Guild Wars 2

Iruwen.3164:

According to my mad google skills, this was posted by Lord Sojar in the GW2 Guru forum in October 2012:
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/70452-nvidia-drivers-30697/#entry2011516
Since he was still studying not long ago according to his profile, he’s not been an NV employee for long. Also, we don’t know what exactly he does there. And finally, we don’t know what they have done in the last eight months after this was posted. But I guess not much has changed about this, since I know other guys working at NV on guru3d, beyond3d, 3dcenter and so on, and the last I heard of them was NV basically abandoned working on GW2 performance improvements because there’s not much they could do about it. That information also is a few months old though.
Actually, you don’t have to be an NV employee to see that there’s not much GPU driver optimizations could do about GW2’s horrendous CPU load issues.
If you want some more insight into ArenaNet internals, I recommend reading the Glassdoor review if you haven’t already done so, it should give you some clues on why things are this way:
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/ArenaNet-Reviews-E255820.htm

Good find Only reason I didn’t post this was to keep developers/users on these forums discussing instead of going over there. And everything you said is correct yes. I also love how developers never reply to these threads like they are avoiding the truth.

I love how people are defending Anet saying it has been optimized in the past 9 months. Why is my GPU still at 99% and FPS even lower than it was 9months ago. This seems to be a deoptimization in my books.

Storm I agree, this will probably make me stop playing soon. And I won’t risk my expensive computer just to play a video game. I will move onto something else where devs care about the end user. I would rather pay a monthly fee then burn a GTX690 which is worth 10+ years of subscriptions.

Stormcrow.7513:

I am starting to get concerned as well about the 99% useage. Any DEVS reading this?

Hopefully they reply soon.

marnick.4305:

1/ I don’t believe this actually came from an nVidia employee. It’s forged, almost certainly. If I sent such an email to a customer, I’d be rightfully fired.

2/ if not forged, it was written by a hater who shouldn’t be working for nVidia anymore. Such a rant is decidedly bad practice and grounds for immediate contract termination. Forward that email to his superiors if you still have the original.

3/ I can’t believe any company would turn down an offer for free help.

4/ the facts clearly show that GW2 has been optimized a lot over the last 10 months, whether you want to believe that or not. Do you even read patch notes, did you play the game? My PC hasn’t been upgraded and yet performance steadily increased over time.

5/ Furthermore, both nVidia and AMD have optimized their drivers a lot for GW2 and it shows, therefor this email contradicts the company itself. It’s forged.

The wording of the email is unprofessional, wrong and references direct competitors while attacking a potential ally. It is an outright forgery, anyone with working experience in customer support knows that.

Well you are entitled to your own opinion, how can anyone be terminated if they don’t have the employees name? GW2 hasn’t optimized from what I have seen at all so I don’t know what you’re saying. This issue has been here for 9+ months, what optimization has helped this problem? None. And yes nVidia and AMD have “tried” optimizing their drivers but they can only do so much without anets support. Also this wasn’t meant to be professional and I didn’t contact via customer support.

Whats funny is one of my guild teammates has an onboard graphics card that runs smoother then my dedicated graphics card GTX690.

9 months? What reason could that be after all the $ they are making from RNG boxes. That’s the problem, everyone is saying what you are saying Ricky. We need more people PUSHING Anet to fix the problem.

Stormcrow.7513:

I use supersampling and everything at max(high/ultra) settings with 1920×1080 rez so 99% seems high but within the realm of reason.
I think that maybe Anet is testing(with us as guinea pigs) offloading some processes from the CPU to the GPU.
I agree with you though Duck that a GTX 680 and especially a GTX 690 shouldn’t be running at 99% considering the graphics that GW2 brings to the table.
Hank, I have read about other players having that issue with the 660Ti as well, and that specific issue has been known for quite some time and to my knowledge there hasn’t been any resolution to the problem.
In a nutshell the game is the most unoptimized game that I have ever come across…ever. With an antiquated API and dreadfully old engine(GW1 engine modded) I can’t really see any “miracle” patches…ever.

Ya and the worst part is at 99% GPU usage over a long period of time will harm my card. I think anet should fix this before people start asking them to pay for a new video card. But hey, if anet is fine with buying me a new GTX690 after it fries then I don’t care about any fix.

