Should PvE World Boss Map Population Be Reduced?

[TheGrimm.5624]

First off, love the Boss week event. Haven't done some of them in a while and this event is fun. It is also quite popular for what ever reason each person is drawn to it. I am sure some are for the loot, some were already still running the train. Seeing the masses though and it makes me wonder if there are more than what's needed. Current map population sizes leads to a lot of lag for people and just leads to 1 spamming. So the question is should the map population be reduced and more maps spawned to keep fights interesting and reduce the instances from just stalling. Not sure what that ratio would be, but right now it feels like overkill. So if this is just a setting in a database, what are your thoughts on PvE population sizes for maps with world bosses? Curious of people's own interactions. Thanks for your time and good hunting!

[kharmin.7683]

It is working as expected.

[Danikat.8537]

The problem I see with this is I don't think there's any way to separate the population doing a world boss event and the population doing everything else on the map. So if the population limit was reduced to only enough to keep the world boss fights challenging and running well on low-end PCs you then have the problem that at all other times the map could seem very empty.

Imagine if the population for Queensdale was restricted to 50 people (not a precise figure, just a random example). That might make Shadow Behemoth fights smoother and more fun, but also might mean someone doing hearts on the far side of the map will spend a lot of time playing alone (with a minimum of events starting) before they bump into one of the 49 other people allowed to be on the map. Also people who try to do the boss fights on the map they were already on being unable to complete it because the majority of people on their copy of the map choose to carry on with what they were doing before and no one else can get in.

If all world bosses were like Dragon's Stand, with a dedicated map then this could work...but then I assume they could also all be like Dragon's Stand where it's built for the whole map to be involved at once.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Having massiv lags is part of the fun!

[hunkamania.7561]

now PVE players can experience skill lag like WVW players have been dealing with for almost 7 years. Maybe now they'll fix it

[Auburner.6945]

I can't participate in the event. I get both ping and fps issues that I haven't ever experienced in the juiciest SM fights. I spent 1hr of complete "lag-free" gameplay before I was back into WvW'ing.

[VDAC.2137]

As @Danikat.8537 explained well, lower map populations would negatively impact all the other activities on the map and then would likely have a negative impact on the boss fights as well as it assumes everyone on the map being involved and this will rarely be the case.

[kharmin.7683]

Last night was certainly the fastest I've seen Svarnir boss in Frozen Maw get wiped. Faster than is typical for Fire Elemental.

[Ayrilana.1396]

Next week this won’t even matter.

[TheGrimm.5624]

@Ayrilana.1396 said:Next week this won’t even matter.

Agree I think this is more of an issue with this week's events, but its also a good way to measure scaling/performance and other aspects. Will have to run the champ train some next week to get a better feel of it but based on the boss TTK rates from a full map population probably only a fifth of those numbers were needed. I understand the bits about people not doing the event also being on the map but odds are good they were already there so wouldn't be as impacted. The risk is if majority on map weren't doing the world boss at what population level are they unmanageable. Thanks for the feedback.

[Blocki.4931]

Don't join the squad, disable all name tags. Thank me later.

[Bish.8627]

I went with reduce, but more than anything, I want to be able to rejoin the map I waited for if I DC, or more likely if their servers lose my connection. There should always be a 5 minute grace period for DC's, even PUBG lets you back in.

[Randulf.7614]

It's also because Anet have deliberately upped the visual noise problem by heavily pushing glowing, flashing effects in gem store and other skins/drops. It was never great, but it has just exasperated over the years.

I'd be interested to see if a dynamic population cap could work, otherwise they just to get on and sort their visual pollution problem out. Although to be honest I think they neither want or care to at this stage. They just want a world full of glow and sparkles.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

I don't think the OP is raising the appropriate issue. The "problem" isn't the population, it's that some (perhaps even a majority of) people at the event experience enough latency to make things unenjoyable.

Reducing the map population is one of many ways to address the issue and it introduces others.All things equal (which they never are), I'd prefer that ANet work on culling effects rather than players. If there are 50 people nearby in PvE, I don't need to see anyone's AOE circles or bubbles, except my own and those of people in my party. Assuming that tech isn't too expensive, it would also find uses in many other situations.

[Yamazuki.6073]

@"Randulf.7614" said:It's also because Anet have deliberately upped the visual noise problem by heavily pushing glowing, flashing effects in gem store and other skins/drops. It was never great, but it has just exasperated over the years.

I'd be interested to see if a dynamic population cap could work, otherwise they just to get on and sort their visual pollution problem out. Although to be honest I think they neither want or care to at this stage. They just want a world full of glow and sparkles.

Just turn off names and turn character limit to lowest, then none of the "glow and sparkle" characters will be on your screen. Character quality and limit impact fps greatly, so if you're using a low end cpu you should be turning it down if you care about fps. Even with an overclocked 8700k I have to keep both at medium to avoid having my fps go down below 30 with full maps.

At this point, they probably just need a setting that's on by default that auto adjusts these settings for people based on number of people around.

Also, this has nothing to do with server lag, none of this changes the fact ping spikes up to 200+ for people, even when they're within the region of the server.

[Knighthonor.4061]

Is boss week going on now?

[Randulf.7614]

@Knighthonor.4061 said:Is boss week going on now?

Started yesterday

[Knighthonor.4061]

@Randulf.7614 said:

@Knighthonor.4061 said:Is boss week going on now?

Started yesterday

Thanks. Is there something in the game that explains it or should I read it up?

[Randulf.7614]

@Knighthonor.4061 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:

@Knighthonor.4061 said:Is boss week going on now?

Started yesterday

Thanks. Is there something in the game that explains it or should I read it up?

