Reduced Zoom in Legion

[Fabinas]

considering Blizz has the actual info about how many people actually zoomed out as far as OP is complaining about I bet it's a change that will maybe negatively affect 1% of the playerbase at most and probably positively affect the majority so it's a good decision

Nice ass-pulling numbers. How do you know they track all that?

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This is pretty much a non issue. Anyone complaining or over dramatizing that raiding will now be impossible or severely handicapped are just trying to sound over the top. It's a non issue for the vast majority of people.

One of the first things i did when i logged into Beta was to try and find how to max my camera distance. Nothing worked. The difference is overwhelming.

If it is a non issue for the vast majority of people, they shouldn't touch it. It's like saying "what a waste of time this colorblind option stuff, it doesn't affect the vast majority of people". Why would they limit the choice we had the last 10 years EVEN IF WE ARE NOT the vast majority of people, is beyond me.

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That makes no sense. Getting DBM requires you to either a) google it and go to their webpage, download it, etc., or b) find it on curse, download it, etc.

Finding the console command for max camera distance requires you to a) google it, and b) copy/paste the command in game.

They are both equally "readily available" - hell I recall using max zoom on the original Archimonde in the Mount Hyjal raid. That's been nearly ten years ago.

You can also tell by the poll on the front page - it has not been exactly hard to find.

THAT! /10char.

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Yep, but don't try telling these....intelligent people...that. Just for shiggles, I tested with the slider set to as near as it can go, on live, and then zoomed out to max. It's freakin super far away, your character is like an inch tall. And then even more so when you set the slider to far. How can people need your character to look like an ant? No raid boss in WoW is so big that even having the slider set on near will be too close, let alone on far.

Also, this is coming from a melee, my main is Rogue. 99% of the people in this thread are overreacting about a change that is good.

Explain why this change is good. Also, look at screenshots people posted: Seeing feet, having Galleon blocking the whole screen etc.

[Polybius]

I've never used the console max zoom, and never will. But I'm surprised they mentioned console command as an excuse to remove it, when a good chunk of options are now on console command for Legion.

ActionCam anyone?

[Fabinas]

Correct.

This community has become so laughably change-averse, everything is a sacred cow.

I'm sorry, you seem confused. When people talk about max camera distance, they mean the whole range of in-game slider and console command max. Not everyone that is using the console command plays at max distance. But they have the choice to adjust their camera height to a point it SUITS THEM, depending on the situation, leave it there for ever or simply re-zoom in, after getting convenienced and return when the situation arises. Stop treating this change as a black and white choice. It's 50 shades of grey being diminished to 30, while people have been accustomed to use ANY of the 20 extra. geddit?

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Except the 'option' you're describing is playing the game in a way that Blizzard don't intend. They hold all the cards, and they're making a game that is to be experienced from closer in than barely seeing your character's shoulder pads. As a result, it's not an option; they've deemed it no longer part of the core experience and, as such, removed it.

Claiming it's a loss, when the game will be designed around it, is change-aversion for its own sake.

Are you in Beta and tested this feature, also have inside information that "the game will be designed around it"?

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kinda weird change for a game that's older than a decade, but looking at it from blizzard's point of view, I could totally understand why they do it. I'm sure this extreme camera distance was a thorn in their sides for a long time, because they put lots of work in their art, animations, etc. and people just zoom out over the max and see nothing of it.

Those who play for max efficiency often sacrifice "gamy" aspects and devs have to intervene to keep the integrity of the game.

It makes sense why they do this change now, though. With their work on all those new animations, it's obvious that they want players to see them.


In the end it's a game and it's important for a game to be limited in the way the user experiences it, so that the user doesn't break it. You wouldn't want to make a shooter and put in a FoV option that goes way too high. People push it to the max to see as much as possible on the screen even if the game looks ridiculous then.

Try to understand. Most people using that choice DO NOT PLAY at max all the time. Only when the extra information is needed, and that's usually raids. They are now removing a choice we had. If there's a tiny minority that plays at max all the time, then i speculate it's so negligible, it didn't warrant the change.

[wing5wong]

He shot himself in the foot by saying its to promote UI fairness and all that nonsense.

