Guild Wars 2

Abefroman · Apr 17, 2013

The biggest problem with GW2 dungeons and fractals is that you can exploit and bug the fuck out of everything. The majority of the playerbase never learned how to actually do the fights without exploiting. Unless you have a dedicated dungeon group, you will end up exploiting the shit out of everything with pugs. They also nerfed certain portions that did not need to be nerfed at all because they gave you the ability to cheese everything. COF magg path guantlet portion used to be one of the most fun things in the game. They nerfed it because people never learned to do it and just waypoint staggered it.

xzi · Apr 17, 2013

Abefroman_sl said:
Shoulda mailed that pre-cursor to a friend like everyone else did lol.

It's kinda stupid though because I got banned like two months after the fact. :c

How is PRX doing?!

Mist · Apr 17, 2013

PRX is done with GW2 from an official standpoint. The guild still exists but most of the core members run under another tag.

xzi · Apr 17, 2013

Oooooooh, gotcha. Maybe I won't be buying a second game then. That was some of the most fun I've had in an MMO in a long ass time though.

Cantatus · Apr 17, 2013

pyksel_sl said:
Knowing how popular the WvW as launch I'm still shocked they waited so long to fix the culling and they still haven't added any meaningful content to it. I'm starting to think that part of the problem with the core of WvW was just the sheer disposable nature of it where after 7 days your work was essentially wiped. Hell, even the world bonuses didn't really start stacking up until the latter part of the week which means you had fewer days to enjoy the benefits.

Culling never sounded like it was something they put off fixing. They were honest pretty early on that it was something they wanted to do away with, but that it was difficult from a technical standpoint. They did reduce it and changed how it works a few times last year, but the actual getting rid of it completely was apparently a much larger project.

As far as the rest goes, I've always gotten the impression that Arenanet looks at WvW as being extremely fragile, so they're hesitant to tweak it too much for fear that they'll break something else. The unfortunate thing is that it's made what is supposed to be a large part of the end-game stagnant. The new skills don't do much to address this as they're mostly window dressing in the form of a bunch of passive skills you're unlikely to even notice the benefit of considering how weak they mostly are.

Swagdaddy · Apr 17, 2013

it's retarded to have the main draw of your game (WvW) be unplayable due to everyone being invisible

i along with most didn't really care what the excuse was and quit after it wasn't fixed for a few months

Grim1 · Apr 17, 2013

Swagdaddy_sl said:
it's retarded to have the main draw of your game (WvW) be unplayable due to everyone being invisible

i along with most didn't really care what the excuse was and quit after it wasn't fixed for a few months

So true. So when Planetside 2 came around that was the nail in the coffin for my guild. It worked, it was fun and you could see your enemy.

It also didn't help that GW2's WvW isn't very good for small group action, too much zerg and keep swapping going on. A big disappointment for old Daoc guilds who were looking for that old group vs group action.

It's too bad GW2 didn't get it right. Really would like to play a decent rvr game again. It's possible that the ANET devs can fix it, if anyone can it is them. But it won't be anytime soon and will be a bit late for most who have moved on.

Mist · Apr 17, 2013

I'm still having a really hard to getting into PS2. There's either no action or a zerg respawn fest everywhere.

RobXIII · Apr 18, 2013

Grim1_sl said:
So true. So when Planetside 2 came around that was the nail in the coffin for my guild. It worked, it was fun and you could see your enemy.

It also didn't help that GW2's WvW isn't very good for small group action, too much zerg and keep swapping going on. A big disappointment for old Daoc guilds who were looking for that old group vs group action.

It's too bad GW2 didn't get it right. Really would like to play a decent rvr game again. It's possible that the ANET devs can fix it, if anyone can it is them. But it won't be anytime soon and will be a bit late for most who have moved on.

