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Fixed Camera Should Be Usable

HapHaz··1 votes·443 views

I know this topic has been brought up many times, but I believe that since it has not been resolved it will continue to do come up until it has.

I believe that the estimates of the people that are affected by the fixed camera issues are low, this is due to the fact that people have quit League of Legends or don’t play often because locked camera is a poor way to play the game. This became extremely apparent when I was watching a quadriplegic gamer playing with locked camera. He said it was fun, but he couldn't see himself playing it regularly because of the camera. Unlocking his camera isn't an option. So if you are going to count how many people this affects you need to remember everyone, not just the people that play the game currently.

I understand the design choices of choosing to improve unlocked over improve locked, but the problem isn't with unlocked camera, many people find that mode of play practical. The problem is with locked camera, and it is because it is nearly unusable. The key would be to make unlocked camera usable, but not advantageous. I believe that this is possible with minimal effort and could not affect people that don’t need it.

The solution is this, it is as many people have suggested before, an adjustable camera offset, but with two suggestions from me. One it can only be turned on from the settings menu, and second it is adjusted by a modifying key and a click (This would work by setting the offset with respect to where your champion is compared to the click. In essence the camera would be centered on the click and camera would then stay that fixed distance from the champion.) This allows for on the fly adjustments of the camera, but allows for the camera to be tethered to the champions movement.

This solution isn't perfect, but training wheels are not supposed to be. This solution is so that people don’t quit playing league because they are not welcome.

11 Comments

Jamaree1 votes

I would love a camera flip or a hud flip, that is all that needs to be done to fix this problem.

HapHaz1 votes

Camera flip is not an easy fix at all, and hud flip could be time consuming to get to look right. The solution that I suggested is one of the most minimal solutions. A hud toggle is the only other solution I heard that was reasonable, but I think my solution is more long term.

SexyTaylorSwift1 votes

Maybe I am ignorant to the subject, but why couldn't he play with an unlocked camera?

I don't know, I don't think the camera is an issue. I played with it forever before a friend told me that I was stupid for it. I literally didn't even know there was an alternative to the camera. I also played on a laptop without a mouse at the time lol...

HapHaz1 votes

The amount of mouse movement at times can be unsustainable without extensive practice. Between using the on screen skill buttons to trigger skills and target enemies and scroll the screen it is just too much.

SexyTaylorSwift1 votes

I see. What about utilizing the lil red thing in the middle of laptops? It takes very little movement, as I used it for quite some time. I even climbed into silver ranking using it haha.

Cale0171 votes

I always play with a locked camera, and just click on areas of the map that I need to have better vision of. If I need to use a spell that goes beyond my screen I'll unlock my camera for that, but honestly having to adjust my camera constantly during fights and all is just a pain in the ass.

Sure it takes a fraction of a second to adjust after using a blink or dash ability to make sure you're still clicking on the right target but once you're used to it, it's pretty easy. And even then I can still cast most of my long range abilities very reliably from the minimap.

HapHaz1 votes

I understand people can play with locked camera and it is possible, but there are people that quit playing because they couldn't deal with locked or unlocked. It is about making locked camera work for those people.

Cale0171 votes

{quoted}

I understand people can play with locked camera and it is possible, but there are people that quit playing because they couldn't deal with locked or unlocked. It is about making locked camera work for those people.

If you can't play either locked or unlocked then this probably isn't the genre for you to be playing. Even if you make an adjustable screen that's still tethered to champion movement you're going to run into the same issues of constantly having to readjust it once you get out of the laning phase, which is the only time that it would ever really be of any use by allowing someone to see more of the lane and less of their own turret. You'd still have to be constantly adjusting the offset for the camera, and you'd be giving yourself the same blind spots that people playing with unlocked cameras contend with when theirs isn't centered on their champion.

You heart's in the right place, don't misunderstand. But your concept is half baked at best.

HapHaz1 votes

I understand people will have to readjust, but the mouse movement to do so would be minimized due to not having to move your mouse to the edge and not having to readjust to keep the offset as you would have to do with unlocked camera. I do understand that if neither option works for someone that this might not be their game, and that is the whole point of this thread, if we can add a feature like this it could be for those people too.

Cale0171 votes

{quoted}

I understand people will have to readjust, but the mouse movement to do so would be minimized due to not having to move your mouse to the edge and not having to readjust to keep the offset as you would have to do with unlocked camera. I do understand that if neither option works for someone that this might not be their game, and that is the whole point of this thread, if we can add a feature like this it could be for those people too.

