GU 31 Camera Change

Hello there! I made a few small camera changes in GU 31, and I wanted to make a post to clear up some confusion about the changes and create a place for your feedback.

Goals For The Change

1. The zoom speed when manually changing the camera distance should be faster and take less time to blend to the final camera distance.
2. It should take fewer total camera distance change inputs to go from maximum zoom to minimum zoom.
3. Each input for camera zoom distance change should create about the same relative size change of the player character. In other words, the camera should move shorter distances when close to the character and longer distances when farther from the character per input.
4. As much as possible, don't let the camera zoom in so close to your character that it makes your character go transparent.
5. When the camera is zoomed in close, frame your character more in the center of the screen as they move around.

Camera Zoom Controls

Most of the early feedback has been positive, but there are few negative posts that lead me to think that some players may not be aware that they can directly control the camera distance and are getting it stuck zoomed far in or out.

If you are using a mouse, you can change the camera distance by using the mouse wheel. Scroll up to zoom in to your character, and scroll down to zoom out.

If you are using a controller, then you can use L1 and the directional buttons to change the camera distance. Hold L1 and press the up directional button to zoom in to your character. Hold L1 and press the down directional button to zoom out.


These camera distance controls have been in the game for a very long time, but because it previously required a great many individual inputs to affect any real change in the camera distance, I suspect that many players using a controller might not have known that could change it at all. In particular, because L1 is used to lock on to a target, controller users may be zooming in and out without realizing it.

Use this thread for feedback and questions about this change.

Thanks!

Update:

Several people have posted about the camera zooming in and out automatically while in combat. I have a fix for this issue, and we have started testing it to make sure it doesn't cause other problems; unfortunately, this fix will probably not make it to live for a few weeks (it is 11/19/2013 as of this edit).

Until the fix is live, I do have a workaround for you. If you turn off movement mode, the camera will stop zooming in and out when fighting large enemies. I realize that this is inconvenient, but it is at least an option until I can get a permanent fix pushed to live.

Why do we still have to pull back the camera everytime we exit a loading screen? In other words, why doesn't the camera distance save?

I like the changes to zooming in and out as it feels more responsive. However, I think I and several others encountered a bug with it the other night in paradox wave. We were bunched up around one of the pillars waiting for a boss to come out and the camera kept zooming in closer and closer until it was basically first person view. I couldn't get the camera to zoom out with the mouse wheel. Looking around left and right seemed to get the camera to zoom back briefly. Then when the boss approached the camera returned to normal thankfully.

As far as I know there is something that tries to force us into certain cameras.

I haven't tested since the update but prior to the update. I could go in to Para, i'd walk up neer the tyrant, zoomed out the furthest I can, I target lock the tyrant, boom start zooming in and i'm locked. The only way to revert back to my settings is to drop the target lock, get the tyrant off my screen, then zoom back out. It's terribly annoying, but i've gotten use to it.

I like the new zoom better. It feels smoother and the extra step back (out) makes "Can't Stop" and collection farming easier.

I would suggest that vulnerability icons scale based on your camera zoom level. If you zoom out on a 720p resolution you can barely see which icon is currently over any NPC or player.

I'd like to echo a couple comments.

1) Not having your camera distance save is a nuisance. I'd just like it zoomed out.
2) There are points in the game (historically, have to keep an eye out after GU31) where your camera is forced to zoom in whether you want it to or not. This has been a major pain, especially with large bosses up in the air. Prime Battle Ground and Paradox Wave illustrates this well. Rather than having the camera zoom in on you, it'd be nice if it was able to go up in the air in those scenarios. I really just want to see more of my surroundings to be able to react to them.

I was completely unaware of this... and you say that even on ps3 we've always had these controls?

I sent a support ticket asking just yesterday if I there was a control for the zoom and targeting and the GM told me no, theres no way to control the zoom on ps3 and the only way to switch targets is to move around...

Also if you would be kind enough to point me toward some sort of manual that I can look at for any other crucial controls im not aware of (not knowing how to zoom in or out for the entire year ive been playing has had a very negative effect on my performance as a controller if u can imagine.. ive been gimped uneccesarily cuz I couldn't see the players around me!) could you or anyone else please tell me where to find it? thx.

This is pretty old but much of it is very relevant still today...

https://forums.station.sony.com/dcu...ish-i-knew-when-i-started-playing-dcuo.83805/

This new camera action is a step in the right direction but i feel it still needs some work. 1st off I would like the Camera distance to be saved. 2nd In paradox wave after the new camera action hit everytime I got grounded which happens quite often in Paradox wave the camera would zoom in to almost 1st person view. It becomes quite annoying to keep an eye on whats going on around you.. Please check this out it seems I'm not the only one noticing this.

Currently the camera distance is reset to a default value whenever you change zones. I looked into fixing that as I made these other changes, but unfortunately it was more complicated than you might expect and there wasn't time to do it.

Thanks for feedback. This is a requested feature internally too.

This is news to me, and others are now reporting similar camera problems in Paradox. Thanks for reporting it. We'll investigate.

I like that the 2 examples were the hardest raids for their time... the last place you need the camera cutting off your view. Is that intended though? is the camera limitations supposed to be part of the challenge?

There is definitely a bug in paradox, you can't see anything and the camera keeps zooming in and out for no reason even zooming so much that you cant rotate or do anything until you change position and then guess what? You get hit by a ball and die.

Thanks for replying.

Wave is camera bugged. In and out, in and out, in and out. The camera will zoom in and i have to move around to pull it back out. That wouldn't matter to me as much but its happening in wave. Where it only takes a moment off point and ur dead. Pleas fix.

Outside of whatever camera issues you all are describing in Paradox, I just wanted to clarify how the follow camera behaves in general. (Note that cinematic cameras are a completely different animal.) Besides the manual setting of how close you want the camera to be to your character, the game will sometimes adjust the camera distance to help frame large, targeted enemies. The goal of this automatic change is so that you can see what you are fighting, if you are right up close to a large enemy, instead of just looking at their shins. Once the enemy is dead, not targeted, or not on screen, the camera goes back to your manually-adjusted distance.

I don't know in what game update it was released, but sometime around mid Summer I made a change to that automatic camera behavior. Before that change, it would zoom in or out to frame the targeted character, leaving you no control during combat. After that change, it should only zoom out automatically, and only if the target is large and close. It should no longer zoom in when you have a target.

So what you're describing in Paradox definitely sounds like a bug and not the intended behavior of the camera.

The last tab in your Options>Settings will show what all your controls do.
Under Options>Settings, you will need to turn off

• target auto-lock (default setting) to manually switch targets (L1+DPad-Left/Right) and to purposely have no target sometimes (like if you want your Sorcery Circle of Protection around you instead of your target)
• camera auto-zoom (default setting) to manually change the zoom (L1+DPad-Up/Down)

hehe, then add it to the list

I'll try to confirm tonight if I can remember. I know as of last paradox run I did it was still working how I described.

Regardless the changes I have seen in UD31 are great, just the smoother zoom in and out is great and honestly my favorite thing about UD31 so thanks.

Yep. I think that's been in the game since launch, but I can't confirm that.

Since the camera zoom controls cannot be rebound, they're not listed in the settings key binding menu, which is one way to learn about the controls. Unfortunately I don't know of an official game manual to point you to, but the post that Sore linked is a great collection of helpful tips.