Guild Wars 2

(1) When player’s char goes to sleep or sits, the look-at point of the camera stays up. Making it impossible to take screenshots of the sleeping char; nothing else than above.

The rests are for screenshotting:

(2) Add finer dolly. Creation Kit editor of Skyrim game does have the coarse scroll dolly, but also finer dolly when user keeps key v down and moves the mouse pointer. Oblivion game has this too.

(3) Ability to dolly closer.

Note: two below may be used for cheating, making the game unfair. Don’t implement if you suspect that too.

(4) Ability to dolly more away. Some buildings are big; aerial shots.

(5) Ability to move the camera, and rotate its orientation. Like how Vistas are doing.
(5b) If you have only look-at point in the camera, then allow movement of the look-at point. Camera already rotates around look-at point.

Small addition:

(1b) Vertical movement of the look-at point within the char’s height range.

Motivation: With the current system, the shoes are clipped out of the screen so easily. If I could slightly lower the look-at point, I would get better screenshots.

Now I have to dolly away, making my char too small for the purpose. The cases (1), (1b), and (2) would help in getting the char fully to screenshots in close shots. All the details of the char and equipment.

I want first person camera. I don’t care if it’s broken or not or if I don’t “get a feeling for my character”, I only want to use it in PvE anyways. You could also add a way to see parts of your body, even if you’re in first person mode, just like the most FPS games have (speaking of legs, chest, arms, weapons and such).
On a side note: In the glorious “Real Life”, I’m bound to use first person camera and I think I have a good feeling for my “character”.
The first person mode doesn’t has to be perfect. I just want to use it to explore the world on a new level.

Branden Gee.2150:

Thank you for these thoughts. If these ideas have already been brought up before I did not seem them and so I am replying in this thread instead of the possible past threads.

(1) If we want the camera to point down at a sleeping character we would need the camera to know about the emote happening. On top of this right now, from my understanding, most players who do screenshots use /sleep in order to get their character out of the frame. If we were to change this functionality we would want to give players another alternative to hide their character.

(2) I personally like this idea.

(3) How close is closer?

(5) Camera orientation changing seems like it would be very jaring when in combat. I would be curious to hear your ideas for a control scheme for this.

(5b) Would this be like a ‘lock on target’ look-at?

For (1): People only do this because we still don’t have a first person view after two years.

(3) Maybe all the way up to ‘inside’ our chracters heads -> first person akin to WoW and other MMOs

(5) Make it a toggle with hotkey option just like town clothing before the feature patch. To be honest, that looks like the same excuse that was used in the Guildmag interview. Do you honestly think your playerbase is stupid enough to use something like that in actual combat? Just disable the funtion infight then. If a player is using it and is put into combat afterwards, make the camera pan to where it was right before said player toggled to ‘vista-view’.

Branden Gee.2150:

(5) Camera orientation changing seems like it would be very jaring when in combat. I would be curious to hear your ideas for a control scheme for this.

(5b) Would this be like a ‘lock on target’ look-at?

I believe this one was well implemented in Perfect World (I might be wrong) where you could freely control the camera within a certain range of your character. This should be deactivated for PvP (anyways it used to be used for Videos and SS).

Well this video is old but should give a decent idea of what I’m talking about.

Grimno’s Video

Branden Gee.2150:

Thank you for these thoughts. If these ideas have already been brought up before I did not seem them and so I am replying in this thread instead of the possible past threads.

(1) If we want the camera to point down at a sleeping character we would need the camera to know about the emote happening. On top of this right now, from my understanding, most players who do screenshots use /sleep in order to get their character out of the frame. If we were to change this functionality we would want to give players another alternative to hide their character.

(2) I personally like this idea.

(3) How close is closer?

(5) Camera orientation changing seems like it would be very jaring when in combat. I would be curious to hear your ideas for a control scheme for this.

(5b) Would this be like a ‘lock on target’ look-at?

Hi Branden!

I want to take advantage that a dev such as yourself has graced us with your attention. Would it be possible for the devs to fix the camera issues plaguing some parts of the game? for example, when a player interacts with an object in dungeons, general pve etc, the camera zooms in drastically. This happens most of the time in jumping puzzles, and tight hallways. For example, the stairs in the titan fractal (that big statue thingy), when you run around it, the camera just zooms in to an uncomfortable position, or when players stack in corners and such.

Thanks for the reply!

