Guild Wars 2

When I am standing still and hold the left mouse button down while dragging the mouse left or right, I get the expected result: my character doesn’t move, but the camera pivots around her.

However, when I hold the right mouse button down and drag the mouse left or right, I expect my character to pivot around left or right to face whatever direction the camera is facing. This does not happen- I get the same result as I do holding the left mouse button down- only the camera pivots, while my character remains facing whatever way she was facing before I started.

This leads to all sorts of unwanted behaviors, not the least of which is failure to fire a shot at whatever mob I was trying to pivot around to face (without advancing in any direction) for the inane reason that my character didn’t turn in place as desired and therefore isn’t facing the mob I was trying to point her toward.

It is not always possible, or desirable, to have to move a step in some direction in order to change the way my character is facing. Examples include any of the precarious perches encountered in the numerous jumping puzzles, standing in a small space that is the only not-in-a-red-circle-of-badness spot in the entire dungeon, etc. etc.

This controllability flaw departs from the “norms” in mouse-control of characters in almost ALL other MMOs by forcing players to actually move a step to change the direction a character is facing. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with departing from norms to add something to a game, or improve controllability, etc. However, this faux-pas doesn’t add anything- it takes away a basic character-control function: the ability to pivot around and face in any direction without moving laterally. The way GW2 works now, holding the right mouse button is the same as holding the left mouse button when your character is not moving. This is clearly a LOSS, not a gain.

I respectfully request that this be fixed since it is a basic control function, differs markedly from MMO mouse-control conventions and forces unwanted and sometimes fatal lateral movement just to change facing direction.

Thanks.

Do you have a weapon out? Because if you don’t then your character will not pivot to follow the camera when the right mouse button is pressed. Took me a while to get used to it too.

What’s weird is that sometimes my character does start turning around when I rotate the camera with the right mouse button, sometimes he only moves his head, but sometimes he does start rotating his whole body.

That’s because when you rotate the camera past the point where your character can look, without the neck of an owl anyways, then he/she will move their body. Much like a real person.

Belial.1478:

Do you have a weapon out? Because if you don’t then your character will not pivot to follow the camera when the right mouse button is pressed. Took me a while to get used to it too.

Wow- this comment surprised me so much that I had to log back in to the game to verify my recollection!

My character NEVER turns in the direction the camera is facing (or any other direction lol) when I hold the right mouse button down. Wepaon out or weapon sheathed.

To make sure I’m not crazy (some days are worse than others) I put her in her Town Clothes where there was no possibility of any weapon/combat-stance influence, then held the right mouse button down and pivoted the camera more than 360 degrees around her (I ran out of mouse pad or I could have done 720 degrees).

She never turned her head, her body, nor even so much as an eyelash. She remained steadfastly facing in the same direction throughout.

So maybe you’re on a Mac? Or an Atari 2600 or something? Because on my Windows 7 machine and my Windows XP machine, holding the right mouse button down and dragging left or right is exactly the same as doing it with the left button down: only the camera moves.

Belial.1478:

That’s because when you rotate the camera past the point where your character can look, without the neck of an owl anyways, then he/she will move their body. Much like a real person.

Please see my reply above- I just went back in-game and re-tested. This is absolutely not happening on either of my two PCs. My character does not change facing at all no matter how far I drag with the right button down. The only way to make her turn is to drag the camera around then make her take a step in that direction. Then, and only then, she changes facing.

And promptly falls off the mushroom-perch in the middle of the jumping puzzle.

Lolyta is right, it doesn’t really work like that, not always anyway. The only time a character seems to be turning with the camera is when attacks are in progress, or pretty much all the time if you are autoattacking with skill #1, aside from that they only seem to be moving their heads.

Doomguard.5094:

Lolyta is right, it doesn’t really work like that, not always anyway. The only time a character seems to be turning with the camera is when attacks are in progress, or pretty much all the time if you are autoattacking with skill #1, aside from that they only seem to be moving their heads.

In the test I mentioned above, my character (in Town clothes, no weapons at all) did not even turn her head as I dragged the camera around with my right mouse button down. She literally didn’t move any part of her being in response to my right-click-dragging. Her only movement was the random “undulating” all characters do when not moving.

In short, I get exactly the same response to right-click-dragging as I do to left-click-dragging.

You just blew my mind, I honestly never noticed that before. I’ve always played very movement-centric classes such as thief, hunter, and engineer but still… And TBH I did write this at 4 AM so…

Your character does NOT pivot automatically UNLESS:
1- You are attacking a target.
2- You changed the camera to point in another direction and told your character to move or shift slightly.

When attacking a target, your character will pivot to face that target regardless of the mouse buttons being pressed or not. (This was not always true, in the first couple of betas you would have to let go of your mouse buttons to pivot in combat. This has since been changed. Of course if you are holding BOTH mouse buttons down, you will be running forward depending on where your mouse is aimed, you wont be pivoting.)

You CAN tell your character to pivot by NOT holding ANY mouse buttons and hitting A or D. If you remapped A and D in your WASD configuration to be strafe, then you should consider binding Q and E to be pivot. . . or just learn to hold down a mouse button when you want to strafe and don’t when you don’t.

This is an action oriented game, pivoting already happens automatically for combat. The only time you need to do so out of combat. . . you can learn to pivot easily by letting go of your mouse buttons. Nothing needs to be fixed with the controls.