Guild Wars 2

I know that you are working on a patch that will do it, but i wanna ask:
Is it gonna be possible to view every enemy in WVW with the same skin ?
Doing that, the CPU won’t have to load every skin but just one.

Under the new system, characters can be rendered in three different ways:

High resolution models – These are the high-res character models that you’re all already familiar 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.
Nameplates only – We don’t render the model at all and instead only show the nameplate for that character.

We’ve also added two new options to allow players to select how WvW characters are displayed:

WvW Character Limit – This controls how many of the reported characters render with a model and how many are rendered only with nameplates.
WvW Character Quality – This controls how many of the characters rendered with a model use the high resolution models and how many use the lower resolution fallback models.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/world-vs-worldthe-end-of-culling/?utm_source=client

please read GM posts

I already knew that, mine was some kind of advice.
If you have only ONE skin for every enemy, it will load less stuff in the CPU that will mean less lag…hope you’ll add that

Habib Loew.6239:

The low-res models all use standard skins and are persisted in memory so they only need to be loaded once. By setting the WvW Character Limit and WvW Character Quality correctly it is possible to have all characters displayed using the low-res models (and thus the standard skins).

That is fantastic! I was hoping that to be the case. I’m assuming that if even the low-res models are too much the system can still fall back to loading nameplates? A major fix to lag and culling in one patch sounds amazing.

It’s my understanding that this fixes culling, but I didn’t think skill lag or even latency was something this fix would address. Are you guys saying that skill lag and latency are going to go away with this update?

I believe he was answering the specific question asked in the OP.

Habib Loew.6239:

I should clarify here again that the culling fix will have minimal impact on skill lag. Skill lag happens because the server too busy to process everything that’s happening (e.g. it’s at 100% CPU). The removal of culling addresses issues experienced by the client but those changes don’t really impact the skill lag situation. They are fundamentally different problems that will need different solutions.

Ah ok, thank you for the clarification. I got excited for a second haha.

Since we’re at it then, any news on skill lag? It’s getting pretty unplayable here on SFR.

Well this is the last try for me… I played GW1 since first day for 4 years, then in Aion for 3 more years but I cant play this game, I never but ever see a so lagged game, quited my thief since is impossible to play with lag and cant use more then one or two skills with the mesmer now, for a player who play games for pvp is this kitten , my computer works great in any other game and I even use best performance settings putting this graphics like games with 10 years.

Terrible work from Anet

7 month for culling, wait for an other 7 month for the end of skill lag when they will get a Pentium 3 for their servers.

Yeah, that’s disappointing about the skill lag. I mean, you can play with culling – and we have for 7 months. But the skill lag is game breaking. And it just started – why now?

Thanks for the info Habib.

No not culling! that’s a warriors only viable build! >.<

tyandam.8962:

No not culling! that’s a warriors only viable build! >.<

This is the second time this afternoon that I’ve come across a post that I am completely unable to understand what the person is trying to say.

JaironKalach.4938:

tyandam.8962:

No not culling! that’s a warriors only viable build! >.<

This is the second time this afternoon that I’ve come across a post that I am completely unable to understand what the person is trying to say.

100 Blades in the face while the enemy model is still trying to render… Nuff said

Pinkus.2860:

JaironKalach.4938:

tyandam.8962:

No not culling! that’s a warriors only viable build! >.<

This is the second time this afternoon that I’ve come across a post that I am completely unable to understand what the person is trying to say.

100 Blades in the face while the enemy model is still trying to render… Nuff said

I will be happy with 1 or 2 auto atacks before I die or disconect

Habib Loew.6239:

I should clarify here again that the culling fix will have minimal impact on skill lag. Skill lag happens because the server too busy to process everything that’s happening (e.g. it’s at 100% CPU). The removal of culling addresses issues experienced by the client but those changes don’t really impact the skill lag situation. They are fundamentally different problems that will need different solutions.

Do you guys have some information on what is causing the higher server resource utilization? I’d have to think that there are less players in the game and/or in WvW than there were at launch, and during the first few weeks we had some servers with almost 24/7 queues, yet no regular skill lag was reported.

It just doesn’t make sense unless something you added to the game after launch is causing it (like the guesting function for example).

Liquid.9672:

Habib Loew.6239:

I should clarify here again that the culling fix will have minimal impact on skill lag. Skill lag happens because the server too busy to process everything that’s happening (e.g. it’s at 100% CPU). The removal of culling addresses issues experienced by the client but those changes don’t really impact the skill lag situation. They are fundamentally different problems that will need different solutions.

