Guild Wars 2

Indo.8629:

To start, you should fix your invis abilities. Lot of the complaining is coming from when mass groups of players are able to invis from a couple spells and even though the invis effect may wear off after 3 seconds, for whatever reason it takes an additional 3-5 seconds for that person to load on the enemies screen. Players are abusing it and I think most of the vocal complaining is coming from this more than anything else.

Just so you’re aware. This 2 second period where you don’t see an enemy after their invisibility wears off will be addressed by this. At least, that’s how the theory goes.

Currently, when someone goes invis (even in a 1v1) and then reappears it takes time for your client to receive all the information before it loads back up. Pre-loaded models should completely remove this problem. (Again, in theory, or at least. I hope.)

Please, dash my hopes if I’m wrong.

Personally I feel they should make the classes that can stealth the priorities for loading enemies. For example, make thieves the first thing the game loads, that way when they come out of stealth, the culling doesn’t give them an advantage.

I guess this post means culling won’t be fixed. Since everyone I know including myself has a top of the line system and this has nothing to do with computer performance.

Many of us tested this extensively. A thief going in and out of stealth on a mostly empty server with NO ONE around for miles other than myself will have 2-3 seconds of extra invisibility. This thief was a buddy so we were testing this.

Habib Loew.6239:

The general consensus after the trial is that this system lead to a better player experience in WvW.

Thanks for your hard work on all this but honestly what feedback were you looking at? That change made things so much worse. I saw nothing but negative feedback.

Tests showed that enemies were loading when they were 20 feet away rather than the usual couple hundred when out in the middle of nowhere far away from groups of players. Tests were done using friends who were on other enemy servers.

I remember the December trial resulting for the majority of people to be unable to see both allies and enemies models in WvW.

I understand how the low spec models will effect low end machines, but you mentioned this will not influence the culling delay.

So what effect would these changes have server side, if anything?

EvilSardine.9635:

I guess this post means culling won’t be fixed. Since everyone I know including myself has a top of the line system and this has nothing to do with computer performance.

Many of us tested this extensively. A thief going in and out of stealth on a mostly empty server with NO ONE around for miles other than myself will have 2-3 seconds of extra invisibility. This thief was a buddy so we were testing this.

Habib Loew.6239:

The general consensus after the trial is that this system lead to a better player experience in WvW.

Thanks for your hard work on all this but honestly what feedback were you looking at? That change made things so much worse. I saw nothing but negative feedback.

Tests showed that enemies were loading when they were 20 feet away rather than the usual couple hundred when out in the middle of nowhere far away from groups of players. Tests were done using friends who were on other enemy servers.

This x1000.

Everyone hated the culling trial, please don’t revert back to that.

The bottom line is.

Will this fix the current system where portal bombing and going stealth makes you invisible?

I’m not sure what positive feedback there was during the december trial……because the culling issue during that time was easily twice as bad as it ever was!

Using WvW jumping puzzle (non external battleground) as a reference, here’s what my friends and I experienced:

((Before the December Trial + The way it is now)) – If you position yourself on the tip of the cliff, as if you’re about to jump into the waterfall, you can see enemies AND their nametags when they come in from below the entrance cavern. Summary: You can see enemies coming in advance, and it wasn’t perfect, but it worked.

((During the December Trial)) – If you positioned yourself on the tip of the cliff, as if you’re about to jump into the waterfall, you COULDN’T see enemies OR their nametags until they were literally jumping up onto the last platform where YOU are standing. Summary: You can’t see enemies coming in advance until they were RIGHT ON TOP OF YOU…it was horrible, absolutely horrible.

This culling issue was exacerbated so badly during the december trial, it was absolutely horrendous. Please do not revert back to that system!

PLEASE!

Culling trial was bad. Not only did you die to invisible players but your allies couldn’t rez you cuz they couldn’t see you. Unless the new character model loading made it ALOT better I wouldn’t reenable that crap.

I like the idea of preloaded assets, but reverting to the December version of culling worries me – I have a high end system and that week in December was the absolute worst experience i’ve ever had in WvW. Players on both enemy and ally would dissappear/reappear mid-battle, and it would happen quite often even in small scale clashes (10v10ish), and I remember reading that many others with high end systems experienced similar problems.