If you are running a GTX680 and getting 99% GPU, you think that is normal? Lol, imagine players who have the average video card not top of the line. The CPU isn’t bottlenecking, I can run any other game on full max settings and not use 100% of my GPU. My CPU is only at 10-20% while playing GW so where is the bottleneck lol.

Stormcrow.7513:

Arkanis Drako.5169:

Stormcrow.7513:

[…]
I remember when Anet turned down Nvidia and AMD help with optimization and I really couldn’t believe it.
[…]

So they really did turn down an offer to get help with optimization?
Do you remember where and when you read about it?

And why would they not want help with it?

I mean it´s a really important part of ANY game that should
get as much attention as posible, especially when there are
big problems like in this case.

It was when the last optimizations were done to the Nvidia drivers and that was the last time they did anything for GW2. It was probably about 8 months or more. There was a link(which I cant find) from an Nvidia dev that explained how GW2 is very CPU bound and that they offered to help Anet with optimizations for their cards only to be turned down. I wish that I could find the link but it might be lost to the annals of the internet.
As to why they would turn down any help? I have no idea. Maybe they figured that the inhouse techs could handle it or maybe that there was no issue in their minds.
Either way, there has been 0 work done for GW2 on both AMD and Nvidia drivers since that point about 8 months ago, and it shows. There are still issues with AO and graphic bugs, textures and the like.
After Anet said in a patch note that they were doing optimizations to the game I really haven’t seen any improvement. I get the feeling that we will be stuck with the performance of this game throughout it’s life cycle.

The problem with this though is that my CPU is only at about 11-20% while playing GW2 but my GPU “Graphics card” is at 90%+. And I even notice low FPS when NO players are around. I currently have the GTX 690

Arkanis Drako.5169:

I´m not saying this all has to be true, and I hope ArenaNet has something to say about this soon, but if it is true it´s a HUGE punch in the face for everyone who has performance issues with Guild Wars 2. And that are a lot people.

Not only does this drag on for almost a year, it seems they don´t even care to do anything to improve the situation and refuse to have anyone else improve the situation.

IF that would be true it would make me lose all my trust in this game which gradually decreased over the past months.

I was and still am a huge fan of ArenaNet, Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2,
but honestly not for much longer if things stay this way.

The worst part about this is that this was posted about 9 months ago and the FPS issue still continues. Yes I remember where I read it but I don’t want to post outside links, I would rather keep it in here for the devs to see.

This was posted by an nvidia employee, I thought everyone should read.

“Again, the state of the game currently is horrible. ANET are seemingly either being naive to issues or ignorant in general performance debugging etc.

As far as them refusing help from nVidia, the same story is true of AMD. It seems that Arena Net is attempting to take the “we can do it ourselves, go away” approach to the help either company is offering.

This, to me, suggests an air of pure arrogance on their part… Their guide for improving FPS on the forums does next to nothing, and it includes sacrificing graphical quality to achieve any (even if essentially insignificant) results.

Honestly, I’m losing respect for a company I really thought so highly of; ANET’s behavior is shameful and completely asinine and it’s not understandable in the least. They refuse to optimize the game’s engine in any meaningful way, they refuse to offload more resources to the GPU, they refuse to implement improvements in their DX9c call functions, much less take the game to DX11 (which would help significantly, even if they’re using the laziest programmers on the planet). All of this equates to an image of “We really don’t care, you’ve already bought the game”. Now, I’m sure this isn’t the case, but I am failing to see what the reasoning is for refusing industry standard help from the two companies (and I’m not sure the last time AMD solicited to help) that make the kitten graphics cards.

So… all blame, at this juncture, falls on Arena Net. nVidia can only optimize up to a specific point, same holds true for AMD. nVidia is attempting to further optimize things for GW2, but their hands are tied by the sheer fact that GW2’s engine is a flaming piece of kitten, to put it bluntly. System performance is so erratic, that even on closed loop synthetic testing, I get a variance of nearly 300%… the worst of ANY game I’ve ever played (which is not to say it has the worst optimization, just the most variation between configurations and system variables) Truly, I am disappointed.

Would you be able to share why optimization attempts were blocked?

All client side assistance offered by nVidia recently was refused. That means any non-driver optimization was refused. Reasons? I don’t know them, but there really are no reasons to refuse the help offered except for ignorance or pride/vanity, or some combination of that. "

DJRiful.3749:

Dude /facepalm.