Do you guys have some information on what is causing the higher server resource utilization? I’d have to think that there are less players in the game and/or in WvW than there were at launch, and during the first few weeks we had some servers with almost 24/7 queues, yet no regular skill lag was reported.

It just doesn’t make sense unless something you added to the game after launch is causing it (like the guesting function for example).

Well if not the guesting function it was something in that patch as that was when this persistant lagg/skill lagg started, posted in a thread a couple weeks back which was closed with a mod stateing they already know about this and the lagg came with the patch and was being worked on, responses have since changed and varied lol

Eniav.9064:

Well if not the guesting function it was something in that patch as that was when this persistant lagg/skill lagg started, posted in a thread a couple weeks back which was closed with a mod stateing they already know about this and the lagg came with the patch and was being worked on, responses have since changed and varied lol

Its possible that they know what it is and are working on fixing it/have fixed it but won’t launch till the next patch if its a very large change that requires a lot of testing. They certainly aren’t denying its existence which means they are aware of it and doing something about it. If not, they wouldn’t even acknowledge it.

Habib Loew.6239:

I should clarify here again that the culling fix will have minimal impact on skill lag. Skill lag happens because the server is too busy to process everything that’s happening (e.g. it’s at 100% CPU). The removal of culling addresses issues experienced by the client but those changes don’t really impact the skill lag situation. They are fundamentally different problems that will need different solutions.

Sorry, but this just doesn’t sound right. One of your earlier posts even states that culling was instituted to avoid server-side overload, and that would make sense. I don’t believe for a second that lag and culling are independent issues. Culling was only partially a client side crutch for underpowered computers … it was primarily put in place to regulate how much data the server had to process and force feed through the pipeline. The server doesn’t even really know whether something has rendered yet client side, but it does know when it is getting bogged down trying to process too much data internally.

If lag still exists after you drop culling it’s either because your game engine is too limited and you don’t have the resources to fix it, or you backed off on your earlier promise to buy whatever bandwidth you needed to fix the problem.

In any case, it’s pretty clear that we’re being BS’d here.

Habib Loew.6239:

I should clarify here again that the culling fix will have minimal impact on skill lag. Skill lag happens because the server too busy to process everything that’s happening (e.g. it’s at 100% CPU). The removal of culling addresses issues experienced by the client but those changes don’t really impact the skill lag situation. They are fundamentally different problems that will need different solutions.

So why has skill lag increased?

Liquid.9672:

Do you guys have some information on what is causing the higher server resource utilization? I’d have to think that there are less players in the game and/or in WvW than there were at launch, and during the first few weeks we had some servers with almost 24/7 queues, yet no regular skill lag was reported.

It just doesn’t make sense unless something you added to the game after launch is causing it (like the guesting function for example).

I’m even wondering if its player techniques if we where to compare 7 months or so ago at launch and put it side to side with what we do now? Quite a lot of the early days was groups of 5-30, lot of ‘white damage’ hard DPS specs and overall more people running around. Even with uncapped AOE, skill-lag (or maybe skill delay to describe it correctly) only really happened in the big lunatic fights inside Stonemist or 3 big groups chasing a relic.

Now, we run a lot more crowd-control, shout heal, regen, conditions, removals and AOE than we did back in the old days which basically had a lot of tank trains rolling around the place.
The difference I see from just simple actions:
White Damage: Attack – calculate defence = apply damage
Con/Damage: Attack + decay timer – calculate defence = apply damage
Combine that with all the other factors like inhibiting movement, attack speeds, healing ticks and so forth, I’d imagine it’d be banging on a heavier processor load figuring out just exactly what goes where.

Just because we’re still running 10-30 guys most of the time doesn’t mean that others aren’t, its been quite a technique we’ve seen off a number of opponents that they’ll roll 50-70 to do what they want to do. (an observation, play how you want I don’t care) That is a much more intense amount of processing when 2 and often 3 big groups will hit each other.

Back in the lower tiers which I can only assume there is less people, they may well be playing the same way as us, but not incurring the delays.

Cactus.2710:

Habib Loew.6239:

I should clarify here again that the culling fix will have minimal impact on skill lag. Skill lag happens because the server is too busy to process everything that’s happening (e.g. it’s at 100% CPU). The removal of culling addresses issues experienced by the client but those changes don’t really impact the skill lag situation. They are fundamentally different problems that will need different solutions.

