Guild Wars 2

To fix the FOV issue every single player in this game is complaining about, buy two more widescreen monitors and stand them on end. The game looks significantly better when played like this.

On my work PC with 3 monitors, the game runs smooth. The FOV is perfect, the art looks great, everything just feels more “natural”. I hate playing the game at home because I only have one monitor and I’m stuck with the idiotic 65-70 degree default FOV.

This is the only issue currently causing me to consider moving on to another game. I’m sorry you disagree with all of us so strongly, ArenaNet, since you made a fantastic game. It’s sad to see this single issue causing so many people to leave. My wife already stopped playing because she was so strongly affected by the narrow FOV – it was causing her anxiousness in combat because she felt like she couldn’t see anything.

I was looking forward to getting immersed in this game with her, but that’s just not going to happen. :-(

It’s like my eyes can finally breath!

Pretty cool. I wish I could afford it.

The other thread is now locked, so hopefully the discussion will continue here – hopefully with less ad hominem.

What resolution are you playing at here?

I think 3 5×4 monitors side by side would be pretty nice too. I probably wouldn’t play the way you have it because the center monitor just seems to claustrophobia inducing.

Hickeroar.9734:

I think 3 5×4 monitors side by side would be pretty nice too. I probably wouldn’t play the way you have it because the center monitor just seems to claustrophobia inducing.

That’s just because these monitors have really thick frames They definitely weren’t created for this type of usage.

I like how your characters head doesn’t completely blot out the view when you look up. That would be nice to have on a single monitor.

As the other thread was locked, I’d like to further ask that if quality, advantage and performance are such pertinent issues, why is there a stereoscopic 3D option in the game?
Stereoscopic 3D drastically affects quality if not configured correctly and can cause headaches with prolonged use, offers significant advantages in judging distance to a minority of privileged players and can have an incredibly adverse effect on performance.
Also, if implementation of an FoV slider is difficult, surely it’s not as difficult as allowing stereoscopic 3D?
But hey, it’s not as glamourous as 3D and can’t be used to generate sales.

Mungrul.9358:

As the other thread was locked, I’d like to further ask that if quality, advantage and performance are such pertinent issues, why is there a stereoscopic 3D option in the game?
Stereoscopic 3D drastically affects quality if not configured correctly and can cause headaches with prolonged use, offers significant advantages in judging distance to a minority of privileged players and can have an incredibly adverse effect on performance.
Also, if implementation of an FoV slider is difficult, surely it’s not as difficult as allowing stereoscopic 3D?
But hey, it’s not as glamourous as 3D and can’t be used to generate sales.

That’s a very good point. Stereoscopic 3D can be a HUGE performance hit, bigger than any other single option in the game. And one could argue it gives players an advantage because, much like increased FoV, it gives you better spatial awareness.

Agreed, it’s not acceptable for only people with three monitors to be able to play with any sort of decent FOV.

And we know for an undisputed fact it does not cause any sort of “crippling performance issues” to have a wider FOV as demonstrated by the game, the third party camera tool, and boss fights within the game itself.

None of the reasons we’ve been given have been remotely adequate to explain why single monitor users should be stuck with this horrible non-standard FOV, while other players do not have to deal with this at all.

Mueh…. I just have dual 24" monitors I use at the same time. Though I never had a problem with the FOV in video games. I always adjusted it to my liking – never having a problem with it. Shrugs Guess I’m the lucky few I guess.

I haven’t had any signiciant issues with FOV period with this game, even on one monitor. So I’m curious as to what percisely is the problem?

As for 3d vision or whatever crap… I don’t use it. Perhaps it’s practice – tho I do know GW2 has crazy measurements in the game in terms of distance. The distance between two objects is incredible skrewed. I haven’t had a issue with it screwing with my gameplay. I’m kindof curious as to what people are having problems with.

ChairGraveyard.2967:

None of the reasons we’ve been given have been remotely adequate to explain why single monitor users should be stuck with this horrible non-standard FOV, while other players do not have to deal with this at all.

Sadly, it is kind of standard. But it’s not good. The fight for acceptable FoV goes beyond GW2 with mixed success and failure. For instance, Borderlands. The first game was absolutely atrocious with FoV, we called them out on it, and now the sequel has an FoV slider.

bwillb.2165:

ChairGraveyard.2967:

None of the reasons we’ve been given have been remotely adequate to explain why single monitor users should be stuck with this horrible non-standard FOV, while other players do not have to deal with this at all.

Sadly, it is kind of standard. But it’s not good. The fight for acceptable FoV goes beyond GW2 with mixed success and failure. For instance, Borderlands. The first game was absolutely atrocious with FoV, we called them out on it, and now the sequel has an FoV slider.

