vs 60 cluster kitten fights disadvantageous vs advantageous as they are now.
Doesn’t matter if it’s a lot or not. They designed the game as it was, took our money, so it’s their job to make it work. If it means investing in more calculation power, they should invest. It’s just that plain and simple.
The fact that they are not investing tells me that WvW players don’t buy stuff from the gem store and are thus regarded second class citizens.
But… they already have our money… and PvE doesn’t require as many resources and pays better…
Seriously though… something needs to be done one way or the other. As a buisness the smart thing would be to just fix the reason the players are causing these problems > massively upgrade the servers which would cost them more. You’re right in principal, but the reality of the situation from their POV winds up being different : /
Salvage 4 Profit + MF Guide – http://tinyurl.com/l8ff6pa
If it wasn’t for queues whenever you want to swop toons whenever this terrible lag happens I’d switch to my staff spammer guardian for these fights- don’t need the heal button as regen takes care of that and I can still use an aoe and run around killing all the soft targets who can’t use any of their decent damage skills and can’t use thier heal buttons…
ANet needs to invest in some much better servers for wvw – maybe ditch the left over Pentium 2’s they are currently running it on and buy something a little more up to date?
Processing power really should NOT be an issue, unless you really just don’t care.
If you think about all of the calculations being done at the same time in a 60 vs 60 fight… it’s a LOT. IMO the better solution is to just make these 60 vs 60 cluster kitten fights disadvantageous vs advantageous as they are now.
Doesn’t matter if it’s a lot or not. They designed the game as it was, took our money, so it’s their job to make it work. If it means investing in more calculation power, they should invest. It’s just that plain and simple.
The fact that they are not investing tells me that WvW players don’t buy stuff from the gem store and are thus regarded second class citizens.
But… they already have our money… and PvE doesn’t require as many resources and pays better…
Seriously though… something needs to be done one way or the other. As a buisness the smart thing would be to just fix the reason the players are causing these problems > massively upgrade the servers which would cost them more. You’re right in principal, but the reality of the situation from their POV winds up being different : /
But when you seriously start to think about it, it would take pretty much a complete redesign of the whole WvW to make running in a zergball unattractive. Now that, if anything, would eat up resources.
The BEST solution would be to tune their netcode and how they communicate AoE ticks, stacks and conditions. Obviously direct attacks cannot be tuned much because of the dodge mechanic, but lots of other calculations could be simplified a ton to make the load on the servers lighter.
If it wasn’t for queues whenever you want to swop toons whenever this terrible lag happens I’d switch to my staff spammer guardian for these fights- don’t need the heal button as regen takes care of that and I can still use an aoe and run around killing all the soft targets who can’t use any of their decent damage skills and can’t use thier heal buttons…
ANet needs to invest in some much better servers for wvw – maybe ditch the left over Pentium 2’s they are currently running it on and buy something a little more up to date?
Processing power really should NOT be an issue, unless you really just don’t care.
If you think about all of the calculations being done at the same time in a 60 vs 60 fight… it’s a LOT. IMO the better solution is to just make these 60 vs 60 cluster kitten fights disadvantageous vs advantageous as they are now.
Doesn’t matter if it’s a lot or not. They designed the game as it was, took our money, so it’s their job to make it work. If it means investing in more calculation power, they should invest. It’s just that plain and simple.
The fact that they are not investing tells me that WvW players don’t buy stuff from the gem store and are thus regarded second class citizens.
But… they already have our money… and PvE doesn’t require as many resources and pays better…
Seriously though… something needs to be done one way or the other. As a buisness the smart thing would be to just fix the reason the players are causing these problems > massively upgrade the servers which would cost them more. You’re right in principal, but the reality of the situation from their POV winds up being different : /
But when you seriously start to think about it, it would take pretty much a complete redesign of the whole WvW to make running in a zergball unattractive. Now that, if anything, would eat up resources.
The BEST solution would be to tune their netcode and how they communicate AoE ticks, stacks and conditions. Obviously direct attacks cannot be tuned much because of the dodge mechanic, but lots of other calculations could be simplified a ton to make the load on the servers lighter.
They said they wanted to make zergs less attractive for gameplay reasons anyways (idk if they are sticking with that or not). I’m all for whatever method reduces lag the best while not being massively expensive though (just because the higher the cost the lower chance it’ll actually get done).
Salvage 4 Profit + MF Guide – http://tinyurl.com/l8ff6pa