Guild Wars 2

Improved Effects Level of Detail System

Effects like fireballs, streaks that trail behind a sword, players’ footsteps, and even the fiery breath of dragons are all part of the beauty of Guild Wars 2. In situations where all of that beauty can start to take away from the visual clarity of the battlefield, this new system will slowly start reducing the detail of each effect in order to increase combat visibility when many effect types are overlapping. When action gets intense in dungeons, PvP, the open world, and WvW, this system will let you see more of the action.

will we get the skill lag and overall lag reduced, or not?

i still hope the wvw maps will get bigger with maybe more objectives but this for me is already great if it fixes the skill lag.

That’s what it sounds like to me even though they didn’t state that in the release. Not sure why they said it they way they did but they often speak in riddles.

Although, it could be me just hoping. Since those with more technical knowledge haven’t picked up on it yet in the fourms.

I don’t think that will reduce skill lag at all. I’m not a coder but I’d bet that all of those effects are generated on your end. Minimizing them would not change any information coming from the servers. This will almost definitely give you more fps and make the battles easier to see, but I can get 60 fps with skill lag that drops me down to only using my 1 skill.

It’ll only help visually when a ton of spell effects are going on at the same time.

Per skill lag? I will put it this way. There are times I zone into a BL and notice skill lag right away which is obviously far away from the “action”

I think this will likely only effect FPS and general clarity of what’s going on.

It’ll speed up the rendering of fights, meaning that theoretically, it could indeed be a fix for skill lag. If not a complete fix, at least a partial fix.

AprilRain.7649:

It’ll speed up the rendering of fights, meaning that theoretically, it could indeed be a fix for skill lag. If not a complete fix, at least a partial fix.

if it helps in any way to reduce skill lag its already a good step in the right direction.

since it will reduce visual effects wont it reduce the data transfer also?

BALA.1520:

AprilRain.7649:

It’ll speed up the rendering of fights, meaning that theoretically, it could indeed be a fix for skill lag. If not a complete fix, at least a partial fix.

if it helps in any way to reduce skill lag its already a good step in the right direction.

since it will reduce visual effects wont it reduce the data transfer also?

Your computer is still being told about the skill being used. The server is still telling your client “play the fireball animation from character A to impact on character B” its just that now your client will now say “oh there are too many fireballs on the screen right now, I’ll play the low detail version instead” aka it will do nothing to transfer rates.

Honestly I’m not even sure we’ll see this much in WvW. I’m hoping this will be able to all but eliminate the impact splash effects on PVE bosses however as its impossible to see any tells if more than 10 people are shooting the same target right now(wherease that level of focus fire either does not happen in wvw or only lasts a few seconds per target)

No. Skill lag is a server side problem. August 6 patch will only improve client’s performance.

What your computer displays graphics-wise is completely unrelated to skill lag. You can test it yourself, go to a 3-way SM fight, lower your graphics to the lowest settings, then raise to ultra, and try using some skills in both situations. You will see no difference.

All this patch does is reduce the amount of particle effect’s being spawned on the screen. Info about particle effects is not being transmitted from, or to the server. It is irrelevant to skill lag, might help with FPS lag though if your PC is slow.

It only helps to fps drops.
Its client site code.
So has nothing to do how the server handles the ability queue that all clients sent to the server.

Only thing that fixes the skill lag is a better prioritizing of skill handling; like heals get priority in queue then utilities, 1 target damage , aoe damage, elite etc.. (still think it is crazy that 1 spam autoattacks works but your main heal isnt working)
Or better hardware in servers(more cpu´s) so you can handle more incoming data at the same time.

as said, particle effect change won t affect skill lag at all.
The server doesn t see any of them.
They are client sided.

Devon allow us to transfer to lower tiers for free and bring all our guild upgrades.

DevonCarver.5370:

These particular changes are indeed on the client-side. They won’t impact lag, unfortunately. We are still both investigating additional ways to combat skill lag, not that there are any particularly good looking options at the moment, and continuing to make improvements to overall game performance as we can.

There are plenty of AMAZING options to reducing skill lag. The problem is you’re approaching the situation wrong.

First ask yourself, “Why do we get skill lag?” We get skill lag because it is completely advantageous to Zerg. So you promote Zerging and your game cannot support it. That is your first problem.

So, Mr. Devon Carver and WvW team what are some ways that you could reduce the amount of players who amass at one specific location? (Yes, big fights can be fun I know, I know some people play for them. But even they will admit the skill lag can get horrendous.)

