Guild Wars 2

MashMash.1645:

Druid is a complete joke. Whoever is responsible for it should be ashamed. Rangers were already not that great, and this is the final insult.

Strong words … but I have to say in this instance, I very much agree. I had high hopes for my Ranger in HoT and I love the Druid aspect of it, but it just ain’t there yet and I suspect it’s not going to be for some time.

At the very least, they should just stop AF from draining. It’s honestly a really poor decision to do that and feels like a very rushed work-around … whatever they were trying to work around … kitten knows. :/

I have Guild Wars 2 installed on two different computers, and have consistently come across a bug where the music that was designed for a cut-scene doesn’t ‘activate’ properly.

For example: During character creation, the default background music will continue to play right through the opening cinematic, which is really sad, since it breaks the mood and isn’t really ‘in sync’ with what’s happening on screen.

bssacramenti.5041:

-snip-

Add an option to disable camera ‘smoothing / acceleration / decceleration’ or whatever name you wish this give this phenomenon.

That’s a really good suggestion.

I’ve always wondered why the devs implemented camera smoothing – specifically, if there was some technical benefit like a slightly increased in FPS due to the easing-in/easing-out … or if it was just an aesthetic thing.

Although I kinda got used to it, it would sure be nice if there was a way for us to disable this entirely, and just have the mouse/camera have 100% responsiveness during movement without the smoothing. I know from beta to early release, they tweaked the smoothing a bit to make the camera feel less floaty and out-of-control.

Maybe there’s a way to just implement an option to disable it wholly, if one would want to?

Branden Gee.2150:

-snip -

• Fix automatic camera height so that the over the shoulder camera works as it would be expected to work
• Camera Head Height Consistency

Whatever you guys do, pretty please, don’t lower the max camera height – especially while zoomed in. It works really well to be able to have the camera viewpoint slightly above your character’s head, if one would want to. For me, it improves visibility. Obviously, tastes differ, so it’s very cool to have all these options.

For example, with my norn, charr, sylvari and human characters, I can now put the vertical height slider at maximum height and combine it with the “camera to character height” checkbox. This gives me an increased height boost which works absolutely great.

I absolute LOVE all these changes. It feels so nice playing Guild Wars 2 now … really Branden, you guys have done awesome work on this. Awesome!

I almost fear giving more suggestions/feedback, for fear the camera might change significantly from what it is now, because the way it is, is just so much better in every possible way. But alas, maybe a couple of suggestions:

• It would be nice if the vertical slider also gave the camera in increased height when zoomed it. I know some players like a full-body character on screen, some like half-body with more of the world to see over the character’s head … so increasing its effectiveness while also zoomed-in, might help giving players some choice.

• In essence, using the “camera height to character height” checkbox, gives you a very nice boost in height for all characters except Asura (where the camera is higher with this unchecked). Maybe this height boost can be applied to the vertical slider, giving us a bit more vertical control while close-up to our character.

I’m quite surprised how high you guys have allowed us to go on the camera while zoomed-out. I absolutely love it. I really never thought we’d ever see the day we’d get so much viewablilty. Just having so much forwards viewablilty and not having to stare at ground textures the whole time, is a huge plus.

I’ve not really seen a significant drop in FPS. I have a relatively old card (GeForce 580), and while I expected the FPS to drop quite a bit (because more are effectively rendered on screen when you increase your FoV) it still is surprisingly smooth.

Thank you again for all the hard work. The padding/collision issues are basically … gone. It’s amazing.

When I logged in, the camera view/feel was basically exactly the way I left it before the patch, until I started to adjust the various settings to my liking (which is great btw).

The idea with all the options and sliders, was to give players … options, so you can easily go back to exactly the way things were if you like to. In my oppinion, these are the BEST additions ArenaNet has ever done to GW2 … ever.

The camera height to character height check box, the vertical slider and extra FoV gives this game an amazing new look and feel (if you choose to use it).

You should probably check your camera settings. Checking the camera height to character height box raises the camera, as does the vertical camera slider. It does this especially with norn, but you can get it back to the way it was by tweaking those settings.

When I logged in, my settings was exactly the way it was before the patch, until I tweaked it to my liking.

In terms of it’s usefulness, these are all things players have been asking for, for a long long time and it’s beyond amazing that it’s in there.

The only FoV bug I found, is that it resets the FoV upon exit, but other than that, it works great.

I am beyond happy with all the camera changes! This is truly the best update that ArenaNet has ever created for GW2 and now I can truly appreciate the amazing art in this game. Better forwards visibility, better FoV, better camera height … better everything really.

