Guild Wars 2

Camera acceleration, also known as camera smoothing, is when the movement of the camera is exponential (i.e., it scales with mouse speed) rather than linear (i.e., mouse movement is transferred perfectly to camera movement). The purpose behind it is to make the camera feel like it has weight or momentum behind it but all it really does is make the camera feel sluggish, non-responsive, inaccurate, and ‘heavy’.

To make the above explanation easier to understand, here’s an example of camera acceleration: If you hold the right mouse button and move your mouse 1 inch at an extremely slow speed, the camera will turn about 45 degrees in-game; If you move your mouse 1 inch (the same distance as before) at an extremely fast speed, the camera will turn about 360 degrees. It’s scaling, or accelerating, the camera rotation based on mouse movement speed. In a linear movement system (one without camera acceleration), the camera would turn the same amount in that 1 inch, independent and unaffected by mouse movement speed.

Current Accelerated Camera:
1 inch of mouse movement at 2meters/second = 45 degree camera rotation
1 inch of mouse movement at 4 meters/second = 360 degree of camera rotation (when it should still be 45 degrees)

Proposed Linear Camera:
1 inch of mouse movement at 2meters/second = 45 degree camera rotation
1 inch of mouse movement at 4 meters/second = 45 degree camera rotation

The majority of gamers strongly dislike camera acceleration, in fact, if you search the web, you will see most competitive gamers will actually go out of their way to turn it off or remove it if possible (via console commands or game-file modification). Camera acceleration makes precise camera movement nearly impossible, especially at faster mouse speeds, which is a big deal because fast mouse speeds are required in fast-paced competitive PvP. It also makes the camera feel sluggish and unresponsive at slower mouse speeds.

Camera snap is the exaggerated camera rotation that happens when the game senses the mouse turning the camera at a very fast speed, it’s closely related to camera acceleration. When the game picks up on this aggressive mouse movement, it will try to predict camera movement and then suddenly ‘snap’ the camera ~60 degrees to where it thinks you’re trying to turn it to. This makes camera movement extremely unpredictable.

Solution: Keep camera acceleration and camera snapping on by default but add an option to disable it. This way, the very small minority of casual gamers that like this feature (because either they dislike having to move their mouse hand as much or they just don’t notice) will have it on when they start the game up. The more advanced majority of players can then go into the options to disable these post-processing features if they so desire.

Currently the turn speed of the camera is tied to the in-game FPS. Whenever the game is running at ~60 FPS or more the camera turns at its normal full speed, however at anything below 60 fps, the camera becomes progressively slower. For example, at 10-25 fps (extremely likely to happen in large 50v50 battles in WvW) the camera’s sensitivity markedly decreases such that it feels like it turns at one-third to one-half its normal speed.

Solution: Untie the camera’s sensitivity from the game’s FPS so the camera turns at the same speed no matter if the FPS is at 1 or 100.

Field of Vision is the extent of the observable game world that is seen on the display at any given moment. Currently GW2 has a very narrow FOV that can’t be changed. The problem with a narrow and unrealistic FoV is that it induces a feeling of tunnel vision. This can lead to headaches, eye-strain, nausea, and other symptoms of motion sickness. Not only does increasing the FoV alleviate these symptoms, it also makes the game look more natural and increases the level of immersion. To get an idea of big a deal a FoV change can make, I suggest you watch this video demonstrating a 60 FoV vs a 100 FoV in Tera.

Solution: Add a Field of Vision slider in options with a numerical read-out in degrees so players can pick a FoV that doesn’t make them feel sick and also makes the game world look more natural. Even if increasing the FoV causes graphical issues i feel it should still be implemented. Most players that do suffer from motion sickness at narrow FoV’s would probably prefer looking at the graphical anomalies than feel sick while playing.

The angle and orientation of the camera is currently set so the player is constantly looking down at the ground. Very little of the game world is actually visible when the camera is positioned at its optimal resting spot. This not only makes it hard to see what is happening around the player but it also completely destroys immersion and makes the game feel cramped and claustrophobic. Currently, in order to see the sky and in front of you, the camera needs to be positioned so it’s almost touching the ground so you’re aiming it straight at the characters back/legs. This is especially problematic when combined with the current camera collision detection.