A very real, and very simple start to this ongoing process of reducing WvW lag is this. DO NOT make it a requirement to be inside the ring in order to achieve WXP. The Havoc Squad on the other side of the map keeping 20 enemies from both opposing sides preoccupied surely helped. The players hunting Yaks, and cutting off reinforcements helped. Everyone helped, it was a server wide effort make it advantageous to separate your forces but still be rewarded for your effort.

Stop trying to treat the symptoms, and instead tend to the underlying cause.

DevonCarver.5370:

These particular changes are indeed on the client-side. They won’t impact lag, unfortunately. We are still both investigating additional ways to combat skill lag, not that there are any particularly good looking options at the moment, and continuing to make improvements to overall game performance as we can.

So… it seems that skill lag will be here for the foreseeable future.

Perphection.8209:

DevonCarver.5370:

These particular changes are indeed on the client-side. They won’t impact lag, unfortunately. We are still both investigating additional ways to combat skill lag, not that there are any particularly good looking options at the moment, and continuing to make improvements to overall game performance as we can.

There are plenty of AMAZING options to reducing skill lag. The problem is you’re approaching the situation wrong.

First ask yourself, “Why do we get skill lag?” We get skill lag because it is completely advantageous to Zerg. So you promote Zerging and your game cannot support it. That is your first problem.

So, Mr. Devon Carver and WvW team what are some ways that you could reduce the amount of players who amass at one specific location? (Yes, big fights can be fun I know, I know some people play for them. But even they will admit the skill lag can get horrendous.)

A very real, and very simple start to this ongoing process of reducing WvW lag is this. DO NOT make it a requirement to be inside the ring in order to achieve WXP. The Havoc Squad on the other side of the map keeping 20 enemies from both opposing sides preoccupied surely helped. The players hunting Yaks, and cutting off reinforcements helped. Everyone helped, it was a server wide effort make it advantageous to separate your forces but still be rewarded for your effort.

Stop trying to treat the symptoms, and instead tend to the underlying cause.

lol? why do i need to play www and hunting yaks? I play www cause i want to see massive pvp and having fun. If u want to hunting yaks, go PvE. 3w isnt for these things.

There are loads of players who do this. Just like the players who repair walls, man siege, and upgrade keeps. It’s obvious you’re not one of these players, which is fine. No one is telling, or asking for that matter, how to play the game. And if WvW wasn’t for those things, they’d remove them from the game. The fact is they remain, and players choose to do this.

Perphection.8209:

Stop trying to treat the symptoms, and instead tend to the underlying cause.

You can kitten about zergs all you want, but the underlying cause of skill lag is a technical problem not a design problem. When a game mode designed for battles between large groups of people can’t handle large groups of people fighting, there’s a technical issue to be worked out.

Should they encourage less zerging? Probably (it’s really a topic for a different discussion), but there should still be opportunities for massive fights, and they shouldn’t be a massive 1-skill spam-fest or bring the entire map to a screeching halt.

Perphection.8209:

DevonCarver.5370:

These particular changes are indeed on the client-side. They won’t impact lag, unfortunately. We are still both investigating additional ways to combat skill lag, not that there are any particularly good looking options at the moment, and continuing to make improvements to overall game performance as we can.

There are plenty of AMAZING options to reducing skill lag. The problem is you’re approaching the situation wrong.

First ask yourself, “Why do we get skill lag?” We get skill lag because it is completely advantageous to Zerg. So you promote Zerging and your game cannot support it. That is your first problem.

So, Mr. Devon Carver and WvW team what are some ways that you could reduce the amount of players who amass at one specific location? (Yes, big fights can be fun I know, I know some people play for them. But even they will admit the skill lag can get horrendous.)

A very real, and very simple start to this ongoing process of reducing WvW lag is this. DO NOT make it a requirement to be inside the ring in order to achieve WXP. The Havoc Squad on the other side of the map keeping 20 enemies from both opposing sides preoccupied surely helped. The players hunting Yaks, and cutting off reinforcements helped. Everyone helped, it was a server wide effort make it advantageous to separate your forces but still be rewarded for your effort.

Stop trying to treat the symptoms, and instead tend to the underlying cause.

Because turning WvW into 70 different SPvP matches is exactly what everyone wants.

will we get the skill lag and overall lag reduced, or not?

i still hope the wvw maps will get bigger with maybe more objectives but this for me is already great if it fixes the skill lag.

