Guild Wars 2

Mystic.5934:

If you want amazing, buy a new computer. If you don’t, turn your settings down. You don’t get to drive a Tesla after buying a Honda. New games = require newer computers. No way would I ever expect my 466Mhz iBook (purchased sep 2000) to be able to play GW2, much less at highest settings.

See, you’ve just made a logical point that sounds great, until you take your own advice and actually try to run GW2 on high end hardware.

I have a good computer. My water-cooled i7 is clocked near 5 GHz. My video card is never 100% utilized. I get 20 fps in large WvW battles and dynamic events (like claw of jormag) on high settings. That’s not amazing. The problem, in many cases, is not the hardware people are using but that the software is poorly optimized and/or the developers have been overly ambitious.

If you can show me a reasonable consumer hardware setup that can achieve 60 fps @ 1080p in large WvW battles and dynamic events, on high settings with culling disabled, then you’re a time traveler from the future.

Eli The Yahoo.9782:

i meant enable – culling is when they limit the amount of details on screen

You can enable it. Use the wvw culling options, they’re presently mislabled. The problem is why we need culling in the first place.

Eli The Yahoo.9782:

Please ANet – allow a user to disable culling. the game has became unplayable and i really don’t want to lower shader,shadows and all the other highquality graphics just to play

I don’t think you understand what culling is.

Einsof.1457:

Buy a new gfx card or tone down your settings! THIS IS AMAZING. love you anet!

There is no consumer hardware on the market that can deliver 60 fps in a reasonable configuration (ie, not 4x SLI Titans) using high settings when many players are on screen. The game engine scales poorly. Rather then address this issue, or design content that doesn’t force hundreds of player to one area, we’re given stop gap measures like culling options. It’s sad.

This is my surprised face:

:O

I’m not actually surprised. They removed culling before they fixed the reason we needed culling in the first place. Poorly scaling game engine scales poorly.

Sigh.

Zomaarwat.3912:

Kahzi.5467:

Contiguous.1345:

A glass canon Ele has no place in WvW. That’s literally a snowflake in hell.

No, that’s a figurative snowflake in hell.

What if he’s on water attunement?

Still figurative.

Contiguous.1345:

A glass canon Ele has no place in WvW. That’s literally a snowflake in hell.

No, that’s a figurative snowflake in hell.

What they were most likely referring to is that a weapon’s damage isn’t factored in to your attack rating when using kits (bombs, grenades, flamethrower, elixer gun) on the engineer. Stats on the weapon like power, precision, crit, etc, are still used. Also, weapon sigils and defense from carrying a shield is still used.

Fomby.4295:

So I double-checked that the graphics card was secure and the wires attached to it are also secured. And I’m still having the same problem.

When I rebooted it dawned on me that I didn’t check the CPU, could this be a CPU problem? Or would the system just refuse to start if there was something wrong with it. It does seem to take longer to boot up.

Also, thanks for the reply.

I suppose anything is possible, really. Hardware can do some wonky stuff when its damaged, but really sounds like your graphics card is being throttled down which it would do if it was overheating or deprived power… especially since your computer didn’t crash when it was knocked over.

Do you have monitoring software you can install to check the status of your video card? EVGA has Precision X which should work for all nVidia cards. You can also install CPU-Z and confirm the PCI-E bus is running at the correct speed.

If you are happy you’ve ruled out any issue with your video card I’d begin examining other components for signs of damage. Also, if you have another computer you could begin swapping out hardware to try to isolate the issue. If you have another hard drive lying around you could try doing a fresh install of your operating system to see if that fixes the issue.

One last thing to consider is that you may have damaged your hard drive. Magnetic hard drives are very sensitive to shock and desktop models typically don’t have any anti-shock safeguards. This would help explain the slow startup time. I suppose it could cause issues in game if the game was really slow to load the data it needed. In any case it might be wise to make backups of your important data if you don’t already have one.

UserError.7150:

I am curious what anet means by claiming it does extensive testing, like EXACTLY what they mean by it, word for word.

The reason why i am curious is that any other product/software/service that claims to do this does NOT have even 1/10 of the problems your game has, let alone half of them

This game really doesn’t have that many bugs, especially when compared to other MMOs. Saying other games have less then 10% of the problems that this game has is hyperbole at best.

I’m not defending the game’s technical prowess. There’s certainly lots of technical issues especially when talking about the engine and how it scales with multiple players on screen, but when you’re talking about gameplay bugs or stability, this game is pretty excellent IMO.

I’ve been doing a very similar fresh air build for a while now, mostly used in fractals but some dungeons thrown into the mix, and I’ve been enjoying myself. I’ve been using daggers whenever the situation allows, but I was wondering what you guys thought about the damage on scepter. It seems to me like staff is doing way more single target damage than scepter (even with a fresh air build, not staying purely in fire) and the only time it’s worth pulling out a scepter is when you need range and the defenses from the focus. Am I just imagining this or has anyone else noticed similar? I sure wish we had the ability to export our combat logs so I had some actual evidence to back up my suspicions.

I know you said you checked your graphics card but I’d double check to make sure it’s seated in the slot properly. Try removing it and reinserting it and once you think it’s seated properly, give it a firm push just to be sure.

I’ve had graphics cards come unseated before and it has produced some strange behavior.

EDIT: Also make sure the power connector is still connected to the video card properly, and that the heatsink is still making proper contact with the graphics processor, and the fan is operating correctly. Most graphics cards will throttle down speed when they’re not getting enough power or they are overheating.

BillFreist.1527:

The last thing we want to do is alienate the player base that doesn’t have hardcore gaming machines.

The thing is, even if you do have a “hardcore gaming machine” the game still runs extremely poorly when there are lots of players on screen using abilities.