If he instead said it was to enhance cinematic visuals, and promote a better sense of scale it makes a lot more sense.

I play on max currently, not a big issue.

[Mhyroth]

PTR/Beta:

Live:

I maxed out the regular slider in-game, so no Macro's used or changes made.
When I was floating in the air and flying around I felt kind of uncomfortable with not being able to see what's doing on underneath me, or even more to the back of me, which I can on Live up to this day. Especially in Melee combat I felt kind of out of place as compared to Live.
Edit: Just for clarification reasons: this picture was taken purely for the purpose to showcase the change and the 50% decrease in maxed Camera distance. I usually use a different UI too.

[Thelxi]

If I planned on raiding in Legion I'd be pissed.

[Pua]

Not at all. Go back and re-read what you wrote. You claimed further zoom was never intended by Blizzard...

No, I didn't. And that's why I think you're confused.

I'd suggest you take your own advice and read what you quoted one more time.

Are you in Beta and tested this feature, also have inside information that "the game will be designed around it"?

You don't need to be in beta. Read what Hazzikostas said; he believes (or the ever-present "they" when something is unpopular) that people zooming all the way out is now outside the spirit of the game and its presentation, hence the changes. I get that it outwardly looks like the removal of options because, when push comes to shove, that's exactly what it is. But it's high time that this community started to accept one thing:

Blizzard can do what the fuck they want with the game.

It's hard to accept seeing a game you love driven into the ground, and that's where the angst comes from. They were told, repeatedly, why Warlords of Draenor wouldn't work, or why class design is in the toilet, or why having anything to do with garrisons is self-defeating moving forward. They don't care. They're not interested. They're not looking for feedback.

They're looking for praise.

They're interested solely in people who agree with them, and they know that there are fans who will defend whatever they do and however they do it. Anyone who doesn't agree and explains clearly what their problem is? They just "don't understand the design intent". Get a little angry at your concern being brushed off without understood? Now you're being abusive, and no longer worth listening to because you're a part of angry forum noise.

Every time they make a change of this sort, they design the game around it. In the last few years, their decisions have sucked more than soared, but it's not going to change. The most worrying thing about Warlords of Draenor is that Ion Hazzikostas got promoted, and nobody got sacked.

He shot himself in the foot by saying its to promote UI fairness and all that nonsense.

If he instead said it was to enhance cinematic visuals, and promote a better sense of scale it makes a lot more sense.

I agree, actually.

Yet again, he's put one half of the community at the other's throat because the finger-pointing has already begun. As he's a trained lawyer, I don't believe he's stupid enough to have done this (again) unwittingly. It's pretty clear they want the community at its own throat. The "hardcore" and "casual" player bases are each other's dead cat on the table. While it's there, Blizzard can do almost what the fuck they like with the game, and we'll be too busy arguing amongst ourselves to actually call them to task over it.

[Dominus89]

Even if we'd go by your retarded biased analogy, you'd still need to know which way to move out of the shit.

Yeah, either right, left, forward or backwards. I'd suggest either of the three first options to get out of the aoe faster.
People make it into a bigger problem than it actually is, one could think it's the end of the world, when in reality it's just a very small change.

I am sure there will be hacks to let you zoom out far enough until your character is nothing but a pixel on your screen.

[Unir]

No, I didn't. And that's why I think you're confused.

I'd suggest you take your own advice and read what you quoted one more time.



You don't need to be in beta. Read what Hazzikostas said; he believes (or the ever-present "they" when something is unpopular) that people zooming all the way out is now outside the spirit of the game and its presentation, hence the changes. I get that it outwardly looks like the removal of options because, when push comes to shove, that's exactly what it is. But it's high time that this community started to accept one thing:

Blizzard can do what the fuck they want with the game.

It's hard to accept seeing a game you love driven into the ground, and that's where the angst comes from. They were told, repeatedly, why Warlords of Draenor wouldn't work, or why class design is in the toilet, or why having anything to do with garrisons is self-defeating moving forward. They don't care. They're not interested. They're not looking for feedback.

They're looking for praise.

