Guild Wars 2

Can we please get a decent explanation of the effect that the slider has.
The wiki — probably for very good reasons — merely quotes the in-game tooltip.

The confusion starts with the parameter being called “Collsion Senisitivity” while the description is talking about ignoring collisions. The exact opposite.
But what is more collision sensitive. Right or left?
The only thing the tool tip clearly states is that right is supposed to have a negative effect on performance, though I haven’t seen any performance impact (FPS) at all.

Anyway. I have been running around for quite a while to find a place where the slider position actually has an impact. So far I have never seen a difference when terrain or big solid objects are between camera and character. Only when board-like objects are in between (character under a wooden bridge/scaffold) and then ONLY when the object has a certain distance from the character.

I would really appreciate a clarification. Especially after suffering my way through the first air ship battle in the Victory or Death story on a Norn character (Has this ever been tested?). Not a single ground targeted spell effect is displayed on the deck of the ship and various parts of the ship have the tendency to obscure the view on the character. The final mission of the original gw2 story and the camera just ruins it.

This is why I started to play around with the slider position, but with zero effect.
Hence my request. Thanks.

That helps a lot in understanding what that slider does. (Be nice for the in-game tool-tip to be a tl;dr of that, e.g. “0 (left) looks only once at obstructions; 9 (right) checks several directions before snapping the camera to a new view”).

What I’d like to be able to do is to adjust my settings for the following scenarios (I used to be able to manage it and then after our settings got accidentally wiped, I haven’t been able to restore that behavior):

1. 85% of the time, I want to be zoomed out as much as possible and not have the camera snap at all.
2. 10% of the time, I want to be zoomed in to see up close and have the camera stay close.
3. Regardless, whenever the camera ‘snaps’ (in or out), I’d like it to snap back.

(The other 5% is mixed use situations that I don’t expect the game to figure out.)

I don’t seem to be able to manage either (1) or (2) most of the time. For example, I end up not being able to see the boss in a lot of indoor fights because the camera snaps out instead of in, due to some unseen ‘obstruction’ in the environment: examples rhendak (near the ceiling), HotW’s Butcher (the banners).

I don’t seem to be able to achieve (3) at all: if the camera snaps (in or out), it never seems to adjust itself back.

Put another way, I’d like to be able to have a consistent view distance and angle, instead of feeling like the game is forcing me to watch a game of tennis…from the net.

Thanks for the explanation! Could we get a “Don’t Snap” check box that disables collision checks entirely? It should be the least expensive option, and give those of us who want it complete control over camera zoom.

Thanks for the explanation. The camera still acts weirdly as you can see here
https://goo.gl/photos/bdPdKZoHtPdhJqEP9

The only difference between the two shots is the position of the collision sensitivity slider. Also, when left of position 4 a single step forward, left, backward, … will dramatically change the camera position (zoom).

I fail to see why the camera would feel the need to ever zoom in this scenario.
… unless the camera position that is used to detect whether the character is obscured by an object is not the same as the position used to render the scene.

I have a question about “Use Free Camera” I have this option set to not realign behind my camera and have had it that way for 3+ years, however a few months ago I started to notice it realigning itself with my character after certain actions, quite often after a shadowstep on a diagonal angle the camera would then realign itself automatically, and sometimes after having gone through a door of a tower or keep in WvW it can also do it, it seems like some kinda bug to me as this never used to happen. Anyone else noticed this?

If I was to guess what has caused this I would say it maybe related to the introduction of Revenant, since some of its skills seem to realign themselves but I really do not want this behaviour to be happening when I use shadowstep on my thief

The information made my head spin a little because I was looking for the info I wanted, but I might have overseen it. Especially as German, I could grasp the basics yet I still can’t use the information to solve my problem:

The same problem I had over in FF14: As fan of diminutive races, I usually have the camera close to my character, in the case of my Asura I usually have it right behind him. I strafe a lot and it feels pretty nice to play this way. But I changed some slider to a value that I can also zoom right into my head. He turns invisible/translucent a bit but I can see my eyeballs from the inside. That is creepy bullkitten. How can I turn that off, I must have something to do with the sliders. I want to have the camera as closest to my Asura’s back when zoomed in (over the shoulder view), but I can zoom in a few more centimetres and always have to scroll back a little with my mousewheel. Running alongside a wall, hitting an obstacle, makes the camera zoom into my head instead, so it avoids collision with the obstacle but instead forces a colission with my character.

Any suggestions?

Zedek.8932:

The information made my head spin a little because I was looking for the info I wanted, but I might have overseen it. Especially as German, I could grasp the basics yet I still can’t use the information to solve my problem:

Language can be used to pass information or to distract.
Using a lot of abbreviations is especially effective when intending the latter.

While doing some thought experiments with a different (piercing) camera that never snaps and uses the cone between camera and character to substract/increase the transparency from/of pierceable objects (walls, but not player characters) in the overlap … it clicked.

How big is the radius of the sphere that is cast? Why is it a sphere and not shaped like the slim Norn Female (Eiska Fee) in the picture?

I brought my little Asura Girl (Bonenka Fee) to the very same place and — guess what — it was impossible to reproduce the snapping/zoom effect no matter how I moved the slider.

From that follows that collision sensitivity/detection definitely depends on the size of the character and it yields the question whether it should or not.

This is the reason I decided I would no longer play my Norn. It seems to me that in tight spaces, the Norns just don’t fit.

I often discuss this effect with other folks I play with and we all have come to the same conclusion….the game was designed around the Asura sized character. It just seems to fit better.

My Norn is not a Wrecking Ball!
https://goo.gl/photos/bdPdKZoHtPdhJqEP9

lynspottery.6529:

….the game was designed around the Asura sized character. It just seems to fit better.

You might think the game was designed around asura height until you lose sight of your asura because of all the flashing and effects during a huge multi-player battle. I can’t recount how many times I didn’t know if I was inside or outside a red ring, because I couldn’t see the little guy.

I have my fingers crossed for Gem Store stilts

~EW

My personal experience is that JPs work best with Sylvari or Human characters.
What race is Dulfy’s Mesmer again?

That’s interesting. Unchecking “Adjust Camera to Character Height” improved the situation a lot on my Norn but made it slightly worse on my Asura, i .e. I was able to produce the camera snap/zoom effect.

I’m trying to figure out a “perfect setting” that fits all races and I’m currently running with the following.

- Camera NOT adjusted to Character Height
- Horizontal Position, Vertical Position Near, Vertical Position Far in the middle
- Collision Sensitivity Slider at position 4

I’ve added a few more screenshots to the album for reference. Any tips from developer perspective on this matter?

As a follower of that_shaman I already knew the difference between collision information and art, but thanks for the link to the other post.

I guess that having more “fine-grained” collision data would be too costly on CPU/GPU resources, right?

Also I would be interested, if having a never snapping camera (piercing, as I called it) is something you would consider.

Okay, in short: I do not want this creepy stuff to happen all the time I come close to any obstacle.