Insane skill lag in EU WvW!! - Help us get a response from the devs!!

[RyuDun.7489]

Seen a lot of posts on the forum regarding this but its starting to feel like there is no communication and its just being ignored.

Skill lag on EU WvW is insane atm, its becoming worse to the point that you cant use 95% of your skill set in groups bigger than 40v40. It used to be that you could easily play when it was 50v50v50 however now you can barely even fight with just 2 blobs on the map.

The lack of communication really doesnt help the matter as it feels like nothing is happening or we are told to check with our ISP which is a poor excuse. How can it be that 80 people all have issues with ISP at the same time?

There has been a lot of videos and posts made about this over the last couple months that showcase the lag.

I know a lot of people perhaps dont experience the lag because perhaps they play alone or in much smaller groups or off primetime. But during primetime when its larger group fights its literally atleast 5-10s delay on skills.. even last reset we couldnt mount up at spawn because of 2 groups fighting near by.

If anet refuse to acknowledge the issue its up to the community to share evidence and help make them understand how bad its become. Please share your WvW lag experiences below and get your friends to do so as well. Perhaps if we get enough people bumbing this post we can get a response eventually.

[Deniara Devious.3948]

I teach game programming and design and I am almost certain that it is server capacity issue.

Everytime when there is blob vs blob fight the server needs to do enormous amount of computation. The amount of calculations done increases if it is a 3-way fight.

Especially problematic are skills which affect 5-10 allies/enemies at same time. Basically I am talking about AoE boon application, AoE attacks. Conditions require much more computations vs direct attacks. If conditions are cleansed quickly, there is less to compute. Huge boon and condition stacks is basically what brings the servers to a halt. Clients start dropping out and the lag becomes unbearable.

I try to now illustrate this using lay man's terms. If there is 1 vs 1 player, there is just 1 computation unit needed for attacks. If it is 5vs5 and everybody is within same AoE circle, then each attack will need 5 computations and 5 players generate 5 attacks, thus you need 25 computation units. With 50vs50 and tons of AoE, you will need 50x50 = 2500 computation units. So in worst case the number of computations grows to the power of two per number of players in a blob. In three way fight it it even more.

This is not just a programmer issue, but partly because of failed game design. Mass boon application (boons applied to not just yourself, but also your allies) and AoE conditions should be toned down. Many players will cry, because over the years they are used to this kind of meta, but maybe shifting the meta would do healthy things to a game? I don't think it is healthy to see enemy players in a blob and have almost every boon in the game on them. Then everybody is just spamming 1111, because besides auto attack almost no other skills work reliably. This just promotes bad player and let the bigger blobs have advantage to win.

Now the standard setup what most squads use is at least 1 guardian and 1 necro per 5 man group, but seeing even more guardians and necros in blobs is not unusual. In some cases these two professions alone make half of the zerg! The amount of boon spam and condition spam is just ridiculous. Arenanet has for years refused to properly nerf the overused builds and the WvWvW skill "balance" is still mostly centered around spvp.

[Virdo.1540]

it happens since they moved to amazon servers. I dont think they are going to undo that

[RyuDun.7489]

@Virdo.1540 said:it happens since they moved to amazon servers. I dont think they are going to undo that

I agree its been happening for years but the last few months have been pretty crazy even considering that.

[Sovereign.1093]

Less map pop. And more maps probaly. Mebe it's time to have a fifth map not eotm. Or

[LordHT.8297]

We warned them that bringing condi back to meta would affect the game's performance. To make it worse, the condi meta forced the guilds to use auramancers to cure conditions and the auras affect an undetermined number of players, this can simply overwhelm any server. They need to balance the conditions and rework the auras as soon as possible!

[Awesome Guild Wars Guy.463]

Servers are going to worse and worse condition...Lately EU, EBG especially, even 50v50 from 2 servers, already skill lag, unable use any skills, characters porting/lagging around.EBG, borders, if there's bvb, enough just to look at each other, or be nearby, once you feel lag kicking in, you know enemy's coming lol.Surprisingly, only map that has no lag, can easily map q bvbvb is OS. Few weeks ago we had 3 way fights there, literally no lag at all. Only EBG and borders affected.And I've no idea how ANET does not know that or fix it. It's fucking unplayable, spamming same button for a minute until it activates. Don't you guys have server statistics or something, don't see ping spikes or lag reports or anything. How the fuck you guys are unaware of lags that happening, for how long players do actually have to report and complain before you start fixing this. You come to dead ass server, on dead time zones, playing your shitty 0 sense making builds in WvW, follow random PPT tag for 20min, and say there's no lag, everything's fine. WvW developer team literally don't even play WvW, don't know what's happening in each regions prime time zones, don't even know what's up to meta. Ruins builds in WvW because in PvE they're too strong.Come online on EU prime, when action actually kicks in, and there map q blobs fighting each other.Stupid, do your job, seriously.

[primatos.5413]

Remove condition dmg than maybe ?