Not for PC games it’s not. It used to be the standard back when 4:3 was the most common aspect ratio. That’s no longer the case and hasn’t been for nearly a decade.

When I was playing Q games, 90 was the standard. Now it’s less in most games, which is bad. Saying it used to be less is false, because most games from the 4:3 age had 90. Probably due to the fact that everyone ran id’s engines and Carmack actually knows his business.

ChairGraveyard.2967:

bwillb.2165:

ChairGraveyard.2967:

None of the reasons we’ve been given have been remotely adequate to explain why single monitor users should be stuck with this horrible non-standard FOV, while other players do not have to deal with this at all.

Sadly, it is kind of standard. But it’s not good. The fight for acceptable FoV goes beyond GW2 with mixed success and failure. For instance, Borderlands. The first game was absolutely atrocious with FoV, we called them out on it, and now the sequel has an FoV slider.

Not for PC games it’s not. It used to be the standard back when 4:3 was the most common aspect ratio. That’s no longer the case and hasn’t been for nearly a decade.

Actually, higher used to be standard. Check out games from back in the quake era, they often range from 85 up to like 120fov. Lower has become standard on PCs over the last few years because so many developers are developing for console first and then porting to PC. Good developers will include an optional slider, like we’re asking to be added to GW2, but most games default in the 60-75 range now.

The problem isn’t FoV. That’s a buzzword people have bandwagon’d.

The real issue is the camera looks at the ground too much, which limits your view of the horizon, leading to a claustrophobic feeling.

I have a 3 screen setup in landscape and still get the claustrophobic feeling. The reason why the 3 screen layout that OP linked looks good is that the vertical height due to the portrait layout allows you to see more of the sky.

90 may have been standard in id games but I don’t know anybody that was in any way serious about them (even if it just meant that they liked to win occasionally in pub servers) that didn’t run much higher than that. Maybe these modern fovs don’t matter so much in a point and click adventure game or dpad console hallway shooter, but if situational awareness is in any way important to success then anet needs to start giving a kitten and let us actually have situational awareness.

GW didn’t have a super wide fov but we still had situational awareness because of the radar and longer zoom. If we’re not going to have either of those then we need an fov slider plain and simple. And I’m not talking up to a whopping 75.

Mif.3471:

The problem isn’t FoV. That’s a buzzword people have bandwagon’d.

The real issue is the camera looks at the ground too much, which limits your view of the horizon, leading to a claustrophobic feeling.

I have a 3 screen setup in landscape and still get the claustrophobic feeling. The reason why the 3 screen layout that OP linked looks good is that the vertical height due to the portrait layout allows you to see more of the sky.

There’s more than one issue, mate. The camera positioning is definitely one of them. The camera smoothing is definitely one as well. And the FoV is, indeed, a huge one as well. The fact that I can use a third party application to do nothing other than increase FoV and get a much better experience out of it (though still not perfect because of the other issues) supports this.

Also, the OP hasn’t posted the specifics, but from the video it looks like he’s playing in an aspect ratio quite similar to the 16:9 or 16:10 we’re used to on a single monitor.

edit: In fact I just did the math.
9×3 = 27.
27/16 = 1.6875
16/9 = 1.77777777778
16/10 = 1.6

So this three monitor setup the OP showed is indeed right in between 16:9 and 16:10 aspect ratio.

I was under the impression that 3D is something companies do to keep nVidia happy, not because there’s a market demand, yet.

The FOV is something you wish they’d have worked out in alpha/beta. Such a shame to have an active combat system that’s hamstrung by clunky display.

On my screen my character is in the middle of the screen (vertically), yours is on the bottom half of the screen. Strange…

And I only see what you see in the center screen.

There are already 3rd party hacks (bannable) that allow you to change the fov, without major performance issues. And what about triple monitor setups? ArenaNet is not making any sense here.

Player health and comfort seem like pretty big issues to me.

EDIT:
Here is an excellent video explaining fov and its related issues:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blZUao2jTGA

It’s pretty close to the middle… there’s another couple inches of screen blocked by whatever track these monitors are sitting in at the bottom.

I have an FOV-related question – especially pertaining to reports I’ve read of people experiencing nausea from GW2.

I haven’t played since this past Saturday for reasons totally unrelated to the FOV, and the feelings I’ve been experiencing (that I hadn’t even thought could possibly be related to GW2) have gone away.

I would describe the symptoms as two – one of feeling my glasses are OVER prescribed (like my prescription had suddenly become too strong) and one of general unease in, I guess, a nausea-like way.

The ONLY reason I ask is because of other FOV-nausea posts I’ve read in the past few days.