Did they still not fix it? I played for about 15 minutes earlier this week and thought I saw a ton more of the zerg than normal. The new options menu seems to imply they leave nothing out. I'm probably wrong though

Planetside 2 can be fun, but you have to find those just right battles. Most of the time it's just a vehicle zerg. In that case, I usually spawn at another base, get behind the zerg and proceed to rape as many tank whores as I can before I'm spotted (no armor in the rear, they die in 4.5 seconds)

Tuco · Apr 18, 2013

xzi_sl said:
It's kinda stupid though because I got banned like two months after the fact. :c

How is PRX doing?!

We're between games, trying to figure out if Archeage, TESO or Wildstar is the next new game. I'm not even sure how close those three games will release. Either way we'll be hitting the next game with the same vigor we did with GW2.

I wish PS2 released around now, cause then we'd probably join that officially. I couldn't get into it because I was too lazy to find an organized largescale group in it.

Campa · Apr 18, 2013

Cantatus_sl said:
Culling never sounded like it was something they put off fixing. They were honest pretty early on that it was something they wanted to do away with, but that it was difficult from a technical standpoint. They did reduce it and changed how it works a few times last year, but the actual getting rid of it completely was apparently a much larger project.

As far as the rest goes, I've always gotten the impression that Arenanet looks at WvW as being extremely fragile, so they're hesitant to tweak it too much for fear that they'll break something else. The unfortunate thing is that it's made what is supposed to be a large part of the end-game stagnant. The new skills don't do much to address this as they're mostly window dressing in the form of a bunch of passive skills you're unlikely to even notice the benefit of considering how weak they mostly are.

For whatever reason ANet seems pretty hard set on how they allocate resources (i.e. programmers & what not) and when they decided to fix culling that in essence amounted to them deciding that WvW would only see minor changes until that project got finished. Which I guess makes sense since if you added a bunch of new stuff without fixing culling then you aren't really doing yourself any favors.

Basically the same problem sPvP has, all the programmer time had been focused on rankings & match making and now is on custom arenas & spectator mode and until that gets finished there aren't going to be radical improvements. You can definitely argue they have been to slow on class balancing but I kinda agree with their approach if the end result is we don't have these wild swings patch to patch that became so prevalent in WoW. But only time will tell with that.

Either way I think as these big programmer intensive projects are coming to close that the next few months will be more telling on how they plan to improve PvP.

Abefroman · Apr 18, 2013

Campa_sl said:
For whatever reason ANet seems pretty hard set on how they allocate resources (i.e. programmers & what not) and when they decided to fix culling that in essence amounted to them deciding that WvW would only see minor changes until that project got finished. Which I guess makes sense since if you added a bunch of new stuff without fixing culling then you aren't really doing yourself any favors.

Basically the same problem sPvP has, all the programmer time had been focused on rankings & match making and now is on custom arenas & spectator mode and until that gets finished there aren't going to be radical improvements. You can definitely argue they have been to slow on class balancing but I kinda agree with their approach if the end result is we don't have these wild swings patch to patch that became so prevalent in WoW. But only time will tell with that.

Either way I think as these big programmer intensive projects are coming to close that the next few months will be more telling on how they plan to improve PvP.

Any progammers here that can comment on the above comment? I didn't think programmers had the ability to work on whatever and were more specialized in what they know how to do. The culling issue seemed to be a more specialized field that you couldn't just move a programmer that works with audio to help a graphics engine problem.

Grim1 · Apr 18, 2013

RobXIII_sl said:
Did they still not fix it? I played for about 15 minutes earlier this week and thought I saw a ton more of the zerg than normal. The new options menu seems to imply they leave nothing out. I'm probably wrong though

Planetside 2 can be fun, but you have to find those just right battles. Most of the time it's just a vehicle zerg. In that case, I usually spawn at another base, get behind the zerg and proceed to rape as many tank whores as I can before I'm spotted (no armor in the rear, they die in 4.5 seconds)

Culling seems fixed. Which is great, but the basic WvW mechanics are the same. Which means mostly zerg vs zerg and keep swapping. That was fun for a while but it got old fairly quickly.

I think the map design is the problem, but I'm no expert. And there isn't anything that builds realm pride, except numbers on a spreadsheet. Not sure how they can fix that but hopefully they have some ideas. ANET doesn't make quick changes though so it will be a while, probably the next expansion. If they do anything at all.