Was the cause of this ever found out, and will this new update include anything different to address the problem for those of us with higher end systems?

Thanks for the feedback. I think you should pioritize (is that the word) feedback to your players. We feel more confotable hearing something even if it’s a “hello i’m here still working, i haven’t forgotten you’re waiting us”

I loved lagdar, nothing like knowing your about to run head first into a zerg before clip. Gives you time to turn and run depending on how brutal the lagdar was.

Model loading is fine and all but please leave the current culling system in place! You’re experimenting with your game by enabling the previous system that everyone hated. You have an assumption that it might be a little bit better because of the model assets but YOU DON’T KNOW. These are live servers so please don’t experiment on us. Just leave the culling system in place until you have a 100% eliminate culling fix ready to roll out.

So simplify this for me. I have high end machine and high end graphics card. Does this mean I am losing performance that I otherwise would have?

The December culling trail reintroduced will be another nail in the coffin of non-zerging in the game. Let me explain.

The current culling situation (just picking arbitrary numbers here), allows say 50 models to load, be it either enemy or ally. The December system splits the cap to say 25 each side. For your standard zerg this is an improvement. They were previously using their 50 cap on themselves, so by cutting down the cap to only 25 of their allies, it allows at least 25 of the enemy to load to get a rough idea of position.

For a small group that runs around, it’s disasterous. It caps the enemy load to reserve for us (which we don’t need since there’s only 10 of us to begin with) and the results were absurd.

Now I agree, this is a better situation for the zerg, which a majority of your playerbase runs with. But for small groups, this system was and will be an absolute disaster. The culling was so bad for our group during the trial that we didn’t even play, it was pointless. Hopefully the placeholders help, but please please please test this for yourselves. This culling system made it unplayable for small groups that ran around. We would not load kitten until we were dead, meanwhile the zerg had it’s cap reserved for enemies and would instantly load us. Not only were their numbers a huge advantage, they now could kill us before even loading. And before you say it, the current system is not nearly that bad if you are not in a zerg -vs- zerg fight. Anyone who runs in a small dedicated group can vouch for this.

TLDR – The december system completely renders the game unplayable for small gank style groups.

Tiglie.5834:

The December culling trail reintroduced will be another nail in the coffin of non-zerging in the game. Let me explain.

::Snip::

So I was hoping Arena net would begin to take measures to make the game more tactical and less Zerg dependent. I don’t understand why defensive play is not encouraged more in the mechanics.

Alright well WvW is done for the non zergers. This system was ABSOLUTELY AWFUL for the small groups.

Of course it was better for the mindless zergs but come on… you have got to be kidding me. This is literally the worst decision I’ve ever seen a developer make.

Don’t fool yourself Aeneasx, it’s not the worst decision you’ve seen a developer make. Blizzard took that award already.

Habib Loew.6239:

In December we ran a one matchup trial of an updated culling system. Based on all the feedback we received, both during and after the trial, we will be transitioning to the updated culling system that we used in the trial. This update allows the culling system to handle allies and enemies separately so that being surrounded by a group of allies will not impact the culling of enemies (and vice-versa). The general consensus after the trial is that this system lead to a better player experience in WvW.

Whilst there was certainly some positive feedback for that trial the general consensus was not positive overall as the players in this thread are attesting

Indo.8629:

To start, you should fix your invis abilities. Lot of the complaining is coming from when mass groups of players are able to invis from a couple spells(or in the mesmer wall case, there is no cap to the number it can invis) and then even though the invis effect may wear off after 3 seconds, for whatever reason it takes an additional 3-5 seconds for that person to load on the enemies screen. Players are abusing it and I think most of the vocal complaining is coming from this more than anything else.

Actually the low res models fix should help alleviate this problem. Or so I would at least assume, since it seems to me that the game is having to reload the models once they go “visible” again.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Don’t fool yourself Aeneasx, it’s not the worst decision you’ve seen a developer make. Blizzard took that award already.

I don’t know, SOE with PlanetSide 2 might take the cake.

I remember taking however long off from the game when you tried out the December culling because of how bad it was. If it is anything like that I won’t continue playing. I don’t want to be forced into running with a big zerg as that seemed to be the only real way of keeping the culling somewhat bearable.