What you are experiencing is uneven refresh rate… 62-63FPS … turn on Vertical Sync (Not frame limit). Secondly seeing GPU at 90-99% load is GOOD. That means the game is using the GPU effectively.

/facepalm

90-99% is NOT good, does not mean the game is using GPU effectively it is actually the complete opposite. Do your research and you will see.

I tested if this is still bugged and it’s still alive and working please fix.

ProxyDamage.9826:

CrazyDuck.4610:

What would be the point if everyone had the same skin?

I really despise people like you, so I’m gonna keep it very short lest we end up trading insults: Having the kittening skin.

I like the skin. I feel comfortable about my kitten size and don’t need something others don’t have to wave around as a vicarious way to feel special. I just want the skin, because I like it. I don’t care if everyone under the sun has it or if I’m the only person ever. I care that I want it. I want to have it for me. Hell, if you tell me I can press one button and everyone, myself included, gets all of those, fine! I’ll press it so fast I’ll leave skid marks on the kittening thing.

@Topic: Over 50 crates, nothing. kitten it. I refuse to dump money into a lottery. If they sell it for gems, I’ll buy it. Not crates.

That’s life get over it, I’m sure you wish everyone won the lottery too.

Already raised to 4.3g hm

Has already raised to 4.3gs

Edge.4180:

CrazyDuck.4610:

See guys, if everyone had the skin it wouldn’t have that rarity to it. What would be the point if everyone had the same skin? It’s much more rewarding having a rare item than an item everyone has.

You have to understand, there are at least two schools of thought here. From your comment, I tend to believe you’re in the first, where as I am in the second.

School of thought #1: “I truly believe with every fiber of my being that everyone in the game is paying attention to my avatar whenever I’m around, and spending time + energy processing how cool my equipment looks. How can they not, for I am the center of the universe and the specialists of snowflakes.”

School of thought #2: “The only time I pay attention to the avatar of another player is when it happens to be blocking the view of my own avatar, the pride and joy of my focus – which I can no longer see because someone else has annoyingly parked their stupid pixels in front of my camera. Begone, eyesore.”

See, the people in group #2 generally don’t give a flying fig about how rare your equipment is. What they want is options, and lots of them. In fact, the more rare an item is, the less of an option it is, and the more everyone starts to look the same. Thus, rarer = less options, common = more options.

Now, I’m fine with things taking an effort to get so that players feel like they’re achieving something and being rewarded. But rare through RNG is not the kind of “achievement” I’m looking for. You score a 01 on a random hidden loot table roll while I score a 73, which nets you a rare item and me diddly squat. What’s special about that?

I want to farm items knowing that if I put X amount of effort in, there is a guaranteed reward awaiting me at the end. That’s an achievement.

Well I agree they should add more skins etc that are none RNG, like more legendaries for sword/staff, new exotic skins etc. But I think the RNG skins should stay “exclusive” , something to work for with the excitement of gambling. Anet isn’t forcing people to farm it, the stats are not any better etc it is your decision.

“You score a 01 on a random hidden loot table roll while I score a 73, which nets you a rare item and me diddly squat. What’s special about that? "

Not everyone can win the lottery, but that doesn’t stop people from buying those lottery tickets day in and day out. So ya it is pretty special when you receive the winning ticket Hehe

Bah guys, I think what they are doing is perfect. They have to make $ somehow, but I just wish they would add some end game content, 40 man raids etc

See guys, if everyone had the skin it wouldn’t have that rarity to it. What would be the point if everyone had the same skin? It’s much more rewarding having a rare item than an item everyone has.

Ya I think I would rather invest in Faren then kasmeer though because It’s much easier for Faren to reach 8-10g to double investment then kasmeer hitting 40/50g to double investment :P

Kain Francois.4328:

From the GW2 .dat file:

109636_0740 Each festive dragon coffer commonly contains candy, tonics, or fireworks. It may also rarely contain a Mini Holo Undead Dragon Knight, recipes, or a Dragon’s Jade Weapon Skin Ticket.

Very disappointed we’re getting another set of RNG boxes. At least make them tradeable, like Halloween. Thanks.

However, I’m genuinely curious about the recipes too.

