Location: Poznan, Poland
Time: 13:20-13:55 GMT+2 on 24.09.2014
World: Piken Square
Brief description:
Today during Tequatl (Sparkfly Fen) people on the server experienced severe latency issues. It started as a very noticeable skill lag (~5 seconds to use skill, had to spam the button for it to go through). When Tequatl spawned it took around 20 seconds more than usual for the encounter to begin at all. During phase one casting anything took at least 30 seconds. Tequatl attacks had a severe delay (ex. fingers spawning way after the animation finished). After progressing to the defence phase Tequatl remained in position for some time before flying away. The defence phase event timer was desynchronised with the actual event. Defence events have finished over a minute after the timer has reached zero. There was a severe delay with event mechanics (especially mobs spawns). After landing Tequatl took a significant amount of time before going into stun phase and remained idle after the stun phase finished.The rest of the encounter continued in the same manner on each defence and stun phase.
That’s the thing. It’s not about culling rules that work with skins etc. That comes in when there are too many things in a small area around you that need to be rendered. It’s about server having to calculate movement for up to 150 miniatures at the same time as it calculates it for every NPC and mob on the map (alongside other calculations). When the message about miniature limit shows up it’s not a matter of showing the mini on your PC. It’s the matter of server having to calculate what the mini does. What every mini on the map does in that moment. It requires extra server resources. For the server it doesn’t matter how sparkly the character is. It has to process information about every player regardless of the fact that you might not see them at all. Most of the time it won’t matter but if there are a lot of (as in almost every player on the map having like 2 of them) player summons for example you might experience mob AI just stopping and not doing anything. That happened a few times.
They have turned the limit very, very low playing it on the safe side (even too safe perhaps). They will turn it up – quite a lot probably, when they see what number of minis works safely on each particular map. Probably very Soon™
Again emphasis on that one thing: It’s not about your computer performance. It’s mostly about the performance of the server
That sounds like it could be the case, but I find it hard to believe that LA at peak times on patch day with commander icons crowded all sides of the mini map had less models that needed to load than a copy of Gendarren Fields where all the meta events had gone to their worst extreme (meaning all the preceeding events had failed) and only 1 person answered when I asked if anyone else was on the map.
It’s completely unconnected with the number of models. Normal culling takes into account models near you. The server doesn’t care about the models or animations aside from just hit boxes and maybe some other info. On the whole map there might be more NPC/mobs/minis in total than there is in the city. They might have assigned the numbers manually at a very low number (at like a dozen) for a start. They might look at it now and increase the limit every couple hours…. who knows. They just treated Cities a lot more lenient than they did combat areas. WvW maps might have more resources available and they set the limit there to be higher as well.
Not really a bug. The limiting of miniatures is connected with server resources. The regular culling setting in your client is a separate unrelated matter.
As servers have to calculate the movement of all minis on the map they might need to sometimes limit their numbers so that they don’t exceed resources available for a map instance. As minis are more convenient to use now a lot of people will start having them out permanently. That’s up to 150 minis that need their behaviour/movement calculated. Possibly (just hypothesizing) the “spots” available for minis on the map might be connected with number of other NPC/mobs that there are on the same map. Cities don’t have mobs. WvW maps have greater population limit in general.
They have set the limit right now to be quite low and they will slowly increase that when they get more data on the impact a certain number of minis will have on the server in live environment.
Culling connected with personal game settings is a separate manner and that works in a way similar to player model culling .
This covers most of the concerns I have about the Megaserver system. It’s a great concept but there are many problems with it for organized communities.
As guilds like that don’t really build up the upgrades normally needed only for guild missions it will take a lot of time to even get to the point where we can produce the ‘boss summoning’ consumable. As we are spread across the servers and the bosses are often the only time when people represent it will take ages to gain enough influence. Merging guild upgrades between servers would surely help a bit. Even skipping the influence cost – let’s say we buy it with gold, it would take months of farming merits and actually building the upgrades (it takes a week for some unlocks unless you are willing to put in even more influence to speed it up) before we are able to spawn bosses. Not to mention the actual cost and build time of a single summoning consumable is yet unknown – it’s possible that cost-wise a guild can only spawn a few bosses a week or one a day.
That potentially means that there will have to be a stop to doing world bosses regularly until we are able to build up to those consumables or fit into the already decided timetable leaving only one reasonable time to do world bosses for most EU players.