Thank you so much for this! Branden Gee and his team deserves a lot of praise for this. <3

This happens only when I exit the client entirely (not just logging out to the character screen) and only the FOV setting seems to be affected. All other settings are retained on my side.

Ah dang, that’s a pity. Hope the update isn’t delayed too much. I’m really looking forward to the camera updates.

Branden Gee.2150:

Thought I would just update this. -snip-

I’ll be on Ready Up tomorrow at Noon PST at twitch.tv/guildwars2 to show these off!

Branden, you are a star! I know this was a team effort for you guys, but thank you, so much, for all your hard work and all the interaction here. Also, thank you for proving me dead wrong when I thought that after 2.5 years, things were probably too baked-in to ever see significant change. I believe I have a straw hat somewhere that needs consuming. :p

It’s going to be soooo nice revisiting the races that I’ve neglected because of the difficulties playing them. I pretty much have a full roster for norn characters (and then some) … guess it’s time to expand my character slots a bit and unlock those seasonal stories I missed.

Thank you again for all your effort. You folks are awesome!

Pop over to this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Suggestion-player-camera-improvements/first

Developer Branden Gee is taking player suggestions about camera improvements.

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’ve dabbled a bit in ArcheAge (or rather QueueAge) over the weekend, and the game has a very intriguing toggle in the menu called “Action Camera” (default) and “Classic Camera”. Classic Camera had a very Guild Wars 2 feel to it (somewhat constricted in terms of view) and switching to “Action Camera” made a remarkable improvement – and as far as I could see, it was basically an FoV adjustment.

In terms of camera height, I’m still convinced that a higher pivot is probably one of the key areas GW2’s camera could be improved remarkably (as an option obviously, if possible). The reason I say this is because:

I personally feel a lot more comfortable playing GW2 characters with “higher” views. Norn and Charr have the highest pivot points. Most of my characters are norn female, because they take up less screen real-estate than norn males, and when you make them very short in character creator, the high camera pivot remains, which is great.

Humans and Sylvari are totally unplayable for me. I forced myself though the human storyline because of how well it was presented (and for nostalgia, having fine-combed GW2 pre-beta video’s of the only area we were allowed to see for a while, since 2010. lol). The pivot for the Asura is just too low … I sadly deleted my beloved little mad scientist to make room.

Anyhow, I hope this thread won’t die out! Thanks Branden for your kind words and participation. Attached, some old 2 year mock-ups from when these discussions first started. They’re still relevant, and I hope it makes sense.

Stormdancer.4972:

-snip-
The camera should know what ground is same way the player model does.-snip-

I think the way it works, is that the camera collides with solids, regardless of whether it’s the floor, one’s character, or other stuff. So, the camera doesn’t really recognize some sort of “ground level” AFAIK.

I think also we need to look at this in a much simpler fashion. These types of issues usually get small bursts of attention from players when the topic comes up, but it gets complex quite fast.

For the most part, I think players just want to be able to play comfortably – to not have our own character obstruct our view. And, to not have ground clutter whoosh in and out of view when we try to do something simple as look forwards, or upwards.

IMHO, a great majority of the camera issues can be solved by introducing an option to make the camera’s vertical center point higher and to increase the field-of-view. And for those who love screenshots/machinima, an option to go into first-person view (like in Guild Wars 1).

We just want to see more and appreciate the beautiful environments. I really hate mentioning competitor titles here, but if I had to give examples of great in-game camera implementations, I’d have to mention games like The Secret World and more recently, The Elder Scrolls Online. Looking at how it’s done there, really is the best way to describe it … to draw some ideas and inspiration from.

Thanks again Branden. I think most of us realize that solving these issues requires a lot of collaboration from different departments within ArenaNet. It’s never quite as simple as we think, and no promises can be made. I’m just so very happy you’re here to participate and receive feedback from us. It’s very much appreciated and I hope the communication channels will stay open regarding this.

Branden Gee.2150:

-snip-
So for the first technical challenge, how could we get this to work when the camera doesn’t know what ‘ground’ is.

EDIT: I’m rethinking my original post (under the spoiler tag) after booting up a few other games to investigate further.

First of all – terminology. We mustn’t get confused, because smart pivot sometimes refers to the auto-snapping-back behavior of the camera if you rotate it around your character and you release the right mouse button.

What Rengaru referred to in his post (the one Brenden linked) I’ve only seen in one game, and that is Star Wars: The Old Republic. It had an option in the menu simply called “enable camera pivot” and when you ticked it, the camera pivots up towards the sky at the point it hits the ground. With it off, the camera zooms up to your character and pivots up.

