Guild Wars 2

what changed with this patch?

let’s make an educated guess: when the big fights happen the server has to calculate what is going on with hundreds of stability stacks applied/removed whitin seconds and it starts lagging.

FPS dropped by a fair dunken aswell. Since last patch, must have somethign fkd up. No not driver related

Stephen, is there anything we can do on our end to help you diagnose this problem? Anything at all? Record videos of the events? Send DX-logs? Travel to Bellaveue Washington so we can help at your HQ?

Stephen ClarkeWillson.1802:

Things are stable again. My working hypothesis is that there is a bug in the “catch up” code. It’s not really necessarily bad for a map to exceed 100% CPU for a short period of time – the game is very tolerant of small lag even in WvW battles. But I’m wondering if sometimes a map starts working hard to fix a tiny blip which actually makes things worse for several minutes. If that’s they case it would certainly show up in big fights. I’ve lowered the map cap to keep CPU below 85%-ish to see if there are fewer lag spikes.

It may be that, the thing is that the server starts to lag when the load starts to get higher and higher, and finally it lags. These lag are variable, not always same duration (for example, in a 3 way fight you may have 6-10 secs skill lags, while in a 2 way 60vs60 it may be 2-3 seconds. I suggest you to get into any t1 server that actually has queues (at least in EU) and check it by yourself when fight happens.

Stephen ClarkeWillson.1802:

I will say I think the lag spikes resolve themselves faster than they used to, but they might also spike up faster, which is when they are most noticeable to a player.

3 ways in Stonemist Castle in Eternal Battlegrounds already caused 4-5 seconds skill lag since more than a year (at least).

Stephen ClarkeWillson.1802:

… and it’s resolving itself. That one lasted six minutes.

Man first of all, I’m so happy someone of Arenanet finally noticed. XD, I’ve got forum suspended twice posting my complains everywhere a dev might notice it, lol.

Before there used to be some skilllag on 3 way fights in Eternel BG, mostly fighting for the castle. But ever since the stability changes the lag got bad, even 1 on 1 fights if the map was full and I’m no where near the blobs, I would lag, I’d see my enemy warp forward/backward all over the place. But while writing this I’m leveling my alt in Edge of the mist, I saw a one time a 10ms, which would be so sweet if it stayed that way, but i’ve seen 100+ ms, i’ve even seen it jump up to 400+. The connection is just really unstable and that hasn’t been for a few days, and hasn’t dissapeared since the patch. So I think it has to do something with the stability stacks ? Which would actually be great to me if it were to be reverted because the servers couldn’t handle it. I personally hate the changes. =P

insanemaniac.2456:

Stephen ClarkeWillson.1802:

Hi all – we’re aware of the problem and working on a solution.

i think i like you, you should visit us more often

+1… employee of the month!
hope you can resolve it!

Stephen ClarkeWillson.1802:

The best thing you can do to help is keep playing while I try to correlate lag with the root problem. I’m now watching the t1 EB CPU specifically and while I don’t see 100% I see CPU in excess of 90% still and that seems to correlate with lag spikes. Hmm.

Stephen you can also correlate whether the spikes occur when 2 decent sized groups are in range of each other… maybe that is the wave of spike you see once a while and then ‘resolves’ itself when the fight is over.

I like this guy too.

Do your thing man, work hard work fast. Thank you for taking the time on the weekend to do this =D

You don’t even need to be in T1 for the lag, ever since the stab changes the lag is considerably worse than before, no matter if you ar ein T1 or T5.. :/

There are fights in T1 every 4-5 minutes during prime time, you can check anytime and see (also if you want to detect the exact moment, log in the game and check it out).

Lag is not only happening for those fighting in the big fight, any1 in the map will suffer this lag until fight is over. Also what you say about the server catching up, during the lag period, there are times when skills are not popping at all, and some 2-3 seconds when it seems all comes together, all skills are casted and all the damage are dealt in that short period (like superspeed)

Well if the server CPU isn’t even reaching 100% and the lag spikes are happening anyway, then I guess that means it likely isn’t a problem with more calculations from the stability patch. Probably a more subtle problem. Thanks a bunch Stephen for taking time on a Saturday to look at this.

Stephen ClarkeWillson.1802:

Yup, it’s bad for EU tier 1 Eternal Battlegrounds right now. The cool thing I just discovered is another perf counter that correlates better with the lag than total CPU. Y’all in a big fight right now? I guess if you are you’re not posting to the forums.

Have you checked maps other than WvW for issues similar to this? Since the patch myself, guildies, friends, and numerous others have been experiencing the exact same type of lag that occurs in WvW in dungeons, fotm, and regular maps as well.. It has been a bit better this morning however.