Tuco · Apr 18, 2013

Abefroman_sl said:
Any progammers here that can comment on the above comment? I didn't think programmers had the ability to work on whatever and were more specialized in what they know how to do. The culling issue seemed to be a more specialized field that you couldn't just move a programmer that works with audio to help a graphics engine problem.

That's correct. But it's more of a networking problem than a graphics engine problem.

And it's a huge embarrasment for ArenaNet because they didn't learn about the culling problem on release. They learned about it months (6+) before during beta when they added it in because WvW turned into a shit show in large groups. That they didn't have it fixed by release is pitiful enough to give me no confidence that they'd fix it before I got bored of the game.

Nija · Apr 18, 2013

It wasn't even really a network problem. They finally added in "placeholder models" that were used until the person was close enough to matter. You're telling me they couldn't have added in placeholder models much sooner than ~3 months after everyone I knew quit the game? C'mon.

Also, PS2 has massive culling issues even to this day. Just last night I was firing at mosquitos that would blink out of existence at 400m.

Mist · Apr 18, 2013

Abefroman_sl said:
Any progammers here that can comment on the above comment? I didn't think programmers had the ability to work on whatever and were more specialized in what they know how to do. The culling issue seemed to be a more specialized field that you couldn't just move a programmer that works with audio to help a graphics engine problem.

Audio engine to graphics engine is not a big shift. Especially because it's not the renderer that was changed, it was what was being rendered.

You generally have 4 types of programmers on a game. Content (AI/quest/encounter scripters, sometimes UI), Tools (The people who make the level editors, the model importers, the AI editors the scripters use), Engine (the client itself, with or without the UI depending how the UI is coded) and Back-end (the servers, network plus database.) The culling issue would have been worked on by both the engine and backend people.

Abefroman · Apr 18, 2013

Mist_sl said:
Audio engine to graphics engine is not a big shift. Especially because it's not the renderer that was changed, it was what was being rendered.

You generally have 4 types of programmers on a game. Content (AI/quest/encounter scripters, sometimes UI), Tools (The people who make the level editors, the model importers, the AI editors the scripters use), Engine (the client itself, with or without the UI depending how the UI is coded) and Back-end (the servers, network plus database.) The culling issue would have been worked on by both the engine and backend people.

Thanks. I just never bought into some of the complaints by gamers. Anet would add some new outfit on the gem shop and people would bitch about how the hell do they release that and not fix culling!!!! Like someone programmer working on a flaming panties skin would know fuck all about network and graphic engine shit.

Wish the culling would have been fixed at launch, but I think as much as developers talk about "when it's ready", you do get to a point where the money is running out sadly.

Mist · Apr 18, 2013

Those are artists anyway, not programmers.

Tuco · Apr 18, 2013

Nija_sl said:
It wasn't even really a network problem. They finally added in "placeholder models" that were used until the person was close enough to matter. You're telling me they couldn't have added in placeholder models much sooner than ~3 months after everyone I knew quit the game? C'mon.

Also, PS2 has massive culling issues even to this day. Just last night I was firing at mosquitos that would blink out of existence at 400m.

The reason it's a network problem is because those placeholder models are transmitted with much less data than the real models. The problem was never the client's ability to render the models, it was always the server's ability to maintain enough throughput to transmit them. That solution, btw, is a very common one and was repeatedly suggested to ArenaNet in beta. Months before release.

Abefroman · Apr 18, 2013

Tuco_sl said:
The reason it's a network problem is because those placeholder models are transmitted with much less data than the real models. The problem was never the client's ability to render the models, it was always the server's ability to maintain enough throughput to transmit them. That solution, btw, is a very common one and was repeatedly suggested to ArenaNet in beta. Months before release.

You do know you can still play with the regular character models right? I think you are giving people on beta boards way to much credit for thinking they knew how to fix the culling issue. It was probably many things and not just one. The people on the beta boards were the same people that said they should release with more servers. We all know that would have been a fucking stupid decision.

Guild Wars 2

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