Guild Wars 2

How to Reduce Culling.

To reduce culling, or even remove culling, Anet need to reduce how much data is needed to be sent to the client. The following are some examples;
Enemy are seen as a single type of creature (a single race type),
Stop sending data relating to each individual enemy’s dye selections,
Stop sending data relating to each individual enemy’s armor,
Stop sending data relating to each individual enemy’s weapons.

Make all the enemy the same creature model (while accounting for class) without all the pretty details (that each individual selects and modifies to their own taste) that we currently have.

Culling Explained (as requested).

The following is the reason you generally don’t see the enemy until it is too late, or later.
Culling is done at the server.
It reduces data sent from the server.
It reduces data sent to your client.
It reduces data received by the client because it hasn’t been sent.
It can not have a setting in the client because the client cant affect the server in such a fashion.
Culling is simply the server being directed not to send information to your game client.
Culling occurs when there is more data to be sent to the client than what Anet have allowed out of their server at a given time. A large number of enemy (The Zerg) can trip this setting so that your game is oblivious to the large number of people around you.
Culling stops when the amount of data is reduced to a smaller amount, or can be sent over a longer time frame, or a mix of both.

What data are we talking about? Data is all the details that allow the enemy to be displayed on your screen, before your client (on your PC) knows that there is anything to display (draw). Obvious details like;
Character race, height, weight, colorings (the things you set at character creation),
Guild and server, along with health pool,
Each individual armor piece and its selected dye colorings, skins and effects ,
Each weapon (skin and effects) that is wielded,
The characters location and direction heading,
Spell/skill/ability effects esp. in relation to casting origin,
Character animation details.

The things that aren’t so obvious may include (as guess-work allows);
Rings and accessories (graphically),
Effect locations (destination),
Name/account (was before when we could report and chat with the enemy).

There is probably more, but that is a more in-depth area to go into, so I culled it.

Culling can not be affected by your PC, because it happens at the server.

It is a way to reduce network data requirements from their server, and to the client. This would reduce the need to have a very fast (a relative term) internet service for the customer, reduce the outgoing bandwidth requirements from the server, and most likely reduce Anets running costs as well. It just happens that it stops a lot of us from seeing the enemy in a timely fashion.

@ muylaetrix.2096
So my suggestion, just above yours was not a good one?

Anet have to reduce data sent (as suggested above) AND turn off server side culling.

Things to get rid of in data sent to clients;
Race
6 x armor items (from a huge selection)
4 x dye selection per armor item (from a huge selection)
1 to 4 weapons (from a huge selection)
Multiplied by the number of enemy in location

Replace with;
No server side culling
1 single enemy model per server (all enemy from a server looks the same)
Standard weapon models (1 per type)
Multiplied by the number of enemy in location

Think that reduces network data requirements.

The Problem
GW2 is an action game.
WvW has lots of action going on.
We all have to act and re-act, but currently we dont have the info on our screens to re-act to.

Do we really need to see character models?
Do we really need to see that the enemy is a charr, or an asura, or a human, etc?
Do we really need to know what dye they have selected for each piece of armor their toon has?
Weapons? Really, we have to see all those different weapons as well?

The Solution
Make some standard enemy models, easy and fast to display. 1 model per server, for server uniqueness.
Make some standard weapon models, easy and fast to display. 1 model per weapon type.
A single character model can sit in Random Access Memory for quick use.
The use of Level Of Detail settings can improve client draw times at distance.
I don’t really know how much data that would cut down on, but it would have to significantly reduce it.

Oh, I almost forgot the very important thing – TURN OFF SERVER SIDE CULLING.

The Conclusion
Give a good base that allows players to see the enemy, and allies, around them in a timely manner. Then you can adjust, in small easy to manage increments, to make it all pretty to look at.

To make leveling an option in WvW you have to do at least 4% of the damage to the enemy, this will give you experience and loot.
There are a few good guides around the internet on “best practice” for leveling and traiting a thief, guru is a good place to start.
Sitting on siege is also a good option, but remember that powerful siege engines were nerfed to a 5 target effect – not full area.

My WvW dream was to have truly epic battles, in a truly epic war, in a truly epic environment.
I come back to these forums in the hope an Anet Rep will pop their heads in and give me some hope, but even that is getting as old as WvW seems to be.

