Guild Wars 2

Why does Arena Net always remove these amazing events? Wouldn’t it make sense to keep them in the game forever since they already spent the time to make them? Perhaps the acquisition of the special skins and items should only be temporary so they retain their rarity and value, but the actual events themselves seem like something that should become permanent so newer players can experience them or people that really enjoy them can experience them again whenever they want.

At the very least Arena Net could sell these events/mini-games for gems (real money) after the free event has ended.

Also:

Zephyr’s Boon no longer gives 10 seconds of fury/swiftness when using shocking aura, it now gives 5 seconds just like frost aura does/did

Here’s the number one tip to beating a x/x/x/30/30 ele:

Watch for when they leave water attunement (so you know it’s on a 10+ second cooldown) and then load them with conditions and/or burst them with an immobilize. The only condition removal eles have aside from the water attunement and water skills is from cantrips (which have long cooldowns). So either you force them to waste cantrips to remove conditions or they die to them or die in an immobilize. Confusion is especially devastating on an ele because attunement swaps and dodges count as spells which makes the condition do a lot more damage to an ele than most other classes. Interrupt their cone of cold heal if you can. 95% of eles will use cone of cold with 2 seconds after swapping into water, so get ready to stop it. If you don’t have an interrupt, try to poison them as soon as they swap into water (this is a good tactic even if you can interrupt their water 2 heal).

As soon as you see an ele swap to air attunement with low health (or when they’re in trouble) try to cc them with a stun/knockback/immob to prevent them from escaping with RTL. If they are in air attunement when they engage you, get ready to dodge the RTL and the following knockback. If you do this, the ele will have no way to land burst on you.

Whenever you see them swap to fire attunement get ready to dodge the burst damage. D/D eles have the most predicable damage in the game with very obvious animations. Interrupt the drake’s breath (the channeled skill), expect them to burning speed whenever they’re in fire attunement and ~600 range away from you, Fire Grab is extremely buggy to land so as long as you keep moving through them and around them they probably won’t land this on you. 95% of eles will use burning speed into ring of fire into fire grab, just dodge when you see the burning speed animation coming at you and negate nearly all of their damage.

When they swap to earth, don’t waste any of your burst cooldowns until after the 3/4 second protection fades. They will most likely try for an AoE stun, best thing to do is to just kite them if you have a ranged weapon swap when they’re in earth to force them to use earth 3 (the root and leap) to get to you to land the stun. That will give you some free DPS time because of how long the earth 3 animation is. You can also just use a blind/block/stability whenever they’re right on top of you because 95% of the time that means the earth 4 stun is coming (you can also dodge it). Don’t get hit by churning earth (the 3.25 second channel skill that is extremely obvious). This is pretty much a d/d ele’s only real burst. Expect them to use Lightning Flash (the teleport) to land this skill on you so ALWAYS dodge 3-3.25 seconds after you see the animation start (even if you’re at range) or interupt him with cc after 3 seconds. This gives you a lot of free dps time so go for some burst during this channel, but don’t get hit by it. You can force them to waste lightning flash if you run out of the AoE’s range and dodge right as it’s going to land, this is a good tactic too.

Notice the common theme? Watch for their VERY obvious attunement swaps and react accordingly.

Lists like this are pointless because there’s no way to know the difference between each rank. Simply ordering the classes in terms of ceiling/floor doesn’t tell us anything without knowing how large of a gap there is in-between each class/rank. For example, lets assume a thief has the lowest skill floor and engineer has the highest. How much harder is the engineer? Twice as hard? Ten times as hard? You need another number to use as a comparison. If i was to add a numerical rank out of 100 for each class, then we could get a better idea of the gap between each rank. For example, i could say a thief has a skill-floor of 40 and an engineer has a skill-floor of 100. Now we know that the engineer is roughly 2.5 times as hard to pick-up. We absolutely need a number like this to compare the classes rather than simply ordering them.

My list for skill-floor (lower is easier):
40 – Thief
50 – Warrior
60 – Ranger
70 – Guardian
80- Necromancer
85 – Mesmer
90- Elementalist
100 – Engineer

For skill-ceiling (higher is harder):
100 – Engineer
90 – Thief
85 – Mesmer
80 – Necromancer
75 – Elementalist
65 – Ranger
65 – Guardian
60 – Warrior

Ranking the classes like this gives a lot more information than just ranking them in order.

The funny thing is, the price of gems have already gone up more than 20% so people are actually losing gold now compared to if they had got the upgrades before this patch OR if they had waited about a month for this sale to end and for gem prices to go back down.

Thanks for the responses. I didn’t see the warning. In case anyone wants a link, here’s the GM post:

Game Update Notes – February 21, 2013

“Reminder: take care that you do not purchase more bank and bag slots than you can use! Your character can have up to 8 bank tabs (including your original bank tab) and 8 bag slots (including your original Starter Backpack).”

If I already have full bank slots (meaning that at the actual bank there’s no option to upgrade anymore slots), will i actually receive the bank slot upgrade if i purchase it from the promotions page of the trading post?

Here’s the math for everyone:

• Signet heals for 202 per cast (scales with 10% of healing power), or ~202 hps if the player casts once per second (best case scenario).
• Glyph heals for 4894 every 25 seconds (scales with 75% of healing power), or ~195 hps without taking into account the buffs you get.

With ~300 healing power, signet heals for 232 per spell-cast and glyph heals for 5,119 every 25 seconds, or ~232 hps for signet and ~204 hps for the glyph. As you can see, the signet scales much better with healing power than the glyph does. In order for the glyph to be better than the signet the buffs from the glyph would need to be worth about 700 total health every 25 seconds. I’ll be doing all boon analysis below assuming the ele has 300 healing power. The glyph becomes better the less healing power a character has and signet becomes better the more healing power the character has, so keep that in mind. 300 healing power is a nice middle ground and most eles do have 300 healing power anyways (from 30 water).

The fire (might) buff is a single stack of might that lasts 20 seconds (25 seconds with 30 arcane). A single stack of might is about a 1.2% increase in effective damage. At bare minimum this might stack will have an 80% uptime (20/25), which is a .96% total damage increase (1.2% x .8) That would mean an ele would need to do 2,889 total DPS (700/25=28; 100/.96=104.17; 104.17×28=2,917; 2917-28=2,889) for this single stack of might to increase damage output by 700 every 25 seconds (or 28 dps). Most eles are doing between 2k and 4k dps (depends on gear/spec), so we can say that this single might stack is worth ~28dps, or at least equal to the 28hps more that signet heals. This is the only heal that increases your damage output and there’s a lot of circumstances where you don’t need more healing but extra damage is useful (easy bosses, trash, WvW zergs).