Sorry, but this just doesn’t sound right. One of your earlier posts even states that culling was instituted to avoid server-side overload, and that would make sense. I don’t believe for a second that lag and culling are independent issues. Culling was only partially a client side crutch for underpowered computers … it was primarily put in place to regulate how much data the server had to process and force feed through the pipeline. The server doesn’t even really know whether something has rendered yet client side, but it does know when it is getting bogged down trying to process too much data internally.

If lag still exists after you drop culling it’s either because your game engine is too limited and you don’t have the resources to fix it, or you backed off on your earlier promise to buy whatever bandwidth you needed to fix the problem.

In any case, it’s pretty clear that we’re being BS’d here.

Eh? Culling was partly for older computers, which the default models should have solved. The other part of culling was a network issue, not a CPU issue, unlike the skill lag. Why does that sound like BS? Just because it’s called skill “lag” doesn’t mean it’s a network issue.

Thresher.3049:

Liquid.9672:

Do you guys have some information on what is causing the higher server resource utilization? I’d have to think that there are less players in the game and/or in WvW than there were at launch, and during the first few weeks we had some servers with almost 24/7 queues, yet no regular skill lag was reported.

It just doesn’t make sense unless something you added to the game after launch is causing it (like the guesting function for example).

I’m even wondering if its player techniques if we where to compare 7 months or so ago at launch and put it side to side with what we do now? Quite a lot of the early days was groups of 5-30, lot of ‘white damage’ hard DPS specs and overall more people running around. Even with uncapped AOE, skill-lag (or maybe skill delay to describe it correctly) only really happened in the big lunatic fights inside Stonemist or 3 big groups chasing a relic.

But it wasn’t a gradual change, as others have said it only became a problem after the 1 particular patch.

Habib Loew.6239:

I should clarify here again that the culling fix will have minimal impact on skill lag. Skill lag happens because the server too busy to process everything that’s happening (e.g. it’s at 100% CPU). The removal of culling addresses issues experienced by the client but those changes don’t really impact the skill lag situation. They are fundamentally different problems that will need different solutions.

Why is it that this has only been quite the concern recently? Having taken part in many a large battle since the launch of the game I must say that it has only been the last month or so that huge lag spikes have been a problem for me. Has something changed on the back end of things? Is there a pending fix for this?

Also having played on both NA and EU servers the skill delay issue is far less noticeable in NA and that’s with the in-built issue of connecting with NA servers from EU (taking experiences from resets so max filled out maps being compared here).

Habib Loew.6239:

I should clarify here again that the culling fix will have minimal impact on skill lag. Skill lag happens because the server too busy to process everything that’s happening (e.g. it’s at 100% CPU). The removal of culling addresses issues experienced by the client but those changes don’t really impact the skill lag situation. They are fundamentally different problems that will need different solutions.

You need to sort this asap or removing culling no one will care because no one will be playing. Its seriously bad as it stands in EU t1.

I also don’t believe in coincidences. There was this insane lag exactly same now with the 1 week trial period of the new culling. Now we have the new culling and ever since then there has been skill delay. so 3 weeks -1 month

Sacrx.6721:

I also don’t believe in coincidences. There was this insane lag exactly same now with the 1 week trial period of the new culling. Now we have the new culling and ever since then there has been skill delay. so 3 weeks -1 month

Yep I noticed this correlation as well, correlation doesn’t necessarily equal causation but it is a big coincidence.

Sacrx.6721:

I also don’t believe in coincidences. There was this insane lag exactly same now with the 1 week trial period of the new culling. Now we have the new culling and ever since then there has been skill delay. so 3 weeks -1 month

Yeah exactly this.

I like their honesty

“We cant fix skill lag” but can fix “culling”

Habib Loew.6239:

…..They are fundamentally different problems that will need different solutions.

Is Arena-net fixing skill-lag problem anytime soon? If not you’re gonna have empty borderlands when everyone quits.

Just priorities.

Skill lag is exclusive to t1 and t2. Culling is much more widespread.

Zephyrus.9680:

Just priorities.

Skill lag is exclusive to t1 and t2. Culling is much more widespread.