Solution: Angle the camera up slightly and make the bottom of the camera closer to the feet of the player’s character so less of the ground behind the player is visible and more is visible in foreground in front of the player specifically so there’s more vertical vision.

Currently the camera collision detection is extremely sensitive and/or buggy. Every single object in the game will ‘collide’ with the camera causing the camera to zoom in so it’s in front of that object. In most other third-person games the camera is allowed to pass through most objects so the camera isn’t constantly zooming in and out. This makes running around extremely disorientating and players have to constantly fight the camera to try to prevent the constant zooming in and out. Even spinning the camera on perfectly flat terrain with no objects around will make the camera zoom in for whatever reason.
Solution: Enhance the intelligence of the camera collision detection so it doesn’t constantly zoom in and out. Only walls and very large objects (i.e., giant boulders) should cause the camera to zoom in. When the camera collides with the ground the camera also shouldn’t zoom in.

Camera zoom is the maximum distance away from the character that the camera can be set to. Ideal camera distance really just comes down to personal preference. However, most players coming from an MMO background would prefer to be able to zoom the camera out significantly more than is currently allowed. Having the camera so close to the character can actually cause physical motion sickness in some players.

Solution: Add a ‘camera distance’ slider in the options menu so players can pick their preferred max camera distance. This is the ideal method of increasing the max camera distance instead of just allowing players to zoom the camera out more by default. I think increasing the max camera distance by 33% would be a good starting point, further would be ideal so players can pick what they like, but i can see how having it set too far can give some players an unfair advantage or cause frame rate problems or graphical problems (specifically with height collision).

The A and D keys currently turn the player and camera at a very slow rate for whatever reason. This turn rate is completely unrealistic and uncomfortable to play with. The current turn speed makes the A and D keys completely worthless for both combat and navigation. There’s also a great deal of acceleration with both the A and D keys. When first pressed it takes 2-3 seconds until they turn the character at the maximum speed.

Solution: Simply increase the turn rate for the A and D keys to about double what they’re currently set at. The turn rate should be fast enough for the player to run in a tight circle (so a diameter of about one body length) while holding both W+A.

Locked Camera
In some third-person games (especially third-person shooter games), the camera is by default ‘locked’ to the mouse such that the right-mouse-button doesn’t have to be constantly held down to turn the camera (and by extension the character). This makes moving the camera seem a lot more natural, especially in a fast-paced RPGs like GW2 where movement and positioning is so important. It can also eliminate hand fatigue as well as the potential of developing carpal tunnel by not requiring the player to constantly hold the right-mouse-button at all times.

Solution:
Consider adding an option to lock the camera to the mouse. When this mode is enabled, it would also enable a secondary keybind (for example, ‘shift’ by default), when held down, this key would temporarily unlock the camera from the mouse and bring up a cursor that would allow players to still interact with the world when needed. Also, whenever a menu is open that requires the cursor (such as the Trading Post, the inventory, the loot window, dialogue/NPC interaction, etc) the mouse would automatically become temporarily unlocked and would automatically become locked again when the menu is closed.

The Camera Glitch causes the camera to suddenly jerk with very little actual user input and then resets the cursor to the middle of the screen. This issue is difficult to describe so I’ll just post these two videos to demonstrate:
Guild Wars 2 camera glitch – BWE2
Guild Wars 2 camera glitch – BWE1
It appears like this is being caused by the acceleration/snap function of the camera. It senses quick movement and then jerks the camera despite the user barely moving the mouse at all.

Solution: Unfortunately there isn’t an easy solution for this problem. It will require extensive bug checking and/or some recoding of the camera algorithm.

Update: I believe this has been fixed. I personally can’t reproduce it anymore; however, there is one comment in the youtube videos posted above stating that they still have this issue as of 9/2/12. Can anyone confirm/deny if it’s still happening to them?

Currently the left-click mouse button will select a target upon key-press rather than key-release. This makes it so whenever the player attempts to turn the camera by left-clicking first, that they randomly select unwanted targets. This is especially problematic in WvW because there’s very little room on the screen in large battles to purposely avoid this problem (i,e,. by positioning the cursor away from all targets before left-clicking).

Solution: Make the left-click button only select a target upon release instead of key-depression.