The water (regeneration) buff heals for 1675 health over 10 seconds every 25 seconds with 0 boon duration. With +30% boon duration (30 arcane), it heals for 2178. So the more boon duration a player has the better this becomes. With 0 boon duration it comes out to 67 hps (1675/25), with +30% boon duration it’s 87 hps (2178/25). As you can see, this is much higher than the additional 28 hps a player would get from using the signet over the glyph.

The air (swiftness) buff is extremely situational. I can certainly see it being worth way more than 28hps in a lot of circumstances (for example, when kiting mobs, running out of aoe/attacks or running past mobs). It’s also very nice to use out of combat, especially in pvp when you’re getting chased and you will get killed if you don’t out-run them.

The earth (protection) buff gives 33% damage reduction for 3s (4s with 30 arcane). In order for this to be worth more than ~28 hps (or 700hp every 25 seconds), you would need to take 2100 damage while the protection boon is up. Nearly every mob hits for more than 2100 just on regular auto-attacks. Boss attacks can do upwards of 10k. If used with proper timing (for example, when rooted so you can’t dodge a hard-hitting attack or right before you know you’re going to take a lot of damage), this is worth at least that 28hps and potentially way more (up to 100 + hps-worth of damage reduction is very possible). Also, since protection stacks in duration, you will be adding 3s to your 4s protection you get from swapping into earth.

Also, keep in mind:

• Since most eles have at least 25 points into water, each of these boons contribute to the 2% increased damage you get from each unique boon. The earth (protection) boon is one you won’t have up most of the time, so it’s at the very least a 2% increase in damage for 3s/4s. Swiftness is another boon you might not have up all the time, so that’s at the very least a 2% increase in damage for 10 seconds.

• Lastly, glyph is also a burst heal, the signet is a sustained heal. Burst heals have much more value than lower sustained heals because they put you out of the danger-zone quickly. For example, if you get bursted to 40% of your health and then you’re about to get bursted again for 60% of your max health (so this hit would kill you), you can use your burst heal to heal up to ~90% hp and survive that hit. You would die if you were using signet, even if you used the active (and using the active basically removes all future potential healing you’d receive, so then you’re as good as dead in a lot of circumstances).

TL’;DR: The glyph is ALWAYS better at 0 healing power. The glyph is potentially significantly better than the signet if you use the buffs it gives properly. The signet is only better at extremely high healing power (i.e., 900+ healing power), and even then the glyph might be better because of the burst healing it gives and the boons are still very good, maybe still better than the higher sustained healing signet gives, if used at the proper times.

I’m trying to put together an extremely balanced gear-set that maximizes both survivability and damage output. After a couple hours of messing around with various spreadsheets, i found this to be the best:

Armor:

• Knight’s in the Helm, Chest, and Legs slots
• Valkyrie’s in the Shoulder, Glove, and Boot slots (these slots are slightly over-budget because of how crit-damage is rounded up to the nearest whole number).

Weapons:

• Mainhand Knight’s and Offhand Knight’s with Sigil of Battle and Sigil of Force, and a third/forth Knight’s weapon with Sigil of Bloodlust that you use to stack up the buff and then swap it out for the other weapon(s).

Trinkets:

• All knight’s with Valkyrie Jewels

Runes (either):

• All Valkyrie Orbs (cheapest option)
• All Divinity Runes (very marginally better than using Valkyrie Orbs)
• Alternatively, switch one of the weapons to Valkyrie’s and use 2x Altruism, 2x Water, and 2x Monk if you care about maximizing group buffs. For a melee-heavy group this is probably the best as you will be in range to give out aura-share buffs, the Altruism might and attunement swap buffs.

Is there a better balanced setup than this? I’m assuming the fight is 60 seconds, that you can use your heal twice per fight, that you will have about ~300 EHPS of health recovery during the fight (not including your main-heal, this is from regeneration, soothing mist, etc.), taking about 300 DPS worth of condition damage (so the EHPS is basically canceled-out so a value of 0 is used for health recovery on the spreadsheet), 65% fury uptime, an average of 15 stacks of might and a 0/10/0/30/30 build on this spreadhseet. With the Rune of Divinty setup this comes out to 87.77% of classes’ max EHP and 78.03% of classes’ max ED (86.56 EHP and 78.58 ED with the Valkyrie Orbs, so you can see how close to divnity runes it is) .

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Ojimaru.8970:

The fight wasn’t hard, at all. It’s just a tedious fight. The entire strategy revolved around repeating one set of actions over and over again for an extended time. That’s tedium, not difficulty. Reducing the time involved just hastens the inevitable and actually get people to run the path again.

Pretty spot on. The fight wasn’t overly difficult, just tediously long. We plan on revisiting this boss during our Phase 2 pass, but for now this should lower the tedium of this encounter.

May i suggest an easy fix for this boss that wouldn’t make it overly tedious, wouldn’t make it too simplistic for high-dps groups, and wouldn’t punish groups with low dps? Just remove the ‘dps window’ timer before the shield goes back up and make it so the shield always goes up 5 seconds after the boss hits 50% hp. That way groups will be forced to finish this boss in two passes no mater how low/high their damage output is and groups with extremely high dps would still have to use the boss mechanics at least once. To me, the actual boss mechanic of this fight isn’t using the cannons at the start one time (that’s extremely easy), it’s having to climb back up the stairs, run back to all the cannons, avoid the dragon tooths, jump back down the red-platforms, and then kill him. Having to do this exactly one-time would make the fight more interesting without making it too repetitive, difficult, or long.

Warrior are the only class I’d consider weak. By that i mean, there’s nothing they really bring to a group that another class doesn’t do better. I’m not saying a warrior can’t be effective just that if a good warrior was to swap to a different class they would be even more effective and bring more to their team.

Engineers are border-line weak. They have some unique abilities that have some great niche uses such as double elixir R and their Crate Drop, but that’s about it. Their nade burst spec is pretty easy to shut-down (just train the engi and/or use a block/invul or dodge/escape when they wrench pull) and thieves do much better on-demand burst and are less one-dimensional.