No lag fix, but as a norn anything to make me see the battlefield the better, i feel that my tiny asura gets the good end of the zoom and norns, well he takes up half my screen.

Perphection.8209:

DevonCarver.5370:

These particular changes are indeed on the client-side. They won’t impact lag, unfortunately. We are still both investigating additional ways to combat skill lag, not that there are any particularly good looking options at the moment, and continuing to make improvements to overall game performance as we can.

There are plenty of AMAZING options to reducing skill lag. The problem is you’re approaching the situation wrong.

First ask yourself, “Why do we get skill lag?” We get skill lag because it is completely advantageous to Zerg. So you promote Zerging and your game cannot support it. That is your first problem.

So, Mr. Devon Carver and WvW team what are some ways that you could reduce the amount of players who amass at one specific location? (Yes, big fights can be fun I know, I know some people play for them. But even they will admit the skill lag can get horrendous.)

A very real, and very simple start to this ongoing process of reducing WvW lag is this. DO NOT make it a requirement to be inside the ring in order to achieve WXP. The Havoc Squad on the other side of the map keeping 20 enemies from both opposing sides preoccupied surely helped. The players hunting Yaks, and cutting off reinforcements helped. Everyone helped, it was a server wide effort make it advantageous to separate your forces but still be rewarded for your effort.

Stop trying to treat the symptoms, and instead tend to the underlying cause.

I happen to enjoy large scale PVP. It seems like you are not sure what YOU enjoy about WvW. I could care less about yaks and standing at sentry checkpoints for wxp. Don’t assume everyone in WvW is there for such petty reasons.

Also, if you don’t like skill lag and large scale pvp, why are you with a zerg? I mean, you won’t experience skill lag if you aren’t in a zerg(which you don’t enjoy anyway). So you already know the solution to the problem.

Hey BIll, thanks for you answer.

Because you gave us some info, I wont be nasty and ask anything more.

Bill (and team),

I really appreciate the very measured, data-driven approach you have taken here with trying to fix the issue. I understand it can get very-much into the nitty-gritty, and probably required development of some kind of profiler-type tool to understand most what areas of your code were hogging resources. Optimizing takes time, and it is great that you guys have been working at it like this. Keep up the great work, and I can’t wait to see the results!

You guys already know how to reduce skill lag, just do it already. Lower the map caps until you can solve the problem permanently. This would also spread some of the players around to different maps and/or lower populated servers.

BillFreist.1527:

BlackBeard.2873:

Bill (and team),

I really appreciate the very measured, data-driven approach you have taken here with trying to fix the issue. I understand it can get very-much into the nitty-gritty, and probably required development of some kind of profiler-type tool to understand most what areas of your code were hogging resources. Optimizing takes time, and it is great that you guys have been working at it like this. Keep up the great work, and I can’t wait to see the results!

Ah, so I was right! There is somebody with binoculars spying on me at the office.

According to Snowden, your own phone is watching you

Maladon.5760:

You guys already know how to reduce skill lag, just do it already. Lower the map caps until you can solve the problem permanently. This would also spread some of the players around to different maps and/or lower populated servers.

And it would also make it more or less impossible for people with bigger guilds to play together without changing servers.
It might sound like a good solution to you, but to the hardcore WvW crowd I would say we would prefer the occasional skill lag rather than not being able to play at all.

This post is going to be rather technical. I have a background in game programming and design and I am still teaching that topic at university level.

The worst lag is mostly caused by a lot of players clumping in the same area. Every time a player uses an AoE skill the game needs to check how many hostile NPCs, creatures (ambient to forest animals) and enemy players it can hit. The number of computations grows exponentially to the power of two. For example if there is 20 vs 20 in the same vicinity each AoE needs to be resolved against 20 possible opponents. Now enter’s the AoE cap: each AoE skill can hit only 5 targets. This was probably put to Guild Wars 2, because the lag would have been even worse without it.

There are several AoE skills, which ignore the 5-man limit e.g. several elementalist staff skills, like the meteor shower. Grandmaster grenadier engineer throws 3 grenades at the same time, each capable of hitting 5 targets. Thus it means 3×5 = 15 checks. Luckily engineer is the rarest profession in WvWvW. As I could imagine how horrible the lag would be with 40+ grenadier engineers on both sides. The server would probably crash already at much lower numbers.

