TL;DR: You don’t need much to make this into an awesome (OPTIONAL) TPS experience that would probably be better than Tera.
Now before you jump onto the hate bus and tell me to go play an FPS or w/e, let me say these two things:
1) It’s an option. If you like to play how it already plays, then this doesn’t affect you at all.
2) It actually has some use (concerning skills like Flame Blast).
3) It looks and feels much more in-depth than the traditional bird eye view.
4) It’s so much more fun playing this way, even at level 1.
5) It doesn’t take much to make it work well. Right now, you have to kind of ‘make up’ for the lack of support for this kind of play.
6) It works for all functions of combat, including Melee, Ranged, AoE, Projectile, Targeted Spells.
The great thing about all this is that it works in game already. Here’s what it kind of looks like:
http://youtu.be/HCMYcRM8rtI
(Sorry at the beginning, I accidentally targeted it >_<)
I literally spent hours just killing mobs like this. It was that enjoyable and it feels like something the game was going for in the first place. Oh, by the way, I had skills 1 and 2 binded to Mouse 4 and Mouse 5 as an alternative, which are located on the side of my mouse, so when I was moving around and shooting my hands stayed on the WASD most of the time.
If you don’t like it, again, it’s an option.
I tried playing like this in PvP as well. It still worked well but the only problem would be no cross hairs to help me see where I was targeting in the first place.
So the suggestion is:
1) Have a new function in the key binds called “Third Person Mode”. This mode would bind your camera so you would look around just like in the video above and display a cross-hair at the center so you could aim. This mode can be toggled so you can use the mouse cursor whenever it is needed. This is so #3 is possible, and makes it so that you don’t have to hold down RMB (Right Mouse Button) for the entire time. Another small note would be to allow scrolling so you can zoom out and see things from bird eye view right away if needed.
2) Increase the maximum camera position, so we can move it further to the left so the center area of the screen is visible and not blocked by your character. Or have the camera just positioned better for this kind of play (but seriously, the above zoomed out a little bit and to the left is already good enough).
3) Have a separate key binding set for the Third Person Mode. So you can have your traditional 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 things or whatever key set you currently have for the original, and if you toggle to Third Person Mode, it changes it to a new set, which could be set to Left Mouse Button, Right MB, 1234567 or whatever you want.
4) Have a new function to Remove Target. Basically like a TAB except it clears your target list. ESC is the only way to do this without opening a menu or using the mouse at the moment (I think). That or ESC is fine I guess…
That would be it. Nothing more needed to make GW2 a much more enjoyable experience in a TPV action MMORPG, except maybe a better way to have targets.
Try it for yourself!
1) Set camera position so that your character is to the left (but the slider is pushed to the right)
2) Enable fast-cast ground targeting
3) If you have one of those kinds of mouse, set skill 1 and 2’s alternative to (Mouse 4 and Mouse 5), which is what I did for the video above.
4) Zoom in camera as much as you want. Best experience is all the way zoomed or zoom out by 1 mouse scroll tick.
5) Center mouse in center of screen. You can do this by holding RMB, shooting somewhere into the sky, and position your mouse wherever the projectile ends and hold RMB there.
5) Play! If you need to target something, you can use tab or just let go of the RMB and click. You’ll notice that you will tend to miss a lot of ranged attacks because you actually miss and suck at aiming bow shots (like me sob).
Quick Note: Press ESC to clear target if you want to just go rambo and be attacking where you are facing rather than aiming everything into one enemy.
Quick FAQ:
Q: I don’t see the point in this.
A: To make the game fun for people who are tired of the old school WoW days.