I would have no issue if they where atleast trade able aswell :P

ya I was thinking that too, I will invest in mini southsun farens then? :P Risky though I’m not sure if it will raise.

Hello

I have a few reef riders and I’m wondering if I should sell now or hold onto them?

Not going to lie, this is probably my #1 complaint with GW2 aswell. That is the one thing I really miss about WoW, is the dungeon/end game content. Pretty much everything else with GW2 I like but end game dungeon running is not one of them.

Malleus Maleficarum.2603:

Well, I’ve gotten SIX so far from regular loot drops, and only one was in a steel chest(which is used for exotics in place of a wooden chest). This sends conflicting results as to whether it really is exotic or not in RNG’s eyes. I’d have to lean toward no. All 6 were got with only 203% magic find…… BTW, sold the first for 11g when there were only 2 on the market

Hehe I sold mine for 30g:D

Kyla Jane.6138:

I honestly think that with the constant nerfs and changes that Anet is doing it is actually making the game less fun to play. I mean look at the elementalist they’re pretty much stucked at being a bunker and no matter what you say most of their traits are crap. I stopped playing it as whatever build or gear you take and no matter how good you are it is now a broken class imo. kitten damage, kitten survivality and not much choices in builds.

This I think is due to Anet constantly listening to people who can’t play well. Now I’m playing mesmer and it is so much better but, I can feel an ill omen lurking in the forum. I will honestly quit if mesmer becomes like the ele which is nerf to death that is. Also if you can’t beat a mesmer it is simply because the player is better and knows more about the profession than you are! So please Anet if you want to balance everything why not buffs everything rather than nerf everything!!!

I totally agree with you, a ele is forced to play bunker and better at being a tank then a warrior, a necro is forced to play melee to be of any “damage” use, and a mesmer is the only decent healer. Lol, now that is called BALANCE I also wonder why they keep nerfing stuff so drastically instead of buffing other classes. Pretty soon everyone/every class will be bunker builds and melee only.

No Walking.6349:

Every update has had a significant amount of new PvE content. As a PvP player primarily I feel a little ripped off (No duels, arenas, or different types of SPvP). As a PvE player you guys really have nothing to complain about though, everything is great besides the lack of raids.

New content is great, but where is the challenging content? We need some sort of raid options for guilds, guild challenges are not the same. Sure fractals can get tough but that is a 5 man instance. Where is the 20/40/100 man instanced raids? Suprised guild vs guild isn’t available either since the game is called “guild wars”. And we still need a way to duel/fight with regular gear instead of having to change builds in SPVP and “guess” what will work in WvW. Maybe the private arenas can have an option for regular gear or not.

Ever since a few patches ago I have noticed major FPS drop, about 20/30 drop. Even in PVE with no people around so it’s not related to how many players are visible. My GPU/Computer is top end and when this game is running my video card is at 100% load, increased heat and fan running 2X faster will end this cards life early. I also crash multiple times per day, so it makes me think it’s a memory leak. Unless Anet wants to buy me a new one in a few months, please fix this.

I highly doubt its because of nvidia cards.

Too many people logging in at once :P

Ya, the bigger issue is that error attempting to sell crap that doesn’t stop bots only harms players.

Maxluso.1289:

Hi, im having same issue since last patch too, my fps droped to half from 30 to 15-20 at mostly of the places at the dungeons sometimes i get 8-12 unplayable on bosses fights and my laptop is overheating too, sometimes crossing 100 degrees. Didn’t had those issues before.

I hope this could be solved with future patches.

Yes I have noticed this aswell, and I’m running one of the top PCs on the market so it’s not because of “older” hardware.

Zelo.2653:

Anyone have any lag issues in game? Been having it for the whole day and this is my first time.. So just wondering is it just me or others are having it as well..

Yes, and still getting spell lag in EB.

I keep getting this bug where in the trade post I cant see what I’m selling/buying and can’t sell anything because the page is just blank. The only fix is a relog and this seems to happen multiple times during my play time.

Hello

Can we please get a fix on the error attempting to sell on the trading post, it takes me FOREVER to get rid of mats/items after a dungeon. I know it is probably to prevent bots from selling too fast but I don’t see how this would stop them. It’s not very hard to put delays in a bot for example “sell 10 delay 2 minutes”, I can just see this is hurting regular users.

Minos I understand this but they should add an option to allow real gear or not in the dueling arenas.

