Don't make a new map! Solve the skill lags!

#1 - Aug. 30, 2013, 3:36 a.m.

As the title says, Anet, please don’t make a new map. There’s a much bigger problem, and that’s the skill lags and all other sorts of lags in WvW. In Stonemist being the worst and wherever there’s a big fight between two servers. Not saying when there are 3 servers. Even with your graphics on minimum you can’t do anything. This is very annoying. It removes all your desire to play. Practically you can’t do anything besides watching how you die. I know some of you will say this is a common problem that can’t be avoided, but at this level it shouldn’t be.
And I can’t say that making that new map or changing the borderlands will boost that desire if the same old problem will be there. And I’m not the only one. Personally, those new events in the borderlands with the so called “new orbs of power” seem more like PvE events. We should be fighting for castles, not running around and capturing circles. But in order to do that, the skill lag must be solved. Please do something.

Thank you.

DevonCarver

#6 - Aug. 30, 2013, 7:40 a.m.

Tom Gore.4035:
You have to realize people making content such as new maps are totally different people from the ones doing the backend server architechture.

Tom is correct. This is not an either/or proposition. Working on a new map is entirely dependent on designers and artists. Working on skill lag is an issue for programmers. Working on one doesn’t prevent the other from being worked on.

DevonCarver

#10 - Aug. 30, 2013, 8:30 a.m.

Swamurabi.7890:
Are there different causes for lag server side? Can there be lag derived from map population (WvW or PvE) as well as lag from server population?

Strictly speaking the lag isn’t due to population per se, it is due to concentrated groups of players using skills on each other. The server calculates things every time a skill fires off and the more people it hits the more calculations it does. So if you get enough people fighting against one another, or even fighting with one another, you start to see server CPU problems.

DevonCarver

#38 - Sept. 1, 2013, 10:23 a.m.

draugris.9872:
After watching the Pax Stream yesterday i have no hope that anything will be done in a reasonable amount of time. Devon made his announcement and for the rest of the panel he just sat there. Not a single kitten question came from the audience regarding wvw and only one question about spvp. Almost all questions where about living world / rp / lore, so that does say anything about the interest of the people and therefore the focus of the development of this game.

Well, regardless of questions on the panel, I spoke for a good 1-2 hours with folks about WvW after and before the panel. We are very, very focused on WvW. The issue with skill lag is quite large and while we’ve continued to hammer at it, there is no single solution available. We’ll do what we can, but it is a war, not a battle.

DevonCarver

#40 - Sept. 1, 2013, 10:34 a.m.

Oroibahazopi.9074:
Oroibahazopi.9074:
https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Time_Dilation

I am aware of Time Dilation and that would very clearly not work for our game at all. Skill lag is a problem and we are doing what we can to fix it, but I don’t see how deliberately lagging out those fights would be better. I mean, I suppose we could also just kick everyone out of the map right then as well and it would solve the problem. But it wouldn’t be fun.

DevonCarver

#44 - Sept. 1, 2013, 10:51 a.m.

Oroibahazopi.9074:
It’s slows down the server time so that the server and people’s clients have more time to do the calculations. It means that everyone’s inputs will be registered correctly and you don’t have the “am I alive?” moments because you’ve been frozen out.

It’s less of a lag than putting things into slowmo.

GW2 is not a deterministic serious of events. If I cast lava font you are warned and able to move out of it. If we slowed things down to the sense of being queued up it would quickly gum up what GW2 combat is.

DevonCarver

#47 - Sept. 1, 2013, 11:03 a.m.

Oroibahazopi.9074:
Well I’d rather have it being playable and slowed down than lagged out and not having any skills work.

Only thing that changes is you have more time to react, it doesn’t “gum” it up. Right now you can’t react at all in large fights because you can’t activate skills I know which I prefer. Also more reaction time only really nerfs the mindless aoe spam, direct instantaneous attacks will be just as dangerous.

You know which you prefer out of the system as it exists now and some system you’ve made up in your head. Obviously the one you’ve dreamed up is one you like more, but the real implementation of it would have a host of problems you haven’t mentioned. When we have a solution that is better than the current system, we’ll get it in, but all of the things we have tried so far have been no better than the status quo.