The question is, do we want this (especially if it’s a complex thing to implement) and why not just opt for something simpler to achieve similar results, like allowing us to adjust the camera pivot higher. Because this, combined with more vertical FoV, will give you the kind of observability you need to comfortably observe players up keep walls (the example Rengaru mentioned).

You see, with more FoV, comes the added benefit of an increased perceived (not actual) distance between the camera and the character (think wide-angle lens on a camera and how objects are farther than they appear), so you zoom in (but your character is not up in your face), the camera collides with the character’s body (and the pivot point is now higher, so no legs/torso/upskirts in the way) – you see over your character’s head + more FoV = more observability … and problem solved as far as I can see.

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.

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.

1) Permanent additions to the game world and lore i.e. delving deeper into Tyria’s struggle with the Elder Dragons, expanding the story and landmasses incl. revisiting places we got to know and love in GW1.

2) Improving the overall PvE experience of jumping puzzles, traversing constricted terrain and enclosed spaces by addressing the various camera collision issues.

3) Greatly expanding guild functionality & management i.e. ‘last log-in date’, expanding guild size limits, and eventually bringing back Guild Halls/Instances

BONUS: Costume brawling is great! Would love to see improvements to that system to entice players to use it more.

This is such a rare and wonderful opportunity, so I have to ask: Will there be a way for us to pass on suggestions and receive feedback on more quality-of-life type enhancements, specifically to do with i.e. UI improvements, mouse/keyboard input and ideas surrounding a fixes for things like the camera collision issues (the jumpyness), extra menu options for FoV and even vertical camera offset adjustments?

It would be really great to get some dialog going surrounding these things, since they really affect gameplay at the most basic level … and some of these unresolved issues are quite old now. It would really make my day getting some info about these things, and I’m sure others share my eagerness as well.

Also, thank you for being so proactive Chris. It’s really great to have this type of interaction with the people behind this great game. I hope it will continue.

Collaboration is a good thing, but there has to be some mutual understanding. I personally feel that the devs understand (more or less) what the players want, but sometimes development just seem to go off on a tangent. Rather than going into complex issues like class balance and gear grinds, here’s something simple I don’t understand, and I’d love some insight:

As the game tries move forward at a rapid pace, there are so many core issues that linger in and outside of the game. When the temporary story content started to roll in a few months ago, I just thought to myself … “dang, if only they can spare a few folks to really try and fix some of the fundamental issues that’s been plaguing the game and forums for more than a year now” …

… Spazzy camera? Will we ever see a fix on that? Will we ever actually see a properly working forum search function? How about real quality of life improvements involving the ability to adjust simple things, like mouse smoothing, FoV and camera height adjustments to aid visibility for very small and very large characters?

Perhaps the basic stuff are the hardest to fix … who knows? Why not tell us why? Collaboration is a two-way street. Below in my sig, is a wonderful, constructive (and year old) thread about some fundamental issues with the game camera and some solid suggestions from the players. We’ve taken that step, now the ball is in your court ArenaNet.

Show us you’re really serious about the kind of collaboration Chris Whiteside mentioned in his post … and for the love of all that’s good in this world, keep the communication channels open. We love to interact with you!

AncientYs.8613:

no they are not available anymore, im sorry but you missed it. Crown Pavillion is also inaccesable now.

Wow, that’s … a shame. Guess I now understand people’s loathing of temporary content. I really do hope ArenaNet decide to make the skins available again at some time through the BL weapon’s trader.

I had to urgently leave for work for a week and didn’t get time to purchase any of the Sovereign Weapons Skins from the six emissaries in The Crown Pavilion. I’ve also noticed that the Black Lion Weapons Specialist doesn’t have them.

Does anyone know of any other NPC one can go to to exchange the Watchwork Sprokets for these skins?

Alternately, has anyone heard any word of ArenaNet about adding these skins to the inventory of the Black Lion Weapons Specialist (who already have most of the other past event’s skins)?

Been a bit out of the loop lately. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Happy birthday Guild Wars 2 … and in another 6 days, happy birthday to this thread as well.

In the 12 months since release, we’ve seen one very positive change to the in-game camera, as a result of unyielding community feedback about the field-of-view. It wasn’t a massive change, but it was a step in the right direction. (During beta, we also saw the zoom factor increased, much to the delight of players.)

At this point in time, it would be very nice to know what ArenaNet’s plans are with the bouncy camera collision issues. I don’t think we’ve actually ever heard anything concrete from a developer about this. Is this something that’s actually on some list of improvements?