Yeah, if you’re in t1 or 2 for Jormag-size zergs then you’re probably used to just autoattacking stuff anyway. I rarely have an issue with skill lag.

kfarb.6732:

Zephyrus.9680:

Just priorities.

Skill lag is exclusive to t1 and t2. Culling is much more widespread.

Yeah, if you’re in t1 or 2 for Jormag-size zergs then you’re probably used to just autoattacking stuff anyway. I rarely have an issue with skill lag.

Speak for yourself

Trikki.5803:

kfarb.6732:

Zephyrus.9680:

Just priorities.

Skill lag is exclusive to t1 and t2. Culling is much more widespread.

Yeah, if you’re in t1 or 2 for Jormag-size zergs then you’re probably used to just autoattacking stuff anyway. I rarely have an issue with skill lag.

Speak for yourself

I am. I’ve seen t1/t2 servers pass by us and it seems they win by rolling in huge zergs.

Regardless, it seems this is mainly an issue for those higher tiers, while culling is a separate issue. So t1/t2 can keep their epic fights of spamming 1 but soon they will see who they’re hitting.

No lag here in T3, gonna have awesome fights when the patch comes.

kfarb.6732:

I am. I’ve seen t1/t2 servers pass by us and it seems they win by rolling in huge zergs.

Regardless, it seems this is mainly an issue for those higher tiers, while culling is a separate issue. So t1/t2 can keep their epic fights of spamming 1 but soon they will see who they’re hitting.

A large problem in T1/2 is that large forces (which pretty much every server can maintain at least one full map at all times) exploit culling as it currently is because:

• Balista cannot target more than half of the enemy force even if everyone but the 20 people who culled are standing in a neat, explosion friendly ball. (Also, could we please up balista splash to 20?)
• Arrow Carts don’t know what to shoot at except what is in sight… and if you can’t see most of your opponents, you sure as hell cannot target them.
• Culling/Veil bombs… self-explanatory.
• Portal Bombs… you know the drill.

And, as it stands, you have superiority in large numbers because culling basically makes the majority of your force not only invisible but also pretty much immune to the siege that cannot see or target them. The massive skill lag that ensues leads to skill-1 spam… which the team with bigger numbers will win; so it ends up being an almost self-feeding loop.

Zephyrus.9680:

Just priorities.

Skill lag is exclusive to t1 and t2. Culling is much more widespread.

No it isn’t. I (as well as most of my guildies) get ability lag fairly often during NA prime time and we’re in Tier 5.

saiyr.3071:

Cactus.2710:

Habib Loew.6239:

I should clarify here again that the culling fix will have minimal impact on skill lag. Skill lag happens because the server is too busy to process everything that’s happening (e.g. it’s at 100% CPU). The removal of culling addresses issues experienced by the client but those changes don’t really impact the skill lag situation. They are fundamentally different problems that will need different solutions.

Sorry, but this just doesn’t sound right. One of your earlier posts even states that culling was instituted to avoid server-side overload, and that would make sense. I don’t believe for a second that lag and culling are independent issues. Culling was only partially a client side crutch for underpowered computers … it was primarily put in place to regulate how much data the server had to process and force feed through the pipeline. The server doesn’t even really know whether something has rendered yet client side, but it does know when it is getting bogged down trying to process too much data internally.

If lag still exists after you drop culling it’s either because your game engine is too limited and you don’t have the resources to fix it, or you backed off on your earlier promise to buy whatever bandwidth you needed to fix the problem.

In any case, it’s pretty clear that we’re being BS’d here.

Eh? Culling was partly for older computers, which the default models should have solved. The other part of culling was a network issue, not a CPU issue, unlike the skill lag. Why does that sound like BS? Just because it’s called skill “lag” doesn’t mean it’s a network issue.

Skill lag is what happens when the server cannot respond to what the client is asking it to do because the server and the server side network are overloaded … i.e., trying to do too many things in a short period of time. Skill lag is NOT … I repeat, NOT … a client side CPU issue. My computer is a water cooled 3770K/GTX680/SSD/16gig-1866MHz box running Win7-64 and I can get ability lag even in Tier 5. Wanna know how? ANet uses a merged server system to share server capacity for WvW (if you search about you’ll find a video where they explain that). When a big fight breaks out in T1 it can take some time for the merged servers to dynamically redistribute capacity to compensate, and when it does that there is a ripple effect elsewhere.