I suppose that the design vision for WvW (the player considered “end-game” or “raid” activity) was too small. We seem to have 4 maps, 3 being identical, to “run around” in, and Oceanics (night capping) are considered (by some people with truly epic tears) “undesirable/unfair play” simply because Oceanics play the game as well.

My hope for the future is WvW on a grand scale:
200 people on my screen in a single battle
WvW maps that total 1/3 the size of the PvE world = EPIC
WvW with an end goal (a win scenario) in mind – a new emperor?
Dynamic events in a dynamic war

I think I will have to wait for those things until next year when Elder Scrolls Online is released, as showing 50 people on my screen is too much for GW2 servers. Unless Anet can fix their WvW, that is.

Actually, on second thought, let the zerg and the whingers and whiners of night capping stay on GW2 WvW and I will just play Elder Scrolls Online RvR, in an oceanic timezone, next year.

I love just about all of the ideas here, and I believe they should be used.
I also have the same concerns.

I suspect that when WvW gets stale people will leave the game rather than move to sPvP or PvE. They may pop in from time to time but they will not risk dropping cash on a stale product. They may PvE with their friends but still wont risk dropping the cash.
In other words – stale product = stale cash flow, fresh product = fresh cash flow.

As WvW is not as casual as was first thought, and more competitive than envisioned…

{Pause for reflection and viewing of comments elsewhere in various forums}

After 3 weeks of zerging here and zerging there, and seeing some of the more recent comments here, there, and everywhere, and the idea of the individual having an impact outside of the zerg is not a well received idea, it is time to see if PvE can hold my interest for another map completion (unlikely).

Best of luck.

I would like to say I am happy, but I’m not.
Fix culling and then balance stealth once that is done.
Culling is one of the bigger issues in regards to stealth, especially when an huge zerg is stealth without the use of any class skills.
Break culling first, not class skills.

The contested capture point.
As it was too easy for a thief (or another class with stealth skill) to hide and stall a capture in such a large area – nerf their effectiveness?
An alternative wouldve been to reduce the area that could be contested, reducing the places to hide – thief stealth does not equate to undetectable invulnerability, just hard to find but still killable.
As some of my core skills cant be used to affect an enemy capture can we expect some of the major skills of all classes to be just as ineffective in the same situation?

Sorry all for being so negative about this.
It may nearly be time I left such a “beautiful looking” game.

A good idea and a nice way to promote WvW activity.

I would like to suggest that it should take some time to achieve the requirements, not just a quick 5 or 10 minutes, lets say about half an hour to an hour – allowing for queues and what not.

Doomdesire.9365:

As someone who leveled almost purely in WvW, playing as a low level is not nearly as effective as 80(if you’re like me, roaming around looking for small fights and taking supply camps), however, low levels in a zerg are just as good as any level 80. OP’s advice is solid.

OP’s advice is solid – no dispute there, some very good basic tips for what to do in WvW.
If you wish to level doing PvE stuff in WvW it will give you the levels at a slower rate than pure PvE, and be ready for enemy contacts while doing it.
If you have come to WvW to fight other players – group up and stay together, call targets, use combo starters and finishers effectively, and work as a single focused group, especially if participating in a zerg. This will help to maximise your rewards (exp/BoH/loot).

Most importantly, get in and have some fun at any level. You shouldn’t regret it.

Here are some of my tips for low level WvW.

Level, health and damage scales up to level 80.
Rewards, such as exp/coin/karma/gear/BoH do not scale up.
Upgrades to keeps/towers are not scaled in any direction – they are a static cost.
Repairs do not scale up on gear because gear is not scaled.
Killing a player is not like killing a mob – getting kill credit for a player becomes much harder at the lower levels, but not impossible.
Levels gains are slower than PvE for lower levels.
Levels are gained noticeably quicker from level 60.
Resource nodes above 300 are extremely rare, except in Eternal Battlegrounds, but that is a later concern).
Badges of Honor rewards are scaled down to your true level = very rare.