They're interested solely in people who agree with them, and they know that there are fans who will defend whatever they do and however they do it. Anyone who doesn't agree and explains clearly what their problem is? They just "don't understand the design intent". Get a little angry at your concern being brushed off without understood? Now you're being abusive, and no longer worth listening to because you're a part of angry forum noise.

Every time they make a change of this sort, they design the game around it. In the last few years, their decisions have sucked more than soared, but it's not going to change. The most worrying thing about Warlords of Draenor is that Ion Hazzikostas got promoted, and nobody got sacked.



I agree, actually.

Yet again, he's put one half of the community at the other's throat because the finger-pointing has already begun. As he's a trained lawyer, I don't believe he's stupid enough to have done this (again) unwittingly. It's pretty clear they want the community at its own throat. The "hardcore" and "casual" player bases are each other's dead cat on the table. While it's there, Blizzard can do almost what the fuck they like with the game, and we'll be too busy arguing amongst ourselves to actually call them to task over it.

Oh, I don't disagree with that. It is definitely their game to ruin as they see fit. The real discussion is around a) whether this is a good change, and b) whether you can believe the lame-ass reasons Ion gave for doing this.

I would argue a) is no, not at all. I would also argue b) what Ion said doesn't even make sense - which leads me to wonder, what in the world is the actual reason? Surely it's not just a gross sense of paternalism ("it's our game, we can do what we want and FU"). That would show a shocking amount of disconnect from their playerbase.

[WorldofWorkcraft]

Yet again, he's put one half of the community at the other's throat because the finger-pointing has already begun. As he's a trained lawyer, I don't believe he's stupid enough to have done this (again) unwittingly. It's pretty clear they want the community at its own throat. The "hardcore" and "casual" player bases are each other's dead cat on the table. While it's there, Blizzard can do almost what the fuck they like with the game, and we'll be too busy arguing amongst ourselves to actually call them to task over it.

I think this is the most important factor people are overlooking. People shouldn't be outraged at the change itself. And the people who don't mind the actual change shouldn't voice their indifference about the change. Everyone should come together and voice their distaste with the lack of communication and community feedback regarding the change. Those who are indifferent should be calling for them to revert it back on the basis that it was almost a definitive ninja statement during a beta and not a suggested QoL change. But that will probably not happen, since people are too engaged in the "side A or B" portion of it.

We should grab our pitchforks and get at Blizzard for not giving the people who play their game a loud enough voice within the development. Sounds funny to say, but it's true. Because without the people in beta, i.e. people testing for free, they'd have to hire a lot more people to test, and would come out with a much worse iteration of Legion than it's going to be.

[Evolixe]

Yeah, either right, left, forward or backwards. I'd suggest either of the three first options to get out of the aoe faster.
People make it into a bigger problem than it actually is, one could think it's the end of the world, when in reality it's just a very small change.

I am sure there will be hacks to let you zoom out far enough until your character is nothing but a pixel on your screen.

Okay; You can't see. You're weaving off the left side of an oval formed aoe zone. Lets randomly move out to the right.


If you don't see how this doesn't work that is extremely telling about your knowledge and ability to play this game.

[Dominus89]

Okay; You can't see. You're weaving off the left side of an oval formed aoe zone. Lets randomly move out to the right.


If you don't see how this doesn't work you are hopeless.

As are you if you think this is the end of raiding.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

I don't get his concerns about competitive advantage. I mean, this is mostly a raiding thing, right? Not so many big bosses in dungeons, and none in PvP. So this is mostly about raiding. Is he saying there are competitive raid teams where no one knows about max zoom?

[Evolixe]

As are you if you think this is the end of raiding.

Probably not. That doesn't mean I won't fight for it, and if necessary, forge my own way.

[Ryuda]

So, rather than write a knee-jerk negative response, I decided to first go in-game (on live), edit my CVars a little to replicate the Screenshots provided on the front page as close as possible (Note that the Legion "Slider Max" is significantly more zoomed out than Live's "Slider Max").

After doing this, I jumped into our weekly Mythic clear, to be perfectly honest, I expected it to make a huge change, I thought I'd start dying to dumb things all night from not seeing, I thought the boss taking up a larger portion on the screen would cause issues for me, and basically had every negative thought imaginable in my head about this change, and I expected I wouldn't even go the whole night without changing back to the old CVar max.