Necro’s can be weak in some circumstances but extremely strong in others. They also bring some very unique abilities that are extremely powerful (like corrupt boon, epidemic).

Thanks for the responses. That’s unfortunate that this is a global issue and there’s nothing i can do to fix it.

I tried out a couple different driver versions (as suggestion in some other threads) and that didn’t seem to help at all.

My VRAM (Video Memory) usage never goes over ~500mb and averages around 300mb on all high settings. This seems extremely low for the settings and resolution i’m using. I have a feeling this is what is causing my fps to drop from ~120 to ~30 when I’m turning the camera quickly in an area that has not loaded the textures into memory yet. If i wait for the textures to completely load (e.g., by standing in one spot and doing a 360 camera turn) then i no longer get FPS drops when turning the camera quickly. My fps also drops to about ~60 when i’m running around (without turning the camera at all) and immediately goes up to ~120 when i stop moving. Again, i think this is related to the textures not being properly loaded into the VRAM.

So, i have a couple questions:

• Is this memory usage typical for other people using high settings and 1920×1080?
• Does anyone else get severe FPS drops when turning the camera quickly or running around (i.e., forcing new textures to load)?
• Is there anyway to resolve these FPS drops?

My computer specs:

• Asus GTX 670 (2GB VRAM model) overclocked to 1268 MHz core and 1836 MHz memory (100% stable, tested for 24+ hours in various benchmarks)
• Intel Core i5 750 overclocked to 3898 MHz (100% stable, passed 48+ hours in various stress-tests)
• Crucial M4 256GB SSD
• All drivers are up to date

ilJumperMT.4871:

Powerr.3649:

http://teampz.com/threads/tanky-trap-ranger.22/

this build ^^^ … it’s a beast

Sorry that build has so many wrong stuff.

1) Sharpen Edges is not worth it. Take Primal Reflexes for even more dodges.

2) Hide in Plain sight is a joke. Take off-hand training to make torch one of the best weapons in game.

3) Sigil of Smoldering on Torch

4) Shaman Amulet

One may argue that Rampage As One is better elite. It was definitely better but the new patch which made Entangle damage scales make it a beast.

1) The vigor you get from Primal Reflexes doesn’t stack with natural vigor so it’s not that great. It’s only 50% more endurance regeneration for 5 seconds every 15 seconds (or 16% more endurance generation). The only real use for this trait is the vigor boon can help protect some of your other boons from getting dispelled. However, it’s just one more boon for a necro to corrupt too. Sharpened Edges might suck, but it’s much better than Primal Reflexes.

2) Hide in Plain Sight is not totally amazing (especially against better players that know how to use skills on stealthed targets) but it’s certainly not a ‘joke’. Off-Hand Training is definitely more of a joke. Extra torch range is pretty much worthless especially when combined with a sword in the mainhand. The reduction of the cooldowns on offhands is decent, but it’s certainly not better than a 3 second stealth on a 30 second cooldown.

3) Smoldering (and +burn duration in general) is terrible both in PvE and PvP. Since burn stacks in duration anyways, and trap rangers have three sources of burn, you can keep it up indefinitely (especially if you use projectile finishers through the two fire combo fields). Also, conditions get removed so quickly and frequently in PvP, extending their duration by such a small amount (only 10% on only burn) has an almost negligible impact.

4) The point of the spec (as mentioned in Powerr’s link) is to be a “Treb User, Farpoint Assaulter.” That means he needs to do enough pressure to prevent people from easily destroying the treb and enough damage to kill someone on the farpoint before they can get assistance. Rabid is much better for those purposes over Shaman. Shaman might be better for some 1v1’s, but the damage output is pitiful. The precision from Rabid also has good synergy with the +30% critical damage from 30 points in Skirmishing and the Bleed on crit sigil/trait.

It’s amazing. You can root an enemy away from you and then cast Earth Dagger 5 safely then pull yourself in right after that into Earth 4.

You can also earth 3 into fire swap into fire 3, into fire 5 in pvp. No way to dodge the burning speed/firegrab combo now. So good.

Name: Zaenio (in-game name that you would use to add me)

Main Character: Zaenio, Level 80 Engineer

Alternative Characters: Zaeniya, level ~15 Elementalist; Zaeniaz, level ~25 Guardian; Zaenios, level ~15 warrior. I’ll make a new character/alt if needed to match-up levels.

Current Server: Fort Aspenwood (free xfer is up, so i’m willing to switch to any other server)

Interested Activities: Anything and everything, though I’m currently interested in leveling alt characters for fun

Active: I can be available between 6am and 9pm PST, my schedule is very flexible

Additional Comments: I played GW2 extensively for the first two weeks after it launched before i had to stop playing. I spent a lot of time reading reddit, these forums, playing the Beta and watching various livestreams, and was (and still am) very knowledgeable about the game. I was one of the wealthiest players in the game at that time, acquiring over 900 gold in that time-span. I just recently started playing again and am looking to level a new character for fun. I’m mainly just looking for another person to quest/level with, ideally someone that is interested in getting 100% map completion. I’m not interested in speed-leveling (e.g., farming the same 2-4 events for hours on end or running the same dungeon multiple times). Any personal skill-level is fine with me (i’m not an elitist) though i’d prefer a partner that is familiar with video games in general; New GW2 players are totally fine by me and I’ll even help set you up with bags/gear and answer any and all questions that i can answer.

Are you willing to participate in Operation: UNION’S project, Y/N?: Affirmative

Jon Peters just posted stating that they plan to fix camera smoothing.

Thank you Jon Peters for this wonderful announcement. I’m sure you’ve probably seen this thread already (as it has existed in one form or another since the first beta weekend), but for anyone else interested, I’ve created a camera-issue compilation thread in the suggestion forums (found here). I’m quite sure it contains all of the problems/bugs involving the camera currently. If anyone would like to contribute any additional ideas, please feel free to do so and I’ll add them to the list.

This is what i would like to see:

A server-wide LFG tool where players can sign up for up to 2 different dungeons at once. Signing up for a dungeon will put their name, level, and class (as well as an optional note) in a list for that dungeon. Then when someone goes to form a group for a dungeon they navigate to the page that corresponds to the dungeon they would like to run, and they then whisper (and/or just invite) the levels and classes they need to fill their group.

