Guild Wars 2

Q: How will the new action camera interact with the ranger sword auto attack?

Question (while it’s about the old camera, it feels like the best place to ask at the moment):

Is it possible to get a keybind for toggling autotargeting on and off? It will be especially useful when switching between classes that have a lot of movement skills (and attack without a target), and those that require a target for most skills; or even when doing different things on a single class.

Will the “Snap Ground Target” option receive a proper toggle key instead of a hold-down-to-toggle? That would be 20 times more convenient and less painful to the hand.

Alkalissa.1706:

Will action camera help with the bug where some skills fail to activate (but still go on full cooldown) if the target isn’t right in front of your character with the camera also facing them? I get this an awful lot on Blowtorch (Engineer pistol 4), but I’ve had it happen with a lot of other skills too.

This chiefly occurs when you are moving – since your character moves in the direction the camera is facing, but skill use will only rotate your character and not the camera, what i think happens is the game attempts to rotate your character (and either succeeds or fails) but your movement forces your facing back towards your camera facing angle, and the game detects that you are facing the wrong way and ‘interrupts’ the skill, placing it on the reduced interrupt cooldown.

It would be nice if this simply caused the skill to not activate, though, or even to briefly change your facing in order to actually cast the skill.

I’m so happy for this to come out. Ive been using GM2CM for past few years on and off. So you have my thanks for your work on putting something like it in game Joel!
My only question to you is, were you part of any of the mod teams such as GW2CM before heading to ANET?

P.S. hope to see left and right click rebinds in the future.

Ah kitten , two problems for me then:

1. Can’t trigger autocast on skill #1 using left click.

2. Right mouse button can’t be bound to skill #2? (please correct me if I’m wrong)

Looks like I will be sticking with my modified autohotkey script of the combat mod then.

I will say it is good to see that tab/closest/next/previous/lock/detarget will work when using action camera so I may use it in the future if the features are expanded.

Hey Joel, really great show you did there by the way. I’m wondering about a few things like :

-Will it be possible to customize the sensitivity of the hitbox of the crosshair to prevent something like when you struggle between the two deers ?
-Will it be possible to bind a key for any option of the camera mod ? I mean like instant ground targeting to the old model and reverse, the auto-targetting etc … I think it’b be not on the launch, be it’b be great if we’re able to do such things. To be ready in every situations
-Will we see you more en stream ? (hope yes)

I was expecting to bind my RMB to dodge but I’m fine with this. Thank you for your work and for your enthusiasm on stream.
Thanks for answer on blink. I was thinking about that.

I have one question. Does auto-target in action mode or/and snap ground targeting work on allies? Healing with the druid would be much easier if it does.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Question (while it’s about the old camera, it feels like the best place to ask at the moment):

Is it possible to get a keybind for toggling autotargeting on and off? It will be especially useful when switching between classes that have a lot of movement skills (and attack without a target), and those that require a target for most skills; or even when doing different things on a single class.

This is another thing that has been possible with the combat mod for years – you could turn autotargeting off and then the “lock target” key effectively becomes a “deselect/drop target” key which made it extremely easy to play something like gs+sw/x melee ranger with a lot of untargeted movement skills. All of this was possible while retaining the crosshair and camera movement. Using select nearest/next would retarget an enemy.

I’m interested to see if this action camera can perform similarly, although I have a feeling it won’t be able to do all those little things initially.

Hey Joel, thank you for the great work! And thanks for working on your free time to bring us this. I’m pretty sure I will use this camera mode, since I’m one those guys constantly pressing the right mouse button

I have some questions:

- Would be possible to activate instant ground targeting only for the granades/mortar kit auto attack, and leave “Fast with Range Indicator” or “Normal” for all the other skills? I would like to keep a visual confirmation for all the other important skills (since they have generally a longer recharge).

- Does the engineer instant autoattack work even with pressing the “Weapon Skill 1” binding? I currently have that bound to spacebar from guild wars 1 tradition (c and tab too!).

No a question but hopefully in the future we will be able to rebind the mouse buttons to something else. From what you mentioned it looks it will need a lot of refactoring!

Question:
What happens when you use snap ground targeting on a fish while standing on land.
Will the AoE skill appear in the middle of the water or on the ground behind the fish?

Hi Joel thanks for your hard work!
I noticed that the white dot for aiming seems very small..
There is high possibility to lost track of it in the middle of the fights.. and maybe white color of it make it harder to see it in “day time” maps!
Will be implemented a method to change the size of the “aiming dot” and the color? I think that many people can be happy to have this kind of customization

Thanks

Hey man I just logged in to thank you for all of your hard work. You are an awesome person – don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

No mouse binding = no need for this native mode, i’ll continue to use an external one. Thanks for the effort at least.