Glad to hear optimizations are in the works.

biofrog.1568:

I for one am glad I just upgraded to an i7-4770 + gtx780

It won’t help. Your framerates will still be pitiful, just like everyone elses’. This game does not scale well when lots of people are on screen and will bring even top of the line consumer hardware to its knees.

Add 10% damage to AoE while wielding a staff via the Blasting Staff trait, shorten the cast time on Lightning Surge, larger knockback on Gust. Done IMO.

Jordo.5913:

I want to be a ranged damage dealer….and since the staff is apparently very support driven…

Have you tried the staff?

Long shot here, but try it with a different monitor and monitor cable. I’ve had similar looking artifacts appear and disappear seemingly at random because my monitor had gone bad. The fact that these artifacts don’t appear in screenshots supports this theory.

OwnusMaximus.6385:

Even at home with a 4.6ghz 4770 and SLI Gtx 780s I see sub 30fps often (and I play with no reflections or shadows) That pretty much speaks for itself…

Indeed it does. I play on a 3820 @ 4.8 GHz with a single 680 GTX, so your hardware easily trumps mine, and I get similar if not identical performance as you and that’s with shadows on high and reflections enabled.

This game, for whatever reason, just doesn’t scale well with large numbers of people, and then they make content designed to get large numbers of people to congregate.

Zelyhn.8069:

@Qin
You cannot say you are optimized if you decide to lock yourself in one weapon set-up.

Forgive my ignorance, but isn’t your build doing exactly the same thing? Fresh air seems to imply you want to get back to air attunement quickly and frequently, which only seems useful to me when using main hand dagger. Certainly not very useful when using staff.

Chaba.5410:

Fixed it for you…

“can’t deliver 30 fps consistently through all content on even the lowest graphics settings using today’s best consumer hardware”

I strongly disagree. There’s a big difference between 30 fps and 60 fps. Also, there’s a wide range of hardware out there. Your assertion that high end hardware be required to run low settings is very silly. If a high end computer can’t run a game on low settings, what are lower end computers supposed to do?

http://boallen.com/fps-compare.html

EDIT: Oh, you were being sarcastic, weren’t you. Sorry. I’m out of coffee.

Kyllaa.1385:

~~~just wanted to post a side note here, I run on a Mac laptop and once I re-tweaked my graphics settings, I’m back to normal fps and I average between 15-25 fps in the pavilion. I do, however, dip insanely low while running up the narrow glass catwalk ramp leading to the gauntlet ringmasters, but come on, this is between zones that need rendering and arena domes that also need rendering… So it’s expected. Just wanted to say that not everyone is having these issues. So maybe it will get better.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you’re saying, but it sounds like you’re getting 15-25 fps in the pavilion and are satisfied. I’d hardly call 15-25 fps an acceptable framerate.

My machine usually runs steady at 60 fps with v-sync. During large world boss fights and large WvW zerg battles I might dip as low as 40 fps. In the pavilion I’m getting around 25-30 fps and I consider that totally unacceptable.

I get there is a lot going on, computationally, but when performance is so poor on even a fairly high end computer I feel that they should have done something to attenuate the load. When you consider that the framerate is so poor, especially when coupled with culling, it feels like adding insult to injury.

I don’t know what the solution to the problem is, whether it can be addressed through optimization or engine upgrades, or if the problem is more design and conceptual with just trying to do so much on screen at once, but I think most people agree that it is a problem, and a very large one, and this latest content update only serves to further highlight how bad the game’s performance can be and how critical it is that something changes to address the problem.

So obviously this is all just one person’s opinion, but let me say one more thing. The way I see it, if a game can’t deliver 60 fps consistently through all content on reasonably high graphics settings using today’s best consumer hardware, then the game is broken.

Atrophied.8725:

1 – What size group do you run with?
2 – What is your group composition? (necro-heavy? ele-heavy? guard/war-heavy? mes-heavy?)
3 – When running in large groups, do you have separate range/tank groups that split and reform, or do you run DPS-ball? (Both valid strategies, but require different thought processes when designing a build for them.)

Since I’m brand new I don’t have a set group that I run with on a regular basis. I typically find a commander tag, hop in the appropriate TS channel, and run with the zerg. Group size is usually 15-30 people. Compositions vary. We all move as a single group.

Lots of good advice and lots to think about. Thanks everyone, and please keep it coming!

Hey everyone. I’m quite new to the game (been playing about 2 weeks now) and I really enjoy playing a staff Elementalist in WvW. I’m having a hard time gauging my effectiveness during battle and I wanted to solicit some constructive criticism to hopefully improve my gameplay.

First a little bit about my setup: http://bit.ly/19XsfH7

I know it’s a really unorthodox setup. I wanted to focus on hard hitting AoE and survivability above all else. 30 points in fire to hopefully bring the AoE damage, 10 in earth, 10 in water and 20 in arcana for survivability with their Adept traits. Blasting Staff Master trait in Arcana is self explanatory. Soldier gear for power and survivability, although I know I’ve sacrificed a lot of potential damage from critical hits.

At the start of a fight I will typically toss as much support as possible by throwing Static Field, Frozen Ground and Ice Spike. I’ll drop an Eruption and lay down a fire field for Area Might and then commence nuking. Once the battle has been joined for a few seconds I’ll roll AoE heals as needed, drop some more CC and vulnerability, go Earth to cripple and immobilize anyone who is rushing the back line then pop another Eruption and fire field for Area Might and repeat the process. I really only get killed if we’re getting wiped and it’s usually towards the end of the wipe. I do feel very survivable on the field.

I’ve followed some really great commanders and through their leadership and the people around me I’ve had a lot of success on the field but I wanted to make sure I was carrying my weight by being as effective as possible. Please weigh in with any criticisms or advice.

Thanks!