There will be zero automation, no rewards for ‘pugging’, no dailies, no power-boosts for being in a random group, and no teleports to the instance, etc. It will just be a method used to tell other people on your server that you’re interested in joining a group and that is it.

@Fantom (i would have quoted you but these forums are pretty buggy and that option is not available to me at this time)

Whether or not you notice the issues with the camera does not change the fact that these problems do exist for ALL players, at ALL times. My point was (which obviously went straight over your head) this isn’t a bug/problem that only occurs when you do one specific thing in the game, it’s there ALL the time because the camera is such a fundamental part of the game. It’s impossible to play the game without using the camera, so therefore, if the problems i described do exist (and they do) then they would be noticeable at any moment once a person logs into the game. No where did i say all players are bothered by it at all times, please stop quoting my out of context and go reread the full paragraph. Some people notice it, others don’t. Either way, the problem still exist. A lot of people simply don’t notice these problems, just like they don’t notice the fire under their feet when they die. However, for veteran players (i,e,. Hardcore, experienced, professional, whatever term you want to use) that are extremely familiar with game controls and camera systems, the problems i described are instantly recognizable within minutes of game-play.

Here, let me finish this out of context quote for you:
" I personally feel that fixing the camera-related issues is the most important change Arena Net could possibly make at this time to ensure future success of this game."
That is my OPINION. I was not speaking for anyone when i said this, just myself. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and this is mine.

None of my suggestions are difficult to implement (except the camera-lock system which is why it’s on the very bottom of the list). Also, please point out some other issues that are more persistent and aggravating than the ones i did. The only one that comes to mind is player culling in WvW and the tradepost being buggy and down for maintenance all the time. Game movement and feel are the most important and foundational aspects of any game. They should have been the first thing perfected during game development.

I don’t see why you feel the need to come into suggestion threads that you completely disagree with and contribute absolutely nothing meaningful and only be derogatory. You instantly dismiss what me and thousands of others are experiencing as being made up or imagined. Now, i probably do speak for everyone when i say this: I’m glad you aren’t experiencing any of these problems yourself, but some of us are, and we would like some improvements in time.

I just made a post on Reddit to hopefully bring a little more attention to this issue. I think a lot of people dislike the camera but really haven’t been strongly motivated to say anything about it. If we truly want Arena Net to improve upon the current camera, we need to make it clear to them that it’s something that we strong desire and the only way we can do that is by telling them (on these forums). The more people that express their displeasure with the camera the more likely that it will be improved. Please comment in and up-vote the Reddit thread so more people can potentially see it and then come here to show their support.

Thank you.

I just made a post on Reddit to hopefully bring a little more attention to this issue. I think a lot of people dislike the camera but really haven’t been strongly motivated to say anything about it. If we truly want Arena Net to improve upon the current camera, we need to make it clear to them that it’s something that we strong desire and the only way we can do that is by telling them (on these forums). The more people that express their displeasure with the camera the more likely that it will be improved. Please comment in and up-vote the Reddit thread so more people can potentially see it and then come here to discuss the camera-issues and show their support.

Thank you.

Made an addition to the original post:

• Make the left-click button select targets on release rather than key-press so when attempting to turn the camera random targets aren’t selected.

Currently the left-click mouse button will select a target upon key-press rather than key-release. This makes it so whenever the player attempts to turn the camera by left-clicking first, that they randomly select unwanted targets. This is especially problematic in WvW because there’s very little room on the screen in large battles to purposely avoid this problem (i,e,. by positioning the cursor away from all targets before left-clicking).

Solution: Make the left-click button only select a target upon release instead of key-depression.

Jason King.2647:

Hey everyone,

In the meantime, if you have suggestions or comments on ways we can improve the camera, please keep your feedback concise, constructive, and consolidated to this thread. While we may not reply to every comment, we’re constantly going through the forums and reading your suggestions.

Thanks again!

Here are the things I’d like to see improved. For more details on each bullet point, please refer to my thread in the suggestion forums found here.

Camera-Related Issues (in order of importance relative to implementation difficulty):

• Remove the camera acceleration and camera snap (make camera movement 100% linear with mouse movement). This should be priority number one; players don’t like playing games with non-responsive/laggy feeling cameras.
• Make the camera’s turn speed independent of the game’s FPS. Currently low FPS makes the camera turn extremely slowly.
• Increase the Field of Vision or add a FOV slider.
• Change the angle and orientation of the camera so the player isn’t always looking down at the ground
• Improve the camera collision detection so the camera isn’t constantly zooming in and out (especially during jump puzzles or in areas with low-clearance such as low-trees or cave ceilings).
• Allow players to zoom the camera out more
• Increase the speed that the A and D keys turn the character/camera and remove the acceleration (make the A/D keys turn at full speed as soon as they’re pressed rather than getting progressively faster as they are held down).
• Make the left-click button select targets on release rather than key-press so when attempting to turn the camera random targets aren’t selected
• Allow the camera to be zoomed out while the right-mouse-button is held down
• Make the downed-state camera not reset back to an overhead-center position after ~5 seconds of no camera movement
• Add an option to ‘lock’ the camera to the mouse (like it is when the RMB is held down) at all times and have a modifier key (like shift) bring up the free-moving cursor in-order to interact with the game world.

• Fix the ‘camera glitch’ that causes the camera to suddenly jerk and then reset the cursor to the middle of the screen. Update: I believe this has been fixed, can anyone else confirm?

I think one of the reasons they’re so reluctant to say anything about the camera system is because most of the other ‘problems’ are actually design choices (aside from the FoV and collision issues). They went out of their way to make the camera have acceleration. For whatever reason, game developers seem to be attached to anything they spent man-hours implementing and they don’t ever want to go back and change those things even if it would make the game better. The Ring of Valor Arena in WoW comes to mind (everyone hated it yet they left it in game for over 1.5 years before modifying it and adding it back to the game, yet people still hate it).

Just wanted to let people know that i remade this thread in the suggestion forums. I’d prefer if people would post in the new thread rather than this one.

Anyone know why i can’t edit any of my posts in this thread? :/

Edit: That was a really odd bug, the edit/quote icons in the bottom-right corner of every post was gone. After posting this they reappeared.

Baxuz.1943:

Now that the Suggestions forum is open, maybe this whole thread should be moved there? I’m not sure if this topic fits in the Game Bugs section.