The need to find an empty map is another big issue. Even bigger than the previous one in the long run although that will only go into play after the Megaserver system reaches the maps where the world bosses are located. We rely on the ability to find an empty enough map to fit all the members into. For now it will be a bit harder as all of the server runs will be held at the same time making it hard to find an empty map. After the Megaserver hits it will be almost impossible close to peak hours as there won’t be empty maps. New maps will be created when the previous ones are filled and everybody joining in to the map will probably get to the same one as the guilds are trying to fill. Even if we eventually get all our people in and fill the map, if someone will DC it’s very likely that the system will place some random person joining into the map into their spot making it impossible for them to join back in. I won’t even touch on the issues that someone standing in the wrong spot or not listening to the commanders can cause on a run.
Killing the world bosses as a part of this community is one of the greatest experiences I have in the game. The problems that were brought up might greatly complicate regularly participating in them.
I’m having the same problem. I can log in on my alts just fine (didn’t try moving them to Gendarran). If I’m guesting I seem to be able to get in just fine. Only Piken is a problem. I even tried moving my main to another map while guesting and relogging there but I still get the same error out of Gendarran.
[EDIT] Managed to get in twice in a row on my main now. Anyone else had this kind of success?
For me:
I stayed the whole time at the location, succeeding in every defence phase (only shield events at the spots). I got the credit when we are told to leave.
My particular favorite is the female Charr in Ascalon who talks in passing about how her female lover was killed.
Another example of this is a female asura named Exiffa (located in Rata Sum, near Moto) that mentions her relationship with her female partner but only if the player character is an asura. I don’t really know why but it’s one of my favourite NPCs.
I wonder what other characters like that are there ingame…
Perhaps it would be better if most of the marjory/kasmeer tear jerkers and home making stuff was something you pursued on your own rather than a direct part of story line. Part of why it feels odd, is that it is odd, that they show all these personal moments in front of anyone who is around, without any type of asking or anything.
Whens the last time you had a tear filled moment recounting your biggest fears with your signifigant other in front of 2 friends and a business aquaintence. We should be getting normal clues and hints that people would have in a regular conversation. More info should be given only if we somehow become close to these charachters, or we eavesdrop, or the player learns it while our charachters are not around.
I really enjoy (understatement) Kasmeer and Marjory and I don’t see it as forced or out of a blue. I am though, inclined to partially agree with that. Not only in relation to relationships but any character development – it would be really great if some parts of character progression were left as optional to discover if you revisit locations and talk to NPC, witness additional dialogue or read a diary/report/etc located somewhere as some things would often not be touched upon in a normal, public conversation. It would also encourage people to go looking for lore a bit more.
It was weird seeing Rox refer to Marjory and Kasmeer as a mating pair. I would have expected a charr to have a more nature-channel approach to mates, as in, mating is a reproductive thing not a life partner thing (I probably don’t understand charr that well). If this theme keeps popping up on the forums (it’s made worse by the red posts), can you imagine what would happen if Marjory and Kasmeer adopted the orphaned Taimi?
Charr probably do not practice marriages and simply refer to all their relationships as “mating pairs”. It’s just the term that comes natural to her as a description of a couple.
Sucks I had to skip this one. Anyway, great job!!!
What makes me worried though, why such talented people as these posters above from Desolation have killed wurm only two times yet? Really, you guys can obviously play with closed eyes with many unexperienced pugs running around trying to level up and still kill it without trying. How comes only 2 kills yet?
You got something very wrong, “kill it without trying”. Killing the wurm is still a huge effort, one most want a break from once it’s finally dead. Even more so once they figure out the loot is not proportional to the effort. Then of course you have PUGs that swarm a server/guild like buzzards when a kill is even mentioned, this is the same reason TxS needed an overflow. They can completely ruin an attempt by not watching DPS or not doing the mechanics of the fight at all. Then finally you have the bug factor, which can render an attempt useless and the RNG on head flopping(unless I missed a hidden mechanic behind that) that can really hurt DPS.
Main reason that Deso has killed it twice is that they are highly organized community (despite the pugs – most want to do it and they listen; in both cases it is just the matter of those who don’t) and as a whole server they can get more tries in. Counting the times we were so close and just lacked a bit of luck -missing a second or two on the timer, having wurm run all over the place or getting a bit bugged; we could possibly have killed it sooner having more tries.
I do not really think that it is about who is better or worse. It’s about facing this really challenging encounter and working together with over a hundred people to beat it. Being part of something special. Every group doing the wurm faces their own various challenges – some of them common to everyone. Everyone killing the wurm deserves praise for their hard work. Everyone almost doing it should also feel proud.