Please Arena-net, I want this game to succeed as i think it has the best foundation of any MMO I’ve ever played. However, i feel that the current camera system will turn a lot of players away, especially the more “skilled” or experienced player-base that are picky with game feel and responsiveness.

If anyone has anything else to add related to the camera (or player-control related to the camera) or if you agree with any of the above and desperately want to see the camera improved, I encourage you to please feel free to post here.

Thank you

Other Camera-Related Threads:

Camera control issues – a documented list — by Baxuz.1943

Is it just me or should RIGHT click NOT target anything?

Thanks for writing this up, I agree with you on all points.

I think that probably the easiest way to improve the camera greatly is also probably the easiest fix — Tilt the camera up, putting your character just above the skill bar, and allow us to see the beautiful sky once and a while.

And due to the zooming in and out caused by putting the camera near the ground, I always keep my camera at a high angle looking down to prevent the camera clipping with objects, which results in having half my screen constantly looking at the ground.

I’m sure there are many complexities in getting the camera right that us players don’t have a clue about, but I’m still clueless as to how the camera that every single player’s ENTIRE experience is viewed through is so troublesome in an otherwise amazing game.

But I have %100 confidence that they will get it perfectly tight as soon as possible. Go Arena Net!

Thank you for this compilation. I am glad that others are talking about the camera issues. I have two major issues:
(1) The most important issue I have is I want a hotkey to right the camera in the direction I am facing. It is frustrating when playing the ranger in melee when it rolls me around the target and I try to dodge and end up going somewhere I did not expect at all. I hate having to swivel the camera with the mouse and when I do, I sometimes have a new, unintended target.

(2) The smaller issue is in brushy areas I cannot see what is directly in front of my character. If I max zoom, I cannot see anything and my character’s body is in the way. If I zoom out a bit to see what is immediately around me, brush is in front of my camera. I don’t have an easy solution to this problem.

Thanks for your attention!

I agree that the camera has some issues…particularly with large norn and jump puzzles. What I have problems most is that when zoomed in all the way, the camera is down too far. It needs to be hooked to the players waist, and relative to each race (right now it is in the same place for all races, which is a problem for norn who take up the entire screen).

Also, I’m not sure if this falls into your ‘fov’ category, but when zoomed in and the camera position in the options is all the way to the left or right, the camera seems like it should be over further, something like Warhammer 40k: Space Marine, and Resident Evil 5.

On another note, (not sure if its exactly related) I think it’d be nice if there was an option for ‘left click attacks’ while the right click is held down, instead of the default ‘drive mode.’

Great and detailed post. I agree and hope they are listening.
This has to be on their short list, since its one of the most discussed Issues I have seen.

Lewzephyr.5281:

This has to be on their short list, since its one of the most discussed Issues I have seen.

I hope so.

Agreed 100%.

One of my only gripes with GW2 is the camera. I flip between mouse and keyboard turning ( sometimes i’ll use the keyboard while looking behind me with the cam or whatever ), and the delay and then acceleration drives me nuts.

Great post.

They had the right camera behavior in gw 1 seen here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfRBp5LX2Ss&feature=plcp

now look at it in gw2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWnk6CEniYw&feature=plcp

Thank you for writing this. I agree 100%.

Pleeeeeease pleeeease pleeeease let us zoom the camera out more! >.<

i turn camera accel all the way down..

turn my mouse accell all the way up within windows. naga

i dont have heavy camera..
i dont have camera snap

A and D are bout to strafe.

right mouse turns amazing no lag not jittering no snap no problems unless clipped camera into an object…. which is every game ive ever played.

i think you need TRACKING speed change or POLLING rate change in your windows/os drivers

because with gw2 at 0 accel.

its worked just fine since BWE1

SeanPoez.8407:

Locked Camera
In some third-person games (especially third-person shooter games), the camera is by default ‘locked’ to the mouse such that the right-mouse-button doesn’t have to be constantly held down to turn the camera (and by extension the character). This makes moving the camera seem a lot more natural, especially in a fast-paced RPGs like GW2 where movement and positioning is so important. It can also eliminate hand fatigue as well as the potential of developing carpal tunnel by not requiring the player to constantly hold the right-mouse-button at all times.