For (3) “closer” is the ability to get close enough to see your character’s bust (ie head and shoulders) filling the screen without having to play tricks with jamming the camera against a vertical surface. Right now the zoom-in stops further back, making it very difficult to get portrait shots (e.g. when commissioning art of your character, you want a good view of the face).

Bobble heads help with that one need, as they expand the head and give it character-creator detail. Still in general it would be nice to be able to really see your character’s finer points.

My personal preference would be an actual over the shoulder view, Resident Evil style.

I can swing the camera left in the options and zoom in to simulate it, and that works fine for normal size characters. But with with Norn and presumably Charr, it doesn’t work at all, you zoom in to their back and they block a quarter of your screen.

Branden Gee.2150:

Thank you for these thoughts. If these ideas have already been brought up before I did not seem them and so I am replying in this thread instead of the possible past threads.

(1) If we want the camera to point down at a sleeping character we would need the camera to know about the emote happening. On top of this right now, from my understanding, most players who do screenshots use /sleep in order to get their character out of the frame. If we were to change this functionality we would want to give players another alternative to hide their character.

(2) I personally like this idea.

(3) How close is closer?

(5) Camera orientation changing seems like it would be very jaring when in combat. I would be curious to hear your ideas for a control scheme for this.

(5b) Would this be like a ‘lock on target’ look-at?

Can we get the option to zoom out the camera a lot more (see shadow behemoth) so we can reduce the seizure causing effects, headaches and eye strain?

I agree with this.

I would be perfectly happy if we got a simple vertical/horisontal position slider for the camera, the ability to zoom closer to see our character in their glorious detail, and after that first person. No need for hands or anything, just the same thing gw1 had.

An FOV slider would help in this reguard a whole lot.

Implementing these features would please most, if not all people regarding camera issues.

It’d be really nice if the camera worked like it does in GW. That would solve a lot of issues with the camera.

I will copy/paste part of my post about the camera from a thread I made on Reddit about the first person view a week ago:

Reason why we want a first person view (and other camera improvements) is to:
- Appreciate the artwork of your game and surroundings you so love to praise (and with full rights, GW2 is a beautiful game)

- View other character models better, so I don’t have to get behind them and try to sloppily zoom in so see their faces/armor models

- Jumping puzzles. Nuff said – the camera is horribly glitchy, and if you play a Charr like me, that can be quite the issue, because of all the random zooming in and bouncing off objects. For a game that relies heavily on jumping puzzles and vertical exploring (Dry Top), the camera aspect is simply bad.

Arena Net, we have asked for a first person view since the release. As a former GW1 player I miss this feature, and I was baffled that you still haven’t implemented it. If you ever add it to the game, that will be the single best thing you have done for this game. Please listen to us, and try to put some reason behind it.

Nobody wants to use it in combat, we should be given an option. Or just make it so that it automatically zooms out of first person view whenever your character enters combat.

Arena Net, you have created a game with beautiful surroundings and art style.
Let us appreciate it and experience it the way it was intended.

I would love to have something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3zyQNx2j7M

I’m surprised most MMOs don’t have something like this. There would obvioiusly need to be restrictions for it though, especially in pvp. And restrictions on the zoom of course. It would be amazing though.

yeah camera would benefit from some love. The thing I’d like the most, would be able to completely detach the camera from the character and be able to rotate/raise/lower/whatever with all the freedom possible.

I think a good way to have this “First-Person View” would be for whenever you zoom to the maximum your char fades out, making it good for screen shots and stuff like that

Branden Gee.2150:

(1) If we want the camera to point down at a sleeping character we would need the camera to know about the emote happening. On top of this right now, from my understanding, most players who do screenshots use /sleep in order to get their character out of the frame. If we were to change this functionality we would want to give players another alternative to hide their character.

Branden, I know first-person view has been said to be difficult to implement due to the camera mechanics. So yes, many of us like to use /sleep and careful camera angling to get our character out screenshots. But I understand the OP’s request too — sometimes you may want to have your “sleeping” character in the screenshot too.

Would it be possible (and not too difficult/time consuming) to add a toggle key that would simply hide our avatar on the local client? Maybe a “Take Screenshot without Character” key?

I’d be fine with the camera centering on a sitting/sleeping character so long as there’s another method so that every screenshot doesn’t have to be a selfie. There are other reasons why people want first-person view, but allowing us to take environmental screenshot without our character would at least solve part of the problem.