Removing AoE from the game would be a horrible solution, as the tightly packed melee train is already the prevalent meta. Some professions, like the engineer and the elementalist, have very few offensive skills, which affect just one target. All good guild teams are a running a tightly packed hammer warrior + guardian front line and in most cases more than half of the zerg consists of those. Notice that warrior’s hammer is also an AoE weapon. Any serious nerfs to AoE would make the tightly packed melee train even more powerful and the game would reduce to just that.

The only good alternatives are:

1. Reduce the number of players per map

This would lead to increased queues on the stacked servers. Sooner or later some of the big guilds would move to lower population servers.

- free or heavily discounted transfer costs to losing servers and those servers with low WvWvW population. Server’s total population is meaningless indicator of actual WvWvW population. Some medium population servers are full of WvWvw players
- introduce a new queue system, showing many players are in queue before you
- if a player wants he can always choose to fight as a mercenary for any of the outmanned servers, which are not part of his own matchup. In other words the queue user interface allows the players to either wait to get to his own map or instantly enter and help the outmanned side on some other server

The latter would also balance the game. Not so much “win by better coverage”. One could even experiment guesting from EU to NA and so on using this mercenary system.

2. Remove incentives to zerging and reward small scale / solo roaming better

Most players like to move in a large group as it is much easier to get WXP, karma and loot that way. Many players are afraid to roam solo, because any moment stealthed enemy thief can suddenly teleport next to you and kill you if you are not fully aware of the surroundings or having a lot of passive defenses. Huge zergs are so powerful in their area healing and mass revival that enemy siege is pretty much useless in stopping them. Adding more power to siege is the WRONG answer as it will make siege way too overpowered against smaller or medium sized groups. This game design mistake already happened and some of the siege related WXP related traits need to be toned down.

- reduce the effectiveness of area condition removal and healing for WvWvW (I am mostly meaning guardians and elementalists here)
- reduce the effectiveness of certain combo fields, namely: fire, lighting and water fields (and to a less degree light and smoke fields)
- add more small objectives to the map. Currently we have sentries, but there could be just torches which you need to light up or put your server’s flag to some post to make it tick some points
- introduce limits to karma, WXP and loot when it comes to unnecessary large number of people doing objective e.g. if more than 3 or 5 people are capping one supply camp, they get reduced rewards, if more than 10 or 15 cap a tower, they get reduced rewards and so on
- increase revealed to at least 4 seconds (same as in pvp) and max the max consecutive duration of stealth to 8 seconds. This would encourage many non-thieves to solo roam
- if you cap a supply camp fully alone you get an extra bonus reward “solo hero”
- increase the size of the maps
- change borderland maps to be just 1 vs 1, while Eternal Battlegrounds stays 1 vs 1 vs 1. Now each world could battle on 2 different BL maps (their own and one enemy map). This would also reduce 2 stronger server against the 1 weakest. And servers could still have the three way fights at EB

Tnx for answers our posts Devon and Bill. Very much apprecciated.

DevonCarver.5370:

These particular changes are indeed on the client-side. They won’t impact lag, unfortunately. We are still both investigating additional ways to combat skill lag, not that there are any particularly good looking options at the moment, and continuing to make improvements to overall game performance as we can.

Still investigating? Bit on the slow/lazy side. Its not as if this issue is new or anything is it. Personally i dont think they will do anything about it. Sure they can say they will investigate it but that doesnt mean if/when they find out why its happening that they will actually do anything about it. To busy making rubbish PvE content to bother with WvW.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Still investigating? Bit on the slow/lazy side. Its not as if this issue is new or anything is it. Personally i dont think they will do anything about it. Sure they can say they will investigate it but that doesnt mean if/when they find out why its happening that they will actually do anything about it. To busy making rubbish PvE content to bother with WvW.

So.. how many online-games with massive PvP combat have you created?

I think are you simplifying the issue quiet a bit.

We are not even on the same page…

BillFreist.1527:

Don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean we haven’t already made several improvements, just sadly that they weren’t really noticeable from a players standpoint (but have made a significant difference).

It’s not just skill lag that we hope to start resolving in a more noticeable way, and even eliminating one day, but getting PvE culling disabled game-wide. These two projects are beasts that really go hand-in-hand, which is why we’re working on them simultaneously.

Now this brings me to another seemingly tight-lipped change; PvE culling. You may have noticed that we temporarily disabled it in Frostgorge Sound for a short duration. That was us, lurking in the shadows, gathering extremely vital data. We’re making great strides in getting that removed, and hoping that happens really soon.
<3 Bill

PVE culling? Huh?