Don’t forget about NA as well…last night T1 NA lagg/skill lagg was BAAAAD and has been like this since the stability patch. Pls fix :’(.

NA side has been a bit rough around SEA prime time (9-10 am EST), than it goes down a bit until around NA prime-time (6pm – 9pm est), the lag sometimes goes on for a bit longer but these are the windows I tend to see it worst. It also seems to band back and forth I have seen anything from .5 second activation on skills up to 30 second activation. Another issue is increased disconnects during high periods of lag, when there are no connection issues on my end.

Blackelk.3784:

NA side has been a bit rough around SEA prime time (9-10 am EST), than it goes down a bit until around NA prime-time (6pm – 9pm est), the lag sometimes goes on for a bit longer but these are the windows I tend to see it worst. It also seems to band back and forth I have seen anything from .5 second activation on skills up to 30 second activation. Another issue is increased disconnects during high periods of lag, when there are no connection issues on my end.

Lag has nothign to do with hour more than if the hour of the day implies huge numbers or not. Lag is related to numbers of players fighting, it is related to the load of the processor the fights cause (and the way the server handles this load, as Stephen theorized) and it is suffered by everyone in the same map as the big fight is happening. The skill lag delay also depends on the numbers fighting on the map, and so a 3 way fight will cause more daly than a 2 way fight.

I just want to mention that last night my group of 10 was causing lag just running to a location. I don’t know if that’s relevant at all but I’m fairly certain that on t5 there was no 60v60 fight happening on the map at the time.

Stephen ClarkeWillson.1802:

T1 EU EB must have just had an epic half hour fight. Holy moly. Seems to be recovering now.

3 way fight in SM but wasn’t exactly epic as swimming in treacle would have been easier

Just wanted to point out that I have experienced lag spikes even when there wasn’t a lot of people in the map.

On a more funny note, I have been accused of DDoSing people because of this.

Stephen ClarkeWillson.1802:

T1 EU EB must have just had an epic half hour fight. Holy moly. Seems to be recovering now.

It’s so nice to know y’all are working on it. Thanks for the constant updates. this is the kind of communication that helps restore faith in anet.

I am on Crystal Desert [US], and during our big NA fights and Early AU, I notice the game starting to rubber band(aka you cant use skills properly, move, etc.) We will usually get into about 3 or so fights until it properly spikes to the point of not being able to play.
Average fight in #’s for NA Primetime:
-80+ on a busy night
-50-60 with guild fights in smc
100+ With all 3 servers last matchup HoD/EBAY/CD
^Was barely playable on EB

Stephen ClarkeWillson.1802:

Yup, it’s bad for EU tier 1 Eternal Battlegrounds right now. The cool thing I just discovered is another perf counter that correlates better with the lag than total CPU. Y’all in a big fight right now? I guess if you are you’re not posting to the forums.

Giving us player update is not solution at all! In result of my investigation: Arena net already have enough information on lagging. 1 more year later and again: will Arena net fix the lag? Yes? or No?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Skill-Lag-in-WvW-Game-Breaking

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Official-state-of-skill-lag-and-server-optimizations/first

“Communication without result is not communicating at all”

DarkSyze.8627:

Stephen ClarkeWillson.1802:

Yup, it’s bad for EU tier 1 Eternal Battlegrounds right now. The cool thing I just discovered is another perf counter that correlates better with the lag than total CPU. Y’all in a big fight right now? I guess if you are you’re not posting to the forums.

Giving us player update is not solution! Will Arena net fix the lag? Yes? or No?

If you like, go back and count how many post specifically ask for an update and confirmation of what the issue is. As well as many request to know what the issue is.

He is specifically filling each and every one of those request, as well as informing us of the efforts being implemented to resolve it. So please do not troll a dev who is doing precisely what a large portion of the community has specifically asked for.

DarkSyze.8627:

Stephen ClarkeWillson.1802:

Yup, it’s bad for EU tier 1 Eternal Battlegrounds right now. The cool thing I just discovered is another perf counter that correlates better with the lag than total CPU. Y’all in a big fight right now? I guess if you are you’re not posting to the forums.

Giving us player update is not solution! Will Arena net fix the lag? Yes? or No?

“Communication without result is not communicating at all”

calm down bro, let the man work. your “quote” is just utter bullkitten. It’s not like he can snap his fingers and Poof goes the lag. He’s communicating just fine.

First, thanks to Stephen ClarkWilson for looking in to it!

Second, this has been an on-going problem for me for a while. “Large” battles in crowded servers almost always mean slow skill response, skills failing to execute, and “teleporting”.

When battles aren’t happening, but the population is high, things seem to be fine. however, when two or more “blobs” run in to each other, the expected outcome is often a stalemate resulting from excessive skill lag, which causes all sides to disengage.