[Junkpile.7439]

Managed to run from sm inner wall to red keep stairs before heal worked and didn't even have swiftness or used shortest route. Funny try to fight when you notice that skills doesn't work and some salty mirage really wanna kill you. :#

[allshallperish.4620]

LOWER MAP POP, ADD ANOTHER MAP, ADD MORE TIERS AND NO MORE LINKINGS, so much can be done but anet fails year after year ignoring wvw. idk why u waste ur time posting.

[Vlad Morbius.1759]

I've never had lag before but it's a sure sign we are going to be dealing with a Zerg.

[Burnfall.9573]

@"Deniara Devious.3948" said:I teach game programming and design and I am almost certain that it is server capacity issue.

Everytime when there is blob vs blob fight the server needs to do enormous amount of computation. The amount of calculations done increases if it is a 3-way fight.

Especially problematic are skills which affect 5-10 allies/enemies at same time. Basically I am talking about AoE boon application, AoE attacks. Conditions require much more computations vs direct attacks. If conditions are cleansed quickly, there is less to compute. Huge boon and condition stacks is basically what brings the servers to a halt. Clients start dropping out and the lag becomes unbearable.

I try to now illustrate this using lay man's terms. If there is 1 vs 1 player, there is just 1 computation unit needed for attacks. If it is 5vs5 and everybody is within same AoE circle, then each attack will need 5 computations and 5 players generate 5 attacks, thus you need 25 computation units. With 50vs50 and tons of AoE, you will need 50x50 = 2500 computation units. So in worst case the number of computations grows to the power of two per number of players in a blob. In three way fight it it even more.

This is not just a programmer issue, but partly because of failed game design. Mass boon application (boons applied to not just yourself, but also your allies) and AoE conditions should be toned down. Many players will cry, because over the years they are used to this kind of meta, but maybe shifting the meta would do healthy things to a game? I don't think it is healthy to see enemy players in a blob and have almost every boon in the game on them. Then everybody is just spamming 1111, because besides auto attack almost no other skills work reliably. This just promotes bad player and let the bigger blobs have advantage to win.

Now the standard setup what most squads use is at least 1 guardian and 1 necro per 5 man group, but seeing even more guardians and necros in blobs is not unusual. In some cases these two professions alone make half of the zerg! The amount of boon spam and condition spam is just ridiculous. Arenanet has for years refused to properly nerf the overused builds and the WvWvW skill "balance" is still mostly centered around spvp.

+1 Helpful

Bad Game Design by giving every Profession the same access roles instead of giving each individual roles. Speaking of condition-Did you know that about every Professions can outdo Necromancer Profession conditions aside from Elementalist Profession? We have Profession called Revenant who is not even a condition base Profession to begin with, who can easily spam near unlimited condition damages and whose condition can easily melt any players within seconds?

As a result, even forcing Necromancer Profession function as a tank to counterattack them? Seriously, do you see the ludicrousness in that? Necromancer whose core root identity to be condition base Profession is forced 'to be scared of their own shadows' by non-condition base Professions who can outdo their conditions?

As a result, as a casualty instead of having conditions being respected to its rightful Profession-Necromancer, you now have every Professions except Elementalist being Necromancers and even outperforming their conditions in a large area fight

In other word, instead of seeing only Necromancer Profession using conditions, all you see is a Big Red Enormous Condition Bubble Ball leading the way with other Professions(except Elementalist Profession) conditions following suit

Like you, many of us want the best for the players healthy competitive experiences and as long Professions identities are not respected to their rightful Professions, nothing will ever change for the better.

-I also do need answers from Anet devs-

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

@allshallperish.4620 said:LOWER MAP POP, ADD ANOTHER MAP, ADD MORE TIERS AND NO MORE LINKINGS, so much can be done.

imo this would solve much yet... and would finally bring some sort of structure back. i'd still wish that Anet would add some leaderboard like gw2mists has with proper rewards and sth like seasons into the format.

and Vlad Morbius... i hope u don't believe that yourself. you maybe never ever played Wvw big scale, bc no lag ever is simply impossible - unless u maybe sit directly benath the server and are plugged into it directly :9

[Sugar Min.5834]

I must have said this a hundred times.

ANet only responses and acts on calls for nerfs. Lag? They can wait. Forever. Well, perhaps if you asked for more nerfs that may help improve the situations, yah that they can do.

[rng.1024]

It wasn't always this bad. From this we can draw 2 conclusions:

• Something got introduced into the WvW mode causing a significant increase in lag
• It has to be available to all (not all run around with legendary effects f.ex) for it to become an issue

Have you guessed it yet? Because I remember when it started.

Bad news is it mostly likely won't and cannot be reverted without a server upgrade.

[CrimsonRise.7650]

Yep, you can't even fight with another zerg, as long as another one is anywhere near the fight, even without that third zerg casting any skills, or when multiple guilds fight in the same area.

Reset used to be something to look forward to, not nowadays though. At least the borders weren't as bad as EB, but now it is.

[Sovereign.1093]

Unverified rumors.

Some vpn causes lag.If you don't live alone, internet usage of your isp is bottlenecking.Server issues because many play and so congest too and fro from your comp to server and back to you and others.To much spyware in your comp from watching prawns.Could be the voice so causing lag because of server location set.

Etc. Etc.

