Miniatures in WvW

[QuantumCat.9863]

On 10/31/2022 at 11:55 AM, ZTeamG.4603 said:

No, I like having my mini with me in WvW 

Keeping minis on (especially the more visible minis) is a valid strategy to assert dominance over enemy players.  

  

Also, I hate to break it to you, but minis are not the reason ViP loses blob fights. Maybe back in the days of 18 second stealth pushes you could make a case for minis giving away zerg positions, but nowadays stealth is so short that anyone half awake can tell where the stealth pushing zerg is at.

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.

 

[QuantumCat.9863]

On 10/26/2022 at 11:04 PM, TheGrimm.5624 said:

 

---clipped here for brevity---

On the issue with lag, Anet's network code is actually pretty good. I play on what I call a paperclip connection (3 MB down/ 1 MB up, 175-500ms ping) and am amazed how well it plays with so little up/down connection speeds. In three way fights people will complain about lag and I am not seeing it. Drive speed is important and before DX changes CPU speed was highly important and after DX GPU impacts things. So I wouldn't use the mini's as a red herring of lag issues as much.

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.

[QuantumCat.9863]

On 10/27/2022 at 12:51 AM, SweetPotato.7456 said:

If people don't know how to check/uncheck a box to stay safe, they deserve to die.  There are plenty more things that need fixing, for instant someone on the Maguuma server is FLYING into Bay (there is a video of this on youtube, I am not saying just for fun).  Alt account spying - afk at spawn.  I think miniatures should not be a problem. 

 

 

"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.

[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.

 

[SweetPotato.7456]

if you don't know how to maneuver than you fail. 

On 11/2/2022 at 11:59 PM, QuantumCat.9863 said:

 

"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.

be more vigilant.

[TheGrimm.5624]

On 11/2/2022 at 11:50 AM, QuantumCat.9863 said:

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.

 

Not sure I would agree here. Not a game developer but am a programmer dealing with client server applications. Server resources would be needed to track objects, which could incur extra server resources to track. Those servers are virtualized Amazon servers that can be ramped up as needed based on need and cost. The server requirements are a non-factor as any cloud provider can increase their resources if the client is willing to pay for that. Rendering is actually done on the local PC which is why some people will incur latency as their local machines deal with more information to process and as we have seen one player in the same fight might 'lag' but another will not. When everyone faces latency that might be more an issue in connections back to the Amazon hosts. So latency in this cause would be more an issue on the players devices versus ANet servers. Not saying it couldn't cause player latency because their local resources couldn't handle it but for a different reason versus a server issue. Again wouldn't use the mini use as an issue that the server couldn't handle it, nor is it an issue in their networking code but more the player's PC couldn't handle it.