Curse

Yawgmoth · Apr 03, 2006, 04:17 AM // 04:17

It happens alot for me and it's uber-annoying, and nothing changed about it since early betas... except for that i see it even more often on mobs/other players for a few last days. Anyone else (from Europe) observed increase in frequency and scale of these issues in the recent days?

My explanation:

IMO the problem has to be the Guild Wars network code - they tried to minimize the amounts of data sent so that their infrastructure could be very cheap to make up for the lack of monthly fees. In fact the data transfer most of the time you play GW is less than 1kB/s going up to 2kB/s when lots of action is going on.
I'd like to be able to check my ping in game, but the one number wouldnt really tell me anything because of how the game engine works:
-some data are considered high-priority and are sent with almost no latency - example: i'm able to Infuse efficiently, i have less than 50ms latency on skill use.
-some other kinds of information are sent less often and with less precision - example: the locations and movement of players/npcs/mobs - it feels like it's 500-1500ms latency in that ( i played many online games and i just know how 50,100,200,500,1000ms ping feels )
-and finally (it's another major annoyance) some information are sent with latency of many seconds or just ommited - this leads to lots of so called 'bugs' with Guild Lord dying suddenly, when he was still above 50% health and those players/npcs/mobs walking arond having no health displayed. The bug with running through closed gates may be also connected to this or may be just server side, i don't know.

I think that the only solution would be increasing the frequency of sending certain information between client and server which would require increase in bandwidth usage and that may be something they just can't afford.

I'd really like to hear a response from an Arena.net's dev on it.

Grais · Apr 03, 2006, 05:35 AM // 05:35

/Signed
Same problem for me, ultra annoying. Seems to just crop up occasionally , and if the game is getting laggy, I expect it to happen. Not to the point of ruining the game for me, but it is pretty damn annoying. Another annoying occurence running lag , where I stop, and my toon keeps going, like the server aint getting the 'stop' packet, this has been my bane more than once, plus it makes others think your a 'tard when you run right up to the fighter and your a monk. While I commend Anet for overall system stability, this is something that can use some serious 'looking into' by the devs. Pretty please, we are all asking nicely.

MasterDinadan · Apr 03, 2006, 06:03 AM // 06:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by MasterDinadan

It could be an issue with your internet or network connection. I almost never suffer this kind of problem.

Sorry to repeat, but this is most likely the issue, as I just had it.
I play Guild Wars all the time at home, where I'm only one of only three computers sharing a LAN that accesses a cable internet connection... No lag problems, collision issues, jumping, or ANYTHING.

Compare to just know, when I try to run Guild Wars from my computer at college on a different network, the game runs exactly like you describe. My character bounces around and doesn't move very fluidly, because of my network lag.

So, I don't think there is much ANet can do about it if you are just on a slow network...

Sephy · Apr 03, 2006, 06:03 AM // 06:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by MasterDinadan

It could be an issue with your internet or network connection. I almost never suffer this kind of problem.

Way to not read the OP.

Anyway, lately I seem to get this quite a lot too. Especially on those extremely narrow bridges in SF

jackie · Apr 03, 2006, 06:19 AM // 06:19

I get quite a bit those as well. In Sorrow's Furnace yes those narrow bridges near the place where Flame Djinn is in the Galen Mission - very annoying sometimes

.

And it seems that when running for example towards north and then theres little path to east, if I stick literaly in the east side of the north path and turn east, it sometimes bounces back to the path heading to north.

These things have happened quite often for me and I rarely get lag with 10mbit connection except if servers are having problems so I've learned to avoid the situation but still they are little bit unnatural

Silent Kitty · Apr 03, 2006, 06:32 AM // 06:32

Sometimes when I cross a bridge, I find myself running underneath it. No big deal, and very funny. Still it is something that should be fixed, unless it gives me superpowers

JiggyFly · Apr 03, 2006, 07:06 AM // 07:06

I got it bad today in a GvG. It was the Wizards Isle map, and as my team and I were running up the stairs to the guild lord, I ran completely through the stairs and ended up underneath the guidlord and bodyguards.

Then later at the 35 minute mark and teamate of mine and I went into the enemy hall to go for the guild lord, but I never made it. I must have run through the side-gate into the hall about 30 times and everytime I was taken back outside.

All this glitching, falling through bridges, getting stuck in the ground and not being able to move. I first started seeing all this happen after the Factions PvP event (before that it was just the occasional getting snared on a corner or soemthing).

And with Anet always saying "They're putting all their efforts into Factions etc...", I'd gladly take Factions getting postponed a month for Anet to get on it and fix this shit, it's getting that annoying.