See, for the past month I’ve had these symptoms, and they’ve always been worse on Monday. Mondays, until this past one, have always been following 2 days of Guild Wars, and by Friday they start diminishing. Now I haven’t played Guild Wars at all since this past Saturday (DR in WvW..seriously? No thank you), and pretty much I feel normal.

It may be 100% coincidence (what I’m leaning towards), but with others reporting weird things, I figured I’d ask (and the big FOV thread started by the devs is now locked).

But I’m a long-time gamer (and long-time contact and glasses wearer), and I’ve never experienced this before, and in the week I’ve not played any GW2 I’ve played plenty of Oblivion and Skyrim and Football Manager (so I haven’t suddenly stopped staring at a monitor) and the weird non-headache headache sensation (I don’t really know how to describe it) is pretty much gone. I also stare at a computer monitor for at least 2 hours a day at work, as well.

If I hadn’t read other posts about this, I wouldn’t even consider it, but figured I’d ask what other peoples’ symptoms may have been.

All that being said, even disregarding any FOV things, the camera in GW 2 isn’t really that good. Many times I’ve been unable to rotate it to see where I am due to my position relative to objects in the world (jumping puzzles mostly), and have even had to waypoint once simply because I could see neither my body nor the ground – and I couldn’t move either (so I couldn’t see where to jump to).

Bregah.7365:

I would describe the symptoms as two – one of feeling my glasses are OVER prescribed (like my prescription had suddenly become too strong) and one of general unease in, I guess, a nausea-like way.

That’s a perfect way to describe it. And the incorrect glasses prescription is actually a pretty decent analogy to what’s actually going on.

For people who don’t notice an issue, try this:
1. Download the GW2 Camera Tool version 0.2
2. Go in game, log in, get on your character, then tab out
3. Start the camera tool. Once it says process found, tab back into the game.
4. Hit the numpad 7 key a couple times to decrease FoV by about 10-15 degrees.
5. Play with the FoV like this for a few hours, and experience what some of us experience with the default FoV.

When people have to lie and exaggerate to try to get people on their side (like claiming that every single person is complaining) you can see how serious a problem it really is…

I haven´t followed this discussion at all but the above setup strikes me as useless.
It´s basically a very expensive form of anti-aliasing.

Now if those screens weren´t upright, things would look very differently.
These horrible borders in the middle of your view would be gone and the peripheral vision would actually be of use with the other two screens.

Right?

Thanks for the vid.

I am currently running gw2 on 3 monitors in a horizontal setup, but was wondering how it would look when I place them vertically. Looks like your vertical FoV improves a lot then, however the bezels sure are a lot more in the way, it seems. Right now, the bezels do not hinder me with most of the action going on at the center screen but with a vertical setup it looks like any fight involving more then a single mob (i.e. pretty much every fight) would spill over to the sidemonitors, with the bezels cutting it up. Not sure if I could get used to that.

Do you notice the bezels in a fight much?

@bwillb.2165 (Can`t reply)
I want to thank you so much for this tool (GW2 Camera Tool version 0.2).
I have tried it, “sickness” and nausea are gone.
I can play now. I do not feel uncomfortable while I played it more than 20-30 min. It is like a breath of fresh air. Thank you once more!!!

I wish they would just make that simple slider…

pay attention using Camera Tool, it’s not allowed, so you may be banned (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Is-this-camera-mod-legal/first#post281974)

They already started this with CombatMode and should further add 3rd party tools that they tolerate but do not officially support.

What would be the benefit? Well, people would stop complaining and can actually play the game and Anet gets their time to actually fix the issue at it’s core without a FoV thread popping up every single day.

This is the single most annoying issue in GW2 to me. There are two main problems:

1) Camera is oriented too high vertically in relation to the character. It causes frequent awkward camera angles and limits your view.

2) FOV is too narrow. Unforgiveable not to have a FOV slider. Ridiculous.

Vindrael.4961:

everything just feels more “natural”.

Yeah, dem bezels look really natural.

I look at that and think! Who wants to pvp with that monstrosity? I’ll take my 75 fov and sweet 24" LG monitor over this anyday!

I’m currently playing in 1920×500 windowed mode. Not the nicest solution, but for me at least the added FoV makes up for the small window and completely butching the UI.

I rather change the fov,having 2 or 3 monitors is just very ugly imo,the black bars in between really messes up the screen,i couldnt play a game like this,ever,just doesnt look right.

bwillb.2165:

Bregah.7365:

I would describe the symptoms as two – one of feeling my glasses are OVER prescribed (like my prescription had suddenly become too strong) and one of general unease in, I guess, a nausea-like way.

That’s a perfect way to describe it. And the incorrect glasses prescription is actually a pretty decent analogy to what’s actually going on.