All I want is a camera verticality slider, and an option to toggle first person mode for screenshots.

First person camera for out of combat so no issues with having to see weapons etc …..

Regarding first-person

I understand that the dev’s think it will hurt combat. I get that. I contend that it is a preference, and would depend on playstyle. There are several bits of combat where fpm would be more useful:

-turning around. Currently, turning around to face an enemy is a pain- you either must use forward movement (interfering with any other movement) or use A/D which takes a long time. FPM makes turning easy.

-Easy to determine line-of-sight. Projectiles, especially ground-target projectiles, can be more easily aimed when we can see what our character sees.

Beyond that, FPM is ideal for:

-jumping puzzles

-taking screenshots

-viewing map objects up close

-(debatably) rp

Please, please make it an option.

I think you covered the list of most everyone’s dream camera features.

I think a fair number of us would like a way to take a screenshot without our character in it. First person camera would obviously solve that, but failing that we’d like a simple way to take a screenshot without our character that’s a little easier than “use /sleep and try to fajiggle the camera around until you hit an angle where you can’t see your character”.

Branden Gee.2150:

Alright just trying to get all of these thoughts into a single concise list. (Please note this does not mean that any of these things will happen)

• First person camera
• Increase max dolly (camera distance) distance
• Decrease min dolly distance
• More finite dolly control
• Automatic camera height adjustment on /sleep emote
• Manual camera height adjustment
• Stop ‘random snapping’ from happening
• Look at camera
• Free orientation movement
• Fix automatic camera height so that the over the shoulder camera works as it would be expected to work
• Manual FoV adjustment

Please let me know if there is anything else I’m missing.

Minus maybe 1 or 2 things (FoV slider for example), i literally think if you took GW’s camera and put it into GW2 (i know it’s not easy like that), it would solve most everything. Too bad it’s not as simple as C&P… If you sit and play GW and envision the camera passing through objects (making them transparent in many cases) i think that would be an ideal camera.

I know one of the big things is not being able to see behind WvW walls, but there would have to be some collision mechanism to prevent that. I can picture building an object and having a flag on whether it collides with the camera or not.

One additional feature I’d like to see – set the opacity of objects between the camera and my character’s head to something other than 100%. There’s nothing quite like walking through a jungle, and being unable to even glimpse what my character should be able to see, because the plant life completely obscures everything. And if I step further forward so I can see, and then fall off a cliff? Yeah, that’s annoying.

I frequently see “But it would hurt the experience in combat!” as a reason not to do something.

Well, if I adjust my camera in a way that hurts my combat experience… I’ll probably change it back again! I can already spin the camera away from what my character is facing, and THAT certainly ‘hurts my combat experience’… but it’s also incredibly useful in taking a look behind you.

Please, give your players, users, customers, more credit. I know that reading the forums here might give one a jaded view of the populace, but most of us really can figure this stuff out. Most of us can understand the concept of “if it hurts, don’t do it.”

Branden Gee.2150:

Alright just trying to get all of these thoughts into a single concise list. (Please note this does not mean that any of these things will happen)

• First person camera
• Increase max dolly (camera distance) distance
• Decrease min dolly distance
• More finite dolly control
• Automatic camera height adjustment on /sleep emote
• Manual camera height adjustment
• Stop ‘random snapping’ from happening
• Look at camera
• Free orientation movement
• Fix automatic camera height so that the over the shoulder camera works as it would be expected to work
• Manual FoV adjustment

Please let me know if there is anything else I’m missing.

To me this seems right! Thank you for your time and replies

Currently when you look up the camera slides along the ground towards your character which gives you a very limited field of view (really noticable when attacking enemies on walls in WvW).

I would like an option to always keep the camera at the same distance, so when the camera touches the ground it starts pivoting on the contact point instead of the character (in other games usually know as “Smart Pivot”).

I made a quick sketch to visualize what I mean:

Lock on camera sounds great.

Rengaru.4730:

Currently when you look up the camera slides along the ground towards your character which gives you a very limited field of view (really noticable when attacking enemies on walls in WvW).

I would like an option to always keep the camera at the same distance, so when the camera touches the ground it starts pivoting on the contact point instead of the character (in other games usually know as “Smart Pivot”).

