Guild Wars 2

-but it can be.

1. As it stands, when you attempt to use a shadowstep-like ability against a target out of range, the skill will be placed on a ~5 second cooldown. When action camera is active, the skill will be placed on full cooldown.

It’s safe to assume that this is not intended, however it is an important punishment to address in a timely way.

2. With action camera active, when you’re autoattacking a target that you’ve locked onto but your crosshair isn’t aiming at that target, autoattack stops. All abilities prioritize targets beneath your crosshair even if you’ve locked onto something else.

If action camera were the only targeting system in place, this wouldn’t be much of an issue. However, bear in mind that this system is in direct competition with the tab/click system implemented at the game’s release. Anet, attacks should always trigger at a player’s locked target on screen if one exists regardless of the corsshair’s position. If we want to select a new target for an ability, we should have to lock onto that target just as we would with the standard targeting system. Having to aim at our desired targets for the entire duration of combat is cumbersome.

3. When running backward from a target you are looking at, you run at full-speed, which is great. However when you use a single ability, the character faces the target to cast, then continues to backpedal at reduced speed for a few moments before resuming full-speed.

This makes it more optimal to immediately run forward and rotate the camera after a cast which is hardly convenient. Anet, when kiting, characters should resume full run speed immediately after each cast.

Players: What other shortcomings have you found associated with using the new action camera mode and what suggestions would you offer ArenaNet to fix them?

As a preemptive measure (because I know someone will say this), please do not tell us that action camera is intended for casual use only.

It is an excellent and otherwise polished system that could easily see use in competitive settings with the right adjustments. It’s a lot of fun and I’m not quite ready to give up on it.

I also really enjoy using action camera, so first things first : thank you Joel Helmich for this very neat feature.

Here’s what in my opinion would make it even better:

• make “ground targeting: fast with range indicator” play nice with “left click hold to attack” (= disable range indicator on left click, but not skill #1 button)
• have a new bind to toggle prioritizing allies targeting instead of foes (to alleviate function gyro woes)

Full disclosure : I main engineer.
Also, grenades.

The option to have Action Camera disable automatically when targeting an aoe and have it enable once the aoe has been casted is my greatest desire.

StickAndMove.6419:

-but it can be.

3. When running backward from a target you are looking at, you run at full-speed, which is great. However when you use a single ability, the character faces the target to cast, then continues to backpedal at reduced speed for a few moments before resuming full-speed.

This makes it more optimal to immediately run forward and rotate the camera after a cast which is hardly convenient. Anet, when kiting, characters should resume full run speed immediately after each cast.

THIS! When you are in normal camera mode, you can run away from someone and cast ground targeting skills behind you while still running forward. (For skills that are instant cast, such as lava font or Dragon Tooth). However, in action camera mode, your character turns around and casts and slowly backs away.

This makes it very hard and disadvantageous in pvp.

I thought of another.

Some abilities like a thief’s withdraw and a mesmer’s phase retreat require the player to use an “about face” keybind before triggering the skill so that they move forward rather than backward.

This is extremely unstable with action camera active and badly needs to be stabilized for the health of PvP.

SamRai.7682:

The option to have Action Camera disable automatically when targeting an aoe and have it enable once the aoe has been casted is my greatest desire.

I think that’s a fantastic idea. This way, action camera wouldn’t need to be manually disabled mid-combat for a player to place a ground-targeted skill behind or beside their character.

Wish I had thought of it.

I like action camera a lot and I agree with these suggestions. Below are some other posts which include suggestions from myself and other people. Might as well combine them here:

1. Allow us to set the vertical position of the targeting reticle.

2. Allow us to toggle the action camera’s super speed separately from toggling the camera. Sometimes, as in jps, it’s useful to have the camera but with the normal speed you get without the camera.

3. Fix the interplay between the left and right buttons when using camera [suggested by timRAR]

4. Allow different keybinds for normal cam/action cam [suggested by Wymordren]

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Suggestion-for-new-Action-Camera/first#post5666058

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Action-Camera-Updates/first#post5672306

Don’t forget you can set the ground targeted abilities to never go out of range now.

Yea I agree, having played some action rpgs before, i can definitely say GW2’s action camera is a inferior version with none of the benefits of the real thing and all the setbacks. The problem stems from the fact single target skills rely on the cross hair to find a target to lock on. This is a major problem as gw2 has too many single target skills and without a target those skills simply will not cast and show a ‘interrupted’ cooldown. A true action gamestyle dictates you can cast a skill in any unspecified area according to where your character is facing no targeting required and that the cross hair is simply to ‘aid’ in long ranged shooting accuracy.

Guardian Longbow #2 fires at the location where your aim was at the start of the ability’s cast, whereas if you were using tab-targeting, it would continue to track them. This ability should be updated to fire at the location you’re aimed at the end of the cast instead (checking to allow skill retargeting does nothing to affect this).

I want a ‘suppress action camera’ keybind separate from the actual toggle. Like, you hold it down, and you can move the action cursor without moving the screen. you let go of the key and it snaps back.
also:

2. With action camera active, when you’re autoattacking a target that you’ve locked onto but your crosshair isn’t aiming at that target, autoattack stops. All abilities prioritize targets beneath your crosshair even if you’ve locked onto something else.

I use action camera a lot for revenant hammer (it’s too cumbersome for melee weapons though) and it’s very useful to be able to aim the hammer through a clump of enemies manually. The #2 doesn’t work as well as the auto, but its still very nice to be able to manually aim without a target lock. However i do agree that auto needs to continue if normal conditions are met – in normal camera, you don’t need to be pointing directly at the for your attacks to continue to track them, just as long as they’re still in that frontal arc (135 or 180 degrees, i can’t tell). This lets you strafe to avoid attacks while still putting out damage. It’s an important feature.

Narrrz.7532:

StickAndMove.6419:

2. With action camera active, when you’re autoattacking a target that you’ve locked onto but your crosshair isn’t aiming at that target, autoattack stops. All abilities prioritize targets beneath your crosshair even if you’ve locked onto something else.

I use action camera a lot for revenant hammer (it’s too cumbersome for melee weapons though) and it’s very useful to be able to aim the hammer through a clump of enemies manually.

I only mean that the crosshair target shouldn’t be prioritized when a locked target is present on the screen. If you aren’t locked onto anything then of course the crosshair should dictate where the skill lands.

If a lock target IS present, then you would need only the addition of a single right click to focus the new target you choose.

Isarii.2804:

Guardian Longbow #2 fires at the location where your aim was at the start of the ability’s cast, whereas if you were using tab-targeting, it would continue to track them. This ability should be updated to fire at the location you’re aimed at the end of the cast instead (checking to allow skill retargeting does nothing to affect this).

I’m certain that there are other abilities that function in the same way so you’re right, that ought to be changed quickly. Things like this and the full cooldown trigger on teleport attempts to out-of-range targets can’t be intended.

It’s on us to make sure these things are on the developers’ radars.