Guild Wars 2

Hi guys,
I made this post to see your mind about the new culling system in WvWvW…

For my part, I seriously see it as a good way to ruin fights and break players fun…

This is really annoying when your team is defending a tower(for example), fighting at your best and you see only around 5-10 opponents attacking in close range the gate(you have some doubt, it’s breaking too fast). But oh! surprise, suddenly there’s now a 50 mans appearing in medium range…

This situation is an example of why I think WvWvW is seriously needing a new system that would make it disapear…

Sadly as far as I heard, there’s a lot of people who doesn’t go to WvWvW because they don’t like to be stomped by 50 opponents when we see only 5-10…

Hope you guys will give your thoughs about this…

I’m sure Anet works hard to fix this, but time’s going fast and as me, more and more players aren’t going in WvWvW anymore… Personally I’m stopping right now, I’ve been too much having bad experience with culling…

My though: Zerging is for the noobs, small group fights are for the best ones!

Yeah we died at least 6-7 times tonight simply because we engaged what we thought were even numbered enemies and once culling kicked in it was 3 to 1.

Its worst now i barley see anyone and before i saw actually quite good now peeps standing next to me flicker in and out. Anet let our machines and connections deal with it… let us at least have some setting to tune this up this is ridicules…

I have to agree that I experienced a lot more culling today than usual. Actually, I rarely ever experienced culling prior to the update, but now I’m seeing it in groups less than 30. Even in SM after reset, culling never really bothered me to the extent it is now is groups a 4th that size.

Honestly, I kind of thought peoples complaints were exaggerated till this update and now I see big time what everyone was talking about. I never really have any idea how many people I’m GOING TO BE fighting at this point.

I must be missing something in this issue because I really had no problems with it till the update which was supposed to fix whatever problem was apparently common. I have (very happily) reached a point in my life where I can afford an overpowered desktop and a very fast internet connection so maybe that is what saved me to begin with? I hope there is some real hack or fix for this soon though because WvW is what most of my friends and I play GW2 for and this is def taking away from the enjoyment level.

Thanks to all of you guys confirming that I’m not gone crazy recently.

Let’s pray Anet will hear our despair and return(again) to the original system…

MaximeP.7524:

Thanks to all of you guys confirming that I’m not gone crazy recently.

Let’s pray Anet will hear our despair and return(again) to the original system…

They heard our complaints and concerns about the trial in December and their decision to use that culling system now. I’m thinking they don’t care.

I swear its been getting worse every day. Now its also culling allies and more importantly party members and commanders.

Anyone notice that before they load competely you see a generic green sprite type model now? Idk if this is just a test or what but please undo this latest change. Its almost unplayable now.

Oozo.7856:

MaximeP.7524:

Thanks to all of you guys confirming that I’m not gone crazy recently.

Let’s pray Anet will hear our despair and return(again) to the original system…

They heard our complaints and concerns about the trial in December and their decision to use that culling system now. I’m thinking they don’t care.

or maybe it’s an overall improvement, despite the issues some are having with it??

It is completely ridiculous now. Lineage2 5 years ago was crisper than this mess.

I think they made a similar mistake that swtor made by using a very restricting engine. I mean its basically just a revamped guildwars 1 engine right? Obviously wasnt designed with the idea of having hundreds of players in one area at a time. Not much they can do to remedy that now though short of further reducing the number of players aloud in WvW. Which causes other problems since people are already complaining that queue timers are way too long. Hopefully they come up with a better solution soon. This really does kinda ruin larger fights. Hell even small group fights occasionally. pretty much anytime theres more than 10 people in the area i run into culling.

Been an issue for a long time now since a month or two into release. Architecturally this will take them awhile to fix. If you want to play a real WvW game go with Planetside 2 (apparently also has infantry culling issues, but vehicles are fine), and ESO may well do this right.

Its not just you

The latest patch is downright awful…Stuff is getting culled that shouldn’t be…

Multiple times tonight I had a guy just appear beating on me, and i’m not talking about Thieves…

Multiple times me and my friend would be fighting and instantly a group of people would appear on top of us…the Culling is just awful…

Oozo.7856:

MaximeP.7524:

Thanks to all of you guys confirming that I’m not gone crazy recently.

Let’s pray Anet will hear our despair and return(again) to the original system…

They heard our complaints and concerns about the trial in December and their decision to use that culling system now. I’m thinking they don’t care.