I made a quick sketch to visualize what I mean:

I would much prefer this suggestion for alternate functionality that you describe.
Thank you for the well-done visual aid as well.

Branden Gee.2150:

Alright just trying to get all of these thoughts into a single concise list. (Please note this does not mean that any of these things will happen)

• First person camera
• Increase max dolly (camera distance) distance
• Decrease min dolly distance
• More finite dolly control
• Automatic camera height adjustment on /sleep emote
• Manual camera height adjustment
• Stop ‘random snapping’ from happening
• Look at camera
• Free orientation movement
• Fix automatic camera height so that the over the shoulder camera works as it would be expected to work
• Manual FoV adjustment

Please let me know if there is anything else I’m missing.

Look through objects instead of the camera automatically adjusting its zoom when it encounters objects.

I would imagine the reason y’all haven’t implemented this yet is because you’ve found challenges in dealing with ground targetings when combined with this. Ways to deal with these issues are to make transparent objects due to camera not targetable by ground targeting. You guys probably also have hollow objects, which is a bigger problem to tackle if it exists.

Branden Gee.2150:

• Increase max dolly (camera distance) distance
• Decrease min dolly distance
• Manual camera height adjustment
• Manual FoV adjustment

Those are the things I want most out of that list. I really want a much wider view of the battlefield – ****anywhere****, not just a half dozen boss fights.

I suggest any testing of camera changes you do includes two steps:
1) Do the jumping puzzle in the NW of Lion’s Arch as a Norn or Charr – if you’re not breaking things by the time you’re done, it passed.
2) Fight Shatterer with melee weapons as an Asura. If you can see more than his foot, it passed.

Stormdancer.4972:

Please, give your players, users, customers, more credit. I know that reading the forums here might give one a jaded view of the populace, but most of us really can figure this stuff out. Most of us can understand the concept of “if it hurts, don’t do it.”

And a big +1 on this. I want more control over my own game experience. I don’t care if you’ve got to hide it behind a menu and disclaimers. I’ll sign and fax you an 83 page document disavowing any future venting on the forums because I did something silly due to non-standard camera controls if it helps. Really, give us the options to adjust our own, please please please.

One of the leading factors into buying GW2 was my experience in GW. After my first few weeks, I was saddened to realize there was no immediate plans to incorporate several of the main selling points that made GW fun and unique. Please for the love of Tyria add all these missing functions!

The day GW2 gets first person view will be the day my SSD runs completely out of space.

100,000 jpgs just wont be enough.

Branden Gee.2150:

Alright just trying to get all of these thoughts into a single concise list. (Please note this does not mean that any of these things will happen)

• First person camera
• Increase max dolly (camera distance) distance
• Decrease min dolly distance
• More finite dolly control
• Automatic camera height adjustment on /sleep emote
• Manual camera height adjustment
• Stop ‘random snapping’ from happening
• Look at camera
• Free orientation movement
• Fix automatic camera height so that the over the shoulder camera works as it would be expected to work
• Manual FoV adjustment

Please let me know if there is anything else I’m missing.

Really appreciate your responses to the thread!

I know there are some hesitations around a first person view. How about an option to make your character invisible while taking a screenshot, similar to how you can make the UI invisible?

The Great Al.2546:

Branden Gee.2150:

Alright just trying to get all of these thoughts into a single concise list. (Please note this does not mean that any of these things will happen)

• First person camera
• Increase max dolly (camera distance) distance
• Decrease min dolly distance
• More finite dolly control
• Automatic camera height adjustment on /sleep emote
• Manual camera height adjustment
• Stop ‘random snapping’ from happening
• Look at camera
• Free orientation movement
• Fix automatic camera height so that the over the shoulder camera works as it would be expected to work
• Manual FoV adjustment

Please let me know if there is anything else I’m missing.

Really appreciate your responses to the thread!

I know there are some hesitations around a first person view. How about an option to make your character invisible while taking a screenshot, similar to how you can make the UI invisible?

Would be ok also, but coding wise, It should be simpler just to disable the restrictions on zoom, as compared to making the char invisible.

Branden Gee.2150:

Alright just trying to get all of these thoughts into a single concise list. (Please note this does not mean that any of these things will happen)

• First person camera
• Increase max dolly (camera distance) distance
• Decrease min dolly distance
• More finite dolly control
• Automatic camera height adjustment on /sleep emote
• Manual camera height adjustment
• Stop ‘random snapping’ from happening
• Look at camera
• Free orientation movement
• Fix automatic camera height so that the over the shoulder camera works as it would be expected to work
• Manual FoV adjustment

Please let me know if there is anything else I’m missing.