---

about the above statement… third party shooters always suck camera wise and all motions are less fluid and robotic because the mouse isnt used for interaction.

if you lock the mouse to the camera you couldnt ground target.

groud target is a big part of the game.

and it adds to skill complexity.

right mouse is the deal…

third party shooters actually always have terrible controls. or a camera that makes the game obnoxious and non immersive. or off angle or makes the character act in different ways when the camera is turned a certain direction

currently your char in gw2 responds well no matter how the camera is turned.

lock the mouse… and where are you going to ground target …

but im all for MORE OPTIONS that we can play with as long as it doesnt change how i like it.

again i dont have any acceleration or snap problems and the camera stops where i tell it to stop… not heavy

really turn down GW2 mous all the way and turn up stuff in windows.

great post OP! All for this

Zeph.1260:

i turn camera accel all the way down..

turn my mouse accell all the way up within windows. naga

i dont have heavy camera..
i dont have camera snap

A and D are bout to strafe.

right mouse turns amazing no lag not jittering no snap no problems unless clipped camera into an object…. which is every game ive ever played.

i think you need TRACKING speed change or POLLING rate change in your windows/os drivers

because with gw2 at 0 accel.

its worked just fine since BWE1

Changing the in-game sensitivity does absolutely nothing to the acceleration. The two are completely unrelated. I bet if you were to turn the in-game sensitivty all the way up and your mouses DPI down it would feel the exact same way for you. However, just because you can’t personally notice the acceleration does not mean it’s not there. Some people (especially those with a background in competitive FPS games such as CS 1.6) can instantly notice camera/mouse acceleration in any game they play.

I have A and D bound to strafe also, but some people still use A and D to turn and in it’s current state, it’s nearly impossible to use the A and D keys for that purpose. They’re way too slow (because they have tons of acceleration) and the turn radius is about half what it should be.

Some poorly made games have camera clipping issues (i.e., MOST games) because most games are just poorly made console ports designed to make money and not be exceptional. I’m quite sure the Guild Wars 2 team is trying to build something nearly perfect and having one of the most atrocious camera systems i’ve seen in a PC-exclusive title is probably not something they’re aiming for. I hate to use WoW as an example because people on these forums seem to go nuts whenever someone does, but WoW has an absolutely perfect camera system. It has nearly zero clipping and has exceptional collision logic. I suggest you download the free trial of WoW and test out the camera for yourself to see what i mean if you haven’t played that game.

And for the record, my mouse/input setup is about as good as it gets. I have a Logitech G400 (which has the most precise sensor available in any mouse right now), windows is set to 6/11, mouse DPI is set to 800, I’m using the windows 7 mouse fix to remove all mouse acceleration in windows with a Puretrack talent mouse pad. I’m a perfectionist when it comes to my mouse setup, so I’m 100% positive that any of these issues I’ve mentioned are not on my end but are actually part of the game :P

I agree with what has been posted here and hope the devs are able to fix these soon. However, there is one other thing I have noticed in game that I did not see mentioned here.

I find that every single npc, bush, or creature becomes my target as I move through the landscape of the game. I am not very tech savvy but I’ve not had this problem in other games so do not know why it is happening in this game.

I use my mouse with right/left buttons depressed for movement and when not tab targeting I select my target with my mouse as well…but a lot of the time, while in combat all of a sudden I have lost contact with my original target only to find my target has become the poor feckless bunny rabbit under the bush or the bush itself, or the npc standing next to me.

When running through populated areas every single npc or player I happen to pass becomes my target as well. This is most annoying and I have no idea how to fix this problem.

SeanPoez.8407:

if you lock the mouse to the camera you couldnt ground target.

maybe when the camera lock option is enabled they can use the rmb or another button to temporarily unlock the mouse to the camera enabling people to ground target

I agree with everything, especially FOV and camera acceleration.

FrozenBubble.8732:

SeanPoez.8407:

if you lock the mouse to the camera you couldnt ground target.

maybe when the camera lock option is enabled they can use the rmb or another button to temporarily unlock the mouse to the camera enabling people to ground target

I’m not sure why I’m being quoted as saying that, i never said that. The easiest way to deal with skill-shot or ground targetable abilities with a camera-lock system is to use an aimer in the center of the screen and you just use that (think tera) to aim them. Yes, it would be somewhat awkward and difficult to implement and that’s why i have this suggestion at the bottom of the list (it’s by far the hardest to implement and all of the other improvements would also improve a locked-camera system too).

