Guild Wars 2

Branden Gee.2150:

Shockwave.1230:

Is the harsh camera zoom when encountering walls/obstacles covered anywhere? Would love transparency on objects/walls or something to help with that.

This is covered by “Stop ‘random snapping’ from happening”. It’s actually a pretty interesting issue due to how guild wars 2 handles objects in the world. In order to do something like transparency you would need some way to either ‘tag’ objects as being able to be transparent or detect in real time that the objects can be ignored. To go back and tag each individual object in each map would take quite a long time and there is the possibility that some things could be missed or other objects end up getting tagged that shouldn’t have been.

Or you could just tag the stuff players aren’t supposed to see around. Which is mostly WvW and a few PvP maps, or turn off the “new” system entirely on those maps.

With the exception of players, NPCs and Mobs, the camera should look through every object in PvE. I know this will ultimately lead to players seeing “yucky” stuff in the geometry, but it would still be better than what we have now. I mean it’s pretty creepy already to see inside your characters head.

There is already too many corners being cut because it’s harder to fix/change, that trend needs to change. You guys also need to tone down the skill effects on large scale battles. You already have a scaling system (visual adjustment system) in place, why not apply that to what the camera sees in large events?

It was mentioned that the camera height and field of vision is not as in other games. The player is put into the center of the screen, and the lower half of the screen is a bit wasted with a view of the ground behind him, while most of the action takes place in front of him. If you fight huge bosses like Tequatl, even as a ranged character, you see his paw and up to his body, but his head is cut off.

Some time ago, I installed a keyboard and mouse statistics software (Whatpulse) and this has a very nice feature of creating a heatmap of my mouse clicks. I found out that the action doesn’t take place in the middle of the screen, but slightly above it. I assume I click into the combat action to select enemies, so I actually marked where the focus of the combat is.

This supports the idea that the player character could be placed a bit lower on the screen, so the actual action takes place in the middle of the screen.
Remark: I’m playing a ranged character that is between 300-900 away from his target, and I’m only playing PvE.

In WvW/EotM, the character location at center of the screen is ok. Because there I view the scene more from up while navigating between enemies. Well, it would be nice if there are preset choices, and/or player could click on the screen where the character should be.

I would like to see toggle for holding right mouse button down for camera rotation. I too frequently become dead meat because the mouse pointer hits UI items or right mouse button has some kind of delay or other functionality problems. If I need UI items like inventory, then I should hold the right mouse button down.

Perhaps game mouses can be programmed to reverse the behavior but I hope Anet pays attention to usability issues. My left fingers are sore because they just don’t bend to q,w,e,1,2,3,4 as conveniently as I want. I also become dead meat in WvW because to press 7,8,9,0 I need to take my hand off from mouse – loosing mobility.

Whenever I try to play GW2 I feel nausea, headaches, eye aches..
If there was no random snapping and if there was a way to adjust FoV, I’d probably be able to finally enjoy the sequel to my favorite game without feeling sick.

Please send the news via e-mail if you manage to deploy such improvements, as my hopes are almost gone and I rarely check the forums anymore. :/

Yes, lock on target like in ocarina of time please

Don’t think it’s been mentioned: “about face” doesn’t always work, depending on the camera view you’re using; IIRC it’s ignored if right mouse is held. Having it work in all camera modes would be both a camera and gameplay improvement.

Der devs, please watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRvYybdyTtM
And explain me again why we can’t have a first-person camera.

I would like a option to lock the camera view to the direction that the char is facing. Older MMOs had this so why aint it here?

Huck.1405:

I would like a option to lock the camera view to the direction that the char is facing. Older MMOs had this so why aint it here?

Pretty sure this already exists. If you use an attack while moving the camera around with right click, it’ll align where your character is looking with the camera. If you’re moving the camera with right click and move in any direction, it will also realign your character with the camera.

Branden Gee.2150:

Shockwave.1230:

Is the harsh camera zoom when encountering walls/obstacles covered anywhere? Would love transparency on objects/walls or something to help with that.