This is depressing but not a surprise…

skill lag result of the calculation time required for the server to deal the DoT specially and that’s why also the aoe is limited to 5 people. Unless the calculation of aoe (damages and buffs) is dealt by another specifically calculation-based tasked designed sub-server than the main one this issue will hardly be fix with the engine limitation on use on this game. It requires only to invest $ to improve the game itself in very large scale battles. Will Anet do it? No clue.

Ardor.4698:

We are not even on the same page…

Well, that goes without saying. If you didn’t understand his post, it’s probably best to not write a response.

TheAmpca.1753:

Because turning WvW into 70 different SPvP matches is exactly what everyone wants.

70x 5vs5 is bad.
1x 150vs150 is pathetic too though, and that’s the current situation.

5x 30vs30 is the best wvw experience i’ve ever had – but you need 2 other servers that plays that way, good/numerous commanders/guilds and it’s hard to mantain troughout the whole day.

Deniara Devious.3948:

- increase revealed to at least 4 seconds (same as in pvp) and max the max consecutive duration of stealth to 8 seconds. This would encourage many non-thieves to solo roam

Why must every kitten WvW thread have some stealth/thief QQ in it? Rest of it seems fine though.

lordkrall.7241:

So.. how many online-games with massive PvP combat have you created?

I think are you simplifying the issue quiet a bit.

That has nothing to do with it. This game has been out nearly a year. The game STILL has bugs and issues that were in the BETA. Lets not forget that they weren’t exactly known for fixing issues in Guild Wars and at times even making things WORSE.

For the better of Guild Wars 2 and for Anet, they really need to bring in people with experience of this sort of thing because based on history – they are not.

I ran to 5000 character limit and forgot to add one of the most important ideas to reduce zerging:

Make every 20+ man team appear on the map to enemies at all times (e.g. moving orange swords)

This would mean enemy would know in advance when a zerg is rushing at their gates etc. but realistically a huge trampling force won’t be able to move unnoticed. Their trampling feet would be heard from long distances.

Now if you’d want to ninja cap a keep you would need to do it with less people.

Deniara Devious.3948:

I ran to 5000 character limit and forgot to add one of the most important ideas to reduce zerging:

Make every 20+ man team appear on the map to enemies at all times (e.g. moving orange swords)

This would mean enemy would know in advance when a zerg is rushing at their gates etc. but realistically a huge trampling force won’t be able to move unnoticed. Their trampling feet would be heard from long distances.

Now if you’d want to ninja cap a keep you would need to do it with less people.

So, basically make it more or less impossible for guilds to do stuff together in WvW?

I believe it could reduce it to a small (in some cases very small) degree…

Simply because the Server has to WAIT additional ticks and listen for responses longer and basically throttle itself everytime its Clients are lagging as well. This isn’t like Cable TV. The server doesn’t just “1 way street” the information to you, it expects a response on some of these more complicated variables that aren’t solely tied to your character’s positioning. People tend to forget that there’s also security protocols running in the background to authenticate the data as well.

DevonCarver.5370:

These particular changes are indeed on the client-side. They won’t impact lag, unfortunately. We are still both investigating additional ways to combat skill lag, not that there are any particularly good looking options at the moment, and continuing to make improvements to overall game performance as we can.

dont take this the wrong way but the game was never designed for the huge amount of numbers in WvW. Skill lag will always be there no matter what you do. Only way to fix it is to start all over again from scratch. It would just be nice of Anet to admit that it will never get solved so we could move on.

Nohealz.7189:

dont take this the wrong way but the game was never designed for the huge amount of numbers in WvW. Skill lag will always be there no matter what you do. Only way to fix it is to start all over again from scratch. It would just be nice of Anet to admit that it will never get solved so we could move on.

It would also be nice for Anet to admit that the problem is on there side and thanks to the engine they used. I have serious worries about what kind of testing they run before releasing content the game gets NEW bugs and issues every time they release something new.

How did they not fully test this engine before going ahead? or did they and thought “i doubt many people will want WvW when we have PvE and S/TPvP”

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

I have serious worries about what kind of testing they run before releasing content the game gets NEW bugs and issues every time they release something new.

You mean just like every other game (especially MMOs)? This is not something unique for GW2.

Wow.

Instead of just coming in here and spewing out a bunch of garbage, Bill Freist gave us a detailed description of how they’re tackling the problem. That’s more than Devon Carter has given us in months.