Kenweng · Apr 03, 2006, 07:55 AM // 07:55

I have this same problem too occassionally but it usually happens when my internet starts to act up. My thoughts is that is has someting to do with the transfer of packets between the server and your computer through a certain internet connection. Maybe the information system may be messed up or just bad coding as someone mentioned earlier. I hope you get this fixed for yourself.

(funny note) This also happens to monsters such as ettins...happenned just a while ago where the ettin was stuck in what I like to call "the infinite loop" syndrome where he is trying to attack me but keeps getting teleported back to where he originally started from.

strcpy · Apr 03, 2006, 08:28 AM // 08:28

I get it fairly often also. It happens during several different times - though all are generally latency problems.

Network. If I have to manny torrents open or too many computers going through my cable modem. This can get very bad if I don't limit upstream (I have 6mbit down - hard to fill that). I usually have no reserves anywhere, though I will sometimes configure the netwrk to reserve 5K/s upstream for my game sometimes.

Local client. No one else one the connection, no other software accessing the internet (I log all outgoing traffic on the router). If I'm in a battle with quite a few enemies and move fast (even just rotating the camera) soemtimes some serious rubberbanding. Going around corners with autorun can be irritating sometimes also. But all of these see a hige spike in system load when I've bothered to turn on logs. I have a somewhat older computer that has some video card issues - it boggs down sometimes (dual athlon 1800's - the dual chipset (762 northbridge) has some agp slot issues).

In my opinion this tends to be some of the "anti-hacking" stuff GW does. The game assumes worst state for you, best state for server controlled (in other words - anything that even slightly fails sanity checks is assumed hacking). I've noticed that damage to me during those times stays, damage to mobs doesn't. One amusing time of both network and system bogging down I had a level 20 warrior killed by two char choats and a flame caller outside of Grenditch Courthouse - it was quite a long segment of "rubberbanding". I think I killed the choat a few times in my client only to rubberband back and him alive again. Though with the way the death penalty works - was more funny than anything (I killed a torrent and everything went back to normal).

Your also just going to have it happen no matter what from time to time. For fast computers on fast networks maybe enough that an individual may never see it, but it will still happen across the board. If I'm right and it's a design feature (stops client side hacking fairly well) we are better off with it, the vast majority of the time it's nothing more than irritating.

About the only time it get's irritating is if I'm in a mission and it's causing a loss (especially at the end of some of the harder ones like THK or Thirsty with henchies). Otherwise it's sorta amusing watching the goings on.

Hodor · Apr 03, 2006, 09:20 AM // 09:20

This game does appear to do alot of what is called client side prediction, where your GW client will show you where it thinks you should be based on your input. The position info is passed to the GW server, which updates your real position. Sometimes dropped packets or server lag causes a failed position prediction. The warping business is the GW server saying, no I think your meant to be here.
This function seems to fail now and then, and you don't get warped to where the GW server believes you are on your local GW client visually. You see where your GW client though you should be, rather than where the GW server knows you are.
There doesn't apear to be regular sanity checks between server and client for some reason. It's a flaw in GW's protocol somewhere I'd guess.

studentochaos · Apr 03, 2006, 09:42 AM // 09:42

I get this problem all the time. I just take it as it is. Probably my connection and it is already so tempermental I don't want to start a fire

Vermilion Okeanos · Apr 03, 2006, 11:46 AM // 11:46

In my opinion, it had something to do with the recent update of
DirectX8 -> DirectX9 transition.

There are more problems than ever all of sudden after they send the faction update. It was then, Dx8 was switch to Dx9.

That was one of the main reason I hold the faction update guilty.

Ira Blinks · Apr 04, 2006, 12:03 AM // 00:03

I said it more than once and I'll say it again. There is nothing wrong with my internet connection. I am on 1mbit dsl line and there is only d-link router between me and internet. Besides the issue described is persistant and continues to happen while my client responds to my actions just fine. I refuse to understand how this looks anythin like connection problem.

Hodor · Apr 05, 2006, 03:08 AM // 03:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vermilion Okeanos

In my opinion, it had something to do with the recent update of
DirectX8 -> DirectX9 transition.

There are more problems than ever all of sudden after they send the faction update. It was then, Dx8 was switch to Dx9.

That was one of the main reason I hold the faction update guilty.

Considering this has been happening to me since I started playing GW mid last year, this isn't likely.

Thallandor · Apr 05, 2006, 03:19 AM // 03:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by MasterDinadan

It could be an issue with your internet or network connection. I almost never suffer this kind of problem.

QFT ruberbanding usually occur when the sever has a problem communicating with your network connection. i doubt there is really Anet can do to help you in this.

otherwise it could hardware or you have too many programs running in the background causing memory problems.