In HoT, ANet has said they’d love to reward defense. Rather than PPT upgrades or cheaper defensive siege, I’d love a concerted effort to reduce WvW large-battle lag. In many cases, it’s easier and less frustrating to disengage an enemy, let them take a keep, and come back to reclaim it once they’ve left than it is to defend against a large group. :-/

Hamster.4861:

DarkSyze.8627:

Stephen ClarkeWillson.1802:

Yup, it’s bad for EU tier 1 Eternal Battlegrounds right now. The cool thing I just discovered is another perf counter that correlates better with the lag than total CPU. Y’all in a big fight right now? I guess if you are you’re not posting to the forums.

Giving us player update is not solution! Will Arena net fix the lag? Yes? or No?

“Communication without result is not communicating at all”

calm down bro, let the man work. your “quote” is just utter bullkitten. It’s not like he can snap his fingers and Poof goes the lag. He’s communicating just fine.

+1 and you wonder why wvw problems don’t get looked at… be more diplomatic.

DarkSyze.8627:

Stephen ClarkeWillson.1802:

Yup, it’s bad for EU tier 1 Eternal Battlegrounds right now. The cool thing I just discovered is another perf counter that correlates better with the lag than total CPU. Y’all in a big fight right now? I guess if you are you’re not posting to the forums.

Giving us player update is not solution at all! Will Arena net fix the lag? Yes? or No?

“Communication without result is not communicating at all”

He’s looking into it, it’s the only thing that could lead to a solution, be happy they finally noticed us after all this time, don’t push them away now. XD

DarkSyze.8627:

Stephen ClarkeWillson.1802:

Yup, it’s bad for EU tier 1 Eternal Battlegrounds right now. The cool thing I just discovered is another perf counter that correlates better with the lag than total CPU. Y’all in a big fight right now? I guess if you are you’re not posting to the forums.

Giving us player update is not solution at all! Will Arena net fix the lag? Yes? or No?

“Communication without result is not communicating at all”

Take note. This is precisely a good reason for a dev technical team member “not to post”. They do precisely what is asked for, and some poster makes and irrational aggressive complaint.

Can you take everyone’s lag away except for this guys? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE?

the ebg lag on sfr/deso/jade sea is so bad for the last 2 hours that you can feel the frustration of poeple bashing keys

So glad some1 is looking into this.
Wanted to ask if you think this is “just” a bug or if the recent patch has caused extra work for the servers?
The changes that come to mind, that might be causing this extra work (if there is ekstra work) would be:

-The fractional remainder of time on any damaging condition is now dealt either at the beginning or the end of their duration

-Stability?

-Slight meta shift to more ranged = more condition’s + pulsing field’s?

-It’s also my understanding that GW2 does not operate with a fire and forget system instead it recalculate’s every single condition dmg tick based on the current malice stat (and power for pulsing field’s) of the caster every 1 sec?
How this works with the fractional remainder is unclear but is it more work for the server?

Hey Stephen, given the issue, is there a reason one player may have significantly less lag over another? Or why a certain group of players would have less lag issues then others?

I have been seeing complaints for 2 weeks or so now, but it has not effected any of the 5 players in my home, even with all of us on at the same time. Any idea why some would be more effected then others?

We did start getting some with last nights reset, even then it seemed that we were getting less then others were complaining about?

Your thoughts?

Mohagi.2738:

Wanted to ask if you think this is “just” a bug or if the recent patch has caused extra work for the servers?

Stephen ClarkeWillson.1802:

My working hypothesis is that there is a bug in the “catch up” code.

dancingmonkey.4902:

DarkSyze.8627:

Stephen ClarkeWillson.1802:

Yup, it’s bad for EU tier 1 Eternal Battlegrounds right now. The cool thing I just discovered is another perf counter that correlates better with the lag than total CPU. Y’all in a big fight right now? I guess if you are you’re not posting to the forums.

Giving us player update is not solution at all! Will Arena net fix the lag? Yes? or No?

“Communication without result is not communicating at all”

Take note. This is precisely a good reason for a dev technical team member “not to post”. They do precisely what is asked for, and some poster makes and irrational aggressive complaint.

Can you take everyone’s lag away except for this guys? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE?

Read to me what the 2 forum i post say? Give me the date when the 2 forum were posted? I will give hint: 3 years ago.

If you want to argue with me: argue with every player who post in this new forum include all player who post 3 years ago about have the same problem:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/WvW-is-so-lagy/page/7#post4946502

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Official-state-of-skill-lag-and-server-optimizations/page/7#post4797992

Thank You!

(I am not angry with Stephen ClarkeWillson at all, I am just not please when Arena net already have enough information on this problem for 3 years than all of sudden, want to ask us for information).

