Guild Wars 2

Map load times very long now especially in cities and even after visiting maps after patch (so not an issue of downloading new map info). SSD so not my end. Also noticeably longer load times for toons on character select screen.

Guildies also report lag spikes and high ping but not sure if connected to load times

I have noticed the same. Load times are about a double of what they were before patch.

yeah i agree, they seem to take twice as long to load now

Got the same issue. Posted the same on reddit too.

Copy-paste:

Streaming is definitely causing longer loading screens. Weird, since I have been playing for some hours now. They probably have changed something when it went out of beta, since I had it always enabled and had no issues before this patch.

That said, I do have longer loading screens now. For some reason in HotM the AgentCharactersToLoad is very slow, it drops with 1 every 0.5-1 seconds, while it has to load 20+! Every time I came out of a match I had a loading screen for 40+ seconds instead of the normal 10-15. Screenshot.

Other maps that are very populated also have a terribly long loading screen now. There’s a reason I’ve installed GW2 on my SSD

Up. Getting it too. come on anet kitten stream!

Yeah the new load times are ridiculous, it literally just took me 1 min to load into LA. My usual time is about 10 seconds. Is there a way to turn off streaming to return load times to pre-patch?

Yeah it certainly feels much slower. Here’s example of going to SW and to Lion’s Arch and then to PVP/back:

SilverWastes:

Lion’s Arch:

p.s. and then I switch tune and loading into pvp takes a minute
Something is seriously broken with this streaming stuff

Mark Katzbach.9084:

• The Streaming Client feature is always on and no longer requires use of the -StreamingClient flag.

Forced streaming? Really? I mean… really?!? Didn’t NPE crap teach you anything? Forcing things and/or taking choices away from users is the worse and stupid path to follow.

Ok back to facts: it seems this streaming thing is causing some issues. I haven’t even tested map loading times yet but I already experienced some issues right at Character Selection screen. At first I got surprised that my FPS at that screen incredibly rose (usually I would get 30 or 40ish but got above 50 after patch) but then got annoyed by the stupid loading times. After launcher my screen stayed white for about 1 min (usually it was 15 secs and I play in Windowed mode), then Character Screen showed up but background stayed black with no character models for more than 30 secs. Worse of all is whenever I clicked or chose any option (opening Options, changing characters, etc…) my screen would freeze for 2 to 4 secs! Just to note, it was still downloading patch at that moment.

Thing is: give choices back to users! Stop forcing users to use it as you think they should use. Make the streaming thing optional unless it gets 99.9999% flawless and even so I would still prefer it to stay optional. Not everyone has a great connection and some could prefer downloading everything at once and not bother with it while playing than downloading in parts while playing. Better waiting and playing a stable game than being able to start it quickly but having to stumble across freezes or long loading times.

Edit: Ok scratch that, it seems the issue only occurs when it is still downloading the patch. Later yesterday I tried to play and it already was with patch fully downloaded, I had no issues and everything seemed to be normal. Anyhow, I still stand by what I said, always give users choices (like this thread couldn’t even exist if users had the option to turn off streaming).

On my laptop, load times were the shortest they’ve even been (without having changed options). On my desktop, there were longer, maybe 20-40%. Didn’t change anything else about the settings or how I connect.

Loading times are much longer for me too after the patch. I waited until the whole patch was downloaded before I started the game. With a 40 Mbit/s connection 72 MB is downloaded in 15 seconds so no reason to not wait. It would be silly if the streaming client makes loading times much longer when there isn’t anything to download/stream. I really hope this is a temporary issue.

Yes. The most I had was 15-20 sec, usually 5-10 sec, since I upgraded to an SSD and now most of the time is 30-50 sec.

Yeah it really does not seem like a good change if saving couple of minutes when patching the game comes at a cost of having double loading times all the time.