So, overall, bring low levels in to WvW. Most of your advancement though will come faster from PvE and crafting until you reach about level 60.
Most of the time, below level 60, you will feel ineffective, but as long as you are doing damage to the enemy you are helping more than not being there. Now that queues are becoming a null consideration on a lot of servers, being there is more important than anything.

Additional:
In PvE if you do any damage to kill a mob you are rewarded. WvW is a mix of PvP and PvE due to the fact that you are fighting mostly players (as well as a few mobs) and does not reward you in the same way.
Kill credit can be hard to achieve at any level unless you do more damage than the other people around you. This will also impact your rewards at any level.
It has been reported that grouping can help to alleviate this issue to some extent (even for the level 80), as group dynamics for determining credit may be calculated prior to the individuals credit is determined.

Additional additional:
Don’t spend Badges of Honor on anything – keep them for your legendary weapon.

My advice;
As the WvW armor is outrageously exie, keep your badges. Spend karma, much cheaper in time/effort.
Go to Orr and get the sets you want with karma.

chahlz.5178:

I honestly target FA first since a few weeks ago they said Yak’s using siege golems was cheating. And then they whined how they had no off hour presence, all it ever is with FA is whine whine whine. They earned the target on their back.

Yep. It must really be cutting in to their recruiting drive.

Felix.3028:

Yaks and TC are clearly working together. It’s good though, wouldn’t be much of a match up for us if they didn’t.

Working together? No.
Taking advantage? Yes

I gave up on SWTOR because of the same old daily routine.
Jumping puzzles may drive me there again.

BTW, I dont have too much of an issue picking the bags up when they drop, press “F” like everyone else. Badge drops are a pain when it looks like they nerfed them.

Usagi.4835:

You never know. Maybe we are deliberately teaming up to prove you right! I do love Yaks…

Good thinking.

TC and Yak’s – truce starts now(ish). Spread the word. Gang up on Sweet FA.
=)
But seriously, been lots of good fights all around – by all three servers.

What rot!
4 x maps
3 x server
3 x server on each map
2 x enemy servers against the home server on there own borderland
1 x server has to fight 2 x enemy servers on any one map
QED – Yes it LOOKS that way but we are not teaming up

After 4 hours from this new reset…
over 60 kills (daily kills completed fairly early, so over100 easy)
lots of karma
a few loot items
little cash
5 badges
2 x lost loot bags due to death
hhhmmmm

At this point cash and badges are useful, everything else not very.

Any progression (through badges) that could be considered at this point is more of a grind = getting to be not worth my time and effort.

We dont really need to see all the different armors on the enemy, we just need to see the enemy. We dont even care to see what weapon they have…

Rottaran Owain.6789:

Rhyis.7058:

If you ever played Warhammer Online you’d know why an AoE limit is needed. 5 bright wizards could insta-gib any unfortunate soul that happened to be standing in a certain location. In 50+ vs 50+ battles, if half your army were bright wizards or sorceresses you’d continually be melted into the face of the earth if you were anywhere near the front lines… And WAR had healing classes to help mitigate the damage, and they couldn’t keep you alive. How the hell do you expect to survive with no healers at all?

People will say “Yeah but DAoC didn’t either”. Well here’s the thing with that. DAoC didn’t have many players. Even in it’s absolute peak, you’d never see more then 30 players roaming together. In the new age of gaming, everybody is playing MMOs now. Games have a minimum of half a million players. This ain’t 2002.

Pretty much this.

Pretty much what? The first game that isnt GW2 or the second game that isnt GW2?

The use of tactics in a battle/war is very important. Lets not g i m p tactics.
The one person holding off a massing enemy is possible, in the real world and the fantasy world. The few against the many can work, unless it is purely a numbers game.

Telegraph.7509:

If AOE limit was removed or increased for damage, the ally-buff and heal limit should also increase accordingly for parity. Then everyone will start running bunker retaliation builds.

It’s a complicated problem.

AoE is AoE. AoE heal (or anything AoE) should do the area.
Not complicated. Anet code it – we deal with it, tactics change, people adapt.

Retaliation builds – no tactic to combat it?

Rednik.3809:

boneduste.4023:

If you spread out and don’t turtle, removing the AoE limit will not crush an entire zerg since there is a radius limit on all AoE attacks. It will crush the dozens of people who huddle together using the % to their advantage (hoping they are not one of the 5).

