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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
I normally play over the shoulder and zoomed out. I want to see what is in front of me. I also want the option to zoom out quite far, I don't play that way constantly but I always want to ability to get a much larger picture. I don't play directly over the shoulder, I try to find a good balance between height and horizontal angle.
I would like to see really good sliders for camera height, camera zoom, zoom sensitivity and rotation sensitivity.
In regards to rotation sensitivity it feels like MMOs that have a slider for this often have an all or nothing feel despite the slider. The issue tends to be slowing the camera down. The sliders always seem able to speed it up to crazy unusable speeds but you don't have a good way to slow it down in an incremental way. I don't know why this is, I suppose it could be user error, but I always seem to run into that issue.
Max Zoom out, in "middle" position, in red.
The green line is the hit range of nuke or bow.
Orange is top position.
The wall is the castle wall.
By allowing the player to zoom all the way out, therefore seeing their environment from a bird's eye view, they can see everything coming at them. To me this cheapens the experience. If I wanted to play a MOBA I'd play a MOBA.
TLDR: If I had the choice, I'd limit how far the player can zoom the camera out to make combat more challenging and realistic.
And for the love of the universe: do not hardcode any keybinds. Put in place default keybinds you think make the most sense but let users rebind every single action.
There are too many games out there completely disregarding disabled users who just cannot use WASD or those who for whatever reasons prefer to use ESDF or even more exotic combinations. This has zero impact on others but has tremendous impact on the overall enjoyability of the game.
Being able to zoom out and move camera around was useful primarily to deal with raid mechanics needing to move to certain spots to insure you were inside designated areas. Being able to move camera totally freely could be viewed as somewhat of a "cheat" when able to look around corners or observe the area around you while being in an area which prevented you from being observed. I had always considered broken the clipping oddities in some games that allow you to look through walls and such.
As someone who loves to scout I'd love a narrow field. The greater the risk the greater the bragging rights.
1) The focal point of the camera needs to be such that you can see effects land beneath your feet. Maybe make this adjustable within reason because I often find myself zooming out in games just to see enough of the ground beneath me. Players also like to set UI elements in different places at the bottom or top of the screen. These effect visibility differently.
2) Limit zoom out. The max should be somewhere 20-30 yds.
3) 90* FoV (vertical) is best. Horizontal FoV will change based on aspect ratio.
4) I prefer centered camera rather than over the shoulder (for tab-target). Action can go either way.
5) Slider for mouse-camera sensitivity is essential. I was once a premier FPS player and play quite a bit lower than the default is in games, usually at the lowest possible setting for RPGs.
For general exploration and casual gameplay, I like a closer, more immersive view. This setup helps me feel more connected to my character and the environment, enhancing my overall experience.
In combat, particularly during intense PvP or large-scale battles, I favor a more zoomed-out view. This perspective provides a better overview of the battlefield, making it easier to track multiple opponents and allies, and to plan strategic movements. It allows for greater situational awareness, which is crucial in high-stakes encounters.
When participating in large-scale PvE events or navigating through densely populated areas, a mid-range distance with a slightly elevated angle is beneficial. This provides a good balance between seeing the broader environment and maintaining a close connection to my character.
Overall, having the ability to adjust the camera perspective dynamically is essential in Ashes of Creation. Different scenarios definitely call for different views to optimize both gameplay and immersion.
Camera should only zoom out for everyone when fighting a world boss or some other activity anyone can pariticpate in on equal terms.
GW2 has some settings that seem fair:
Behind and above and off center sounds good too for angle. Sometimes even getting to first person can be cool for a few social situations.
THIS ^^^
The community will always be divided between immersion & practicality, with an immersive, close OTS camera reeling you into the world and characters, while a further birds eye view camera gives you more information, but makes you feel like you're a spectator peering from the outside in.
The camera, like the hud, should be situational & dynamic. If you're talking to an NPC, it should focus in. If you're on a mount, it should zoom out a bit. When you enter a small building, it should automatically tighten up to avoid having the camera "bounce off the wall" (That weird jump a game camera has to do when something comes between the player and the camera's raycast to avoid the camera clipping through the wall)
Elden Ring handles all this beautifully; only showing hud elements when needed, dynamically shifting the camera based on whether or not the player is riding a mount or targeting an enemy, and allowing the camera to go behind foreground objects by making them translucent as to avoid having that "bounce off the wall" effect I was talking about earlier:
(Baulders Gate 3 does away with this problem entirely by allowing the camera to phase through all objects, however this can obviously be a problem as we'd have people looking through walls) In Elden ring the camera bounce is still there if you jump to 0:49 in the video I linked, however it's a necessary evil to prevent people from looking through walls.
Another very, very, VERY under looked feature, and something you have to take into consideration when designing a camera is the characters walk cycle. It surprises me that more MMO's don't pay more attention to this, as it subconsciously communicates the overall quality of the game to the player right off the bat. Since your character is going to be on screen 100% of the time, it's important that the animations stay interesting and are satisfying to watch. The #1 thing people do in MMO's is walk around, so if you want to stand out it is important that the animations need to be state-of-the-art, at least just for the players character on the clientside. When someone's creating B-Roll for their Ashes of Creation video, and people watch it and see a polished walk cycle with the character dynamically looking around, fidgeting, adjusting their belt, etc... it elevates the quality of the game, and enhances the immersion ten-fold. A perfect example of this would be this RDR 2 walk cycle:
I, and many others, literally find myself just walking around in the game sometimes just because it's so satisfying. It feels like a necessary itch to scratch in order to get people to understand that this is no ordinary MMO.
I very much prefer to classic, "from behind and slightly above view", like what we've seen so far in the livestreams. Please don't make it a looking straight down game. Also, please give us the ability to zoom waaaaay out if we want to.
But I also like that in wow I can zoom my camera into a first person perspective if I want to.
In general I would say, far away in MMO activity, middle for solo and PvE and close for city and nice location vibing.
Edit:
It didn't occur to me when I first wrote this, because it's not something I'd almost ever use, but I do know that there are quite a few of my friends who like to be able to zoom all the way in to first person.
However, ESO has a lot of customization on the camera which can also help just about any player. They'd be able to create their own camera angle.
Customization of where the camera can be with the right amount of zoom can be ideal but I do recommend trying to limit zoom to be very close. This could add a sense of awareness that players would need to keep when they're out and about both with monster and potential bandits.
Zoomed out has these flaws:
Sometimes when tanking a boss, with my back to a wall (so not wind buffeted etc.) the camera typically goes 1st person and staring in the toes of a dragon, so we need to be able to switch to 3rd person and rotate 180 so tank and others, can see what is happening.
No offsets to the sides, optional for sure if people want that, and of course no camera lag.