My main question is, why is the culling being reverted back to a system that they (at least from my understanding) got rid of because of across the board complaints? I thought maybe you would be improving it? I’ve literally never seen an MMO have the problems with culling that you guys threw at us back in December and apparently are about to throw back at us again permanently.

Siad.3608:

I remember taking however long off from the game when you tried out the December culling because of how bad it was. If it is anything like that I won’t continue playing. I don’t want to be forced into running with a big zerg as that seemed to be the only real way of keeping the culling somewhat bearable.

My main question is, why is the culling being reverted back to a system that they (at least from my understanding) got rid of because of across the board complaints? I thought maybe you would be improving it? I’ve literally never seen an MMO have the problems with culling that you guys threw at us back in December and apparently are about to throw back at us again permanently.

Yeah, I might stop playing as well.

Please arena net, as one of your biggest fans, do not ruin WvW. Yeah of course the majority thought it was better, because they run in huge zergs.

I have only one question.

Does Arena Net want us zerging, and only zerging in WvW? If so, then count me and a ton of other people who probably love this game, out for good.

Straegen, with very limited crowd control and AOE cap, the only way to run a small gank group is through quick positioning and extending. The culling trail completely renders this play style unplayable, as the system is reserving so much for “your” team, that the enemies will not even load. It is not currently working as an advantage to us in any sense, but the December system places a HUGE disadvantage towards this playstyle.

I am gladdened to see continued work on WvW specific issues, particularly culling which is understandably difficult to fix in a way that is not more broken.

I just want to add that I, personally, had the absolute worst culling I’ve experienced with the game during the trial run that you are reimplementing. I’m concerned to say the least.

Froze Steel.7604:

Chaba.5410:

Scarn.6810:

Mif.3471:

/hugs my SSD

:P

(Seriously, do yourself a favor and buy one)

I have one, but I installed on my large capacity disk drive. I guess I should stop being lazy and just reinstall on the SSD already.

Me too! LOL! I’m kind of afraid to uninstall and reinstall even. Don’t want to miss out on game time.

Why uninstall? Drag and drop on SSD. Create new shortcut. Play game. All I did works fine.

Oh nice. Thanks!

Habib Loew.6239:

snip

Ah this is basically what other MMOs with mass pvp did, except this seems a lot better as you can tell the class immediately (in other MMOs they only show a “shadow”).

Great stuff indeed. Thumbs up Anet.

We actually stopped playing WvW in December because roaming around in a 5 person party wasn’t possible. Single enemies weren’t loading until they were in your face.

December was the WORST for culling. Ever.

DO NOT REVERT BACK TO THIS CULLING VERSION.

EvilSardine.9635:

We actually stopped playing WvW in December because roaming around in a 5 person party wasn’t possible. Single enemies weren’t loading until they were in your face.

December was the WORST for culling. Ever.

DO NOT REVERT BACK TO THIS CULLING VERSION.

Agreed PLEASE ANET LISTEN to the community of people who are passionate about WvW but do not enjoy running in huge zergs.

Anet – your vision was to not have people run in big zergs and yet you have now addressed a problem to may encourage more people to run in zergs, have smaller groups being considered?

In the last trial we could not see our own team mates in 10 v 30 fights!! Will this kill small scale all together?

You said the feedback was positive but everyone we played with in the t1 server either had lag or some kind or problem with it, where did you gather this feedback from?

Do you really have anyone who plays wvw? Not just on casually but playing in 4 – 6 hour blocks, it just feels at times that at times you are not quite up to date with how things are in wvw

Will this address groups who now put up multiple shadow refuge and mez invis lines and run through it as they engage in fights to create culling?

vanzan.1250:

Anet – your vision was to not have people run in big zergs and yet you have now addressed a problem to may encourage more people to run in zergs, have smaller groups being considered?

It is World vs. World. Think of it in terms of nation against nation. Armies win wars, not small scouting groups (though they do help a whole lot). If smaller groups were as effective in winning WvW maps as larger ones we would see more of them. That just isn’t the case. I’m glad they are thinking of the big picture (the armies, and the majority).

Aeneasx.1589:

EvilSardine.9635:

We actually stopped playing WvW in December because roaming around in a 5 person party wasn’t possible. Single enemies weren’t loading until they were in your face.

December was the WORST for culling. Ever.

DO NOT REVERT BACK TO THIS CULLING VERSION.