How about options to increase the vertical offset of the camera (similar to the horizontal offset we have) to improve forwards & upwards visibility? Perhaps give us a way to align the center-point of the camera with our characters heads, and not the chest?

Anyhow, there’s plenty of player feedback in this thread. At some point, it would be amazing to get some word from someone on the team, if only to reassure us. Since they’re players like us, surely they must feel our frustration when doing things like jumping puzzles?

neneza.6954:

-snip- I can’t look up wiht camera, because the character is blocking my view. -snip-

-snip- They need to increase FOV, make firs person camera and they need to center camera on the head of the character not on the back.
-snip-

The center point of the camera (axel/pivot point) is just too low on some characters. I’ve abandoned my human/sylvari/asura characters mostly because of this (and it’s a great shame, because I love the sylvari and asura races in general).

I roll norn female characters now – the norn and charr have a higher camera pivot in general, and if you make these characters short, the center point aligns somewhat with your character’s head (and not the chest).

At this time, we really need 2 new options for the camera:

• A vertical offset slider (similar to the horizontal one we have now) with a range that would go as high, or perhaps a fraction higher than the head).

• A way to customize the field-of-view, with an option for it to go a bit higher, but ultimately giving players the choice to adjust it to comfort.

They also need to tweak the sensitivity of the camera collision, and make certain free-standing objects and pillars non-colliding with the camera (like you see in most games anyway).

Oh come on. This is still not working? Surely the developers must know something’s cooking here. The benefit of a working search function is self evident, but very importantly, it also helps to solve some issues of double-posting, which is rife on this forum.

I’ve always been a huge fan of how Guild Wars 2 Guru did it – a proper search, together with a built-in automated search when you start new threads, to alert you if similar topics exists.

More than a year ago, the CM’s and devs started to have a lesser presence on this fan-site (possibly the biggest and longest running), because they wanted to establish their own forums to act as an official “home-base” for all things Guild Wars 2.

While they did an amazing job with the graphics design, it boggles the mind that something as foundational as a search function, is still not working … more than a year later. I don’t even …

Sorry if this comes off as harsh, but really guys … really.

neneza.6954:

E Tan.7385:

no matter the fov, the camera is the WORSE camera i ever saw in a game. especialy because it will “hit” every little object in the game who is between the point of view and the character, so you always have fr***ing zoom in.
This just horrific during puzzle jump, when you are inside a building and so.

You should better fix that awfull terribad camera first.

This is the worst of all cameras in any mmorpg! They need to fix it, and make FOV slider up to 95. I think now is 65 or 70., to low for 16:10 monitors.

Oddly enough, if you’re feeling claustrophobic while playing, or if everything just feels constricted to you in general in GW2, FoV only becomes part of the solution:

Other factors, such as camera height and the high amount of environmental “gigantification” GW2 suffers from, comes into play. Because of this, your character will feel like the size of a mini-pet, incl. the feeling that you’re only really getting ground textures in your view on 16:9 monitors.

And because if the odd collision issues with the camera (incl. ground collision), it makes it quite a chore to do something as simple as ‘look up’ comfortably … especially on smaller characters.

So while this FoV ‘correction’ is (well, was) a step in the right direction, I strongly believe more options to control the camera should be available … but good luck getting that through to the devs. It’s been like … almost a year now since release and I fear the whole team must be terribly pressured to pump out new content. Don’t know. Maybe one day we’ll see improvements in the camera area.

Every once in a while this topic comes up and honestly, after almost a year since release, I have effectively given up hope that these issues will ever be fixed.

It’s a hard thing to say, but either ArenaNet can’t be bothered, or their teams are just too busy doing living story content with little investment in fixing old bugs like this. Perhaps it’s just too big an undertaking. I don’t know.

The majority of players doesn’t seem to be very vocal about the camera bugs and lack of camera options on the forums. There’s a strong vocal minority, and that unfortunately gives the developers a very false perception of how irritating possibly large scale these issues really are.

Ryan Alyea.5418:

Issues where the search engine would randomly return 0 results instead of real results have been fixed.

Not fixed. Search returns either zero results, or really few results – one or two.

Mark Katzbach.9084:

-snip- The search results page now has page numbers. -snip-

Thank you, so much for this.

Star Ace.5207:

As long as it’s optional, I don’t see why not (though I would never use it, because it would make things like jump puzzles even harder.)

On the subject of JPs, I wish there was a way to change settings so there was NO auto-zoom at all when close to the walls. It’ an artificial, technical mechanic that gets in the way of both combat and puzzles, making things more difficult than they should be.