They said this a first part of the culling fix not the full fix to culling the next I’m guessing major part of culling is suppose to be in the next update

Xsorus.2507:

Its not just you

The latest patch is downright awful…Stuff is getting culled that shouldn’t be…

Multiple times tonight I had a guy just appear beating on me, and i’m not talking about Thieves…

Multiple times me and my friend would be fighting and instantly a group of people would appear on top of us…the Culling is just awful…

Ive noticed this too. Even in small group skirmishes people that are literally right next to me will just vanish. The first few times it happened I thought maybe they just have a mesmer using mass invisibility or something. But thats most definitely NOT the case. Please aNet revert this latest culling update. This is NOT an improvement.

The previous culling is bad, with the update (so said improvement….) IT’S WORSE! Ballistics are basically useless, because the target appears and you target it, then ‘poof’ they are gone without stealth.

How do they think that making a PVP game where you CAN’T see your opponent, much less a full ZERG of them… is a good product?

It hasn’t gotten any better at all. It might very well be worse.

I think it’s easily the most disappointing part of this game.

Yeah, kinda sucks for all ranged ppl, you must attack an empty zone in your screen and pray so someone is in there. Else, you used a skill to kill the air!

Yes it’s terrible.

The character model rendering problem now happens even if it’s one or two people. Now it happens depending on distance. Like, 5 or more meters away from one’s character.

Also, this character model rendering problem happens not only in wvw but also in pve areas.

At least with the old system you knew what to expect running into enemies and anticipate on it. With this new system there’s no way to predict when culling is happening.
It’s all nice from ANet to try and make it playable for minimum specs that 99% don’t even use anymore, but it’s at the cost of those 99% who own decent pc’s.
Last night for example… 3 servers with roughly 30-40 players in SM in the lords room.
The only way of telling which server was about to get it was the color of the ring.
The whole fight (about 20-30 mins) you saw groups appearing and disappearing.

At some point me and a friend chased 2 enemies.. and all of a sudden we were both downed. Then the rendering started to show 10-15 enemies on top of us.

This is getting ridiculous and brings more frustration then fun to the game.

Yes, the odd thing is this excessive culling is happening in PvE too.

I’ve had players suddenly appear 10 feet from my character even in moments when there wasn’t much going on.

I don’t understand how ANet can keep kittening up with culling.

Culling kicks in again as before. Also some strange laggy things occur more often as before. for example hitting one and misses all the time while suddenly he disapear to pop up somewhere else (necromancer in my case). Or getting hit while out of combat you just left before. So no they say 2013 will improve! It is at this moment the other way around. Am playing only WvW atm. Think that i will try something else and look in a half year again what’s improved….

Agreed, playing as a D/D ele last night I dived into a ‘small’ mob of enemies taking a supply camp.. turned out it was 20+ enemies balled up -_-

It’s getting worse,like,painfully worse.Running into invisible zergs is no fun anymore anet…This really needs to be top priority above else,its a game breaking mechanism and its getting worse and worse.Now even Pve gets affected by it.

I don’t know how and I don’t know why, but my WvW culling issue has been noticeably worse (a lot worse) since the patch:

Prior I’d start rendering maybe 75% of the enemy approaching at a medium distance.

Currently I only start to see them at at a very much shorter distance from my character and maybe 80-85% of them.

I don’t think this was intentional as prior warning is part of what the new culling protocol was supposed to address.

I am using a mid to high quality rig. It’s definitely not high or ultra, but it plays most games beautifully and used to handle everything quite well. I’m hearing a lot of complaints out there in the field, as well.

Just an FYI, Anet.— S.

Alex.9268:

It is completely ridiculous now. Lineage2 5 years ago was crisper than this mess.

Sad, but true. :<

The new culling is worse then it was before for sure. Now huge groups just show up right in front of you, its a stealth for zerg’s. I dont know how many times i was running around and then get hit by a 15 man zerg with 10 feet of notice.They need to fix or put back the way it was.

Alex.9268:

It is completely ridiculous now. Lineage2 5 years ago was crisper than this mess.

By 5 years ago, you mean 9 years ago… D=

The culling now is like this. My hero can’t see three meters away from her. >.< it’s like, I better press 1 no matter where I go. Haha

That’s nothing. I recently experienced culling in the open world outside WvWvW on one of my low level characters in the starter zone where the population is expectedly low and shouldn’t have been affected by culling.

This is pathetic. Worst game engine ever.

Constantly, 1 person is turning into 5 or more. No one can pvp properly like this.

1:21, the new culling effect! It’s magic!

If you guys come down to tier 8 culling magically gets fixed. Come on, you know you want to.
But on a serious note, I have never really seen culling until this patch. There were some moments were culling hit me but never to this extent.