This is covered by “Stop ‘random snapping’ from happening”. It’s actually a pretty interesting issue due to how guild wars 2 handles objects in the world. In order to do something like transparency you would need some way to either ‘tag’ objects as being able to be transparent or detect in real time that the objects can be ignored. To go back and tag each individual object in each map would take quite a long time and there is the possibility that some things could be missed or other objects end up getting tagged that shouldn’t have been.

Or you could just turn it off (transparency) for certain modes that shouldn’t have it, like PvP/WvW. Other then seeing random naked guy in a pillar (eye of the north gunnars hold) i don’t see an issue. I still hear from players how the game has one of the worst cameras they’ve ever seen. Be really nice to focus on this improvement(s) since it’s really key to the way the game feels. I tend to agree with the original game had a much nicer camera.

I just want first person view. It’s a beautiful world and I want to see it through my chars’ eyes, not mine.

The Walking Thr(d)ead.

I don’t know if this has been covered I only got about a page and a half in.

For fpv control options.
You could have a first-person view break on combat check box; as well as a particle effects / skill effects slider which would help lessen tearing in general even w/o first-person view. There should also be a key that’d you’d have to manually set up through the control options to toggle in and out so you don’t accidentally scroll in during a fight.

I have an example where you could see what happens if the camera bumps into an object above you and zooms in only for a split second.

First, you see us fighting and at 00:05 a tree gets between the camera and me. This obscures the view for a second, but is ok.

But then you see me ground-targeting skill #2. Just in the instant I activate the skill (00:07.800), the camera bumps into something (probably the tree) and zooms in. I misplace the ground target skill, because suddenly the mouse is not over the target but on the ground before it. Image is zoomed in just for a few frames, a few milliseconds, than back to normal.

Not gamebreaking (at least not in PvE, for PvP I don’t know), but it’s some of the annoying things that could be improved.

Well, in PvP it can be pretty much gamebreaking. I don’t know if they can fix it, it’s been 2 years, but it’s basically a disaster along with the particle system.

Many good ideas here, but if I had to pick one to get behind, it would be first person. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just for taking screenshots and for orientation in tight places (jumping puzzles!!!!). Take a look at the 1st person camera in LotRO, for example, simple and efficient. It even has FoV adjustment, though I could forgo that if it’s too much work.

Oh and just one more thing: I’d rather have models go completely invisible like in GW1 when the camera clips with them. Reason: have you tried standing close to a wall on an asura char? Neverending nightmares

Truth be told, I haven’t played GW2 in a year because of the lack of first person view. It’s how I like to play my MMO’s. I am always grateful games include first person (WoW, Rift, Tera, Secret World). Once GW2 adds in first person view I will surely come back to the game!

I’ve been away from Guild Wars 2 for most of the past week and a half and have been able to watch the camera in other games, games without 3rd person over the shoulder camera views too.

I have to say it is immediately distressing when I see the camera issues Guild Wars 2 has. Objects close to the camera such as tree tops blocking out the whole screen, the harsh zoom that happens as you run by walls.

I would love to see these fixed in the game’s next major release.

Heya! As Brandon Gee suggested * here *, I’m bringing my original thread-starter idea to this thread! – And figured, I might bring the original post along.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Suggestion-A-Vertical-Camera-Slider/first#post4674553

First off – Anet, you created an absolutely wonderful game that has captivated me for over two years now and it will keep doing so. That much is certain.

I would personally like to re-suggest a topic that has been brought up several times in the past – and now that the game has some polish, a potential possibility to make the game just a little more perfect: The vertical camera slider.

Guild Wars 2 always had a fairly well-movable controllable camera; the horizontal slider has always been an option that many players use simply to make everything just a bit nicer and have characters block the screen less.

Yet as it is, the camera is better with some playable races than others – Norn and Charr are decently well off when it comes to camera control as they take up a far lower part of the screen and on a close-up, one doesn’t have to see their entire character model. Sylvari and humans have a decent range of possibilities but it starts being very uncomfortable on any slope – and then of course, there’s Asura who have trouble looking up without being blocked by their entire character model.