Just use ahk and rebind your mouse that way, is not very difficult. I looked around and learned how to bind my dodge key to right mouse in about 10 minutes. Rest is pretty simple.

How will skill retargetting interact with the original target going stealth?

What skills does it affect beside Rapid Fire? Are skills like ranger warhorn 4 affected?

Is it possible to get the “No autotargeting for mobility skills” without using Action cam? I love autotargeting, to ensure my fireballs are actually hitting stuff, but there’s nothing worse than RTL’ing right into the hands of my enemy because i forgot to turn autotargetig off again.

Does this aoe snap targeting allow Druids to drop ranged aoe heals centered on an ally?

Please make sure Druid Staff 1 (Solar Beam) fires a beam without needing a target. Because it currently doesn’t do anything without a target.

Make ABSOLUTELY SURE because it REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY NEEDS it now.

Joel Helmich.7398:

Many skills have checks in skill script to make sure that you’re not attacking something behind you, for this reason.

Which has been the most ridiculously stupid “feature” in the entire game. The character should turn and shoot and not prevent the skill from being used.

How will action targeting work along side the use of the “F” Key? Will it kick you out of action targeting allowing the use of the mouse to make selections as in dialogs with npc’s and then back into action targeting once one closes the dialog box?

Joel Helmich.7398:

Can I rebind left/right click?
I’ve seen this asked a bunch of times, and unfortunately the answer is no, not at this time. That is not to say there is a lack of desire to make it happen, but there are significant complicating factors. Left and right mouse buttons are treated as special snowflakes in our input system and throughout code, and changing that so that people can arbitrarily bind them to other actions was a can of worms I didn’t have time to open. Another consideration I had was to put some action-camera-specific binding selector for right mouse in the options menu; however, I decided pretty early on that I wouldn’t have any options specific to action camera in the options menu for this first release, other than the toggle keybind itself. Generally speaking, we don’t have options that themselves depend on other options, and I didn’t want to unnecessarily ruffle feathers. Anyway, custom rebinding is definitely not off the table™ but it won’t be natively supported for now.

Hi I know I am a bit off topic but Joel you seem like the right dev to ask for this.

Is there any chance we could get keybind presets? I tried to set different key binds for different professions but that was too much maintainance each swap.

Especially if it came with a bind to change you whole key index preset.
Eg. If using kits on engi I sometimes want to swap utilities with toolbelt skills. So I suggest click numpad 7 to swap my f skills with 6-10. Will be very useful.

What about re-binding the mousewheel scrolling? With CM I’m able to use it to scroll through enemies quickly, which is incredibly useful in WvW; whereas zooming is rarely something you need in a pinch.

Can we have option to toggle on/off crosshair in action camera mode?

It would be nice to not need to hold right mouse button during world exploration, and don’t have crosshair in the middle of the screen at the same time. You know, immersion stuff.

Will action camera pip work with UI off?
https://youtu.be/QUoqXe8-iig

Hi Joel, thank you for your hard work!
I loved the stream and looking forward to playing with the feature, one thing that I do wish is that the crosshair looked better or more differently, is there any chance we could have different skin options for the crosshair?

Justine.6351:

Will action camera pip work with UI off?
https://youtu.be/QUoqXe8-iig

There is always somebody that needs to kitten against the wind…

I have two questions that have to do with targetting/channeling and the tech behind it:

So it’s always bothered me that you can’t use the autotarget feature in GW2 without sacraficing the ability to use untargetted leap skills. Even without autotarget, it’s a little bit of a pain to have to remove your target, leap and then retarget.

Would it be possible to have a key (when held) that allows the player to cast their skills as if unfocused without removing the player’s target? This way we could use leaps to move around without worrying about autotargetting the nearest boar and jumping back at it. We could also use it to get some distance in PvP fights without untargetting our enemy.

I was wondering if this would sort of use some of the same scripting as the Allow Skill Retargetting feature or if it would be a massive headache instead?

Also I want to ask about ESC. Currently ESC is our only reliable skill cancel button, but it’s only suitable for WASD, even still a bit of a stretch, and it’s somewhat dangerous to use in a panic spam.

Given that we’re looking at targetting and channeling right now, as well as the potential for new control schemes and controller types with Action Camera. Might I suggest that an extra keybind be added for “Cancel action” or “Cancel skill?” This way we can have a panic button that can be bound anywhere, does not detarget, and does not open the menu or close windows.

