Guild Wars 2

Why Anet left off First Person view?

What was the reason behind that?

has it ever been explained why the Development team left that off?

Because they were worried that people would get stuck in 1st person and forget how to change back to 3rd person view thus handicapping yourself and teammates. It was said in an interview at gamescon 2014.

Fernling.1729:

Because they were worried that people would get stuck in 1st person and forget how to change back to 3rd person view thus handicapping yourself and teammates. It was said in an interview at gamescon 2014.

wtf, that was really said?

I am curious of how inexperienced does Anet assume the GW2 consumers are to MMO gaming.

I cant help but notice now, after the NPE, and this statement. its crazy! Anet assumes the GW2 player base has never touched a MMO game before.

Wasn’t it because of how they’ve structured the terrain? That if you get too close the camera will see through objects like walls and mountains?

The actual reason was that it created problems with how the camera and the players head interacted with various parts of the game.

They didn’t directly say that it, but it was certainly implied imo.

“Devon Carver: Yeah, the one thing I would say is… the first person mode which we’ve had, we used to kind of toggle in and out of it on our dev client before, the biggest reason to stay away of it is that the sense of direction in combat is really important in our game, as well as positioning – positioning is really important. So, when you go into that first-person mode, you really completely lose the understanding of anything that is going on behind you, which can make our combat really difficult to understand and just difficult to play. There is some PvE scenarios where probably it wouldn’t be a big deal, but certainly in PvP or World versus World, it becomes very difficult to actually understand what is going on in combat. Which means that it really handicaps you as a player at that point; it makes it difficult to know what is going on and for that reason it is something we probably won’t be doing much work with, because we have really done a lot of work and continue to do a lot of work to make combat as readable and understandable as possible, and, like I said, direction and positionality is really important in our game, so not being able to say all that playable space is really valuable.”

In other words, because they were too lazy to make the camera zoom out from first person when entering combat.

Fernling.1729:

They didn’t directly say that it, but it was certainly implied imo.

“Devon Carver: Yeah, the one thing I would say is… the first person mode which we’ve had, we used to kind of toggle in and out of it on our dev client before, the biggest reason to stay away of it is that the sense of direction in combat is really important in our game, as well as positioning – positioning is really important. So, when you go into that first-person mode, you really completely lose the understanding of anything that is going on behind you, which can make our combat really difficult to understand and just difficult to play. There is some PvE scenarios where probably it wouldn’t be a big deal, but certainly in PvP or World versus World, it becomes very difficult to actually understand what is going on in combat. Which means that it really handicaps you as a player at that point; it makes it difficult to know what is going on and for that reason it is something we probably won’t be doing much work with, because we have really done a lot of work and continue to do a lot of work to make combat as readable and understandable as possible, and, like I said, direction and positionality is really important in our game, so not being able to say all that playable space is really valuable.”

Tl;dr
Its impossible to accurately portray combat awareness on a small monitor in first person.

If you do make first person, there are many things you have account for. I am fairly sure Anet just said meh kitten it, lets continue, during development.

I’d be satisfied if it worked like in GW1. NOBODY wants it for combat, but you know what, even if we do, that should be our right. I still, probably every day, run into at some some point during play where I really really wish I could just zoom “all the way in” like in the old days.

It’s annoying playing my norn and being zoomed in so he takes up the whole screen. If you’re going to do that, at least make it like ESO where you’re off to the side so you can still see what’s in front of you. Interior / in-doors areas are a pain, and when out in the world, it sucks not being able to see what’s in front of you unless you zoom out or angle the camera around.

I’d always use it for in-doors areas, and probably a lot when running around in general. Probably sometimes for easy pve mobs too. I also think we’ve all had jumping situations where we couldn’t see things in front of us as well as we should have.

I was really hoping it was something they’d at least mention in passing for HoT. I don’t suppose they’ll ever reverse this bad pointless decision though, and I don’t expect I’ll ever stop being disappointed by it.

uhmm, in ESO positioning is even more important then in GW2 and they have 1st person, then again, their 1st person is logical because their combat system is more controlled by the player.
i think it’s more because unlike ESO, GW2 has everything on autopilot so 1st person would be useless anyway.

The same reason ArenaNet made the NPE: some people don’t understand the concept of a scroll wheel to zoom out.

Kartel.2561:

I’d be satisfied if it worked like in GW1. NOBODY wants it for combat, but you know what, even if we do, that should be our right. I still, probably every day, run into at some some point during play where I really really wish I could just zoom “all the way in” like in the old days.

It’s annoying playing my norn and being zoomed in so he takes up the whole screen. If you’re going to do that, at least make it like ESO where you’re off to the side so you can still see what’s in front of you. Interior / in-doors areas are a pain, and when out in the world, it sucks not being able to see what’s in front of you unless you zoom out or angle the camera around.

I’d always use it for in-doors areas, and probably a lot when running around in general. Probably sometimes for easy pve mobs too. I also think we’ve all had jumping situations where we couldn’t see things in front of us as well as we should have.

I was really hoping it was something they’d at least mention in passing for HoT. I don’t suppose they’ll ever reverse this bad pointless decision though, and I don’t expect I’ll ever stop being disappointed by it.

There is a slider option in the options to move your character away from the center of the screen, and can move the character left or right of the screen using the slider. It is under General Settings, Camera section, change Position slider to the left or right.

Technical issues aside, the problem will be mostly that in FP mode you can’t see whats happening behind them, and then people will be removed from content if they want to play FP mode. anet philosophy is that no one may be excluded anywhere, so FP people must be catered then as well. (I don’t mean removed from content normally, but parties will kick people who refuse to play 3rd mode)