[phokus.8934]

The aged old question: do you fix the underlying problem (programming) or do you throw more and more resources at it (modify server load balancing) until the problem goes away?

[phreeak.1023]

At least in T1 its a good indicator to run away. WSR rides with his 70 Vets from Kill and Lays over the bridge in Bay and in our spawn camp it starts to lag and everyone is teleporting back and forth while running. Makes fun.... Not.

[enkidu.5937]

@"phokus.8934" said:The aged old question: do you fix the underlying problem (programming) or do you throw more and more resources at it (modify server load balancing) until the problem goes away?

https://www.reddit.com/r/GuildWars/comments/g6s5jf/the_best_thing_about_the_patch/foe57dj/andhttps://www.reddit.com/r/GuildWars/comments/fz9y7p/huge_server_issues_lags_since_yesterday/

@phreeak.1023 said:At least in T1 its a good indicator to run away. WSR rides with his 70 Vets from Kill and Lays over the bridge in Bay and in our spawn camp it starts to lag and everyone is teleporting back and forth while running. Makes fun.... Not.Currently that blob is camping in our EBG keep for hours. They run the battlements up and down, back to the lord, back to the battlements, rinse and repeat . . . cant even tell if its a huge matrix-rubberbanding-deja-vu or their very special playstyle ;)

[phreeak.1023]

@enkidu.5937 said:

@"phokus.8934" said:The aged old question: do you fix the underlying problem (programming) or do you throw more and more resources at it (modify server load balancing) until the problem goes away?

https://www.reddit.com/r/GuildWars/comments/g6s5jf/the_best_thing_about_the_patch/foe57dj/

and

https://www.reddit.com/r/GuildWars/comments/fz9y7p/huge_server_issues_lags_since_yesterday/

@phreeak.1023 said:At least in T1 its a good indicator to run away. WSR rides with his 70 Vets from Kill and Lays over the bridge in Bay and in our spawn camp it starts to lag and everyone is teleporting back and forth while running. Makes fun.... Not.Currently that blob is camping in our EBG keep for hours. They run the battlements up and down, back to the lord, back to the battlements, rinse and repeat . . . cant even tell if its a huge matrix-rubberbanding-deja-vu or their very special playstyle ;)

they want farm baggies and feeling great while talking trash in voice chat beause they can blob with 70 diamond hardcore pvp veterans.

[Arctisavange.7261]

lol you noobs, anet doesnt care.Since when has WvW been important for this company?

They could have put emphasis on making WvW endgame content many years ago but they chose the PVE route cause hey, fighting AI with fixated mechanics is more fun then fighting players who are real humans?

[Deniara Devious.3948]

@Burnfall.9573 said:

Bad Game Design by giving every Profession the same access roles instead of giving each individual roles. Speaking of condition-Did you know that about every Professions can outdo Necromancer Profession conditions aside from Elementalist Profession? We have Profession called Revenant who is not even a condition base Profession to begin with, who can easily spam near unlimited condition damages and whose condition can easily melt any players within seconds?

I am NOT that interested in theoretical ability to pump out conditions. The fact is that at least here in EU top tiers guardians and necromancers are generally the most popular professions in organized large groups (blobs or zergs or however you call them). Theoretically engineer can pump a lot of conditions, but no serious commander will build his squad around condition engineers. If you see engineers in an organized squad, they are most likely either medkit heal/cleansing bot scrappers or bomb kit DPS scrappers. Roamers tend to be holosmiths. Neither of them is a condition build.

Necromancer is needed not just for those AoEs, but AoE conversion of boons to conditions (this generations massive amount of new conditions) and necromancers are also masters of condition transfer.

For example while condition mesmer is a viable small scale spec, it is not effective in zergs, due low access to burn (the most important damage condition, conditions are generally removed fast by good opponent groups). Mesmer relies too much on illusions, which will die in big blob fights before you can even shatter them. Burn guardian would do better DPS wise.

I agree that condition revenant is a broken build and Arenanet should address is asap, but in large scale fights revenants tend to use other builds.

If everybody would just have small scale fights scattered around the map, then lag would not be an issue. Lag becomes bad when two big blobs fight each other. Three-way blob fight is unplayable.

[DemonSeed.3528]

A map just needs blobs somewhere on it to affect people on the map wherever they are, it doesn't need to be close proximity (although in most cases that is when it happens). However, I've seen server hiccups with only 1 blob present on map, who knows what is causing them. All I know is it is getting worse after the big balance patch dropped.

[reddie.5861]

@enkidu.5937 said:

@"phokus.8934" said:The aged old question: do you fix the underlying problem (programming) or do you throw more and more resources at it (modify server load balancing) until the problem goes away?

https://www.reddit.com/r/GuildWars/comments/g6s5jf/the_best_thing_about_the_patch/foe57dj/

and

https://www.reddit.com/r/GuildWars/comments/fz9y7p/huge_server_issues_lags_since_yesterday/

so basically for pve its "click" fixed?and WvW has been lagging as far i can remember for ever but it has been getting worse and worse every "expansion" but we can just "click" and fix cpu load by "spreading" ? it on wvw?