I do thing that it’s gotten worse since the last patch. Not fun being wipped by invisible opponents, not fun wiping opponents that don’t fight back because they can’t see us :/

The current issue with culling isn’t worse. It’s a LOT better.
And I’ll gladly explain to you why:

Previously there was a set number of players that could appear on your screen. This set of numbers included both allies AND enemies; meaning that if you were in a large group of allies, you’d be facing more invisible enemies unless you suddenly moved too far into the enemy zerg. This was annoying as you couldn’t even see the enemy.

What we now have is that there is still a set numbers of players that can be visible on your screen; however enemies and allies now each have a seperate pool. This effectively means that regardless of how many allies are around you, it won’t interfere with how you perceive your enemy (either temp char model, actual char model or invisible during large zergs)

This means that although you won’t see their entire zerg, or your own.. You’ll at least be able to tell you’re running into a group of enemies. Allies can easily be recognized on the minimap; both alive, and dead ones. The only issue right now is; how big is that enemy zerg really?

Yes that is still a significant piece of information. But at least now you’re not running in like a blind chicken anymore. You’ll actually be able to see SOME enemies. Whether or not you’re willing to stay and fight is now fully up to you – Are you willing to risk there being a partially zerg? Or will you try to think something through before running in like a headless chicken?

AprilRain.7649:

bla

Sorry but we still run into groups that we didn’t see at all before.

On top of that we can’t have someone lead without a commander tag because they can get culled randomly, people disappear and pop up randomly, small scale culling seems messed up, …

If you call this a step forward I don’t want to know what you consider a step backward.

The new fix is garbage. It makes it a real pain to roam or small now, as you never know if you’re attacking 1, 2, or 50.

Explain to me how a 5 man can be taking a camp and not see a single person for a 50 man zerg that ran us over until they were in the middle of us? No it isn’t better, not even remotely close. Even worse, it is completely unpredictable with how it works. At least before you could count on it working a certain way, not it is just kittened.

Also, running with a small group of less than 10 taking camps… open field, nobody around us, and people blink in and out of view due to culling.

Yeah, not better.

I agree. The culling is terrible. Makes it very hard to fight when you move to an area (not rush into it) where you see a few enemy players and boom you are surrounded and get wiped fast. As a Ranger my own play style tends towards support and picking my targets, as I am not a great (or even good..I admit) 1V1 or 1V3 PVPer and not playing a melee toon. Due to the worsened culling after this patch my own play style is extremely challenged. Not a lot of fun. I’ve been insta wiped more time this week than ever before.

All in all not a great week for GW2 WvW in my opinion. Hope they get these worsening issues worked out soon as I think a lot of people are losing patience.

AprilRain.7649:

The current issue with culling isn’t worse. It’s a LOT better.
And I’ll gladly explain to you why:

Previously there was a set number of players that could appear on your screen. This set of numbers included both allies AND enemies; meaning that if you were in a large group of allies, you’d be facing more invisible enemies unless you suddenly moved too far into the enemy zerg. This was annoying as you couldn’t even see the enemy.

What we now have is that there is still a set numbers of players that can be visible on your screen; however enemies and allies now each have a seperate pool. This effectively means that regardless of how many allies are around you, it won’t interfere with how you perceive your enemy (either temp char model, actual char model or invisible during large zergs)

This means that although you won’t see their entire zerg, or your own.. You’ll at least be able to tell you’re running into a group of enemies. Allies can easily be recognized on the minimap; both alive, and dead ones. The only issue right now is; how big is that enemy zerg really?

Yes that is still a significant piece of information. But at least now you’re not running in like a blind chicken anymore. You’ll actually be able to see SOME enemies. Whether or not you’re willing to stay and fight is now fully up to you – Are you willing to risk there being a partially zerg? Or will you try to think something through before running in like a headless chicken?

That’s not what I’m seeing.

What I’m experiencing is a mess. I can’t reliably see the enemy, I can’t reliably see my own side.

While I’m moving people are randomly flickering in and out and I still get run over regularly by large groups of enemies that all just pop up out of nowhere at once.

I feel like I’m playing Ghost Wars where ghosts on both side just keep flickering in and out the whole time.

AprilRain.7649:

The current issue with culling isn’t worse. It’s a LOT better.
And I’ll gladly explain to you why:

Previously there was a set number of players that could appear on your screen. This set of numbers included both allies AND enemies; meaning that if you were in a large group of allies, you’d be facing more invisible enemies unless you suddenly moved too far into the enemy zerg. This was annoying as you couldn’t even see the enemy.