Hello

Will dueling ever be available while using our real gear? I don’t like how SPVP/Dueling has a separate gear set from WvW making some builds useless to duel with because of low crit damage/crit chance etc.

Curunen.8729:

CrazyDuck.4610:

You know you play mesmer too much when you try to portal back home after grocery shopping.

I wish I could do shopping in under a minute! ;D

Hence the “try” haha

Great videos but one question, what builds are you using in these videos?? Scepter/Sword + Staff but what traits?
[05/18/13] Mesmer Combat with commentary
[05/11/13] 1vX Galdiator
[05/04/13] You shall not pass

Awe too bad

How can we get fused weapons now?

“Update 2 – 14 May 2013
Fused weapon tickets are no longer available in Black Lion Chests.”

You know you play mesmer too much when you try to portal back home after grocery shopping.

Thank you osicat, 3:5 build works great for me. Can you show some videos with more zerg type battles? I’m not sure if I have asked this before on this thread. Also, would sword/focus still be viable in larger zergs? Or would scepter/focus be more viable.

Only reason you love it is because you have received a weapon skin, and well a crate for that matter. After farming for hours on end with no crate drops, tons of group event completions etc and no crates makes you DISLIKE this event.

Malleus Maleficarum.2603:

personally I think the difficulty is perfect. makes it worthwhile when you use a defensive build/trait in pve. So many people waltz around in zerker gear, its good to actually have dangerous fights. Every class can be defensive, try it some time

No need for defensive imo, my zerker necro can solo 3+ no problem dagger/focus – staff.

I’m doing it the way it was intended, the events, with the group events/zerg mobs etc. Pretty crappy you have to steer away from the events to get the crates lmao. But I will try the young karka in the north end solo.

Atreyu.6905:

Pardon me while I lay off here all my frustration, but this event introduction made me realize that this isn’t the right directon for GW2 or maybe just for me…and I totally know that no one will weep for me if I choose to leave GW2 cause there’s millions more to keep playing, but I am really dissapiont Anet…

1. I don’t really know what hour did Southsun event started but I know that I logged into game maybe around 3-4 hours after it started, and I heard that my guild mates are at the end of 25/25 achievements to get exotic backpiecie…not only that. Some of them were nearly done with all achievements implemented 4 hours ago ! WTF ARENA NET ? Seriously I can’t understand logic behind that…why making it multimonth event when I can make it in one day ?

2. That RNG canse… I know it was mentioned millions of millions times but guys… as Fused weapons were at any case obtainable that supplu box kitten is impossible. Of course it’s only my problem, cause I really like the GS weapon and I believe not only me, so why there can’t be any way to obtain this in normal, not gamble way ? Why Anet makes us buy some kittenty shorts, but not weapons skins ? Why couldn’t they made a system like in SAB ? On Southsun you drop bubble-liked tokens, that you exchange for a skin which you cannot sell ? OR like Braham and Rox sets ? It’s really exhausting to cling on a 5% chance to get an item that I really like…if there are two achievements chests, then why not make one of them a token chest, instead 2 back piece items…

This all, after more decent Flame and Frost event, makes me want to really leave GW2, but I’ll just wait ot see what’s in store for us on 28th and then I will decide.
I’m not saying that we should boycott GW2 or that event, but I know I’m right about this, shame that Anet ingore that voices of people.

Oh well, don’t mind me, I;m just gonna go back to recovering some of that lost money after buying that stupid boxes. I’ll never learn, will I ?

Well if anet made everyone able to get the fused weapons, what would make them so special? Oh good job you paid 100 gold for a skin? Nah, I think keeping the rarity makes it that special “gem”. For example if gold only cost 10 cents per ounce, I don’t think it would be a “special gift” to buy someone a gold necklace.

9 hours of farming, 0 crates, 350-420% MF.. I’m bugged might have to report this. I have done 6 hours of events only and 3 hours of veteran farming with large groups…. Wth people are getting boxes left right and center.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Thanks for adding to the problem. It’s these reasons why Anet will never get rid of stupid things like RNG chests. Because people keep buying them up.

Go ahead and buy more. Don’t expect anything though. Don’t you love when they lock new content behind RNG (or lottery if you want to call it that)?

Nah I agree with RNG chest, BUT the odds should not be 0.01 for a weapon skin.