Agreed PLEASE ANET LISTEN to the community of people who are passionate about WvW but do not enjoy running in huge zergs.

Love how the people opposed to fixing culling are those who main thieves. I for one wont miss those groups of 3-5 thieves roaming in constant stealth.

vanzan.1250:

Do you really have anyone who plays wvw? Not just on casually but playing in 4 – 6 hour blocks, it just feels at times that at times you are not quite up to date with how things are in wvw

Ignorant posts like this make me wonder. A dev team w/o atleast 1 person in WvW? Im sure some of us have tried to take down that figure with the “anet” tag.

Eastevil.1534:

Love how the people opposed to fixing culling are those who main thieves. I for one wont miss those groups of 3-5 thieves roaming in constant stealth.

This even worse culling method makes everyone invisible. Not just thieves. Your comment makes no sense.

Causic.3798:

It is World vs. World. Think of it in terms of nation against nation. Armies win wars, not small scouting groups (though they do help a whole lot). If smaller groups were as effective in winning WvW maps as larger ones we would see more of them. That just isn’t the case. I’m glad they are thinking of the big picture (the armies, and the majority).

No.

The December trial culling may have helped large 50+ man zergs, but it completely obliterated smaller groups or players who want to roam solo, because for the latter, it made the culling issue exceedingly worse.

Zergs can manage with the current system.

Smaller groups/solo players cannot manage with the December trial culling.

Right now, choosing either playstyle means you won’t have to deal with any significant culling issues. If the mechanics are reverted back to the december trial, then those who choose the latter playstyle are going to be at a HUGE disadvantage because the culling system when encountering a small group of enemies or a solo enemy was utterly broken.

The december trial was awful, please don’t make it permanent.

EvilSardine.9635:

Eastevil.1534:

Love how the people opposed to fixing culling are those who main thieves. I for one wont miss those groups of 3-5 thieves roaming in constant stealth.

This even worse culling method makes everyone invisible. Not just thieves. Your comment makes no sense.

Causic.3798:

It is World vs. World. Think of it in terms of nation against nation. Armies win wars, not small scouting groups (though they do help a whole lot). If smaller groups were as effective in winning WvW maps as larger ones we would see more of them. That just isn’t the case. I’m glad they are thinking of the big picture (the armies, and the majority).

No.

EDIT:
Never mind, I shouldn’t stoop to your level.
But can you explain your logic as to why you think having some enemies+some allies load is bad? Small groups can still scout, use stealth when you see an enemy.
Heck id use it if I had it if it meant that randomly appearing zergs couldn’t see me, even with the 12 second limit on it.

Causic.3798:

But can you explain your logic as to why you think having some enemies+some allies load is bad? Small groups can still scout, use stealth when you see an enemy.
Heck id use it if I had it if it meant that randomly appearing zergs couldn’t see me, even with the 12 second limit on it.

Perhaps small groups don’t want to be pigeonholed into being “scout only” duties due to the utterly broken culling system mechanics that we saw in the December trial.

No one is arguing for mechanics that destroy your ability to zerg, please don’t argue for broken culling mechanics that destroy a solo’ers/small group’s ability to function in WvW.

The December culling was horrific, and the thought of it being made permanent is revolting and will essentially further push WvW pvp into more zerging. It’s already there in huge amounts, and players can choose to do it if they wish, let’s not now revert to a system that essentially forces it.

For me and my friends, ‘affinity’ culling resulted in the following:

3 of us in the middle of no where, away from any action. We see a 3 shadows on the ground approaching us (no character models have loaded yet, no nametags). As the shadows get to about 1200 distance away, the character models finally load in, still no nametags. They proceed to run by us, not realizing that we are enemies (they must of been having the same culling issues). As they run by us, the nametag loads in, and low and behold, they’re enemies.

It was this bad. I dread the thought of this returning.

Sunreva.8714:

For me and my friends, ‘affinity’ culling resulted in the following:

3 of us in the middle of no where, away from any action. We see a 3 shadows on the ground approaching us (no character models have loaded yet, no nametags). As the shadows get to about 1200 distance away, the character models finally load in, still no nametags. They proceed to run by us, not realizing that we are enemies (they must of been having the same culling issues). As they run by us, the nametag loads in, and low and behold, they’re enemies.