• Screenshot 1: Shows how much of the camera is really unused in combat, causing you to see less of the enemy and to watch the ground. Particularly unpleasing as some of GW2’s prettiest sights can barely be seen as they are on towery peaks and in the sky!

• Screenshot 2: Showing off how awkward looking up can be. Not always this problematic, but most of the time, it’s quite a possibility.

ArenaNet have already given us some amazing quality of life changes – including camera FOV tweaks, a fix that made the camera scale with the character just a bit more as well as having fixed all those pesky beta issues. So, thanks for all that you did, thanks for all you will do – this game rocks my socks off. And I don’t doubt you will be able to deliver more amazing surprises in the future.

So, thank you. And looking forward to more time spent on a wonderful game. (Even though a camera change would probably elongate that just a biiiit more. ;-)

I have stopped playing the game for a while, mainly because my wrist is hurt badly from holding down the right mouse continuously. This issue has been requested many times but seemed to be ignored by ArenaNet. I am extremely glad that this finally is acknowledge by the developers. I hope this will get implemented soon so I would come back to the game.

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?

Allowing us to zoom into first person would address number one effectively.

Please add Oculus Rift support

Palleon.1657:

Please add Oculus Rift support

Occulus Rift coupled with the fact the camera is broken and goes absolutely mental when anything gets in front of your character would be a nightmare.

HoT seems to be adding some REALLY nice scenery. It would be great to be able to screen-shot them in first person.

Remember: If necessary, first person zoom could snap out in combat or during movement. I’m not saying we need to have first person hang gliding (though I would not be opposed. :p)

Tachyon.5897:

Palleon.1657:

Please add Oculus Rift support

Occulus Rift coupled with the fact the camera is broken and goes absolutely mental when anything gets in front of your character would be a nightmare.

Oculus Rift + First Person Camera = Eyegasms.

Brenden: how about making so I don’t have to constantly hold the RMB and use the mouse to freely look, similar to tera?

Please add Oculus Rift support

Yes waste resources on a unproven product, gear idea. Also OR doesn’t work well from third person and given that this is a third person game Oculus Rift requires the user to sacrifice some environmental information to work. Arenanet wont support it because once they do, it is expected to work well.

Branden Gee.2150:

Updating the list.

• Automatic camera height adjustment on /sleep emote

FYI, some people use /sleep to get screenshots without their character in the picture. Automatically adjusting the camera would ruin that. If this does get implemented, could you make it an option and not something that happens automatically?

Every time I go back and forth between this MMO and another that has first person I feel disoriented when I can’t slide into first person and view the world with no obstructions. I mean the “other” MMO hardly looks half as good as GW2, and yet I can actually look around the world in it T-T

This is the most beautiful MMO, I just wish I could see it through my characters eyes. U.U

Branden Gee.2150:

Updating the list.

(Please note this does not mean that any of these things will happen, won’t happen, are planned to happen, and or not planned to 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
• Look acceleration toggle
• Keep drawing mouse cursor when right clicking toggle
• Keybind toggle for holding right mouse down / click once to toggle option
• Transition smoothing when spectating in PvP

Just a minor suggestion to add. In events like Tequatl and Triple Trouble, the camera distance is increased by a large margin, however, the ‘zone’ in which that distance applies is extremely short. That being said, I’d like to add the suggestion that those ‘zones’ for camera distance be increased for the entire event area.

For an idea of what I mean, go from Teq’s feet to north battery. Your camera will fly in torwards your character as you go to the battery.

Branden Gee.2150:

Giloseays.8436:

FYI, some people use /sleep to get screenshots without their character in the picture. Automatically adjusting the camera would ruin that. If this does get implemented, could you make it an option and not something that happens automatically?