Certain auto-zooms are unfortunately necessary, because without them, the camera (and your view as a player) would simply clip through the artificial visual barriers such as mountain sides, cliffs, walls etc. Beyond those barriers, there’s nothing worth seeing but ugly game geometry – it breaks immersion.

However, there are ways they should be able to turn camera collision off for certain objects (that doesn’t need to provide such a visual barrier) – things like trees, pillars, rocks, ground clutter etc. You see this often in MMO’s, most recently, Neverwinter, where collision exists for your character, but not necessarily the camera, allowing the camera to gracefully move through objects while they soft-transition out and back into your view.

At the moment, GW2’s camera collides with almost everything and very ungracefully, making it rather uncomfortable to play. Coming back to first person camera and your comment on it being optional – you’ve hit the nail on the head here. IMHO, we should really have choices like these (similar to a choice of FoV and camera height). It is not impossible for ArenaNet to give us these choices, I just don’t think it’s on their agenda, which makes me sad.

I’d happily sacrifice the 15-20 in-game hours it took me to do Flame and Frost, and have the devs’ divert some of the considerable time it took them to produce this content (which will indecently be gone and forgotten in a few days) for something more permanent (and IMHO essential) such as fixes for the camera and more camera options.

Okay, so another 2 months later. I’m just checking in to see if there’s any progress on this. The forum search function still only returns one page of results, even though there are more (as indicated on the # of posts found).

First person camera has been a requested feature ever since the public got it’s hands on GW2 more than a year ago now. There are a few problems ArenaNet would have to get around:

• Firstly, they’d have to figure out how to make your character model “disappear” from your view when you zoom in, so that you don’t see ugly, fragmented clipped textures and half-rendered arms. With Guild Wars 2’s combat mechanics as it is, the best option would probably be a different set of rendered arms (a la ‘The Elder Scrolls Online’) for FPV

• Secondly, they’d have to find a way to adjust the camera height. There are very, very few games that actually gets this right. You zoom into first person view and what do you see … a beautiful world as seen through your characters bellybutton!?. The overall camera height in this game (the center point or pivot) is IMHO way too low as it is, even in 3rd person view.

• Thirdly, there is a question of time & resources. It’s been 9 months since the game has been released. At this point, it’s safe to say the devs’ simply doesn’t care for features such as this, or they don’t care to give it any priority over what they need to do in terms of new content.

This is always been a bit of a pickle in my view … why even create new content if one can’t get the fundamental issues with the camera (and oh, there are MANY issues) right? The only answer I can think of, is that players just don’t complain enough about it to get the devs’ attention. It’s always going to be an issue of a strong vocal minority unfortunately.

Maybe one of these years we’ll actually get a straight-up answer from the devs’ concerning the camera issues … but yeah, 9 months after, I’m not holding my breath. I love this game dearly, but painful truth is painful.

I’ve just logged in to check, but I’ve not seen a change. That said, the center point of GW2’s camera (pivot) has always been too low IMHO. As weird as it sounds, having the pivot so low, means that forwards and upwards observation becomes a challenge – it’s like watching a badly top/bottom cropped movie.

I honestly think that ArenaNet should look at titles like Neverwinter, The Secret World , the upcoming Elder Scrolls Online and many others … gosh, even their own original Guild Wars to some extent, to see how to do camera height and FoV properly.

Playing GW2 feels like I’m wearing a baseball cap with the top flap really low, restricting my view of the sky, tall buildings – basically everything in an upwards direction, except if I tilt my hear really sharp. “Looking up” in GW2 is an unpleasant experience, not helped by the fact that the camera collides with the ground much easier when it’s so low, giving you that horrible zoomed-in, up-skirt shots. Ugh

And with the bad centralization of your character while zoomed out, it feels like you’re driving a really long stretch limousine, but with the steering wheel in the back seat. It’s awkward, plain and simple.

I honestly don’t think ArenaNet is ignoring criticism from players and I think it would be very unfair to play the “no sub = sub-standard service” card here, because (aside from that not being true at all) even with it’s flaws, Guild Wars 2 is still an amazing, amazing MMORPG that garners a lot of love from it’s players and it’s developers … and one that I as a player regard as a good, value-for-money purchase.

I am highly critical of the game though … and let’s face it, I’m an absolute pain in the backside with certain issues, like the various camera problems, but it’s because I love this game so darn much, and I want it to be as good as it can be in every possible way.

If I had to single out 1 core flaw – it would have to be that the developers don’t go back to the drawing board often enough to address issues and shortfalls that’s been with us since before release. That would be the one thing I think they can improve on … that, and perhaps giving players more choice in terms of camera options (I’ve got to say that, because it major). But essentially, going back to the basics and fixing core issues – that is a biggie in my books.

