Guild Wars 2

i think the reason this problem exist is $ (server resources cost money) and i’m afraid from a commercial (cash shop) pov, w3 is just not interesting to anet.

i just read Habibloew reply. thanks for such an extensive reply.

i think it rather accurate explains the origins of culling but doesn’t seem to mention network bandwith requirements from the server side. i find it hard to believe that client side network bandwith is and issue for the vast majority of users but i can imagine that server side network bandwith is a bigger issue when huge amounts of players are in close proximity.

i’dd pay 15€ /month for servers powerfull enough to avoid culling.

how much i would like to trade number capped AE’s vs daoc’s AE dropoff (ae’s do less damage the further away from the center of the cast, doing 100 % damage on target/point blank and 1 % at 99 % of the radius) without limit to the number of targets a AE can hit.

i have a rather nice gaming machine (i3570k@4.8ghz, 6970@1ghz, ocz ssd,…) and i get killed in ultra smooth 60+ fps by 20+ bands who pop up after me and my friends are dead.

culling and (fps) lag are two different things. people with good machines have little or no (fps) lag, but culling is the same for everyone afaik. culling = server issue. fps (lag) = client issue.

i think anet did huge miscalculations in what would be popular in this game and how much server resources would be needed for it. Anet wants the spvp to be the endgame, which is something that probably uses a fraction of the server resources PER PLAYER INVOLVED of w3. i don’t think Anet really anticipated that w3 would be such a hit. i don’t think their server capacity is up to the task.

for a 100 man battle the server needs to send 100 players location to 100 players= 10 000 pieces of info that need to be send.
for 10 10 player matches (the same amount of players), it needs to send 10 pieces of info to 10 players each (100) * 10 instances = 1000 pieces of info that need to be send.

that’s my 2 cents on the issue.

i actually like the idea of the enemy in ‘uniform’. … “red horde inc to xxx !”

i do wish the game give way more feedback like the player name when you click on him though. and then i haven’t even started about the lack of area/zone wide text feedback in the text window. i find the lack of things like “xxx was killed by yyy at zzz” , “location xxx has been taken by the forces of yyy” , (in guild chat) “a guard was killed at (name of location claimed by the guild) with xx enemies in the area” make me feel almost ‘blind’ compared to my previous pvp based mmos.

can you say anet did a miscalculation in what people would find interesting in this game ? i can understand that anet wanted the structured pvp payed tournaments to be the endgame (grin) and are maybe unpleasantly surprised that w3 proves this popular (considering w3 probably also asks massivly more server resources than insta 10 man matches). but what will they do with this ‘fact’ ?

give daoc style post max level character advancement (Realm Ranks, ok. Champion Levels, ok. Master levels, not ok) and no gear based advancement pls.

10 wvw ranks (comparable in effort to get to 10 daoc Realm Ranks) that give an extra trait on top of the 70 traits at level 80 for each wvw rank obtained as such would be a very simple and easy thing to add to the game.

only things really worth discussing a) is how points towards those ranks should be earned and what should give points. a system that only rewards for killing is to be discouraged. playing support should be at least as rewarding in gaining points towards the wvw rank. and b) how steep the increase in points should be to get each rank. i advocate a system where each rank needs DOUBLE the amount of points from the previous rank. example :

rank 1 = 1000 points,
rank 2 = +2000 for a total of 3000
rank 3 = +4000 for a total of 7000,
rank 4 = +8000 for a total of 15000
…
rank 10 = +512.000 for a total of 1.023.000

this harsh slope would prevent runaway power escalations

>>i guess it can be inconvenient that ‘some’ people that live in a far away time zone happen to be playing on the same server as you…

erm, that is ment to read “i guess it can be inconvenient that ‘some’ people that live in a far away time zone happen to be playing on the server you are playing against”…

if people choose to play on servers that have vastly higher ping for whatever reason, what you think can be done against it ?
i guess it can be inconvenient that ‘some’ people that live in a far away time zone happen to be playing on the same server as you…

i’m sure people will find a reason to yell at other people to leave w3 due to a system like this.

if you want balance, go spvp, not w3

after queueing for 2 hours and playing for 5 mins, get kicked cause we outnumber them ?
‘encourage’ players of your own side to go to a different map to reduce the amount of enemy players as a result ?

anet removed the relics largely because they couldn’t fix the hacking.

maybe they should remove mesmer portals and stealth until they fix the culling ?