I just hope one thing, that game won’t be effected by limiting the advanced mechanics in order to make action camera work for future development that’s all! Keep it hard or go home, we want classes to be harder to master in future:)

Won’t be using it, I couldn’t stand it in ESO. I’m so glad this is a choice and not something forced upon the players. Only thing I’m afraid of is whether future development of content will cater more to this action camera or not. I hope this will remain an optional feature, and that it won’t hinder future content development. I like my MMO’s stay MMO’s, and not get console-fied.

Apolo.5942:

Justine.6351:

Will action camera pip work with UI off?
https://youtu.be/QUoqXe8-iig

There is always somebody that needs to kitten against the wind…

What does that even mean. It’s a simple question not a request. Don’t be so bitter.

I was wondering how Stealth is going to work with the new camera. Right now if you are using a ranged weapon, for example a Longbow, and try to fire on a target hidden by Stealth you will miss 99% of the time even if the target is standing in front of you. What’s the change with the new camera, can we “predict” where hidden characters are and shoot them with projectile weapons (which is kinda impossible atm)

Above and beyond. This Bud’s for you, Joel.

Sold Out.7625:

Will the “Snap Ground Target” option receive a proper toggle key instead of a hold-down-to-toggle? That would be 20 times more convenient and less painful to the hand.

I would love to see this as an option for right mouse other then target lock. This would feel just like scope in a FPS but for Ground target skills (GTS). Snap would be like your looking down the scope & unsnapped would be like hip fire providing free placement okitten.

I’ve got a question:

Does the aoe-snap to target work on world boss targets as well?

Awesome feature.
Thanks so much.

This is far and away my favorite feature of the expansion- it’s what I wanted GW2 to be from the beginning. A quick question:

If I’m auto-attacking the target (with 1 rather than LMB), I assume that the S key will backpedal rather than turn and run at full speed as it would if no skill is being cast.

To disengage, do I have to hit esc to stop auto-attacking or can I turn the camera away and run forward key as per the traditional camera system?

This is my only major concern at the moment. If I can just turn and run, even if a cast is in progress, then I will likely use this new system full-time.

If you want to help but don’t fully understand my question, let me know and I’ll try to rephrase.

Also, while we’re here, what do you all think might be some disadvantages to using this new mode compared to the current?

I know it would be more difficult to use ground-targeted abilities behind or to the side of our characters but if that’s all, then we could just use the toggle for this one circumstance.

Joel you’re freaking amazing! I’m so happy someone finally realized that the current movement+mouse control did not fit the actino style combat that this game has.

I’ve been trying so hard to make the game play like this for years in autohotkey, but there are certain hurdles that one just can’t fix without having the access into the the code of the game itself. So, thanks!

Can’t wait to test this out, and after I take this baby for a ride, I’ll make sure to post some feedback back to you.

I’m kittening my pants just from watching the character actually turn towards the camera and run in that direction full speed, not to mention everything else you’ve shown on the stream

StickAndMove.6419:

Also, while we’re here, what do you all think might be some disadvantages to using this new mode compared to the current?

I know it would be more difficult to use ground-targeted abilities behind or to the side of our characters but if that’s all, then we could just use the toggle for this one circumstance.

What you mentioned may be the case, but I think that if you are used to action cameras from other games it won’t be that hard to execute anyway. Remember that now the character runs full speed in all directions so even throwing the granades behind you will not be hard with some good maneuvering. I think this will mostly be a case of getting used to doing it a little differently.

Outside of that I think Action camera was made really well by Joel from what I could see and it carries many advantages over normal mode, at least for those of us that have gotten used to action camera games over the years.

I’ve been a FPS player for a decade and GW2 camera/movement never felt natural to me…

What other effect this might have tho is that melee characters will be kited of (even) easier now, which may be a bit of bad news especially for Warrior…

Joel, maybe you could do a check for the skill which has auto usage enabled to be the skill used with LMB, instead of just using LMB for 1.

We can already switch the auto-used skill with Ctrl + RMB on the desired skill.

I had not seen this thread before so made a post in the HoT section: forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/hot/Action-camera-suggestion/

Anyway, I suggested to have a toggle option that would move the crosshair to another place (like one of the corners) with next to it a indicator similar to the one you now see in top of the screen to indicate what target you have selected, only then it shows the target the action camera will focus on.

In that mode the crosshair does not function as a crosshair anymore but is there just to show the different modes, you are still shooting at the middle of your screen.

I ask thins because I like the action camera options that I did see, but would not like to always have that crosshair in the middle of my screen, that’s something I would prefer to have with during intensive fight, or when playing around with my bow, but not when just walking around or is not so intensive fights.