For PVT you can run HotW, AC and SE a bunch of times. It might take a couple of days but even swapping only part of armour at first will help. You could also get PVT rares. They won’t be as good as exotics but they will still make a difference and they are a lot easier to come by.
As mentioned spawn frost bows before the fight. During you will be more useful in defence. You will still provide a lot of damage during stun phases by summoning Ice Bows and Fiery GSs.
If you end up staying in the zerg go S/F. Using Swirling Winds, Magnetic Wave and Obsidian Flesh can prolong your life quite a bit. If you learn to get out of the poison circles quickly (if they are not cleansed) and jump/dodge waves you will survive a bit longer.
Additional hint for attack eles – Equip focus and try to chain swirling winds up with other elementalists. It will stop a lot of poison from reaching the zerg. It might work better than guardian walls because it is a circle (or maybe it even works as a sphere).
With ice bows it is usually better to just drop it after using 4. Glyph of storms is also ok in water and air. With FGS during stun phases remember to untarget Tequatl. The trail you leave using 4 deals a lot of damage.
Additional things I found out from the stream :
- The mobs attacking the turrets don’t spawn during the first 60 seconds of the fight -seems consistent with my experience, you might direct some part of defense for an initial strike too speed up the first phase.
- The mob waves apparently spawn ~every 90 seconds – might be useful for knowing if the defense needs to come back sooner during the stun phase
There is a song in a hidden area in 2-2. After exiting the gong tower you have to climb the hill on the left and then get lunched across by the flower. There is a secret hole to blow up near the Rakitten boss. It doesn’t count. You have to learn the notes yourself.
By the way. Does this song do anything outside of this secret? I didn’t have an opportunity to check yet.
In zone 2 underneath the gong tower (from the side of the exit, outside) if you drop underneath the floor there is a dead end with a shop when you blow up the wall. It sells nun chucks.
The before poison water one/candle one doesn’t seem to count for me. I didn’t get the next tier there. I don’t know whether it’s intended or it is a bug… Aside from that there used to be 10 shops in total (2 in zone 1, 3 in zone 2 and 5 in zone 3) the achi counts 11 somehow. They must have added some new ones or made a mistake. (probably new ones in tribulation)
Does that include the one thats under the rug in zone 3 (the one with the baubles for sale)?
Oh… I forgot about that. Well… then there are 11 shop but this one in zone 2 doesn’t trigger the achievement for some reason.
The before poison water one/candle one doesn’t seem to count for me. I didn’t get the next tier there. I don’t know whether it’s intended or it is a bug… Aside from that there used to be 10 shops in total (2 in zone 1, 3 in zone 2 and 5 in zone 3) the achi counts 11 somehow. They must have added some new ones or made a mistake. (probably new ones in tribulation)
I have to say that the idea of bringing certain events from living world story into fractals is really exciting. I’d really like to see that.
But the main point of the idea proposed by the OP is retelling story. A dungeon instance will be fun but it won’t retell the story of entire F&F. It would be great to have a way – either an NPC/NPCs, an object like scrying pool or in books in a public part of Priory library/home instance library, where you could review the story behind the events. Someone buying GW2 next year probably won’t have any idea how Kiel or Rox or Majory came into the story. A ‘historian’ like mechanic would allow them to learn about those events in another way than searching the wiki/forums for hours.
I’d say this achievement involves a bit too much luck. Usually there is just one person who is behind the zerg or avoids knockdown by an inch.
They could make this achivement hard but less random if they gave an alternative way of getting it by having for example 20-25 exterminations in one game. It still takes a bit of luck but is much more based on the skill of luring others in the way of Karka repeatedly.
We did most dungeons without a problem but yesterday around midnight (GMT +2) after doing 2 other dungeons we couldn’t get into ‘Crucible of Eternity’ (story mode, Server: Blacktide[EU]). One person could get in but no one else got the pop-up to join. when walking into the portal people got the pop-up to join the party inside but nothing happened after clicking it.
The problem persists today. We tried breaking the party up and creating it again. When joining the party again it showed the (not working) pop-up to join the party inside even though no one was inside.
Another interesting thing – we didn’t get a mail about ‘Honour of the Waves’ explorable mode after finishing the story mode though it might be unconnected. We may check another dungeon later and I’ll update the post if we do and it won’t work either.