A version of this thread already does exist in the Suggestion forums: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Camera-Related-Issues-Compilation-and-Lengthy-Anaylsis/first#post86991

A second one won’t hurt though =D

Anyone find any other problems with the camera that i don’t have listed in the first post?

It would only be difficult to implement in comparison to the other camera fixes. Also it would be more difficult to add a locked camera in a game that already has a different camera system in place compared to building a new game with a locked camera from the ground up.

FrozenBubble.8732:

SeanPoez.8407:

if you lock the mouse to the camera you couldnt ground target.

maybe when the camera lock option is enabled they can use the rmb or another button to temporarily unlock the mouse to the camera enabling people to ground target

I’m not sure why I’m being quoted as saying that, i never said that. The easiest way to deal with skill-shot or ground targetable abilities with a camera-lock system is to use an aimer in the center of the screen and you just use that (think tera) to aim them. Yes, it would be somewhat awkward and difficult to implement and that’s why i have this suggestion at the bottom of the list (it’s by far the hardest to implement and all of the other improvements would also improve a locked-camera system too).

Zeph.1260:

i turn camera accel all the way down..

turn my mouse accell all the way up within windows. naga

i dont have heavy camera..
i dont have camera snap

A and D are bout to strafe.

right mouse turns amazing no lag not jittering no snap no problems unless clipped camera into an object…. which is every game ive ever played.

i think you need TRACKING speed change or POLLING rate change in your windows/os drivers

because with gw2 at 0 accel.

its worked just fine since BWE1

Changing the in-game sensitivity does absolutely nothing to the acceleration. The two are completely unrelated. I bet if you were to turn the in-game sensitivty all the way up and your mouses DPI down it would feel the exact same way for you. However, just because you can’t personally notice the acceleration does not mean it’s not there. Some people (especially those with a background in competitive FPS games such as CS 1.6) can instantly notice camera/mouse acceleration in any game they play.

I have A and D bound to strafe also, but some people still use A and D to turn and in it’s current state, it’s nearly impossible to use the A and D keys for that purpose. They’re way too slow (because they have tons of acceleration) and the turn radius is about half what it should be.

Some poorly made games have camera clipping issues (i.e., MOST games) because most games are just poorly made console ports designed to make money and not be exceptional. I’m quite sure the Guild Wars 2 team is trying to build something nearly perfect and having one of the most atrocious camera systems i’ve seen in a PC-exclusive title is probably not something they’re aiming for. I hate to use WoW as an example because people on these forums seem to go nuts whenever someone does, but WoW has an absolutely perfect camera system. It has nearly zero clipping and has exceptional collision logic. I suggest you download the free trial of WoW and test out the camera for yourself to see what i mean if you haven’t played that game.

And for the record, my mouse/input setup is about as good as it gets. I have a Logitech G400 (which has the most precise sensor available in any mouse right now), windows is set to 6/11, mouse DPI is set to 800, I’m using the windows 7 mouse fix to remove all mouse acceleration in windows with a Puretrack talent mouse pad. I’m a perfectionist when it comes to my mouse setup, so I’m 100% positive that any of these issues I’ve mentioned are not on my end but are actually part of the game :P

Lewzephyr.5281:

This has to be on their short list, since its one of the most discussed Issues I have seen.

I hope so.

Other Camera-Related Threads:

Camera control issues – a documented list — by Baxuz.1943

Is it just me or should RIGHT click NOT target anything?

Please Arena-net, I want this game to succeed as i think it has the best foundation of any MMO I’ve ever played. However, i feel that the current camera system will turn a lot of players away, especially the more “skilled” or experienced player-base that are picky with game feel and responsiveness.

If anyone has anything else to add related to the camera (or player-control related to the camera) or if you agree with any of the above and desperately want to see the camera improved, I encourage you to please feel free to post here.

Thank you

The Camera Glitch causes the camera to suddenly jerk with very little actual user input and then resets the cursor to the middle of the screen. This issue is difficult to describe so I’ll just post these two videos to demonstrate:
Guild Wars 2 camera glitch – BWE2
Guild Wars 2 camera glitch – BWE1
It appears like this is being caused by the acceleration/snap function of the camera. It senses quick movement and then jerks the camera despite the user barely moving the mouse at all.

Solution: Unfortunately there isn’t an easy solution for this problem. It will require extensive bug checking and/or some recoding of the camera algorithm.

Update: I believe this has been fixed. I personally can’t reproduce it anymore; however, there is one comment in the youtube videos posted above stating that they still have this issue as of 9/2/12. Can anyone confirm/deny if it’s still happening to them?

Currently the left-click mouse button will select a target upon key-press rather than key-release. This makes it so whenever the player attempts to turn the camera by left-clicking first, that they randomly select unwanted targets. This is especially problematic in WvW because there’s very little room on the screen in large battles to purposely avoid this problem (i,e,. by positioning the cursor away from all targets before left-clicking).

Solution: Make the left-click button only select a target upon release instead of key-depression.

The angle and orientation of the camera is currently set so the player is constantly looking down at the ground. Very little of the game world is actually visible when the camera is positioned at its optimal resting spot. This not only makes it hard to see what is happening around the player but it also completely destroys immersion and makes the game feel cramped and claustrophobic. Currently, in order to see the sky and in front of you, the camera needs to be positioned so it’s almost touching the ground so you’re aiming it straight at the characters back/legs. This is especially problematic when combined with the current camera collision detection.

Solution: Angle the camera up slightly and make the bottom of the camera closer to the feet of the player’s character so less of the ground behind the player is visible and more is visible in foreground in front of the player specifically so there’s more vertical vision.

Currently the camera collision detection is extremely sensitive and/or buggy. Every single object in the game will ‘collide’ with the camera causing the camera to zoom in so it’s in front of that object. In most other third-person games the camera is allowed to pass through most objects so the camera isn’t constantly zooming in and out. This makes running around extremely disorientating and players have to constantly fight the camera to try to prevent the constant zooming in and out. Even spinning the camera on perfectly flat terrain with no objects around will make the camera zoom in for whatever reason.
Solution: Enhance the intelligence of the camera collision detection so it doesn’t constantly zoom in and out. Only walls and very large objects (i.e., giant boulders) should cause the camera to zoom in. When the camera collides with the ground the camera also shouldn’t zoom in.