ElenaDragon.8401:

I read a post a while back about how they had to change the camera at the last minute to fix some issues (camera through wall or something?), resulting in the issues we have now.

Clipping issues I can understand and needless to say, it’s probably a major job for them to fix something like this, because you’d have to go through all the art assets and adjust the collision accordingly.

You see, most 3rd person games will allow the camera (not the character) to pass though certain things like high-beams, roof supports, rocks, overhangs and other freestanding 3D objects, by means of a gentle transition – the object actually “fades out” as the camera passes through and fades back in.

One would assume that objects that form for e.g., the border of a map or the border of something the devs don’t want you too observe in any way, be 100% non-passable for both the character and the camera, while other objects have the type of synergy with the camera as explained above.

However, in GW2 that is not the case. In fact, even invisible objects that were visible before (e.g. chopped trees) or the empty space above short objects such as pillars, still hard-collides with the camera in the most horrible, ungraceful way.

One can only hope that these things will someday … someday be fixed, but judging by the rate ArenaNet tries to bring out new content and by what seems to be neglect in terms of certain fundamental functionality (such as the camera), I’m not holding my breath – not unless they’re willing to be more open about these issues. How else would we know?

Sinifair.1026:

Asuran supremacy!!!

Don’t talk too soon my friend! : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PegX3QH-gy0

Seriously though, how stuff like this even got through QA completely escapes me.

Shadow Blade.1324:

-snip- to those who seem to be misinformed about ascended gear, its is the final rarity, not the final tier, it was stated there would be additional tiers within rarities in the future. -snip-

To those who’s been asking about where this information is quoted from – I think there might be a slight misunderstanding. From what I understand, ArenaNet will introduce other ascended gear items for the other slots in the future, not neccesarliy other tiers within the ascended quality level. Kindly correct me if I’m wrong. Here is quote from Chris Whiteside:

Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill. Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two. We will slowly add the remaining ascended gear items and legendary items in future updates to allow people time to acquire them as we add exciting new content that deserves exciting rewards. We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.

Does that mean we’ll get new tiers/quality levels in say, 6 months … a year … more? I don’t think you can discount that possibility since player progression seems to be something that’s always on their minds. However, as it stands, it looks like Legendary will eventually become BIS for all slots, and (hopefully) that’s were it will end.

bytes.1650:

-snip-
Instead we have to fight tooth and nail (after the fact), over every little thing with the devs and their sometimes blatant stubbornness (the ordeal with the FoV and camera distance comes to mind). -snip

I think that particular issue (which also falls in line with many other issues mentioned here) can only be attributed to some kind of “management by committee” deal they’ve got going at the studio. Obviously, lots of systems are interconnected – you need to run ideas and fixes by those in charge of those systems to make sure something doesn’t break down the line … but then there are things that just doesn’t make sense:

Jon Peter’s response to the whole FoV issue a while back comes to mind. I’ll not go into that. It does show though, that bugfixes and essential features that are just plain missing from the game, gets implemented and prioritized in a very strange and awkward way sometimes. For example:

• Guild missions et al … thank you … but, what about giving us some of the core features guild leaders need … even something as simple as having last-login date/time stamps for guild members? Hello?

• Why must it be so darn cumbersome to get some people involved in making a menu option for adjustable FoV and camera heights?

• Why even bother pumping out amazing content when we can’t get core … core functionality sorted – and it doesn’t get much more basic than at least having an in-game camera you don’t have to battle with so, so much!

I don’t know. I love this game and my faith in it’s producers are still unwavering … but only just. It just annoys me that we are almost half a year after the game’s release … and we’re dealing with problems that, IMHO, should have been sorted out long before the beta event even started.

One core flaw in my opinion: Looking too far ahead and not looking back and revisiting and fixing fundamental issues with this otherwise amazing game. Come on guys. Less meetings, less politics. Just get it done.

KratosAngel.7289:

They are recruiting devs for site/forum, which means they have no team for this or very small team. As a consequence, won’t happen before many months.

I think it’s safe to say that ArenaNet is almost always hiring people – it doesn’t mean though, that they are incapable of handling a core functionality of an official forum. I’m no expert, but I’d call a decent search function pretty much a fundamental part of a forum.

Also, bear in mind that since it’s inception, the search function here has always been very limiting. It works, in that it gives you a number of results it finds, it just doesn’t allow you to browse past the first few results on the the first page.