An alternative would be to have the crosshair go away when you are not in combat, the only problem with that is that you get in combat for taking fall damage, when an mob attacks you while you ignore him, as ranger when your pet gets into combat or when using the horn near an enemy, to get swiftness. So there are many occasion when you are in combat, when you really aren’t. Still it would be an alternative, or maybe even the ability to toggle between multiple modes. 1 standard, 2 put it in the corner with an indicator next to it that shows what you are focused on, 3 automatic (when in combat), ?4 no crosshair / indictor ever.

It would be something you could toggle ingame as you might want to switch between or during fights.

I know you can toggle action camera off, but that changes the whole camera settings as well, so that’s completely different.

Joel Helmich.7398:

Is it possible to get a keybind for toggling autotargeting on and off? It will be especially useful when switching between classes that have a lot of movement skills (and attack without a target), and those that require a target for most skills; or even when doing different things on a single class.

The complexity of this depends on what the keybind will do. If it acts to simply toggle the state of the option for autotargeting (i.e. the state of the checkbox in the options menu), it would legitimately be pretty simple; however, I don’t believe we have precedent for a keybind like that, so it might be an argument waiting to happen. If it instead acts as an override for the usual option, all places in code that reference the state of the autotargeting option would need to be updated to also check for this toggle state, and we would need to be careful about when the override state is preserved vs cleared, etc. It is an on the table™ sort of thing but I can’t give any guarantees.

Hi Joel,

I am not sure if my question on keybind presets fell under “already answered” so I will repost once more since it is similar to this one.(hope you are even the right dev to ask)

Q1: Any work gone into making presets for Keybinds?
For example when swapping classes I want different keybinds (engi kits vs. ele attunements work similar but opposite keybinds) and it would also be useful for ACM for unbinding 1 key etc.

Q2: Any chance it would be possible to make keybinds that change other keybinds?
(set a different preset)
Keybinds that change options are what you talk about here and express doubts so I just wanted to add my voice to this request. Switch on ACM and click another bind to perhaps unbind your 1 skill.

Sina.9208:

Q: How will the new action camera interact with the ranger sword auto attack?

I understand that you might not have an answer to this question. I just feel that this specific issue should really be tested thoroughly before release.

Joel you’re amazing. I’m your biggest fan!
Thank you for adding this amazing feature that will surely transform the way we play Gw2.

Joel Helmich.7398:

The complexity of this depends on what the keybind will do. If it acts to simply toggle the state of the option for autotargeting (i.e. the state of the checkbox in the options menu), it would legitimately be pretty simple; however, I don’t believe we have precedent for a keybind like that, so it might be an argument waiting to happen.

This simpler version is likely all that’s really needed. And I think you do have a precedent of sorts: The old townclothes toggle. We had a bindable hotkey to swap from armor to townclothes. That wasn’t an options check box but it was a hero panel check box so on the face of it the principle is the same.

(Not aimed at you since this isn’t your area, but man, I do wish we had an outfit toggle hotkey, along with a helm toggle hotkey. Shoulders and gloves as a bonus, but outfit/helm would help sooooo much and hey, we had the same thing with town clothes!).

I am psyched that an action combat system is finally being added to the game officially! So, glad one of the devs was working on this!

One question I have, if anybody knows, is how similar is this to how the user made combat mode that some people have been using since launch?

The macro had limitations since it was just a complex keybind macro and wasn’t allowed to directly access actual game files, thus relying heavily on the default auto-targeting most of the time (you could turn auto-target off, but then some skills broke; example being certain skill chains wouldn’t work because the game didn’t have an actual target etc.) Then again anyone that can answer my question should already know how it works.

Excited to try this out though! GW2 Expansion, combat camera, and a certain console game within a few days of my birthday = best week ever!

gavyne.6847:

Won’t be using it, I couldn’t stand it in ESO. I’m so glad this is a choice and not something forced upon the players. Only thing I’m afraid of is whether future development of content will cater more to this action camera or not. I hope this will remain an optional feature, and that it won’t hinder future content development. I like my MMO’s stay MMO’s, and not get console-fied.

I’m hoping Anet doesn’t take this a step further… I really don’t want console players thrown in with us, yet this takes away the barrier that the targeting system presents…

I apparently missed the news post originally talking about this. What the kitten is Action Camera? Can anybody(like maybe the OP) post a link to the original release info for this feature?

tinymurder.5791:

I apparently missed the news post originally talking about this. What the kitten is Action Camera? Can anybody(like maybe the OP) post a link to the original release info for this feature?

It was in last Friday’s Guild Chat live stream, so it’s a video. Check the ANet Twitch channel for replays, or I bet it’s on YouTube by now so you can google it up by “Guild Chat Oct 16 2015” or something.

I’m starving to death and leaving the computer now or I’d do it for you.