I would hope that if we were to change the /sleep height it would be included with or after a change that somehow empowers players to take screenshots.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Just a minor suggestion to add. In events like Tequatl and Triple Trouble, the camera distance is increased by a large margin, however, the ‘zone’ in which that distance applies is extremely short. That being said, I’d like to add the suggestion that those ‘zones’ for camera distance be increased for the entire event area.

For an idea of what I mean, go from Teq’s feet to north battery. Your camera will fly in torwards your character as you go to the battery.

This might actually be a bug with how we change the max camera distance. I’ve got a sticky note to look into it at some point.

It seems, that the max camera distance is increased for the event area, but the event area is not continuous – basically, you have a circle around the teq, circle around the megalaser, and circles around each of the batteries, but there are parts of the map in between those circles that are not considered event areas, and if you go there your camera will zoom back in.

Branden Gee.2150:

Updating the list.

(Please note this does not mean that any of these things will happen, won’t happen, are planned to happen, and or not planned to happen)

• Manual camera height adjustment

This actually most important thing about camera for me.

I would love to be able to adjust camera angle/height, so my human at second/third level of zoom out would have foots close to bottom edge of screen, instead of 1/4, 1/3 screen being taken by ground.

I really like to keep camera close to my character, But at maximum zoom in, it character takes literally full screen, and zoomed out screen is taken by ground.

To make reference I like how height is set for Norn characters, and I like to have same offsets for rest of characters.

I’m very encouraged to see this thread still going strong. Bravo Branden, for stepping up and keeping the discussion live. I would really be very nice if the devs could, at some point, start implementing some of the easy stuff like FoV adjustability.

I reason I say “easy” is because we’ve already seen third party tools pulling this off fairly successfully in the past (though through unorthodox means, it would seem – but it still worked). Of course, those tools are now history, but seeing a rough-and-ready/makeshift solution for FoV and camera padding fixes out there, led me to believe that there are at least some things that could possibly be improved fairly quickly.

The ability to adjust the camera height is still big on my wish-list. We’ll never get past the whole MMO gigantification issue, but at least getting the camera “off the ground” at bit more, will ease this feeling of being a tiny critter crawling on the floor of this massively over-sized environment.

Hearth of Thorns is giving me new hope … it would be great if the devs finally address the camera issues that’s been plaguing this wonderful game for 2.5 years.

I’m not sure if this is covered by ‘Manual FoV Adjustment’ on your list or not, but it would be nice to ‘not’ lose the “-useOldFoV” switch if any of these happen. I liked the original FoV and use that switch when starting the game (and thank you for providing it) and would hate to lose that in the process (unless that is what ‘manual fov’ means, to be able to set it to ‘original release’ mode).

Branden Gee.2150:

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

Bug: Cursor changes position if released over target:
A lot of players complain that they lose track of the cursor position when they move the camera. That’s because the cursor changes position if you release it over a target. I already reported this bug before, and even included videos.
If I press the mouse button (for example) 1200×600 pixels on my screen, move the camera, and release the button on empty terrain, it’s still at those coordinates when I release the button, as it’s supposed to be.
But if there’s a selectable target there when I release the button, the cursor position changes coordinates.
If you turned the camera slowly, then the cursor changes only a few pixels, but if you turned the camera fast, then the cursor can appear all the way on the other side of the screen.

Bug: Cursor changes position if you scroll with mouse with button pressed
If you press left or right click to move the camera, and scroll, the cursor changes position on button release.

Free camera:
Free camera should be on at all times if the player checked it in the options even if we re-adjust the camera angle. Unfortunately, it becomes disabled if you adjust the camera with right mouse button, or select a target with right mouse button. (Looks like you fixed it for the left mouse button since I reported it in game, thank you if that’s the case)

Bug: Ground-targeting UI:
User interface elements like:

• icons at top left
• enemy bar at the top
• wvw/pvp score at the top
• event text at top right
  … cause ground targeted spells to be cast at your feet instead of the location you were aiming at.
  This happens regardless of which ground targeting method you use (fast/normal/instant, click or keyboard)
  Behaves as expected with interface turned off.