Perhaps there are something more complex afoot here, but since we’re getting no word from ArenaNet as yet, it’s anyone’s guess. If a staff shortage is at the heart of this particular problem, then I can certainly understand and sympathize with that … however, somehow I find it unlikely. Just IMHO. Again, it’s anyone’s guess.

@Wolfy.3708 – The first person view was only available on the developer client of the game and then only in a so called “testing mode”.

I would love to have this option in GW2 (like we had in GW1 … and for that matter, like you have in most other MMO’s). That said, I do understand some of the technical difficulties. At the moment, it seems that there isn’t any good way to make FPV work from an aestetic point of view … they would have to decide what to do with your character’s extremities (arms, hands, held equipment).

In GW1, your extremities just faded away, which worked fine – it’s the way it works in most games, unless you have for e.g. modeled and animated arms for first person view only, and a the usual fully animated character for third person, so basically, a model for each mode.

@Nels the Cornwhisperer.8025 – At the moment, you can see much more through walls or over objects in 3rd person mode due do the wide swing of the game’s camera and with GW2 not always having object collision properly implemented on some 3D assets. With proper object collision on doors, re-spawnable walls etc. the FPV target-through problem would be solved.

In terms of the other concerns, remember, we’re talking about an option to have the camera going into the first person organically, i.e. with the zoom wheel – naturally going into first person mode or exiting it. In other words, something that’s doable depending on the situation and the view you’d like to be in.

It would also be amazing if we had the ability to adjust the vertical offset of the camera so that we can position the center point of the PoV above our character’s head. Perhaps this could be a quicker solution than finding a suitable FPV mode … and besides, the game could certainly use more camera pivot height as it is.

Any update on this?

The higher camera height on minimum scaled norn female characters is the ONLY reason I can still bear playing Guild Wars 2, to be brutally honest! In an otherwise amazing, amazing game and MMO, the lack of a height adjustment on the camera’s center point (vertical offset/camera pivot) is severely hampering my willingness to expand out and enjoy other character races and their stories.

In GW2, the camera mostly lines up with the upper half of your characters back, making it extremely akward to sometimes tilt the camera upwards, without having it colliding with the ground and then zooming right into your characters back. It makes proper forwards observation and comfortable upwards observation challenging at best, in an already limited vertical FoV enviroment (on 16:9 monitors – even with the “bug fix”).

Ever noticed how the camera goes into “feet cam” mode when trying to look upwards, say on top of a keep wall? Ever noticed how hard it is to sometimes appreciate the scale, especially on the z-axis? Ever noticed how the camera seems to drift on the floor when you’re trying to get the ground/horizon/sky into one comfortable view? That’s the low camera pivot preventing you from doing so comfortably, in combination with the horrible centralization of your character when you zoom out (aka, “Diablo view”).

GW2 has 3 camera heights:

• 1 x for the asura (which is very, very low … much too low)
• 1 x for the human and sylvari characters (imho, also too low)
• 1 x for the norn and charr races (the highest so far)

Now, you can take advantage of the norn/charr height if you choose the least bulky and shortest options in character customization, which works great for me. In your case, I’d probably suggest going somewhat taller, which should equalize it for you for a bit, in terms of the camera feel you’re used to.

Ideally, having the ability to adjust the camera height would be great and I really hope ArenaNet will consider this some day. GW2 is the only MMO I’m having these type of issues with and I can tell you, it really puts a dampener on my enjoyment of the game.

For more info on GW2’s camera height, see this thread and the pic below: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Adjustable-Camera-Pivot-Height/first

I thought I’d necro this thread and ask if any progress has been made about the limited search results issue on the forums?

When I search for something, it might show many dozens, if not hundred’s of possible results, yet you can only view the first page of results – no “NEXT” button.

Still no way to search for something beyond the first page of results?

Aurora Glade [EU]: Arundon Vale, in the Frostgorge Sound area – specifically, the grawl encampments at the “Offering Stone” waypoint. I’ve observed bots there on several occasions, specifically one Guardian, farming the grawl over and over and over.

It moves in perfect lines, using the same path, straight towards the mob’s spawning point – even if the mobs are absent (killed by other players). I managed to overwhelm this bot by pulling more grawl towards it. The moment it dies, it disappears in an instant (as in, zero delay – the death animation & audio doesn’t even finish), spawns at the nearest waypoint, paths it’s way to this area, and starts the cycle over again.

As I’m typing this (17 Feb 2013 at 23:47 GMT), the bot is still active there.

Culling in PvE is major gripe for many players. I don’t know if I’m imagining it, but it really seems to have gotten worse since the last patch. I almost completely avoid Orr, specifically Cursed Shore, during prime time. Even then, doing the temple events late at night doesn’t help much.