“Agreed, only problem I see is (assuming you meant trait points) these are currently quite useless. Well, they can be used to make some money on TP but thats about it.”

no, i mean the sort of trait points of which you have 70 at level 80 and get to spread over 5 lines.

“I would really like an idea from ArenaNet on where they envision the PvP to be in this game in several years time.”

good question. especially with wvwvw.

i am sure that something like the daoc realm rank system for w3 would increase the longvity of the game for me and probably for a lot of other people.

a system of 10 ranks where each rank costs double the amount of points of the previous one and where each rank grants an extra skill point could be a very basic and functional system that isn’t overpowered and allows for increase in cap without too much problems ( if you double the amount of points needed for each rank, then it would mean that going from rank 9 to rank 10, for 1 extra trait, takes slighly more points than going from 1 to 9 for a total of 9 points). i can’t see such a system getting unbalanced, but it would provide the proverbial carrot.

realm (or whatever the name) ranks, yes
rank based items and gear, no
realm (or whatever the name) abilities, no.
advantages : 1 extra trait per rank (based on an expectation that a casual player can reach rank 5 in 6 months and the hardcore players who got to 80 in 3-4 days will have a full time job getting to rank 10 in 1 year).

this is a very simple and strait forward system that provides the ‘carrot’ of (very little and slow, but it’s there) character advancement that i find missing in wvwvw too, without adding OP stuff.

for me the anonimity takes away a lot of the immersion. It’s a game of war, strife, violance, murder, mayhem. any sort of conflict gets accompanied by complete lack of reason at some point and hatred towards the enemy as group or individual. my mmo experience has been one of (ingame) vendettas and rivalries towards the ‘they’ and the ‘him’.

They are the enemy,
their leaders should be marked for death and be killed first,
their heroes should be hunted until the end of the world.

so much immersion missing in wvwvw for me.

a) any sort of character advancement.

i want some post level 80 wvwvw advancement system. Daoc’s realm rank system was rather neat. 10 ‘realm’ or ‘world’ or whatever ranks that give an extra skill point each would do the job. just make sure that the amount of points needed to reach rank 5 in one year should be in reach for most people who do more than occasional wvwvw and reaching rank 10 would be a hardcore job to reach in 1 year, even for the people who reached level 8 in 3-4 days.

b) the Fog of War and anonimity of the enemy.

i miss deathspam in the text window. 50 allies can pass you by, go around a corner and all be dead 5 seconds later, and you would not know. i want to see " player xxx was killed by player yyy (in location zzz)". in daoc, that added enormously to the feeling of awareness and gave a great psychological effect. seeing the names of the 50 allies that left the gates of the castle 1 minute ago suddenly roll over your screen in 5 seconds certainly creates a sense of dread and impeding doom.

i miss recognizable enemies (player names !). nothing like a good bit of (ingame) unreasonable hatred and personal vendettas tot spice up life. Nothing like derailing a full warband from a siege to a different location because a single hated enemy players has been spotted there and his death now has become the number one priority. an enemy player’s name shouldn’t be shown in red above his head, but when i target him, i want to be able to see his name.

Thank you for taking your time to read this, feel free to comment.

while i certainly think the necromancer is a fun and decent class, i agree that they don’t feel ‘necromancer’ enough to my liking. I think that most people who have played White wolf’s Vampire the masquerade will agree that the GW2 necromancer feels more like a Tzimische Vivisectionist flesh and bone crafter than like what i’ve come to expect from a Raise-the-Dead-and-enslaves-spirits Necromancer and the main reason for that is the pets.

i want undead pets that look like they came from the grave, not like a butcher-on-acid-bodge.

And yes, this is mostly a visual gripe.

being member of a large pvp guild that has been around for 10 years in various games i can only say this is a clusterfeck.

1900 .. 5 people online
2000 .. 50 online all desperatly trying to get into the same pvp area.
2100 … we have maybe 10 people in wv3 and 30 people who say ‘feck this kitten’ already logged out for the day and 10 people still queued.

if it’s arenanet’s intention to solve the queue problem by making people quit the game, they can’t do a better job. what do they have to lose ? they live from selling the game, not keeping their customers as it is free to play, right ? it feels that if as soon as you bought the game, they actually want you to quit so you can ‘make room’ for new potential buyers.