If I had to point out one technical fault with GW2, it’s the camera max distance…it really feels too close to the character to allow a proper view of the world and a pleasant gameplay experience. The early FoV issues were fixed for widescreen monitors, but camera max distance was left untouched. It’s nothing compared to the max zoom that some other MMO’s allow (e.g. WoW).
I cannot fathom why camera distance is locked in in PvE and WvW…increasing it can only improve gameplay and let people take in more of the spectacular visuals. I really want to be looking at something other than the ground most of the time, but it’s the only way I can tell how far enemies are from me (especially when playing a melee class).
The odd thing is, GW2 totally supports high camera zoom during events with ultra-huge bosses….that’s when the game REALLY opens up making me go “whoaaaa!” Suddenly I can see so much more! No more tunnel vision! But then for the rest of the game it locks me back down again.
Note: In SPvP I totally understand restricting zoom because the maps are small with walls/obstacles providing ambush potential. Keep things locked and standardized in SPvP. But for the rest of the game…it makes absolutely no sense.
I get the feeling that developers are being really stubborn about this for no reason.
This issue has been hammered away at before and the actual issue, which has been slightly addressed in previous patches (the first Southsun era), pertains not to the Zoom distance but the FoV. Gw2 has a very tight Field of View compared to many other MMO’s and games in general. It’s this limit that makes the camera feel as if its never pulled back far enough.
This discovery came about some time shortly after the betas transference into launch, when many people complained that the camera just couldn’t get far enough away to show them what they wanted to see, and as a result the zoom limit was increased but the result wasn’t the expected improvement.