It’s pure BS when Habib says that skill lag and culling are independent. Culling was put in place to minimize skill lag in high demand situations (lots of stuff for the servers to process). It IS true that culling can be turned off like a switch (where skill lag cannot) and it IS true that client side rendering can be improved via the measures that ANet has described so that when culling is removed toasters can still give decent results, but the root cause of skill lag is lack of server side data handling capacity … and that’s the real reason culling was instituted in the first place. They are NOT totally separate topics.

Cactus.2710:

Zephyrus.9680:

Just priorities.

Skill lag is exclusive to t1 and t2. Culling is much more widespread.

No it isn’t. I (as well as most of my guildies) get ability lag fairly often during NA prime time and we’re in Tier 5.

We get it in T3.

Cactus.2710:

It’s pure BS when Habib says that skill lag and culling are independent. Culling was put in place to minimize skill lag in high demand situations (lots of stuff for the servers to process). It IS true that culling can be turned off like a switch (where skill lag cannot) and it IS true that client side rendering can be improved via the measures that ANet has described so that when culling is removed toasters can still give decent results, but the root cause of skill lag is lack of server side data handling capacity … and that’s the real reason culling was instituted in the first place. They are NOT totally separate topics.

Interesting, based on that they prefer skill lag to culling, but IMHO skill lag is a worse issue

Maybe the whole WvW would have to be hosted on a whole different server (now I usually see Anvil Rock – not sure if it’s actual playable server) or maybe if needed then spread WvW on few servers, for example T1-T3 : server 1, T3-T5 : server 2, T6-T8: server 3.. Though I’m not sure how it’s working atm, just a suggestion.

morrolan.9608:

Interesting, based on that they prefer skill lag to culling, but IMHO skill lag is a worse issue

Culling pretty much always benefits a larger, moving force, since your allies will have already rendered for you. The smaller, non-moving force will render on your screen long before you render on theirs.

So, skill lag might be more severe in some situations, but culling is more likely to cause frustration and/or uninstalling. That’s probably why they addressed culling first.

Skill lag THE absolute worse thing i encountered in this game tbh, culling is bad yeah but it doesnt come close to skill lag imo.

If culling is not related to lag, then why was culling implemented?

Cactus.2710:

Culling was put in place to minimize skill lag in high demand situations (lots of stuff for the servers to process).

Culling or not, the server was still processing all in-game activity, it just was never trafficking all of that data back to the players involved (particularly in regard to opposing players) but it was still trafficking it frequently such as to allow your machine to update what to render and where. The only “unit” in the whole situation that was not getting adequate information was your computer and no amount of throughput or graphimagics could render information that you didn’t have. The servers were still processing all of the relevant data -> why cull bombs are so effective: you’re blind to your opponents position and they are to yours after bombing you, but the server is well aware of where everyone and thing is and was processing that data: ie. damage, player position, player statistics, etc. That data was simply not all going out the pipes to the players involved nor in a timely manner (culling), it was still being processed in full and in real time until bottlenecked by processing capabilities (skill lag).

Culling wasn’t much of anything to alleviate data processing, the data was being processed irregardless -> it just wasn’t all being reported to the players (a bandwidth limitation, and that’s what culling was -> a bandwidth alleviator and a way to let people play on toasters).

Hence why, long ago, Habib provided bandwidth as a limiting factor on culling which makes sense. Trafficking data like models, coordinates, configurations, colors, etc, would gobble up bandwidth. Having the servers constantly streaming the relevant data without culling will indeed put strain on them, however the issues are not 1:1.

Skill lag will likely require a change in hardware.

Also, I’m bizarrely baffled by why you bothered listing the specs on your computer when this whole discussion is server related (even the person you quoted was referring to the servers not your irrelevant machine). Your computer specs are about as relevant to the server structure and capabilities (ie. skill lag) as my ability to make sandwhiches is relevant to Iron Chef.

NevirSayDie.6235:

morrolan.9608:

Interesting, based on that they prefer skill lag to culling, but IMHO skill lag is a worse issue

Culling pretty much always benefits a larger, moving force, since your allies will have already rendered for you. The smaller, non-moving force will render on your screen long before you render on theirs.

So, skill lag might be more severe in some situations, but culling is more likely to cause frustration and/or uninstalling. That’s probably why they addressed culling first.

It’s not that they prefer skill lag to culling – the fact is culling has been apparent for a much longer time than skill lag has been. The angry mob has made it clear that it needed to be fixed, so the culling fix (fingers crossed) is incoming.