That lolls about complete to me.

The ones that I miss the most is the first-person view and a finer control. I want to make another “family” shot of my character, but it’s a pain to do so at the moment as the feet of my norn are cut off (as somebody also mentioned earlier) so I must zoom out so much that all other characters lose too much detail (which makes it a pain to cut them out)

Stormdancer.4972:

One additional feature I’d like to see – set the opacity of objects between the camera and my character’s head to something other than 100%. There’s nothing quite like walking through a jungle, and being unable to even glimpse what my character should be able to see, because the plant life completely obscures everything. And if I step further forward so I can see, and then fall off a cliff? Yeah, that’s annoying.

More on this…Another example.

Honor of the Waves Path 1 end boss.
I like having the camera zoomed out a bit so I can see what’s going on around me but the tapestries hanging down and the pillars and the walls all make visibility in that room a right pain in the patootie. I actively try to avoid the back of the room because I can’t see jack when I walk in front of that tapestry in the back of the room. Even the ones that hang down in the middle of the room block my view of everything. They’re nice to have there for ambiance, but terrible for my field of view while in the middle of that long fight with that huge bag of health. But if I try to stay on the other side of the room, my camera gets mushed up close to my character because of the walls and it is hard for me to see what’s going on because I"m right in on my character. I have no idea how you’d fix this without just removing everything in the room (which is also not the best way to handle it).

But that’s the biggest in-combat camera issue I’ve encountered.

Out of combat, a first person view for screenshots would be amazing. And/or a way to have the camera face my character and stay there so I can emote/attack/pose for the screenshot I’m trying to get without the camera snapping back to the rear view.

I know this all might not be possible, but it’s great to have someone looking into what might be able to be done. <3

Thanks so much Branden, for replying on these issues. Issues such as …

• the camera’s uncomfortably low pivot point (no option to adjust camera height)
• the limited field-of-view
• the padding/collision issues (the quick jerky in/out camera zooms when in close proximity to the edges the environment i.e. during jumping puzzles)
• and the mandatory camera smoothing (the ease-in/ease-out behavior when you look around, and no option to disable it)

… are some of the biggest things that makes playing uncomfortable for me and others I’m sure.

For reference (and since the search function on this forum only yields very limited results) – here is a link to one of the oldest threads concerning camera issues, with lots and lots of good input from the community:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Camera-control-issues-a-documented-list/first

Thank you again Branden and looking forward to seeing some of these fixes in a future feature pack! Been holding thumbs ever since ArenaNet introduced the roll-outs of these packs.

Branden Gee.2150:

Alright just trying to get all of these thoughts into a single concise list. (Please note this does not mean that any of these things will happen)

• First person camera
• Increase max dolly (camera distance) distance
• Decrease min dolly distance
• More finite dolly control
• Automatic camera height adjustment on /sleep emote
• Manual camera height adjustment
• Stop ‘random snapping’ from happening
• Look at camera
• Free orientation movement
• Fix automatic camera height so that the over the shoulder camera works as it would be expected to work
• Manual FoV adjustment

Please let me know if there is anything else I’m missing.

I think, thats it. Thank you very much for your list and presence here.

Greetings.

Great that this getting some attention, however this has been discussed before.

ANET has said in the past that changes to FoV, camera distance, and the like, would give un-fair advantages in WvW/PvP
I do not agree with this, only relating what was told to us in the past.

Having said that, I would like to see:
Increase max dolly (camera distance) distance
Manual camera height adjustment
Manual FoV adjustment

The rest, I do not care about.

My primary concern are collision/padding issues as they make my physically ill, sometimes to the point that I have to stop playing the game. Jumping puzzles are the worst – they so often seem to be in tight areas with lots of floating things.

As a great example of this, watch the camera bounce off of the small pipes in the Not So Secret jumping puzzle. (I’ve linked you to the right point in time.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5rT_uLu9yw&t=2m25s

I like that example because it’s 100% obvious what’s happening. The camera hits a pipe and pulls in closer to the player. But the pipe is thin, so it’s very soon able to return to its standard position. Oh, there’s another pipe! Time to move closer! etc.