I have been very disappointed with the almost complete lack of attention given to WvW and to general technical issues such as this skill lag but Bill’s couple of paragraphs have actually given me a bit of hope that there are a few attentive and focused devs still remaining at Anet. Here’s to hoping I’m not wrong.

Thank you Bill for working on something other than WXP Masteries.

Devon: Get your kitten together.

DevonCarver.5370:

These particular changes are indeed on the client-side. They won’t impact lag, unfortunately. We are still both investigating additional ways to combat skill lag, not that there are any particularly good looking options at the moment, and continuing to make improvements to overall game performance as we can.

That’s because you’re probably looking at it from a technical viewpoint and not a game design viewpoint.

Your objective capture system and world XP system promotes zerg play.
Your siege system and supply system promotes zerg play.
Rally systems and downed states also promotes zerg play.

Zerg play is the cause of skill lag. As a game designer; if that’s what you are; you haven’t explored options to reduce zerg play. Set up a test server and alter some rules. Let the community help in creating a rule set.

I love how people go on and assume that the devs have not actually thought about and tested things but rather just put the first thing that came to their minds into the game.

DevonCarver.5370:

These particular changes are indeed on the client-side. They won’t impact lag, unfortunately. We are still both investigating additional ways to combat skill lag, not that there are any particularly good looking options at the moment, and continuing to make improvements to overall game performance as we can.

Of course it wont… WvW lag is forever.

Maybe you can start working on the botched WvW achievements while you`re at it. We’ve been asking for 10 months now.

BillFreist.1527:

Here’s a copy/pasta response i made the other day on the topic.

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

BillFreist.1527:

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear

First off, I do realize that I kind of ninja’ed in a response in a post that had nothing to do with addressing skill delay. The reasoning behind that was simply that I wanted to make it clear of why I wasn’t spending much time on the issue that I was addressing there. I’d like to say that I pride myself in keeping things as transparent as possible with you guys.

That being said, I know that seems contradicting since I haven’t really said anything on the matter since. I’m doing my best to lurk in the shadows here in the forums more often and chime in where appropriate. Frankly, I just don’t always have something to update you guys on .

But! I do have a small update for you today.

Over the past several months (boy time can really fly by), we formed a small team (myself, with the help of a couple others at times) around addressing the issue of skill delay in large groups of players. It’s actually a part of our Skills and Combat team that are responsible for balancing and, in the near future, introducing new skills, traits and other combat improvements. When tackling such a large project, you don’t just dive in and start shooting from the hip. It takes a lot of research, data and planning to really start addressing the issue at hand. The past few months have mostly consisted of these things (referring to data gathering).

As of recently, really as of just a couple days ago, we’ve gotten to a point where we have the data we need to take the bull by the horns and get down to business. Meaning that I hope that the results start speaking for themselves in the coming months. Don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean we haven’t already made several improvements, just sadly that they weren’t really noticeable from a players standpoint (but have made a significant difference).

It’s not just skill lag that we hope to start resolving in a more noticeable way, and even eliminating one day, but getting PvE culling disabled game-wide. These two projects are beasts that really go hand-in-hand, which is why we’re working on them simultaneously.

Now this brings me to another seemingly tight-lipped change; PvE culling. You may have noticed that we temporarily disabled it in Frostgorge Sound for a short duration. That was us, lurking in the shadows, gathering extremely vital data. We’re making great strides in getting that removed, and hoping that happens really soon.

That’s all I have for today, but hope to have some great news in the near future. Ideally moving forward I won’t need to update you all, as the results should start speaking for themselves.

<3 Bill

So assuming you didn’t skip all of that…We are chipping away at it and hope that you, the players, start noticing an improvement soon. But to answer the initial question, no, there aren’t any significant changes coming in the August 6th release. There’s mostly client-side goodies in that build.

-Bill

Thank you very much for the details on how your team is working on tracking the problem. It was assumed something like this would have to be going on for any sort of real solution given how shoddy and anecdotal player based evidence is but it is comforting to have confirmation of the seriousness you all are approaching the subject with. I agree with others that skill lag is now a lot more than just a game resources problem and has been impacted deeply by some game design choices so I hope all sides of being investigated thoroughly.

I would say your data tracking project could do with some testing of lower WvW map population caps for completeness and hopefully we are starting to see some of that now. Slightly lower WvW map population caps are not going to ruin the big guilds or destroy the WvW communities in the top tiers as some knee jerk over-reactionists claim but might do a lot of good for WvW sustainability in the long run while more tech based solutions are investigated.