Dev Discussion #65 - Camera Perspective
Glorious Ashes community - it's time for another Dev Discussion! Dev Discussion topics are kind of like a "reverse Q&A" - rather than you asking us questions about Ashes of Creation, we want to ask YOU what your thoughts are.
Our design team has compiled a list of burning questions we'd love to get your feedback on regarding gameplay, your past MMO experiences, and more. Join in on the Dev Discussion and share what makes gaming special to you!
Dev Discussion - Camera Perspective
Camera Perspective: What camera perspective do you prefer in terms of both angle and distance from your character? Do different situations call for different perspectives?
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Comments
Anyone competitive will always zoom out as far as they can, to get as much information as possible (whithin limit, ofcourse, not to lose detail).
Being that far zoomed out though, is a negative to overall enjoyment of the game.
The devs limiting the max zoom out is a positive thing, because it allows people to play at the "most competitive" zoom, while simultaneously enjoying the view.
This is similar to being allowed to turn down all graphics to a minimum, where you only see stick figures. If this was advantageous to PVP, every serious PVP player would do it. Should then devs allow people to do this? No. Turning down graphics should be designed for only low spec systems, and some aspects of what people enjoy watching.
TL;DR:
Allow zooming out far enough where people have a good competitive view of their surroundings, but don't allow infinite zooming out, as it leads to metagaming where people find less enjoyment for more advantages.
I heavily dislike the amount of zoom out that Archeage and EVE allow you to do - where you can zoom so far out that your character is barely a pixel on your screen anymore. I at least want to be able to make out details of my character when zoomed out to max.
I also think that the game generally requires more skill with a lower max zoom camera. Content can become trivial if you can see the entirety of both groups fighting and becomes much more difficult if the most you can fit in your view is your party and the tank of the other group.
On the other hand I love being able to zoom all the way into first person for landscape screenshots and videos. I don’t always want to have my character and HUD up. You all are making a beautiful game and I would like to sometimes be able to see it without all the game elements on screen.
On a side note, while talking about cameras... as a PvP Shoutcaster on Albion Online, please think about having a freecam option, a #stalk function that allows you to follow a player, being able to join a guild to see one side vs the other more clearly.
I know these features will be locked behind a GM account or something, but if there's an option for casters to come in and cast these massive Node Wars and paint a story while doing so, it'll be amazing!
But whenever there's combat involved or especially PvP, I zoom out much more, to get a better overview of things and see more.
Ideally perhaps you could offset the camera-perspective a bit, so it's not neccessarily always horizontally centered on the character, or have options to have it offset to the left or right a bit, depending on preferance. Not sure if this counts as camera control, but FoV is another big aspect I like to have that set as high as possible.
Be it a racing game, a third person shooter, an MMORPG, a top down ARPG, a MOBA, anything.
That's because I'd always like to enjoy as much information as is available to me.
There's obviously benefits of playing zoomed in, for example having an easier time to keep your focus, but for me personally that's never been an option due to mental/genetic issues. I've a really easy time taking in and processing a wide breath of information though, which is why (this is where the yt shorts ends and loops back to the beginning)
1. zoom in so the camera is just behind & over my head, and
2. an option to see out my eyes, so as to have exactly the view that my character has, so a swivel is turning my head
The option of first-person can be nice for grabbing screenshots/photomode stuff too tbh.
The crucial issue comes down to camera-collision with terrain or vegetation so allowing some sort of configurability there could be handy.
When I'm questing though I'll bring my camera down to about a 105 angle and zoom in to resemble more of a 3rd person story game.
as for camera position, have some up down left right customization, BDO did it great
I'm not saying the camera has to be as restrictive as New World's was, but nowhere near what ArcheAge allowed you to do.
I usually play with my camera zoomed out as far as possible since a larger vision range gives you an advantage, even if it's a small one at times, and most MMOs have you focusing on the UI instead of the characters.
I don't think perspective needs to be changed for a situation unless it's for cinematic reasons.
Me too.