For me there’s two primary issues:

• No way to zoom in to first person view or switch to it. After a certain close proximity it should jump to first person view. Many interior sections are really difficult to navigate due to the lack of a 1st person view.
• Lack of FoV-customizability. It doesn’t have to be unrestricted, but something like kitten -110 slider would go a long way to allowing people of all monitor sizes and eye configurations to play without inducing nausea.

Awkward Looks

Thanks, Branden, for boldly going where few devs dare to go.

GW2 is the best game I’ve ever played, and its camera is the clumsiest of any game I’ve ever played (and I’ve played hundreds of games since the ’80s).

I first noticed the problems back in BWE2 when I came over from LOTRO, which has a much more natural-feeling (if not perfect) camera scheme. Things were bad enough in beta that I figured they would be fixed reasonably soon, but well, two years later, here we are.

The FOV change was very welcome on widescreen (I don’t crane my neck quite as much now), but the left-right slider is worthless for jumping puzzles because it’s actually harder to jump in a given direction when looking at it from an oblique angle.

Add in Charr, with their huge occlusive bodies and hunched center-of-gravity-defying posture, and well, there’s a reason I don’t even bother attempting jumping puzzles when I’m playing one of my Charrs (I switch to an Asura).

First Principles

I know first-person-view is something of a pariah with the developers, but it solves a lot of problems with relatively little coding effort.

In many other games, you can simply zoom in your third-person view to a first-person POV smoothly, and adding that simple change (which already occurs automatically when backed against a wall) would make a HUGE difference.

I would gladly trade a little “immersion” for the ability to see what the heck is happening or take a screenshot that doesn’t involve an upskirt character selfie, and frankly, wrestling with an awkward camera is a lot more immersion-breaking than not seeing the back of my character will ever be.

Please consider giving us this. It’s not like we haven’t repeatedly begged for it passionately enough over the years.

Pumpin’ And Jumpin’

The second-biggest problem I’ve seen with the camera is the prevalence of small world objects that force the camera to zoom.

Things like resource nodes, twigs, small boulders, tiny bushes, transparent objects and other things that don’t actually block line-of-sight cause the camera to rapidly zoom in, resulting in a “pumping” or “zoom jitter” effect that can induce nausea. This is featured in countless YouTube videos.

Going up Asura steps with an Asura, for example, causes a violent pumping effect that feels like being repeatedly punched in the face.

Fixing this is actually something that would require changing world assets rather than the camera itself, and would involve changing the attributes of smaller or transparent objects so that they don’t force the camera to zoom. That may be labor-intensive, but once fixed, and guidelines established for modelers to ensure new objects don’t cause similar problems, it’s done and pays off forever.

There is absolutely no way anyone could play GW2 and not know exactly what I’m talking about here, so I’m hoping it will finally get the attention it needs.

A Certain Point Of View

I play on a very large widescreen monitor, and though the effect is subtle, it’s really painful to play GW2 for long periods because of FOV mismatches. Adding a slider for this is long, long overdue, and I pray we’ll see it sooner rather than even later.

Actually, I recommend two sliders: one for vertical and one for horizontal. This will help players with a wider variety of monitor configurations (e.g., multi-screen, laptops, etc.) play the game without so much discomfort.

Anyway, thanks for looking if you made it through this interminable screed, and thanks again for letting us know somebody cares.

Branden Gee.2150:

Alright just trying to get all of these thoughts into a single concise list. (Please note this does not mean that any of these things will happen)

• First person camera
• Increase max dolly (camera distance) distance
• Decrease min dolly distance
• More finite dolly control
• Automatic camera height adjustment on /sleep emote
• Manual camera height adjustment
• Stop ‘random snapping’ from happening
• Look at camera
• Free orientation movement
• Fix automatic camera height so that the over the shoulder camera works as it would be expected to work
• Manual FoV adjustment

Please let me know if there is anything else I’m missing.

Yes, that’s it.

bri.2359:

Great that this getting some attention, however this has been discussed before.

ANET has said in the past that changes to FoV, camera distance, and the like, would give un-fair advantages in WvW/PvP
I do not agree with this, only relating what was told to us in the past.
-snip-

I think most of the “greater FoV=unfair PVP advantage” claims have been well debunked by now. The only instance of a developer commenting on this (that I know of, and I may be wrong) related to a 3rd party tool that allowed massive FoV (up to horrible fish-eye proportions) as well as zoom distance modifications, where one would see over walls or use war machinery in WvW to aim at targets that players were not intended to see.