It feels like I don’t have an SSD, doubled load times.. Something is definitely broken Anet pls

Same issue. Few others posted here about it also> https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Experiencing-High-Ping-Spikes-Since-Update

Rose Solane.1027:

Loading times are much longer for me too after the patch. I waited until the whole patch was downloaded before I started the game. With a 40 Mbit/s connection 72 MB is downloaded in 15 seconds so no reason to not wait. It would be silly if the streaming client makes loading times much longer when there isn’t anything to download/stream. I really hope this is a temporary issue.

This morning (it is 9:45 here atm) loading times were much better. Maybe the second patch last night solved something (for me at least).

I read a theory that with the new streaming client a map that you load for the first time (since the patch) will take longer to load but that from the second time it will be fast again. Although I understand the reasoning behind that theory it isn’t what I experienced. I am pretty sure I did not visit Kessex Hills last night but loading that map today was as fast as it used to be before the patch.

Rose Solane.1027:

I read a theory that with the new streaming client a map that you load for the first time (since the patch) will take longer to load but that from the second time it will be fast again. Although I understand the reasoning behind that theory it isn’t what I experienced. I am pretty sure I did not visit Kessex Hills last night but loading that map today was as fast as it used to be before the patch.

This was not the case on my end last night, I was converting some karma to linen last night which requires a lot of mapping and I was getting constant 25-30s waits to map LA post-patch, compared to 10s waits pre-patch

Just did some testing in SW. Loading time near the Priory Historian ~30 secs.
Loading times on the same map (same ip) at Camp Resolve wp and Hidden Depths wp ~15 secs. Tested with 2 chars.

Same story in LA. Loading time when going through HotM/WvW ~35 secs, at waypoints usual ~15 secs.

The last few percents of the map take more than 10 secs to load, you can see it if you use -maploadinfo.
When MapLoadCompletion reaches 97%, “streaming est” in brackets next to it starts to go from 0% to 100% and the map won’t load until it reaches 100%.

When taxiing to another instance while standing on the “slow” spot it takes no more than few seconds.

Repairing the game does not help.

Long load times … patch or no patch …

What i have noticed is also that it now tooks very long until the character select screen
has loaded when you logout. First its a black background and also the faces of my
char load very slow when i scroll through them (i have 18 chars). So i have always
to wait quite some seconds until i can select the correct character.

Experiencing this too. Loading LA gone from 10 to 25-30 sec

Same issue, and I’d also like to point out that trying to use makeover kits causes the same problem with Beldin has with character selection: options take forever to load and scroll through, making it slow and annoying to try to look through choices. Please fix ASAP.

Yup long load times, compared to pre-patch.

Running a fast SSD and overclocked I7, maps always loaded in 4-5 seconds.

Now map loading can take 20+ seconds. Really annoying when map jumping in WvW.

Since the latest update I have found that map load times are noticeably longer and sometimes frustratingly long (Lion’s Arch, I’m looking especially at you).

There have been no other changes to my system, setup or connection speed (across any devices or programmes), and so I can only conclude that they changed something in the patch that has caused this issue.

Anyone else experiencing a similar problem?

Cheers
~TG

Yes, I also noticed this. I particularly noticed it with Divinity’s Reach. Seems something changed to slow loading down. Nothing on my system has changed either.

I noticed this as well, particularly in Lion’s Arch. I run the game on an SSD, so the difference seemed to be fairly significant even if it’s only a matter of a few extra seconds.

Yep. I’ve found the game loads the UI in bits too. The last patch changed something. And in my opinion, not for the better.

Yep. After the streaming update I consistently have longer loading times when changing maps, even when going back to a map that I recently visited (I thought there were som caching involved?).

Even though it’s only a few seconds it’s still very annoying. Especially when trying to catch an event.

everything loads slow now.
character selection screen
map loading is more then doubled.
UI of all elements in the mainscreen is slow and dialog boxes.
characters load very slow.
mobs load slower.
and sounds that come 2 to 4 seconds later or not at all or loads get muted.
skills are slow responding (lagging up to 3 seconds)

I had to stop play and logged out.
hope a fix will come soon.