SeanPoez.8407:

FrozenBubble.8732:

SeanPoez.8407:

if you lock the mouse to the camera you couldnt ground target.

maybe when the camera lock option is enabled they can use the rmb or another button to temporarily unlock the mouse to the camera enabling people to ground target

I’m not sure why I’m being quoted as saying that, i never said that. The easiest way to deal with skill-shot or ground targetable abilities with a camera-lock system is to use an aimer in the center of the screen and you just use that (think tera) to aim them. Yes, it would be somewhat awkward and difficult to implement and that’s why i have this suggestion at the bottom of the list (it’s by far the hardest to implement and all of the other improvements would also improve a locked-camera system too).

No, I don’t think it would be too awkward or difficult to implement. One has only to look at the multitude of other mmos that have these options to see how easy it seems. I think it may just seem weird because a lot of folks that play traditional mmos are used to seeing and using standard mmo control options.

As far as ground targeting goes, there would be no problem with that whatsoever, since it would be handled exactly the way it is now. There is an option called Fast-Cast Ground Targeting which casts the skill wherever your cursor is. This works whether you can see it or not. I know because I keep my RMB held down 100% of the time and this is the way I use ground targeted abilities.

Now, I agree that an aiming reticle would be marvelous, or at the very least a visible cursor so we can better tell where the skill is being aimed at. I don’t think this would be very hard to put in either as, like I said before, so many other games have already done it. However, this might not be immediately necessary. A proper mouselook mode would suffice for now as far as I’m concerned.

It would only be difficult to implement in comparison to the other camera fixes. Also it would be more difficult to add a locked camera in a game that already has a different camera system in place compared to building a new game with a locked camera from the ground up.

Anyone find any other problems with the camera that i don’t have listed in the first post?

Anyone know why i can’t edit any of my posts in this thread? :/

Edit: That was a really odd bug, the edit/quote icons in the bottom-right corner of every post was gone. After posting this they reappeared.

I agree with all the camera problems and would love to see them fixed.

i’m with this. some of the jumping puzzles are impossible to do thanks to the snapping camera making me feel i’m on a very small ship in a very large ocean. it’s like wrestling with the camera control, rather than feeling fluid. entirely because of the camera, i’ve had to accept i won’t get to do many of the jumping puzzles. that aside, in some internal areas, it also makes it impossible to see what’s going on when your camera has snapped to the back of your head. you take two steps and boom, it’s back out and leaving your brain reeling somewhere in the back of your stomach.

i personally think, in relation to this, the character is positioned a little too high in the centre of the screen. it makes the problem even worse. it would have been nice to position the character a little lower. just to give some kind of “breathing” room.

while i’m not one to make demands, it’s about the only thing about gw2 which impedes a lot of progress in some areas.

Another like-minded fellow player. Great topic.
I also made a similar lenghty topic on the issue. Could you please refer to it in the post reserved for links?

I’m already halfway to quit playing just because of the issues with camera

Movement controls (WASD) are a pita too. the character didn’t react in a linear way
to key presses which makes control movement just a pain. often times there is
no reaction at all and I have to press the key again to get my toon moving. I guess it’s
because some kind of animation-lock-out or something. sometimes my character
doesn’t move at all and I have to release key and press again to get it to move.
so annoying.

“normal” behaviour in this game is like that:
press a key – wait 1/2 second – character starts to move.
release key – character still moves for 1/2 second before stopping.
and this without any lag!

precise movement is impossible with that kind of behaviour!!

Jumping puzzles and vistas are a pain. I didn’t bother with them anymore.

Overall moving & fighting feels very sluggish, slow and often time unresponsive.
It’s just plain annoying and no fun at all.

This already had poisoned my gameplay.
I only login occasionally to test if there were changes made in that regard.
In the current state, the game is unplayable for me.

Because of a plethora of more pressing issues,
I have not much hope that this will get fixed soon.

so sad.

Hi,
you’ve put it in (many more) better words than I could (and it the right forum..).