Apropos ground-targeting:

When the camera snaps/zooms in unexpectedly for a split second due to an invisible obstacle behind the camera, the ground targeting target is moved as well for this split second. If you activate the ground targeting spell just in this split second, it is misplaced and you wasted the spell.

1. Letting go of right click sounds like a legit idea. Just make a toggle function for those who want to use it please. I don’t want to use third party programs to get that.

2. Going first person sounds amazing too!.

It was pretty disheartening to see the gameplay of HoT where the camera still snaps off the terrain. In a dense jungle setting, you guys should really come up with some creative way to fix that. I can see plenty of frustration in my future.

Hey guys, very glad to see Dev responses about camera improvements.

Can we please have ‘camera pan up’ and ‘camera pan down’ as mappable keys?

I play with a controller, no macros, and have everything I need mapped out on it. I use combinations like shift, alt and ctrl on my shoulder buttons to achieve all the attacks and movements needed to play GW2 fully. Using my right analog stick, I can pan the camera left and right thanks to you guys graciously providing left and right panning as mappable keys. However I cannot pan up or down without clicking on the mouse, making movement over and down hills frustrating.

I sincerely thank you guys for taking the time to read this and hope this message finds you well !
-kaeru

munkiman.3068:

It was pretty disheartening to see the gameplay of HoT where the camera still snaps off the terrain. In a dense jungle setting, you guys should really come up with some creative way to fix that. I can see plenty of frustration in my future.

This. Very much this. This aspect of the camera has been broken since launch, I can’t imagine how such a major flaw managed to get through the QA testing procedures unnoticed. Especially seeing as how it renders some aspects of the game nigh on impossible to play. One example I recently ran into, try doing the Dark Reverie JP as massive male Norn Warrior.

The look acceleration is a big reason to why I don’t play the game anymore. Just wanted to add my input on that.

lorazcyk.8927:

Bug: Cursor changes position if released over target:
A lot of players complain that they lose track of the cursor position when they move the camera. That’s because the cursor changes position if you release it over a target. I already reported this bug before, and even included videos.
If I press the mouse button (for example) 1200×600 pixels on my screen, move the camera, and release the button on empty terrain, it’s still at those coordinates when I release the button, as it’s supposed to be.
But if there’s a selectable target there when I release the button, the cursor position changes coordinates.
If you turned the camera slowly, then the cursor changes only a few pixels, but if you turned the camera fast, then the cursor can appear all the way on the other side of the screen.

This sounds to me like you have the setting “Mouse Trap” on. It locks your cursor on selectable targets when you put your cursor on a target. So your cursor follows that target if you release your mouse. That’s the first thing I deactivated since I hate losing control over my mouse cursor in zerg fights when I want to select a specific target in a blob.

(I’m not at home right now and can’t check – does this setting even still exist? xD)

As somebody anticipating being able to play in certain parts of the world without nausea-inducing camera-snapping in a couple weeks, a very sincere thank you, Branden.

ooo! #4! Not mentioned in the web sites, but looking forward to that one!

Will there be some sort of way to ‘match up’ the FoV with the ‘-useOldFoV’ setting? Will the old ‘-useOldFoV’ setting still work?

This is really great news, Branden. Judging the information available so far, you really addressed the most asked and most disturbing issues/wishes about the camera. Thank you very much! I hope it turns out in the game as great as it looks from news articles and from your todo-list.

These were no small issues for players. Camera movement greatly affects the game experience as a whole. The Camera handling could be a game changer. From great to bad, or from bad to great. It’s only visual, but an important visual aspect.

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?

We need a first person view. Either a key bind or the ability to zoom in past our character.

Also, camera bouncing in tight area’s. Please, this gets dizzying and hinders our ability to see what we are doing. A first person view may fix this.

Hi Branden,
Will the UI for these changes be in the Demo at Pax East/Rezzed?

Forum bug kill squish stomp exterminate!