You cannot stay spread all time. If AOE cap will be removed, then 5 ele + 5 necro will easily be able to completely lock any breached gate/wall with aoe, making impossible to pass by.

Then use a different tactic.
And impossible doesn’t sound right, surely people can think of ways to outsmart such a simple thing – change tactical focus, jump attacks, multiple breaches, dodge, etc.
“Up the guts with heaps of smoke” is not the only way to fight a battle.

Predator.7321:

Mesmer portal bomb breaks WvW because of culling and turtling (thank god that was fixed

Changing any abilities because of culling is poor practice. Culling should be fixed prior to class skills and abilities. Stop breaking classes because of a fault in the games ability to display graphics in a timely manner.

Predator.7321:

To be completely honest i’d rather have a limit of 5 than let 1 elementalist and necromancer deathshroud drain *facepalm steamroll an entire zerg
Seige is not limited

Small AoEs taking out 5 or more huddled players = stupid huddled players, smart AoE usage.
Don’t arrow carts have a 5 target limit?

Basically, AoE should affect everything in the area. This allows 1 smart person to disrupt a mindless non-tactical group = disrupting large portal bombs, large turtling groups, and clustered zergs.

Jedahs.2713:

Not a bad idea actually.

Commanders also need priority queue. Being disconnected on a full map and logging back in with a 2 hour queue is devastating to your guild and the match.

I can see everyone spending 100g just to get in to WvW quicker, but I do agree in spirit.

Ultravalefor.5038:

What does need to be implemented is some extra little menu that displays all the commanders on a map and lets you choose which ones you see.

Select a commander and make his icon red. This does not stop you seeing where other [blue icon] commanders that are on the map, it highlights the commander(s) you wish to follow/see better, and still allows people to spend the 100g.

Button pushing – do you mean to increase/double the amount of usable utilities while in combat?
Maps – snow and grass is getting old. I would like to fight in the tropics with tropical creatures around me, and in the jungles with jungle creatures around me…

There are counters to everything.
My thief cant counter all classes abilities at the same time either.
Some classes are no fun to fight as a thief either.
Be careful when asking (or hinting) for the nerf stick to be used, your class may be caught in the AoE.
Dont like having to fight a stealthing theif – when a thief stealths and runs off to regen out of combat, use a waypoint and move on to another “fun” locale – that’s what they do.
Please dont ask for someones (the thief) enjoyment to be broken just because you dont have “fun” with the challenge of fighting one.
WvW is large scale fighting, not 1v1.
There are lots of abilities that interfere with the mobility of a stealthing thief, it is not fun to be caught by them when trying to make a stealthed escape. Should we remove them for the same reason – it breaks my fun – NO! I think not.

Mogar.9216:

You are a typical player who plays a typical thief who doesn’t know the potential of your own class. I have no problem with 90% of the thieves out there thank god they are bad like you. But the few who does know the class and ‘abuse’ stealth is just dumb. But you would have a clue what I’m talking about anyway.

So, using stealth is ok, but abusing stealth is not? Or is it, having stealth and using it is an abuse in its self? Is this like the right to have an opinion is ok, but voicing it is an abuse?

I usually dont read threads like this one but the title didnt give much of a clue to the subject. I find people who make requests like this one, based on the fact that they dont have “fun” in a certain aspect, to be annoying in that their opinion (because they had it, and it’s their right) should be posted for the world to see – and acted upon.
This is just my opinion of cause, in response another.

Foddzy.6291:

They need to be renamed from “Badge of Honor” to “Badge of Jumping”.

Wasn’t that what was said in this weeks Tales Of Tyria?

Badge of Magic Find, Badge of Zerging – zerging because if a person is using MF they really want to be in a zerg so they don’t get squashed.

Is there any reward based on combat skill? MF is a terrible mechanic to base WvW rewards on.

WvW as it stands now is good, with a few positive changes it could be GREAT.
Rewarding the PvE side of the server for WvWers hard work is little reward.

WvW has evolved into a bigger beast [through player participation] than Anet originally envisioned. It is time for Anet to evolve with it.
Don’t get me wrong here, I love what Anet have done – a new map in sPvP, new armor/dungeons/zones/jumping puzzles/events in PvE – but WvW got mining nodes and weenie bags for a short time. Lets have some WvW events too, without the MF mechanic, some rewards for the WvW players.