This is good news and bad news. First of all, I’m glad I’m not the only one..that’s the good news. The bad news is….This is so slow now, and I’m running i7 quad core computer. WTH? What’s wrong with this patch? Please fix it quickly, Anet….its heartbreaking!

Wow… ok, so at least it’s not just me then. Thanks for the replies.

I mean, it’s not crippling or anything, it’s just annoying when I’m so used to things being faster. I have had a couple of very long loads, though. Oh well, perhaps they’ll optimise things a bit better over the next fews days.

~TG

Are you guys still seeing this? Looks like LA is loading in 3 seconds again

same here. thought it was just a random thing…
pls fix, anet.

Still seeing it here. Second patch changed nothing, long load times on some maps and very long load for toons on character select screen.

I thought it was just me, considering that I’m playing on a laptop.
Before it was loading normally, as I would call it. Sure sometimes a little slower, but never every time.

Ive noticed loading times increase little by little from beta with each patch.
Now its to the point of being ridiculous.

Same here, loading got incredibly slow.

I notice a huge increase in loading times as well after the patch. I use SSD as well and my load times for every map has at least doubled if not tripled.

I used -maploadinfo on my shortcut and monitored the loading screens.

1 min to get into DR. I went out into Queensdale and back in. 1 min + again.

The map shows that it is STREAMING client models on every map load.

Everytime.

I have a fully patched client. Why is it streaming character models on every load? Even if it needed them the first time – reloading the map they should be saved on disc.

This makes no sense.

I posted this in the tech support thread on the topic.

“I used -maploadinfo on my shortcut and monitored the loading screens.
1 min to get into DR. I went out into Queensdale and back in. 1 min + again.
The map shows that it is STREAMING client models on every map load.
Everytime.
I have a fully patched client. Why is it streaming character models on every load? Even if it needed them the first time – reloading the map they should be saved on disc.
This makes no sense.”

I have the same issue. Maps are taking longer to load than usual.

So THAT’S why the character models are all appearing standard for so long after a zone-in, the kitten streaming client is loading them all so slowly. Is there a way to disable this or something?

Same here…./15 char

Around 20s to load LA on a non-SSD … seems okay here.

mcwurth.2081:

everything loads slow now.
character selection screen

Yeah .. the character screen really annoys me, since i have 18 characters and it
takes very long now until all the faces are shown

I have a Solid State Drive and the load-screen times have become “unacceptable” with the last patch.

I’m using SSD too and the load times are at least 2 times longer since last patch.

Pretty sure the first time GW2 loads (when first started) your SSD is not going to make much of a difference. Now loading zones after the first load (and certainly reloading into a zone you have been in during the same session) an SSD would give better load times.

If it does have something to do with the streaming change, I would think starting the game once with -repair option should make sure your GW2.DAT file is fully updated (not streaming when loading into a zone) and has no corruptions.

An SSD disk makes a huge difference, from the first start as well as on subsequent map loads. I copied the game from the ssd to my hard disk and started from there – this adds approx. 30 seconds to each map loading time.

But even with an SSD, loading times got longer and longer over the lifetime of the game. As far as I remember, in 2012/2013, I loaded Lion’s Arch in 10-15 seconds. Nowadays, it is about 30 seconds. I always used -maploadinfo.

Fellow guild members with not so fast laptops and no SSD have loading times up to and sometimes over 1 minute. If someone with such a hardware has a disconnect in the fractals, we have to wait about 3-4 minutes until he is back in. With my desktop, I’m back in under 1 minute.

Jon Olson.8439:

TechnoBill.5198:

The map shows that it is STREAMING client models on every map load.

To clear up some confusion: unless one is seeing things in the Jit Queue, it’s streaming (loading) from disk, not the server.

We’re investigating map loading times.

Thank you for investigating it. I know nothing changed with my i7 4790k, my 16 gbs of ram, or my Samsung 250gb 850 evo ssd. The only thing that changed was the patch. Now I load heart of the mists in 52 seconds instead of 10, and lions arch in 33 seconds instead of 12.