For example: I participated in the Grenth event late (around midnight) the other night. There were only 3 of us, so I announced it in map chat and eventually, we were probably around 15 – 20 or so, with a few more joining as the event went on – not nearly as much as in the day. Yet, half of the time I couldn’t see the last waves of mobs spawning (the final part in the chain) until they are practically dead, and the spider champions stay invisible for so long! The only thing you can do is lay down AOE where you see particle effects going and pray for the best.

Lion’s Arch has always been a problem for me – even with overflow servers. I really, really dislike how players just suddenly fade in from nowhere right before your eyes. Even on less populated maps, I would often see a player just fading into view while running past. Why is this? It’s terrible.

I know there are technical issues to consider … but really. Also, why is this such a prominent problem in Guild Wars 2, when you have other MMO’s (some of them quite a bit older than GW2) where this type of problem is almost non-existent?

Kallout.5289:

Race change will never happen. I understand the point of the thread, getting yes’s and no’s… but, why? It WON’T happen. Stated by Anet, numerous times, and they don’t care how many threads are made with a tally of yes vs no.

It has been stated by the community coordinator that, as it stands, the ArenaNet team has not considered a race change option in their future plans. Considering how easy it is to re-roll and level up (crafting alone can provide you with lots of progress in a short space of time), I think ArenaNet is more likely to encourage players to restart and explore.

10 Bucks for a new character slot is not all that much and you can always use the existing 80 as a bank character (like I’ve done with my asura and human). With this in mind, I don’t see ArenaNet making it priority, but saying that it “WON’T” (sic) happen altogether, seems a bit unrealistic.

Firstly, ArenaNet is a business and if a feature (especially a cash shop feature) is viable, especially if they can find an easy way around some of the story path issues, they might just consider it. Secondly, it’s not unlike ArenaNet to say “no” and then “yes” sometime later. If you want examples, I’ll be happy to provide it. Sufficive to say, if you’ve followed the development of GW2 closely, you’ll find many, many instances where ArenaNet have changed their minds regarding certain features in the game.

It all comes down to time, priorities, resource management and whether it goes against a core design principle (and IMHO, I don’t think it does).

Onshidesigns.1069:

Add option to have camera positioned above head.

^^ A thousand times this!

As for the smoothing, it’s a whole lot better than it used to be after the camera tweaks late last year. I’m content with it now, although I do believe there are quite a few players out where who would want camera smoothing to disappear entirely – perhaps as a menu selectable option.

goldenwing.8473:

Absolutely. Would love to be able to race change. Even understanding that has an lore-impact.

And I have 34 alts – which means, yes, I have multiple races of a particular class, so I HAVE rerolled. I’d rather be able to pay for a change.

Tell you what else I would gladly pay for: temporary “growth” potions that would last for an hour. Something that would turn me temporarily into a human. RIFT had this (preset representative appearance). Meant I could play my short class (Dwarf) and enjoy her appearance, and yet be more effective height wise (Human) inside dungeons when I was tanking.

I love my Asuras. Without ability to pull my camera back far enough inside explorables, it is often frustrating having to wait the extra couple of seconds (constantly fiddling with camera) to be able to put down targeted circles, etcetera.

I could willingly play a representative Seraph Guard inside dungeons.

If ANet is unwilling / unable to allow camera pullback, or race change, or a camera slider height option, I’ll gladly pay for a potion, one hour at a time, to get the same effect.

I think one of the big problems here, is the camera height – more specifically, how high the center point or vertical offset is. In general, the camera pivot sits much too low than what’s needed and this creates major problems for the asura:

Zoom in, and the camera lines up just above the waist, instead of lining up just above the head, making forwards observation and ground targeting very challenging at times. Zoom out, and your character is so darn centralized on the screen (a la “Diablo cam”) most of the forwards action either disappears off the top of your screen, or even more irritatingly, takes place behind the boss/enemy portrait/health-bar on the top of the screen … unless you tilt up/forwards … if only my point-of-view lined up with my characters eyes, and not the ground! What’s up with this super low-angle, “feet-cam” stuff in GW2? Seriously.

So for this reason, yes, I would love to be able to pay to convert my asura and human to a norn female – at least there, you can choose a short height in character creation, look like a human female, and take advantage for the camera height the norn and charr have.

In terms of personal story stuff, I really don’t see any complications, since it all pretty much standardizes for all races post level 20, so the game could just randomize the pre-20 paths or give you some choices, a la “Mass Effect”.