*I do not have right to say to Stephen ClarkeWillson, “do not communicate with us until Arena net fix problem” but if you read the 2 thread i link: Arena net did the same like Stephen ClarkeWillson: ask us player for information/feedback and the same thing is happening 3 years later again.

Again, I am not angry at Stephen ClarkeWillson but angry that is the same repetition all over again: every year same thing.

Player to Arena net: there is lag problem
Arena net to Player; give information on lag problem
Player to Arena net: here is information
Arena net to Player: we will look into it
Player to Arena net: ok
Player to Arena net: where is solution
Arena net to Player:???
Player to Arena net: Please fix problem
Arena net to Player: Check your computer, Check with your server connection

1 year later

Same thing

2 year later

Same thing

3 year later

Same thing

Do you see the problem now?

This is already my favorite thread on the forums this year. Keep working on the problem, we really appreciate it. And update those drivers!!!

Its fine, EU EB T1 will continue to faceroll each other with unresponsive utilities and skills. For science!

dancingmonkey.4902:

Hey Stephen, given the issue, is there a reason one player may have significantly less lag over another? Or why a certain group of players would have less lag issues then others?

I have been seeing complaints for 2 weeks or so now, but it has not effected any of the 5 players in my home, even with all of us on at the same time. Any idea why some would be more effected then others?

We did start getting some with last nights reset, even then it seemed that we were getting less then others were complaining about?

Your thoughts?

Mohagi.2738:

Wanted to ask if you think this is “just” a bug or if the recent patch has caused extra work for the servers?

Stephen ClarkeWillson.1802:

My working hypothesis is that there is a bug in the “catch up” code.

Are you in Edge of the Mists? There’s no lag at all in there regardless of fight size. Lag seems to be a borderlands issue. Also what tier do you play in?

Jarrix.8234:

dancingmonkey.4902:

Hey Stephen, given the issue, is there a reason one player may have significantly less lag over another? Or why a certain group of players would have less lag issues then others?

I have been seeing complaints for 2 weeks or so now, but it has not effected any of the 5 players in my home, even with all of us on at the same time. Any idea why some would be more effected then others?

We did start getting some with last nights reset, even then it seemed that we were getting less then others were complaining about?

Your thoughts?

Mohagi.2738:

Wanted to ask if you think this is “just” a bug or if the recent patch has caused extra work for the servers?

Stephen ClarkeWillson.1802:

My working hypothesis is that there is a bug in the “catch up” code.

Are you in Edge of the Mists? There’s no lag at all in there regardless of fight size. Lag seems to be a borderlands issue. Also what tier do you play in?

No, I have spent a chunk of my time either pinned as a commander or following one in my guild group on mainly one of the borderlands and occasionally EB on a T1 server.

I would see map chat complain, ask my TS channel and they would all say they are fine. Last night I would not have lag when other in my TS mentioned it and then they didn’t have it when I did. Those type of occurrences are why I posed the question.

I for one am pleased to see this series of posts and the fact that the lag in wvw is being looked into and hopefully fixed.

After lodging at least two tickets with support about extreme lag in wvw, all I have had from them is to blame my isp. When everyone has been complaining in game about lag…something doesn’t ring true. And yes I am playing T1 in NA…

So thank you Stephen and thank you for being honest. Big kudos to you and I hope that you get to sort the lag soon.

Stephen ClarkeWillson.1802:

T1 EU EB must have just had an epic half hour fight. Holy moly. Seems to be recovering now.

It was just an little SM fight. Not so serious.

As a question, why is it when I play Elder Scrolls Online’s Alliance versus Alliance, on a map twice the size of all the World versus World maps combined, with as many if not more players than the biggest fights I’ve ever encountered in Guild Wars 2, that I get:

A) 50-60 FPS on the highest graphics settings
B) Have yet to experience any skill lag

This is a genuine question as I’d really love to know.

Please lets keep this thread clear and only give important info. He is trying to help.
Thank you so much for showing up and giving us a light about this. WvW community can call this guy GOD just for saying something and actually looking into it. Thank you.

Anet just need buy new server but do not want to spend money because they do not care about the players…

Stephen ClarkeWillson.1802:

I don’t think it is the skill change. I do think the thing we did to reduce PvP (and also some PvE) lag made WvW lag worse; or, put the opposite way, WvW lag was bleeding over into the other map types, and we fixed that. The silver lining as they say is that the perf counters are more accurate than they were and I think I see the problem now; it’s going take some engineering to fix properly but I have a band-aid in place now that reduces the occurrences (at least as I perceive them via my graphs).

That is wonderful to hear! Thanks!

What if u repair this and we still have lags?