For people who don’t notice an issue, try this:
1. Download the GW2 Camera Tool version 0.2
2. Go in game, log in, get on your character, then tab out
3. Start the camera tool. Once it says process found, tab back into the game.
4. Hit the numpad 7 key a couple times to decrease FoV by about 10-15 degrees.
5. Play with the FoV like this for a few hours, and experience what some of us experience with the default FoV.

That is a 3th party software program that WILL get your acccount banned,stop giving kitten information to people who might actually be stupid enough to try it out aswell.

mak.9027:

pay attention using Camera Tool, it’s not allowed, so you may be banned (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Is-this-camera-mod-legal/first#post281974)

" CC Eva: “I would like you to check this thread https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/Our-Policy-on-Third-Party-Programs/first#post269692
written by Gaile Gray concerning our policy on third-party programs. For the moment, that mod is not allowed.” "

The one post by GaileGray in that thread does not actually say the FOV mod is not allowed, it says it is under discussion.

So what gives? Why would changing something in GW2 that’s configurable in many other multiplayer games be cause for a ban?

Is larger FOV considered to be a cheat? If so, does that not mean a multi-monitor setup that enlarges FOV is also a cheat?

That’s pretty neat… The fisheye is rather bad though. The stretching at the sides of the screen is horrible. I don’t understand how anyone can stand that much stretching.

Also, any FOV that fisheyes gives me a massive headache directly behind my eyes within a few minutes of playing.

FOV of 90 is the sweet spot always.

Something like this would be nice…

3 monitor gaming is great. FOV effects your side monitors so you see what you normally see on the main monitor. Pretty fun, FOV issues are in all games that don’t directly support 3 monitors. You get use to it.

Just simply go to this post here

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Camera-and-FOV-field-of-view-Civil-Discussion/first#post353588

I and another person already posted screen shots of how you can increase the FoV of the game without using any third-party hacking tool.

All you have to do is use your Nvidia/AMD control panel to create a custom resolution for your monitor, which is very easy, I did it in like 10 seconds, and then just turn on the game and select one of those custom resolutions.

The game will automatically increase your FoV with a wider aspect ratio in the custom resolution.

You wil have to put up with black bars on top and bottom sides of the screen though.

here is much better video… FOV set to 90°

That’s odd.. when I did the custom resolution on my setup, the system simply elongated the pixels, so that the 800 pixels filled the space where 1080 pixels would typically go. Its still 1920×800, but uses the whole screen, so everything looks taller and thinner, with no black bars.

I wonder if it’s some setting I have differently, and if it’s in my nvidia control panel, or the game, or just some quirkiness of my monitor or video card (560 Ti GTX).

The answer the designer gave, claiming the FOV will stay, is plain stupid to me.

1) The majority of players dislike the current FOV

2) The designer claim changing it is not feasible it because of technicalities which will result in graphics artifacts
… i don’t see any of these artifacts in any video posted by user featuring the external FOV changer
… i don’t see any of these artifacts in any video posted by users featuring a multi monitor setup, which in the end is the same thing as using a FOV changer

3) since using a multi-monitor setup is the same thing as having the FOV changed i don’t see any reason why they would not allow it
I don’t see why using a program to change it should be passable of banning, except justbecause it is an external program, but the multi monitor driver is the same an external program de facto

Concluding, the decision they are taking and the answers they are giving the community is pure fud.

To be honest I couldn’t name it as problem just always had a feeling that FOV is an issue as well buried beneath the heap of camera issue I’ve had so far. If I had to prioritize I’d have a stable camera at first but the FOV issues would be 2nd.

Although as it stands out these FOV discussions between developers and players sound very similar to those of Darkness 2. Maybe they all went to the same class?

@Ravenblade

I haven’t played a single PC game in the last couple years that didn’t have people complaining about FOV. Unless there’s a slider (sometimes even then) it’s almost like clockwork.

or have 1 widescreen, window mode, adjust window so it is much wider than higher.

That is what I do and have better zoom out than him.

mak.9027:

pay attention using Camera Tool, it’s not allowed, so you may be banned (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Is-this-camera-mod-legal/first#post281974)

Well, three things.

1. Gaile’s new post came out today. Basically says if it doesn’t automate gameplay (bots) or give a gameplay advantage (such as speed hacks, fly hacks, teleporting) it should be okay. This should be okay.

2. They currently have no third-party-app detection system. None. They rely on player reports for bots and fly-hacks and such. You can’t report someone for having a higher FoV, no way to know what FoV other people are using

3. Everyone should use the program until they take a more reasonable stance on this issue. What are they gonna do, ban 90% of their playerbase? Yeah, that would go over well.