It just seems too random and therefore frustrating.
In the past, the first 48 hours after reset seemed to be the most profitable for badges, as well as loot items and silver.
This last reset I managed about 30 badges (including a jumping puzzle reward) in that same time period, loot and silver just as bad.
A few things happened from last reset – new event, new build, new balancing, new dungeon loot table, etc.
I only WvW with one toon (lvl 80 thief for a long time), and any change to rewards is noticeable. But, when in the same battle where I do my normal thief thing (usually get a couple of bags at least) and get not a bag, and others get 10 or more badges (and this seemed to be the norm for me from this reset), a question about how the rewards work has to be asked.

How does the WvW reward/loot system work, now?

Additional:

Dunno I got near 3000 kills and just a bit over 1500 badges, but I dont fight out of Event zones (towers,keeps,camps,carvans,sentries, etc)

I am only about a hundred off getting my 4000th kill and have received about 600 badges to date.

that last bit of mine was a bit of a stretch, but I think you can get the gist of my meaning.

Reading through all the dribble that people come out with, in the hopes of finding some info on how “I” could work around the issue, I have concluded that most people need to realise some things:
It is an unintended bug;
It wasnt directed at anyone personally;
You have paid for a game client, not the game;
You dont own the game, just the limited right to use the client;
There is more game than what you personally are playing through;
Games have bugs, you all know this;
Not all bugs have an easily seen solution;
Not all bugs have an easily implemented solution;
Jumping up and down, kicking and screaming, isnt normally the way to get something done the right way, or the fast way.

If the same energy that has been displayed here was directed towards human rights, world pollution, world/personal debt, etc, they probably wouldnt exist in such a bad state as they do.

Gstringbass.2506:

…I just haven’t seen an example of a comeback yet once one server has complete resource control…

Last week Yaks owned the maps at about 10 hours past the reset. We lost by a huge margin at the end of the match.

Bunzy.8674:

There is lots of bots at Yaks Bend borderlands in the north of the lake, I was killing them however a group of people from Yaks Bend thought it would be fun to defend the bots. I guess they enjoy the bots..

I may have been one of those that attacked you (just the once).
Sorry about that. I wasn’t aware of the situation at the time. If I was I would not have hindered your progress of “bot removal”.

To those people (the opposing forces) that have been a part of the long and huge battles on Yaks – Well done.
To those that weren’t there – you missed a very long and intense battle(s) by your own forces.

To people who wake up to find that they are starting a new match already behind – the match starts at 10am my time. Get some oceanic people in there at the start, because we wont wait for you to wake up – just as you wont stop when I go to bed. That goes for “night capping” is unfair (or some such negative) – your night or mine?

When your zerg has a 3 to 1 [players] advantage on us and runs away, don’t blame Yaks.

Orb Buffs – I agree that they aren’t needed if you are ahead, and if you are behind you cant get them when you need them. Lets remove them all together, or make it +1 to server PvE stuff.

Isn’t it correct that each server gets to have 1/3 (thats 33%) of the total possible map population? If we fill our population slots and still out number another server on the map, it is because that server has not shown up for battle. A common occurrence throughout the week regardless of server.

GW2 does not support more than 500 guild members;
GW2 does not support guild [alliance] chat for more than 500 members;

GW2 needs to increase guild size (unlimited would be nice), or
GW2 needs to create a guild [alliance] chat system, and
GW2 needs to add guild management tools if there are limits to membership size.

Guild Wars 2 should be guild friendly, even for the larger guilds.

Please consider adding the simplest to implement improvement to support the large guilds, even if a guild has to spend more points for it (hint hint).

I am a member of a community that is spread across 4 guilds (more than 1500 members), with no method to easily communicate in-game between the guilds, we have lost our community cohesion – become fragmented. That is what is meant by “destroying bonds”.

most annoying.
most forums “remember me” (auto login when I go to any forum page), but not here.
those that don’t remember me DO redirect me to the page I was at, but not here.

So, they broke/fixed something else.

2 words – TEST SERVER