What we now have is that there is still a set numbers of players that can be visible on your screen; however enemies and allies now each have a seperate pool. This effectively means that regardless of how many allies are around you, it won’t interfere with how you perceive your enemy (either temp char model, actual char model or invisible during large zergs)

This means that although you won’t see their entire zerg, or your own.. You’ll at least be able to tell you’re running into a group of enemies. Allies can easily be recognized on the minimap; both alive, and dead ones. The only issue right now is; how big is that enemy zerg really?

Yes that is still a significant piece of information. But at least now you’re not running in like a blind chicken anymore. You’ll actually be able to see SOME enemies. Whether or not you’re willing to stay and fight is now fully up to you – Are you willing to risk there being a partially zerg? Or will you try to think something through before running in like a headless chicken?

This is not the case, culling is way worse. Before I at least knew what to expect, I never was dead for 1 minute before I even saw who killed me. Now on numerous occasions we will be fighting 3-4 and suddenly dead, I wonder how these 3 killed us so fast and look around after I am dead only to see enemies appearing a couple at a time for the next minute until there are 50+ on the screen and all I see are blue dead icons everywhere and evryone in chat/mumble saying wtflol.

We started trying to be more weary and wait to see if there are more than we think before running in, we a8 a few minutes trying to guage and we are dead before we have a chance to see who is there. This is just tkittened. NEVER had this problem before this week.

I think I`ve figured out a way around this abysmal culling.
It isn`t 100%, but works a hell of a lot better then we are having to tolerate right now & seeing as Arenanet have decided (as usual) to say absolutely sod all, give this a shot.

First: enter WvWs.
Second: bind your walk key to something handy (possibly tab considering how awful the targeting in this game is ;p)
Third: Roleplay walk around the map all of the time.
This should, in theory, give their hamster enough time to get upto speed in the server wheel & send the data rushing at us like it should.

I hope this isn`t considered as an exploit, but who knows these days…

It is sad that anet tested the culling system in december and it failed and had to be reverted. What is more sad is that they took that same culling system, rolled it out a second time, and expected a different result.

Got to agree with this I’m losing my enthusiasm these days, everyday I see people complaining when they lose a ‘battle’ especially against a big group that also use mass stealth, not just because of the recent culling update.
I end up having to mash every button especially tab but the only problem is I end up targeting their pets instead, not too different to whack-a-mole perhaps. :p

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

Got to agree with this I’m losing my enthusiasm these days, everyday I see people complaining when they lose a ‘battle’ especially against a big group that also use mass stealth, not just because of the recent culling update.
I end up having to mash every button especially tab but the only problem is I end up targeting their pets instead, not too different to whack-a-mole perhaps. :p

Already lost the enthusiasm. Took the weekend off for the most part. Have no desire to play with this horrible issue. Probably will be gone for good if it continues this week. Plenty of other things I can do with my time.

Relentliss.2170:

This is pathetic. Worst game engine ever.

Constantly, 1 person is turning into 5 or more. No one can pvp properly like this.

To the several posts like this.

Culling was intentionally added by Anet. It is not a fault of the Engine.

Culling is basically the game only rendering what is important to your character. This allows for computers that should not be able to handle a large battle, be it PvE or PvP, to be able to tolerate it. Anet has a certain performance bar that they will not cross, which means fixing culling will be hard, since it is there to make performance better. They have to remove the concept that keeps performance tolerable in large battles, without lessening performance.

But as great of an idea as it was. It just doesn’t work in WvW in it’s current state. We need to see everything, as soon as possible.

The last update seemed as if it made allies less priority than enemies. That would explain why many report seeing more ally culling now and less enemy culling.

The sad truth is that enemy culling is happening just as much. Not only that, it is far less predictable. We were in a 5 man last night and got ran over by a zerg of 30 or so at a supply camp that none of us saw at range. They were culled all the way until they were standing on top of us.

Gisei.5749:

Culling is basically the game only rendering what is important to your character. This allows for computers that should not be able to handle a large battle, be it PvE or PvP, to be able to tolerate it. Anet has a certain performance bar that they will not cross, which means fixing culling will be hard, since it is there to make performance better. They have to remove the concept that keeps performance tolerable in large battles, without lessening performance.

But as great of an idea as it was. It just doesn’t work in WvW in it’s current state. We need to see everything, as soon as possible.

It’s actually a pretty horribad idea compared to the dozen MMORPGs that have come before where the player can set culling scalers on their client to adjust their own performance to whatever they deem acceptable.

I remember back in DAOC where I would get 1 frame every 2 seconds (0.5 FPS) with 500 players within view distance, but at least I could see everything.

I’m guessing this is more related to ANet’s network / bandwidth constraints.

They or they’re really sticking to their guns on really asinine client performance goals.

the culling “fix” sucks…hard. makes me not even look forward to WvW anymore.