Camera zoom is the maximum distance away from the character that the camera can be set to. Ideal camera distance really just comes down to personal preference. However, most players coming from an MMO background would prefer to be able to zoom the camera out significantly more than is currently allowed. Having the camera so close to the character can actually cause physical motion sickness in some players.

Solution: Add a ‘camera distance’ slider in the options menu so players can pick their preferred max camera distance. This is the ideal method of increasing the max camera distance instead of just allowing players to zoom the camera out more by default. I think increasing the max camera distance by 33% would be a good starting point, further would be ideal so players can pick what they like, but i can see how having it set too far can give some players an unfair advantage or cause frame rate problems or graphical problems (specifically with height collision).

The A and D keys currently turn the player and camera at a very slow rate for whatever reason. This turn rate is completely unrealistic and uncomfortable to play with. The current turn speed makes the A and D keys completely worthless for both combat and navigation. There’s also a great deal of acceleration with both the A and D keys. When first pressed it takes 2-3 seconds until they turn the character at the maximum speed.

Solution: Simply increase the turn rate for the A and D keys to about double what they’re currently set at. The turn rate should be fast enough for the player to run in a tight circle (so a diameter of about one body length) while holding both W+A.

Locked Camera
In some third-person games (especially third-person shooter games), the camera is by default ‘locked’ to the mouse such that the right-mouse-button doesn’t have to be constantly held down to turn the camera (and by extension the character). This makes moving the camera seem a lot more natural, especially in a fast-paced RPGs like GW2 where movement and positioning is so important. It can also eliminate hand fatigue as well as the potential of developing carpal tunnel by not requiring the player to constantly hold the right-mouse-button at all times.

Solution:
Consider adding an option to lock the camera to the mouse. When this mode is enabled, it would also enable a secondary keybind (for example, ‘shift’ by default), when held down, this key would temporarily unlock the camera from the mouse and bring up a cursor that would allow players to still interact with the world when needed. Also, whenever a menu is open that requires the cursor (such as the Trading Post, the inventory, the loot window, dialogue/NPC interaction, etc) the mouse would automatically become temporarily unlocked and would automatically become locked again when the menu is closed.

Camera acceleration, also known as camera smoothing, is when the movement of the camera is exponential (i.e., it scales with mouse speed) rather than linear (i.e., mouse movement is transferred perfectly to camera movement). The purpose behind it is to make the camera feel like it has weight or momentum behind it but all it really does is make the camera feel sluggish, non-responsive, inaccurate, and ‘heavy’.

To make the above explanation easier to understand, here’s an example of camera acceleration: If you hold the right mouse button and move your mouse 1 inch at an extremely slow speed, the camera will turn about 45 degrees in-game; If you move your mouse 1 inch (the same distance as before) at an extremely fast speed, the camera will turn about 360 degrees. It’s scaling, or accelerating, the camera rotation based on mouse movement speed. In a linear movement system (one without camera acceleration), the camera would turn the same amount in that 1 inch, independent and unaffected by mouse movement speed.

Current Accelerated Camera:
1 inch of mouse movement at 2meters/second = 45 degree camera rotation
1 inch of mouse movement at 4 meters/second = 360 degree of camera rotation (when it should still be 45 degrees)

Proposed Linear Camera:
1 inch of mouse movement at 2meters/second = 45 degree camera rotation
1 inch of mouse movement at 4 meters/second = 45 degree camera rotation

The majority of gamers strongly dislike camera acceleration, in fact, if you search the web, you will see most competitive gamers will actually go out of their way to turn it off or remove it if possible (via console commands or game-file modification). Camera acceleration makes precise camera movement nearly impossible, especially at faster mouse speeds, which is a big deal because fast mouse speeds are required in fast-paced competitive PvP. It also makes the camera feel sluggish and unresponsive at slower mouse speeds.

Camera snap is the exaggerated camera rotation that happens when the game senses the mouse turning the camera at a very fast speed, it’s closely related to camera acceleration. When the game picks up on this aggressive mouse movement, it will try to predict camera movement and then suddenly ‘snap’ the camera ~60 degrees to where it thinks you’re trying to turn it to. This makes camera movement extremely unpredictable.

Solution: Keep camera acceleration and camera snapping on by default but add an option to disable it. This way, the very small minority of casual gamers that like this feature (because either they dislike having to move their mouse hand as much or they just don’t notice) will have it on when they start the game up. The more advanced majority of players can then go into the options to disable these post-processing features if they so desire.

Currently the turn speed of the camera is tied to the in-game FPS. Whenever the game is running at ~60 FPS or more the camera turns at its normal full speed, however at anything below 60 fps, the camera becomes progressively slower. For example, at 10-25 fps (extremely likely to happen in large 50v50 battles in WvW) the camera’s sensitivity markedly decreases such that it feels like it turns at one-third to one-half its normal speed.

Solution: Untie the camera’s sensitivity from the game’s FPS so the camera turns at the same speed no matter if the FPS is at 1 or 100.

Field of Vision is the extent of the observable game world that is seen on the display at any given moment. Currently GW2 has a very narrow FOV that can’t be changed. The problem with a narrow and unrealistic FoV is that it induces a feeling of tunnel vision. This can lead to headaches, eye-strain, nausea, and other symptoms of motion sickness. Not only does increasing the FoV alleviate these symptoms, it also makes the game look more natural and increases the level of immersion. To get an idea of big a deal a FoV change can make, I suggest you watch this video demonstrating a 60 FoV vs a 100 FoV in Tera.

Solution: Add a Field of Vision slider in options with a numerical read-out in degrees so players can pick a FoV that doesn’t make them feel sick and also makes the game world look more natural. Even if increasing the FoV causes graphical issues i feel it should still be implemented. Most players that do suffer from motion sickness at narrow FoV’s would probably prefer looking at the graphical anomalies than feel sick while playing.

I received a PM from a moderating stating this thread was being moved to the suggestion forums however it seems to still be in the general discussion section. Could a moderator please move it to the suggestion forums now that they’re up?

Edit: I just went ahead and reposted this thread in the suggestion section of the forums. Feel free to lock/delete this thread.

