QuantumCat.9863

It's interesting. I see a lot of perspectives here. And I agree that using the minis as a tool (bait, confusion, etc.) seems valid - but if it is valid use, then why did they remove it from PvP? (i.e. minis stuck at spawn.) Surely that also removes a tool? The quaggan march sounds like fun, would love to witness that sometime. I'm pretty sure if I saw that, even as an enemy, I'd join in. 😃 But the use case of "for the lulz" is a narrow one. I've been playing pretty consistently for the last year and a half, and have never seen this even once. I'd call it an edge condition. The rest of the time, and on the rest of the servers where it is not happening, there are other use-cases where the minis can be intensely frustrating. As mentioned, the majority of the time, it's someone who forgot to stow the mini, or who doesn't realize that it causes problems for the zerg (or even for solos that are not at the skill level to roam with impunity). Usually, a polite request to stow them resolves the problem. But sometimes, it doesn't. People fly off the handle at being asked to do something. "You can't tell me what to do, you're not my dad" reactions, or people paying zero attention to chat, or people who think it's fun to "watch the world burn" and get juvenile glee from the fact that they're pushing others buttons. (Probably the same people who throw arrow carts, trebs, or walmart siege boxes down in front of gates, because "lol I got you to build something useless". Or build golems with supply and then go drop them off of walls to wreck them, or park them in far corners of the map . .. etc.) I'd say that's far more common and more frequent than the "fun" things like a quaggan assault team waddling down to take SMC.

"They deserve to die" is arguably correct. "They deserve to be able to get an entire squad killed" is less valid, though, wouldn't you agree? And I do agree, there are other problems that need fixing. I've seen some of the flight hacks. I've seen some Teleport To Friend type use on WvW maps that shouldn't be happening, but does. (Like when an entire squad appears out of thin air, no stealth, no portals, no EWP, just people start teleporting into the middle of combat as if there's a waypoint there.) There used to be (probably still are) spots where a mesmer could just barely place a port on the edge of a wall and port a squad to it, bypassing the wall. (They do fix these from time to time when they're reported.) And yeah, alt spies (some of whom apparently get paid in gold for the service), streamer sniping, and so on . . . some things are hard to fix.. But if code already exists in PvP for constraining minis, and it can be adapted, it seems like low hanging fruit to fix that.

Anet has confirmed, in particular when they were talking about Jadebots, that minis add an extra "entity" to a map. The server has to track each entity in real time for rendering purposes. It consumes SERVER resources. Which made the performance teams flip out a bit when Jadebots were first proposed - it would add yet another resource consuming entity to the maps. (Which is why, until they recently released them as minis, the Jadebots were actually just an animation package - not an entity, just a short rendering task.) I'm glad you manage to play with your narrow pipe, but it's not the only factor that contributes to overall lag.

There were at least 4 other reasons presented why turning off Minis was requested. ViP, as a fairly large guild with decent WvW participation, brings it up, and your main counter argument is "ViP loses for other reasons"? This seems like the actual definition of ad hominem.

I like this, actually. It wouldn't be as effective at reducing the lag/processing overhead, since there's still an extra entity to track in those areas, but it could work.

Agree. Someone kicked for something they consider their "right" (because the earned or bought that mini, and they should be allowed to use it however they want) is more likely to flip into troll mode, IMHO.

Excellent point - the minion-mancers already generate enough as is. 😃

I didn't get the impression this was passive agressive. They make a good point - newbs might not understand that they're telegraphing their location, and gain immediate bad impressions of the game mode based on getting stomped on the regular until they either figure it out or someone clues them in.

I would agree with this if it only affected the person, but very often, the mini is deleterious to a whole group running under a commander.

Alternatively, could it be set up so minis in WvW instances only render for the player with the mini? It wouldn't be the first thing that renders differently in WvW, like name-tags for instance.

It's a nice idea, and I'd guess about half will do it if asked. Others will ignore it (typically not in the squad and not bothering to read SAY chat) or will get antagonistic about it - in the past, I've seen people start throwing troll siege, calling attention to the tag, wasting supplies, etc., because someone politely asked for mini's to be stowed. Given time and a tool, a troll will find a way to abuse it.