Great job! And thanks!

Habanero.9384:

I’m already halfway to quit playing just because of the issues with camera

Movement controls (WASD) are a pita too. the character didn’t react in a linear way
to key presses which makes control movement just a pain. often times there is
no reaction at all and I have to press the key again to get my toon moving. I guess it’s
because some kind of animation-lock-out or something. sometimes my character
doesn’t move at all and I have to release key and press again to get it to move.
so annoying.

“normal” behaviour in this game is like that:
press a key – wait 1/2 second – character starts to move.
release key – character still moves for 1/2 second before stopping.
and this without any lag!

precise movement is impossible with that kind of behaviour!!

Jumping puzzles and vistas are a pain. I didn’t bother with them anymore.

Overall moving & fighting feels very sluggish, slow and often time unresponsive.
It’s just plain annoying and no fun at all.

This already had poisoned my gameplay.
I only login occasionally to test if there were changes made in that regard.
In the current state, the game is unplayable for me.

Because of a plethora of more pressing issues,
I have not much hope that this will get fixed soon.

so sad.

Yeah, I’m not gonna lie. I kind of stopped playing because the camera behavior messes me up so much that its not even enjoyable anymore.

I want to keep playing, but as soon as I log in and move around…i start to get a headache. :[ …This is coming from someone that plays FPS games like Quake Live.

SeanPoez.8407:

Anyone find any other problems with the camera that i don’t have listed in the first post?

I’ve had problems with the camera overshooting and then rotation back when moving fast, I’m asuming this is something to do with the predictive movement.

Basically I rotate the camera whilst moveing forwards to turn the character. When i stop moveing the camera, it will still continue to move for a second or so and rotate past the directly behind point of my character.

The camera inertia then slowly comes to a stop and then slowly rotates the camera back in the opposite direction so that it is then directly behind the toon, and this is without me even touching the mouse after I finish the initial movement :s

Talk about sea sickness :s

only camera fix id suggest is if your in a tight corner, they maybe make what is blocking your camera view “see through” since yeah, some jumping puzzels are hard to do when the camera is bouncing in and out. Other than that it works fine and I havn’t changed the settings once. Got a button to turn around, mouse to turn quick and I prefer camera snap but for those who don’t, maybe just make an option to turn camera snap off.

Agree on all counts. In particular, the lack of greater zoom flexibility bothers me, particularly in a game that demands attention to your surroundings.

I fully agree with all your points, especially the camera snapping back. Its to me the biggest annoyance i have had so far. It really feels as smooth as a brick how its implemented right now. And also it not clipping through small bushes is annoying. If you get near anything like a bush, tree or anything and walk close to it. The camera goes beserk.

Also having played MMOs for such a long time i really dislike the zoomed in view. I rather zoom out twice the distance currently possible to get a good idea what is happening around me.

Thanks for this compilation. Though I love the game, the camera is an irritation in of itself. Aside from the camera collision and other points the OP brought out, it’d be nice if the camera turned without having to hold the right-hand mouse button.

It’d also be easier on my hand/wrist if it was changed to be like that.

With two big threads on camera issues, I don’t think that this will go on for long unnoticed. It’s probably the most reported gameplay issue, apart from the general bugs and balance issues (and ofc account/server problems).

thank you for the post i need some thing to be done about this i get sick from playing this game

A few ideas on how the camera/player should react to mouse controls after plaing TF: Fall of Cybertron:

• naturally, 1:1 camera movement without acceleration and input lag, and adjustable/larger FoV
• pressing RMB (or even mouse look) should turn the character in the following way, while standing still:
  1. the head should follow the camera facing up to the point of natural rotation, along with torso adjustment near the end of the movement
  2. after the camera has changed facing over the upper body movement limit, the feet follow naturally (turn animation) and re-center.
  3. if the mouse/camera movement is too fast after reaching the upper body treshold, only the camera follows (unless it returns to original facing area), until the mouse stops/slows down, and #2 is then executed (re-centering)
  This will add connection to your character instead of feeling like you’re playing an RTS camera when standing still, and greatly improve the game feeling.
• The camera should have the option of acting like a true over-the-shoulder UT3 – engine style camera (think mass effect/arkham asylum, etc), for maximum visibility, even when your back is against a wall.
• The camera should, when not in 1st person or OTS, be positioned higher.
• When targetting the ground, the camera should automatically zoom out and position itself higher for easier targetting.
• Add the option to move the camera without holding down RMB. When in that mode, the camera moves out and up, facing lower (maybe even increases FoV), and you target the floor with your mouse centered in front of you, like aiming at the ground (think WoW vehicle cannons), or this example

theonewhoknocks.8641:

I mean will you look at this beautiful mountain: http://i.imgur.com/iiyCY.jpg

Yep. And this is what can be achieved with simple FoV adjustment and camera placement:
http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17twpz3erbkefjpg/original.jpg
http://bulk2.destructoid.com/ul/205101-BAC%20Paris%20Comicon%20062911%201280x720%20H264-poster.jpg

This is already an issue known since BWE1. There were a lot of
hot topics in the beta forums in regard to this too!

I’m wondering why this made it into release.

This has been brought up a million times From the fist beta and on. I agree with you you 100%. It is the number one issue in the game that needs attention. I don’t understand why Anet hasn’t even commented on it. (unless I missed something.)

Are they not doing anything at all about this? It’s been around for so long and still not even a mention?

SHM.7628:

This has been brought up a million times From the fist beta and on. I agree with you you 100%. It is the number one issue in the game that needs attention. I don’t understand why Anet hasn’t even commented on it. (unless I missed something.)

They have commented on it – see Baxuz’s post above, which gives a link to his very well put together thread, which disects all these issues.

All good suggestions. Things like FOV and distance are often overlooked because most of us don’t have a problem, but for those people who do, it can be devastating.

What I personally feel the need for is a first person view. In every RPG like this ever, you can simply scroll the mousewheel into first person view, and out again. It is expected, it is simple, and it is a huge, huge quality of experience issue. Small room? First person solves many camera issues. What’s those explosions above you? First person view. Want to take a great landscape shot outside vistas? First person.

Please, please, please. More than custom channels, more than sitting in actual chairs like a civilized creature. More than directable emotes, I feel the need for this feature. Not that all of those aren’t very important too. Please.

I think one of the reasons they’re so reluctant to say anything about the camera system is because most of the other ‘problems’ are actually design choices (aside from the FoV and collision issues). They went out of their way to make the camera have acceleration. For whatever reason, game developers seem to be attached to anything they spent man-hours implementing and they don’t ever want to go back and change those things even if it would make the game better. The Ring of Valor Arena in WoW comes to mind (everyone hated it yet they left it in game for over 1.5 years before modifying it and adding it back to the game, yet people still hate it).

Just throwing my thoughts in here too.
I would also really love to have first person view, especially when it comes to machinima and screenshots.

I really love taking screenshots in the game, but at the moment I am limited to always having my character in the shot or use a vista which obviously do not have all the locations you might like.

Machinima is also limited to anything with your characters in it, so no way of really making story based machinima with other people in the game or anything where a few people have to be filmed. I remember these great machinima from Guild Wars 1 with Wintersday parties and dances in Lion’s Arch…. with the current system for Guild Wars 2, you can forget about making anything decent without the camera only swirling around you, where with first person view you can be the camera man filming it.

I also agree with people with small spaces and it becoming hard to see. One jumping puzzle I really just wanted to look around me, take in the scenery, but since it is a small space I’m standing against, my characters head is mostly in the way.

Now one problem I can see with first person is jumping puzzles becoming easier. It is much easier to aim while in first person, so some of those challenging puzzles will go to waste. Now this is only my opinion, but I have noticed in most games that if I need to aim and jump to a specific spot, first person view is the easiest way to go.

Would be really awesome if ArenaNet can figure this out and add it to the game.

I agree, I love this game but the camera is absolutely horrible. I would love to have an FoV slider, option to disable mouse acceleration, camera lock option and overall better camera collision. I would also like for the camera positioning slider to have a greater effect as well as add a vertical position slider.

Agreed on all points. Please do something about this, its got to be the most irritating ‘feature’ of the game.

This should have everyone’s support based on the FOV and freelook suggestions alone. These are things that should have been in the game on release and I know this isn’t the first time they’ve been suggested.