If I was to pick one thing that truly bothers me most about this game, it would have to be the way the camera feels and behaves. Currently, the camera is one of GW2’s weakest features, and unlike many other problems/bugs that need to be fixed, the camera is a persistent problem that exists for all players, at all times, from the moment they first log in until they log out. This persistent element alone makes fixing/altering the camera priority number-one for the majority of players. I personally feel that fixing the camera-related issues is the most important change Arena Net could possibly make at this time to ensure future success of this game. Making movement, and specifically the way the camera behaves, as natural as possible is the key to making the entire game feel right while making it an enjoyable experience for everyone.

Camera-Related Issues (in order of importance relative to implementation difficulty):

• Remove the camera acceleration and camera snap (make camera movement 100% linear with mouse movement). This should be priority number one; players don’t like playing games with non-responsive/laggy feeling cameras.
• Make the camera’s turn speed independent of the game’s FPS. Currently low FPS makes the camera turn extremely slowly.
• Increase the Field of Vision or add a FOV slider.
• Change the angle and orientation of the camera so the player isn’t always looking down at the ground
• Improve the camera collision detection so the camera isn’t constantly zooming in and out (especially during jump puzzles or in areas with low-clearance such as low-trees or cave ceilings).
• Allow players to zoom the camera out more
• Increase the speed that the A and D keys turn the character/camera and remove the acceleration (make the A/D keys turn at full speed as soon as they’re pressed rather than getting progressively faster as they are held down).
• Allow the camera to be zoomed out while the right-mouse-button is held down
• Make the downed-state camera not reset back to an overhead-center position after ~5 seconds of no camera movement
• Add an option to ‘lock’ the camera to the mouse (like it is when the RMB is held down) at all times and have a modifier key (like shift) bring up the free-moving cursor in-order to interact with the game world.

• Fix the ‘camera glitch’ that causes the camera to suddenly jerk and then reset the cursor to the middle of the screen. Update: I believe this has been fixed, can anyone else confirm?

For a more detailed explanation of each bullet point, please refer to this thread where various ideas and solutions for fixing the camera are being discussed. (Be sure to scroll down as the explanations for the bullet points are in 3-4 separate posts due to the character limit).

noxious.3701:

We also need a first person view or some way to hide our own avatars for taking screenshots and making movies.

That would definitely be a nice feature. The main reason i didn’t include it in the original list of ideas is because i feel that it’s more of a design choice rather than a fix to the already implemented system. It would take a lot of work to make a first person camera system work in this game (especially because of wonky camera collision).

Reserved for links to other camera-related threads.

Please Arena-net, I want this game to succeed as i think it has the best foundation of any MMO I’ve ever played. However, i feel that the current camera system will turn a lot of players away, especially the more “skilled” or experienced player-base that are picky with game feel and responsiveness.

If anyone has anything else to add related to the camera (or player-control related to the camera) or if you agree with any of the above and desperately want to see the camera improved, I encourage you to please feel free to post here.

Thank you

The Camera Glitch causes the camera to suddenly jerk with very little actual user input and then resets the cursor to the middle of the screen. This issue is difficult to describe so I’ll just post these two videos to demonstrate:
Guild Wars 2 camera glitch – BWE2
Guild Wars 2 camera glitch – BWE1
It appears like this is being caused by the acceleration/snap function of the camera. It senses quick movement and then jerks the camera despite the user barely moving the mouse at all.

Solution: Unfortunately there isn’t an easy solution for this problem. It will require extensive bug checking and/or some recoding of the camera algorithm.

Update: I believe this has been fixed. I personally can’t reproduce it anymore; however, there is one comment in the youtube videos posted below claiming that they still have the issues as of 9/2/12. Can anyone confirm/deny if it’s still happening to them?

The angle and orientation of the camera is currently set so the player is constantly looking down at the ground. Very little of the game world is actually visible when the camera is positioned at its normal resting spot. This not only makes it hard to see what is happening around the player but it also completely destroys immersion and makes the game feel cramped and claustrophobic.

Solution: Angle the camera up slightly and make the bottom of the camera closer to the feet of the player’s character so less of the ground behind the player is visible and more is visible in foreground in front of the player specifically so there’s more horizontal vision.

Currently the camera collision detection is extremely sensitive and/or buggy. Every single object in the game will ‘collide’ with the camera causing the camera to zoom in so it’s in front of that object. In most other third-person games the camera is allowed to pass through most objects so the camera isn’t constantly zooming in and out. This makes running around extremely disorientating and players have to constantly fight the camera to try to prevent the constant zooming in and out. Even spinning the camera on perfectly flat terrain with no objects around will make the camera zoom in for whatever reason.
Solution: Enhance the intelligence of the camera collision detection so it doesn’t constantly zoom in and out. Only walls and very large objects (i.e., giant boulders) should cause the camera to zoom in. When the camera collides with the ground the camera also shouldn’t zoom in.

Camera zoom is the maximum distance away from the character that the camera can be set to. Ideal camera distance really just comes down to personal preference. However, most players coming from an MMO background would prefer to be able to zoom the camera out significantly more than is currently allowed. Having the camera so close to the character can actually cause physical motion sickness in some players.

Solution: Add a ‘camera distance’ slider in the options menu so players can pick their preferred max camera distance. This is the ideal method of increasing the max camera distance instead of just allowing players to zoom the camera out more by default. I think increasing the max camera distance by 33% would be a good starting point, further would be ideal so players can pick what they like, but i can see how having it set too far can give some players an unfair advantage or cause frame rate problems or graphical problems (specifically with height collision).

The A and D keys currently turn the player and camera at a very slow rate for whatever reason. This turn rate is completely unrealistic and uncomfortable to play with. The current turn speed makes the A and D keys completely worthless for both combat and navigation. There’s also a great deal of acceleration with both the A and D keys. When first pressed it takes 2-3 seconds until they turn the character at the maximum speed.

Solution: Simply increase the turn rate for the A and D keys to about double what they’re currently set at. The turn rate should be fast enough for the player to run in a tight circle (so a diameter of about one body length) while holding both W+A.

Locked Camera
In some third-person games (especially third-person shooter games), the camera is by default ‘locked’ to the mouse such that the right-mouse-button doesn’t have to be constantly held down to turn the camera (and by extension the character). This makes moving the camera seem a lot more natural, especially in a fast-paced RPGs like GW2 where movement and positioning is so important. It can also eliminate hand fatigue as well as the potential of developing carpal tunnel by not requiring the player to constantly hold the right-mouse-button at all times.