Kill world bosses in Core maps and you get a new "bonus" chest. There is no limit to how many of these bonus chests you can get in a day even if you kill the same boss multiple times. The chest has an extremely rare chance of the ultra rare infusions and invisible boots. The UI will flag up the next 2-3 bosses

It's basically a bit of extra loot for doing World bosses. There's nothing to know beyond that

[Danikat.8537]

@Randulf.7614 said:

@Knighthonor.4061 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:

@Knighthonor.4061 said:Is boss week going on now?

Started yesterday

Thanks. Is there something in the game that explains it or should I read it up?

Kill world bosses in Core maps and you get a new "bonus" chest. There is no limit to how many of these bonus chests you can get in a day even if you kill the same boss multiple times. The chest has an extremely rare chance of the ultra rare infusions and invisible boots. The UI will flag up the next 2-3 bosses

It's basically a bit of extra loot for doing World bosses. There's nothing to know beyond that

And yes this is explained in-game. There's a note in the list with the achievements, story etc. on the right side of the screen letting you know you can get bonus loot from world bosses and listing ones which will be starting soon. You can click on any of those to see where they are.

[ChronoPinoyX.7923]

I mean they can technically fix the issues they currently have with crowds if they worked on technical improvements (such as engine upgrades and implementation of multi core optimization so that you can adjust how the game runs depending on system etc.). I've seen people make adjustments to this game (like the dx912pxy) and it makes a hell of a lot more improvements without necessarily sacrificing population.

I'm hoping that once ANet has managed to work their way through their current situation regarding financial issues as well as staff layoffs, they can focus on improvements for the game so that it can run better, but that's gonna be for a long while.

[MoriMoriMori.5349]

@"Auburner.6945" said:I can't participate in the event. I get both ping and fps issues that I haven't ever experienced in the juiciest SM fights. I spent 1hr of complete "lag-free" gameplay before I was back into WvW'ing.

I can't participate in it because I'm getting dizzy and develop an urge to vomit when I observe a mess a huge zerg creates on my screen. That's just a huge random dying fest this way - you can't really play the game as you can't see a thing in all this mess created by dozens people spamming their skills. And many world bossess have those "nice" attacks which are hard to evade if you don't even see it coming - and which can drop you easily due to how upscaled it because of the zerg. So you just running around and dying randomly, spamming skills randomly. Mega-fun, thanks, but I'll pass again.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@ChronoPinoyX.7923 said:I mean they can technically fix the issues they currently have with crowds if they worked on technical improvements (such as engine upgrades and implementation of multi core optimization so that you can adjust how the game runs depending on system etc.).The have implemented engine upgrades. They can't work on multi-core without an overhaul so extensive it only would be financially sensible for them for a new game. (At least, they have said both those things in as many words.)

I've seen people make adjustments to this game (like the dx912pxy) and it makes a hell of a lot more improvements without necessarily sacrificing population.Dx912pxy can do all sorts of things because it's designed to kludge results and doesn't have to worry about the rest of the game engine. Porting to DX12 or proxying a port (as that third party app does) in the official app requires a lot more than a separate app does. (To a lesser extent, that's also true for the simpler case of build templates; the author of the current work-around app for templates has specifically said it's a lot easier for them... and if/when ANet implements their version, they'll be happy to leave it to them entirely.)

I'm hoping that once ANet has managed to work their way through their current situation regarding financial issues as well as staff layoffs, they can focus on improvements for the game so that it can run better, but that's gonna be for a long while.As noted above, they constantly work on the game engine. For better or worse, they just mostly use that upgrades to improve how things look (bigger maps, more crisp effects), rather than reducing lag etc.

[Stephane Lo Presti.7258]

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to let you know that the team have been paying close attention to the World Boss maps and activities around the Bonus Event, and they've today adjusted the map capacity to account for the additional players that are participating.

Thanks everyone for participating!

[ChronoPinoyX.7923]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:The have implemented engine upgrades. They can't work on multi-core without an overhaul so extensive it only would be financially sensible for them for a new game. (At least, they have said both those things in as many words.)

They can do an engine overhaul if needed. Right now, this is exactly what Blade and Soul is doing without having to make a new game so it's plausible (they are working towards Unreal Engine 4 now). The problem right now (which I agree with you) is finance. Definitely something that currently has an effect on what ANet can do with GW2 right now. If they were financially stable right now, then it is highly possible they can work towards an engine overhaul. I believe the whole making a new game thing was more along the lines of if they added content that has a lot of new mechanics for the game then it's more financial to make a new game(the reason for GW2's existence was because they wanted to do a lot of new mechanics for GW1 but couldn't).

Dx912pxy can do all sorts of things because it's designed to kludge results and doesn't have to worry about the rest of the game engine. Porting to DX12 or proxying a port (as that third party app does) in the official app requires a lot more than a separate app does. (To a lesser extent, that's also true for the simpler case of build templates; the author of the current work-around app for templates has specifically said it's a lot easier for them... and if/when ANet implements their version, they'll be happy to leave it to them entirely.)

The one risk of things like Dx912pxy is mostly the fact that it's being developed on someone's spare time therefore it's not exactly a 100% fix (seen some of the issues that have popped up with it and tested them myself as well). Again, one of the main things that affects it is finance. If there was a way for ANet to get these people working on such upgrades officially, then it would be more beneficial since they already have the work around to improve current performance on the current client without having to do things such as engine overhaul. But again, finance.

As noted above, they constantly work on the game engine. For better or worse, they just mostly use that upgrades to improve how things look (bigger maps, more crisp effects), rather than reducing lag etc.

You're not wrong, this is definitely the current state of things. Would be better if they could work towards those issues but with the current generation of games, graphics seem to be more priority when it comes to the visuals.