As has been noted by some others in this thread – skill lag reared it’s ugly head more recently (correlated with a certain patch or not I can’t say for certain) and it is more significantly debilitating in WvW than anything to date. It’s a newer, more severe problem and I’d hazard a guess that Anet will have less time to amend it than they’ve had to address culling before people walk.

Vena.8436:

Cactus.2710:

Culling was put in place to minimize skill lag in high demand situations (lots of stuff for the servers to process).

Culling or not, the server was still processing all in-game activity, it just was never trafficking all of that data back to the players involved (particularly in regard to opposing players) but it was still trafficking it frequently such as to allow your machine to update what to render and where. The only “unit” in the whole situation that was not getting adequate information was your computer and no amount of throughput or graphimagics could render information that you didn’t have. The servers were still processing all of the relevant data -> why cull bombs are so effective: you’re blind to your opponents position and they are to yours after bombing you, but the server is well aware of where everyone and thing is and was processing that data: ie. damage, player position, player statistics, etc. That data was simply not all going out the pipes to the players involved nor in a timely manner (culling), it was still being processed in full and in real time until bottlenecked by processing capabilities (skill lag).

Culling wasn’t much of anything to alleviate data processing, the data was being processed irregardless -> it just wasn’t all being reported to the players (a bandwidth limitation, and that’s what culling was -> a bandwidth alleviator and a way to let people play on toasters).

Hence why, long ago, Habib provided bandwidth as a limiting factor on culling which makes sense. Trafficking data like models, coordinates, configurations, colors, etc, would gobble up bandwidth. Having the servers constantly streaming the relevant data without culling will indeed put strain on them, however the issues are not 1:1.

Skill lag will likely require a change in hardware.

Also, I’m bizarrely baffled by why you bothered listing the specs on your computer when this whole discussion is server related (even the person you quoted was referring to the servers not your irrelevant machine). Your computer specs are about as relevant to the server structure and capabilities (ie. skill lag) as my ability to make sandwhiches is relevant to Iron Chef.

I listed my computer specs because the guy referenced older computers, and he spoke of “CPU” limitations … which I take as meaning client side since we usually refer to server side issues as simply being “the server”. I didn’t think that would be hard to figure out, but just for you … there you have it.

And yes, of course the server eventually processes all of the data, but if it can’t do it real time it doesn’t respond to keyboard mashing and we get lag. I wouldn’t have thought that was hard to figure out either.

In any case, none of us really know whether the real limitation at ANet’s end is game engine, server hardware, or in/out bandwidth. It could be all three, but I’m putting my money on game engine being #1 and network bandwidth being #2. The reason I say that is that recoding the game engine takes LOTS of resources and is fraught with opportunity to screw something up, server hardware isn’t particularly expensive (although the software to manage if might be), and network bandwidth costs a lot of money each and every month.

Cactus.2710:

In any case, none of us really know whether the real limitation at ANet’s end is game engine, server hardware, or in/out bandwidth. It could be all three, but I’m putting my money on game engine being #1 and network bandwidth being #2. The reason I say that is that recoding the game engine takes LOTS of resources and is fraught with opportunity to screw something up, server hardware isn’t particularly expensive (although the software to manage if might be), and network bandwidth costs a lot of money each and every month.

I don’t see why you don’t believe the answer provided when it is logical. Its not like he’s saying the problem with skill lag is related to magical faeries or kittenroaches in the cogs. Its a bottleneck on the processor for skill lag (processing in-game events), and its bandwidth for culling (sending info about said processed in-game events… most of it, hence the culling). Makes sense… and they need to upgrade their hardware.

Culling is a bandwidth issue, it has little to no bearing on the data that was already all being processed and bottlenecked to begin with (the game did not not process data it wasn’t sending… it just wasn’t sending it :: your character is still going to die to culled player X spamming his aoe on your culled body without the two of you ever seeing one another). Removing it will certainly add another layer of stress on the servers but it will be much more an issue of bandwidth than an issue of stressing the server → all the data is already processed or trying to be processed (before bottlenecked into lag), sending it isn’t going to blow out the wall sockets.

I don’t doubt their engine is poorly optimized but I’m pretty sure they have a solid flow of income from the store to fund servers/bandwidth. If they can appease the WvW crowd with some good developments, and throw some fun stuff into the shop for us too… who knows, maybe they’d get even more money.