Solution:
Consider adding an option to lock the camera to the mouse. When this mode is enabled, it would also enable a secondary keybind (for example, ‘shift’ by default), when held down, this key would temporarily unlock the camera from the mouse and bring up a cursor that would allow players to still interact with the world when needed. Also, whenever a menu is open that requires the cursor (such as the Trading Post, the inventory, the loot window, dialogue/NPC interaction, etc) the mouse would automatically become temporarily unlocked and would automatically become locked again when the menu is closed.

Camera acceleration, also known as camera smoothing, is when the movement of the camera is exponential (i.e., it scales with mouse speed) rather than linear (i.e., mouse movement is transferred perfectly to camera movement). The purpose behind it is to make the camera feel like it has weight or momentum behind it but all it really does is make the camera feel sluggish, non-responsive, inaccurate, and ‘heavy’.

To make the above explanation easier to understand, here’s an example of camera acceleration: If you hold the right mouse button and move your mouse 1 inch at an extremely slow speed, the camera will turn about 45 degrees in-game; If you move your mouse 1 inch (the same distance as before) at an extremely fast speed, the camera will turn about 360 degrees. It’s scaling, or accelerating, the camera rotation based on mouse movement speed. In a linear movement system (one without camera acceleration), the camera would turn the same amount in that 1 inch, independent and unaffected by mouse movement speed.

Current Accelerated Camera:
1 inch of mouse movement at 2meters/second = 45 degree camera rotation
1 inch of mouse movement at 4 meters/second = 360 degree of camera rotation (when it should still be 45 degrees)

Proposed Linear Camera:
1 inch of mouse movement at 2meters/second = 45 degree camera rotation
1 inch of mouse movement at 4 meters/second = 45 degree camera rotation

The majority of gamers strongly dislike camera acceleration, in fact, if you search the web, you will see most competitive gamers will actually go out of their way to turn it off or remove it if possible (via console commands or game-file modification). Camera acceleration makes precise camera movement nearly impossible, especially at faster mouse speeds, which is a big deal because fast mouse speeds are required in fast-paced competitive PvP. It also makes the camera feel sluggish and unresponsive at slower mouse speeds.

Camera snap is the exaggerated camera rotation that happens when the game senses the mouse turning the camera at a very fast speed, it’s closely related to camera acceleration. When the game picks up on this aggressive mouse movement, it will try to predict camera movement and then suddenly ‘snap’ the camera ~60 degrees to where it thinks you’re trying to turn it to. This makes camera movement extremely unpredictable.

Solution: Keep camera acceleration and camera snapping on by default but add an option to disable it. This way, the very small minority of casual gamers that like this feature (because either they dislike having to move their mouse hand as much or they just don’t notice) will have it on when they start the game up. The more advanced majority of players can then go into the options to disable these post-processing features if they so desire.

Currently the turn speed of the camera is tied to the in-game FPS. Whenever the game is running at ~60 FPS or more the camera turns at its normal full speed, however at anything below 60 fps, the camera becomes progressively slower. For example, at 10-25 fps (extremely likely to happen in large 50v50 battles in WvW) the camera’s sensitivity markedly decreases such that it feels like it turns at one-third to one-half its normal speed.

Solution: Untie the camera’s sensitivity from the game’s FPS so the camera turns at the same speed no matter if the FPS is at 1 or 100.

Field of Vision is the extent of the observable game world that is seen on the display at any given moment. Currently GW2 has a very narrow FOV that can’t be changed. The problem with a narrow and unrealistic FoV is that it induces a feeling of tunnel vision. This can lead to headaches, eye-strain, nausea, and other symptoms of motion sickness. Not only does increasing the FoV alleviate these symptoms, it also makes the game look more natural and increases the level of immersion. To get an idea of big a deal a FoV change can make, I suggest you watch this video demonstrating a 60 FoV vs a 100 FoV in Tera.

Solution: Add a Field of Vision slider in options with a numerical read-out in degrees so players can pick a FoV that doesn’t make them feel sick and also makes the game world look more natural. Even if increasing the FoV causes graphical issues i feel it should still be implemented. Most players that do suffer from motion sickness at narrow FoV’s would probably prefer looking at the graphical anomalies than feel sick while playing.

Just wanted to let people know that i remade this thread in the suggestion forums. I’d prefer if people would post in the new thread rather than this one.

If I was to pick one thing that truly bothers me most about this game, it would have to be the way the camera feels and behaves. Currently, the camera is one of GW2’s weakest features, and unlike many other problems/bugs that need to be fixed, the camera is a persistent problem that exists for all players, at all times, from the moment they first log in until they log out. This persistent element alone makes fixing/altering the camera priority number-one for the majority of players. I personally feel that fixing the camera-related issues is the most important change Arena Net could possibly make at this time to ensure future success of this game. Making movement, and specifically the way the camera behaves, as natural as possible is the key to making the entire game feel right while making it an enjoyable experience for everyone.

Camera-Related Issues (in order of importance relative to implementation difficulty):

• Remove the camera acceleration and camera snap (make camera movement 100% linear with mouse movement). This should be priority number one; players don’t like playing games with non-responsive/laggy feeling cameras.
• Make the camera’s turn speed independent of the game’s FPS. Currently low FPS makes the camera turn extremely slowly.
• Increase the Field of Vision or add a FOV slider.
• Change the angle and orientation of the camera so the player isn’t always looking down at the ground
• Improve the camera collision detection so the camera isn’t constantly zooming in and out (especially during jump puzzles or in areas with low-clearance such as low-trees or cave ceilings).
• Allow players to zoom the camera out more
• Increase the speed that the A and D keys turn the character/camera and remove the acceleration (make the A/D keys turn at full speed as soon as they’re pressed rather than getting progressively faster as they are held down).
• Allow the camera to be zoomed out while the right-mouse-button is held down
• Make the downed-state camera not reset back to an overhead-center position after ~5 seconds of no camera movement
• Add an option to ‘lock’ the camera to the mouse (like it is when the RMB is held down) at all times and have a modifier key (like shift) bring up the free-moving cursor in-order to interact with the game world.

• Fix the ‘camera glitch’ that causes the camera to suddenly jerk and then reset the cursor to the middle of the screen. Update: I believe this has been fixed, can anyone else confirm?

For more details on each bullet point, please keep reading.