It was this bad. I dread the thought of this returning.

No, what you’re seeing there is a result of asset load delay. Culling would be that nothing about the character renders until they’re on top of you because the server hasn’t told your client that they exist yet. With affinity culling, this will happen sooner, and you’re not going to have asset load time issues, so you’ll actually be seeing character models and nameplates sooner. You’re just confusing the issue.

So this confirms it. You change is not addressing culling just loading. You are making a big mistake using the affinity system and alienating a decent portion of your player base. This destroys anyone not zerging. Yes it was honestly that bad during the trial.

And then Fort Aspenwood falls 10 ranks in WvW.

“Everybody run away…. Now run back while they can’t see us”

Eastevil.1534:

vanzan.1250:

Do you really have anyone who plays wvw? Not just on casually but playing in 4 – 6 hour blocks, it just feels at times that at times you are not quite up to date with how things are in wvw

Ignorant posts like this make me wonder. A dev team w/o atleast 1 person in WvW? Im sure some of us have tried to take down that figure with the “anet” tag.

You do realize that there have been a number of instances where the developers have been totally unaware of “features” people were using in WVW when everyone who regularly played WvW knew of this? I am asking this because changes and statements made of recent have been to address problems which were issues months ago, since then the population has found new and other innovative ways to “fool” the system and cause culling, if history is anything to go by, perhaps anet is unaware how these are being used or misued by the general population and how the new round of changes may affect this.

Habib Loew.6239:

During the initial trial of affinity culling we found that a number of players reported asset loading issues that were highlighted by culling. Any time that your client is aware of another character at all (dot on the map, targetable in world, nameplate is visible, etc.) then culling is no longer a factor because that character has already been reported to your client.

So you’re saying that the issues players had with allies not rendering were due to asset loading issues not culling and that this should not be an issue with this next update?

Habib can we get an official statement on Anet’s stance in regards to guilds purposely abusing culling? I’m not talking about just portal bombs, but I’m talking stuff like using shadow refuge’s to stealth entire raids and then running right into the middle of other groups.

Literally it’s getting to the point where the competitive nature of the game is becoming more of who’s zerg can stealth + portal who the fastest.

Causic.3798:

vanzan.1250:

Anet – your vision was to not have people run in big zergs and yet you have now addressed a problem to may encourage more people to run in zergs, have smaller groups being considered?

It is World vs. World. Think of it in terms of nation against nation. Armies win wars, not small scouting groups (though they do help a whole lot). If smaller groups were as effective in winning WvW maps as larger ones we would see more of them. That just isn’t the case. I’m glad they are thinking of the big picture (the armies, and the majority).

That is not very strategic, an army is made up of many divisions and many objectives. The current army runs together in a single group, multiple “scout groups of 10-15” as you call it will win hands down every time if organised and if they covered every objective. The army and the bigger picture according on anet are smaller groups!

I am only reiterating what Colin Johanson said in his recent interview:

WvW & Zerging – what are you guys working to get people away from zerging.

- Zerg is sort of the natural gameplay that is kind of evolved – find a commander and follow it. Comfort in numbers.
- Strategically, the best strat is to split into mini zergs and constantly harassing the map.

Now to keep this on topic, I reiterate will the changes proposed still keep true to the vision put out by Colin a few weeks ago if we cannot run as small groups

The majority run in zerg format and the changes address that much. Culling wise, for the short term its a step forward. WvW isnt ment to be small groups vs the zerg, mostly they are just zerg fodder. Its supposed to be huge armies. The people roamers like to prey on are weak 1v1 often because they arent optimised for it.

Structured is where anyone with small group pvp and ‘actual’ skill should be, not complaining about culling changes for a small demographic most dont care about.

You know those T1/T2/T3 servers? They aren’t only made up of zergs. They have a large ‘zerg’ running round that map, yes, but that’s always going to be true. A LOT of the actual objective gains on the maps is done by much smaller (5-20 man) groups though. Calling WvW a total zerg-fest just shows that you don’t understand how many of us run in smaller groups.
For big objectives (like SMC, Border Keeps, Hills, Bay, and Garrison) you may well need a much larger force (although I have taken Hills with 5 people before, and Bay with fewer than 10) but for camps and towers, smaller groups are actually way more efficient most of the time.