It's also a feature that gives people an unfair advantage over others who aren't using it, unlike locked v unlocked and how the two can simply be toggled as needed. Instead of a situation where you have "Oh if I had been unlocked instead of locked and given up my own vision to track an enemy moving through a warded area I could have hit them with my global ult", wherein the mistake falls on the part of the player not using the tools given to them, you'd instead have moments which instead turn into "If I hadn't had my screen locked a few inches upwards I would have seen someone coming behind me sooner." You're introducing a system that changes the binary lock/unlock mechanic and so leaves a large gray area to determine it's actual effectivness. The pros and cons of the two camera modes are very clearly laid out as it stands.

Locked camera screens allow you to focus better on your own movement and awareness of your immediate area at the expense of possibly seeing farther on threats on your own screen. This is something that has to be battled by better minimap awareness and, with some, switching to the unlocked screen when using longer ranged abilities. However you can't see farther than an standard, equal range on either side of your screen. Aside from the HUD, this means that you have a standard area of vision which eliminates blind spots at the expense of giving yourself a longer reaction time between when you see something and when it's going to affect you. Locked players overcome the risks of a locked screen by learning to move their screen only as needed to give themselves better awareness or to briefly used an unlocked viewpoint to use certain skills.

Unlocked camera screens allow you better awareness of the area around just where your character is by extending the range of vision in a favorable direction at the expense of losing range of vision where you feel you do not need it. It's something that has to be trained to be constantly maintained and kept up with by the repositioning of the screen as the situation merits it while also keeping up with precise mouse clicks, and cursor positioning for skills and summoner spells. This potentially allows you greater accuracy in largely stationary teamfights by making your cursor position dependent upon camera angle, not on champion position, allowing you to keep your mouse trained on targets even with your champion moving quickly with dashes or leaps, or instantaneously with blinks or Flash. The tradeoff for an increased accuracy, or rather for not having to try as hard and constantly be double checking cursor position compared to locked, is that if a battle starts moving you waste precious moments moving your screen along with it, and you leave yourself blind spots around your character that are non standard compared to locked screens. This is overcome by unlocked players usually having to lock their screen in brief intervals to recenter it if something is going wrong immediately nearby their champion and they're looking elsewhere, which is also a balancing for their increased camera awareness. If they're looking somewhere else, they have a decreased reaction time to something happening directly to them.

There are risks and rewards offered by both, but they balance each other out by being binary. Either one is more suited to a particular situation or the other is. Players who are using either are essentially on an even playing field.

Doing something like you're suggesting muddles that up. What you're asking for is a locked camera that can be relocked in any position the player chooses using a different method of moving it than going to the screen. This would mean that players using a mechanic like this would have an alternative method that does not require as much mouse movement, meaning some sort of an active control that they can bring up on the fly similar to the ping system, where you can push a button to pop up a series of camera control directions to shift it as you want, or to push a button that lets you switch your cursor to camera control, move it where you want it, release it, and have it relock in that position.

It actually adds MORE to the process of moving the screen by removing the standard scrolling feature of the unlocked screen and forcing a new interface to get it to work. Either something has to be held, or temporarily toggled, while moving the screen to a new position which would decrease reaction times to something happening near the champion even more so than having your mouse at the end of the screen and quickly having to pull it back. Your idea requires even more precision with mouse movements than the far reaching mouse movements of an unlocked screen.

Get it now?

HapHaz1 votes

Sorry you felt the need to explain the current camera choices to me. I understand I might make it sound simpler than it would be in reality, but I feel part of the disconnection between our opinions lie due to me not explaining the solution in a great manner. I do understand that it would be a tool that would add benefits and problems but that is the same as anything added to the game. I would also say that not only binary things can be balanced.

I think the main reason I felt the need to create a thread like this is because the number of threads I have seen complaining about this as well as one even putting funds forward to have this addressed. I know Riot has responded to this extensively before, but I feel that I came along late for that conversation and that one of their biggest reasons they won't fix the issue is because they just don't believe it affects that many people. Maybe they are right, maybe the amount of people isn't enough to warrant a fix, but it is always a balancing game of effort vs worth, and I feel that there are low effort solutions that would provide much worth.

I guess the evidence of this thread not gaining much traction is evidence that this isn't as needed or wanted as I thought.

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