That tool is now history. Also, from a pure FoV perspective, GW2 has from a very early stage demonstrated its ability to work with tech like NVidia surround – allowing players 3x more horizontal FoV using 3 monitors. All above board.

I think the most players are asking for here, is the freedom to push (or pull) the FoV slightly beyond it’s current boundaries to allow for more comfortable play. That, plus the ability to adjust the camera height higher, will allow for so much more appreciation of ArenaNet’s beautiful (and huge) environmental art.

I want to promote two different kinds of first person cameras.

The first one shoud simply be a decreased dolly minimum distance to the character, so the character fades out or leaves the FoV and you can take screenshots. The problem with this camera perspective however is that, since the character isn’t visible anymore, so wont be his weapons. It would look weird to fight with this camera perspective, since you wouldn’t be able to see your weapons any more.

The second one should be a real first person camera, the camera should be attached to the eyes of your characters, which means that if you turn your camera, you’ll also turn your character’s head and vice versa. You should also be able to see body parts of yours if you look down or your weapons if you use them.
I know that dodges or fast moving skills, like Whirlwind would mess with the camera and if that becomes too much of an issue, you can still separate the camare from the eyes of the character for the duration of the skill or the dodgeroll.

I know both camera perspectives got noted by Branden Gee already, I just wanted to express my full support for this idea.

It’ll be just great to have a limited ‘free view’ mode while out of combat while holding a key we have to set, that just lets us move around within range of the character without moving the character, as if the camera got free and and flying around.

It won’t only be great for screenshots, but something like that would be invaluable for spectator mode.

I’ll be just happy enough if we could move the camera closer to the character to take shots of them.
And for landscapes, zomming in again from the closest distance should move the camera on top of the character (at the same height regardless or race) and hide the model from out client’s view, to take screenshots. The camera could go back to third person when moving or entering combat. That doesn’t matter, the important part is getting my character’s big head out of the way when taking some pictures of the environment to show around.

I’ve been a huge advocate of camera changes since launch. When the camera was “bugged” to allow 1k+ zoom out during Halloween 2012 I was so exhilarated, but it was such a let-down when it was “fixed” back to the limited zoom distance we have now.

Here are the camera updates I’m most adamant about.

• First person camera – We could be forced out of it when in combat if combat is the issue.
• Increase max dolly (camera distance) distance – Increase this so much so I can really enjoy how gorgeous these landscapes look!
• Decrease min dolly distance – It would be so nice to really zoom in on the character model details. I’d say even closer than character customization or the Hairstyle Kit do.
• Manual camera height adjustment – This could be optional keybinds, and would be quite lovely.
• Stop ‘random snapping’ from happening
• Free orientation movement
• Manual FoV adjustment – 70-75 would be brilliant.

In addition, less automatic stuff. I dislike this auto-camera sleep eMote concept. If I lost control of my camera while in /sleep eMote, I would never /sleep again. Ever. Just like I stopped using town clothes and costumes once I could not dye or mix-and-match them. More options and opportunity is better. Restrictions and limitations are not.

Allow us to pan upward (nod just sideways) in order to increase the amount of sky vs ground: I understand that the devs want us to be able to see stuff behind us (especially in pvp), but the movement of the ground at the very edges, plus the character being so high up when the camera is zoomed out, is great for motion sickness. My ideal would be the character standing at about a third of the way up, not half; then the scrolling wouldn’t be quite as bad and it would open up the sky.

First person view: folks don’t have to worry about that messing with combat. People who try it will soon switch back to regular view after dying, and the rest of us can make videos and take beautiful screens.

The bouncing off objects behind us is extremely nauseating when it comes to jumps, which is part of why I avoid them.

Being able to zoom in to your character one extra notch would be wonderful, as would being able to zoom out one or two more.<3

For me the biggest issue with the camera is that:

If I set my camera “naturally” to see my character from behind and over his back, then I use any skill “in air” without target, the projectiles are flying to the ground (center of my screen) instead of flying pararell to the ground. It would be an awesome improvement, especially for those who are playing without autotargeting and wasting skills on the ground when one enemy dies. I know that there would be a problem with projectiles that flies in a parabola, but you could just calculate the range of the skill to fall on the ground exactly at the end of its range.

Edit: added attachment