Instead, I was shocked, after the first hour or so, I barely noticed the change any more, my performance was pretty much unaffected (It might have taken me like .5 seconds longer to swap to some targets on Gorefiend which would have instantly been in my FoV before, which were now slightly left or right of my FoV, but that was the biggest difference.)

Not going to suddenly start saying that this is an amazing change or anything like that, but I think people need to actually give it a whirl before complaining, I think a lot of people will quickly realize that it's really a non-issue.

[azurrei]

PTR/Beta:

Live:

I maxed out the regular slider in-game, so no Macro's used or changes made.
When I was floating in the air and flying around I felt kind of uncomfortable with not being able to see what's doing on underneath me, or even more to the back of me, which I can on Live up to this day. Especially in Melee combat I felt kind of out of place as compared to Live.
Edit: Just for clarification reasons: this picture was taken purely for the purpose to showcase the change and the 50% decrease in maxed Camera distance. I usually use a different UI too.

While it is indeed a decrease in max camera distance (I verified using the same position,) your picture exagerates the issue a bit as you are standing one full block closer to the target dummy - not sure if that was intentional or not but it does make a difference, obviously

[Ryuda]

Okay; You can't see. You're weaving off the left side of an oval formed aoe zone. Lets randomly move out to the right.


If you don't see how this doesn't work that is extremely telling about your knowledge and ability to play this game.

So I ran some quick napkin math because this example seemed silly to me:

In order for this scenario to happen, assuming new FoV is roughly 60 yards in diameter, if you're looking completely, 100% top-down (which is roughly what it seems, maybe even 70-80 yards.) an "Oval shaped void zone" where you're standing slightly to the left, and still have 100% of your FoV covered in void-zone, and for some reason you can't angle your camera to look around, said void zone would need to be roughly 70-80 yards high at the thickest part (Roughly a terribly soaked Manny Gaze, or a raid-wipe worthy Defile) and at least 140-160 yards wide (Roughly the width of the average large boss room). A void zone like this does not actually exist in-game. Anywhere.

Edit: Also in the fictional scenario, if you're running left or right to get out of an oval, rather than forward, you're doing it very wrong.

[Kelsierx]

For fucks sake.

These are the kinds of changes that no one asked for.

Absolute fucking joke.

[Drusyn]

No, 90% of a hardcore raiders screen is already covered with all kinds of WAs, boss mods and raid frames, tell you what to do and when to do it. Dont even need to look at the screen, cause as soon as you stand in shit you're not supposed to, you get a sound alert, telling you to move out of the fire/poison/whatever.

FIVE
FOUR
THREE
TWO
ONE..
PRESS A BUTTON!

I choose to have that stuff on my screen though. I didn't choose to stair at ingrown hairs on a bosses thigh.

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Probably not. That doesn't mean I won't fight for it, and if necessary, forge my own way.

Forging your own way? Does that mean you'll be on the ban bus with me? We can sit next to each other :]

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but I think people need to actually give it a whirl before complaining, I think a lot of people will quickly realize that it's really a non-issue.

Every time I log on beta I try to scroll out but can't. I thought to myself "this is an annoying bug but it's ok because it'll be fixed for live", guess I was wrong.

[Fabinas]

No, I didn't. And that's why I think you're confused.

I'd suggest you take your own advice and read what you quoted one more time.



You don't need to be in beta. Read what Hazzikostas said; he believes (or the ever-present "they" when something is unpopular) that people zooming all the way out is now outside the spirit of the game and its presentation, hence the changes. I get that it outwardly looks like the removal of options because, when push comes to shove, that's exactly what it is. But it's high time that this community started to accept one thing:

Blizzard can do what the fuck they want with the game.

It's hard to accept seeing a game you love driven into the ground, and that's where the angst comes from. They were told, repeatedly, why Warlords of Draenor wouldn't work, or why class design is in the toilet, or why having anything to do with garrisons is self-defeating moving forward. They don't care. They're not interested. They're not looking for feedback.

They're looking for praise.

They're interested solely in people who agree with them, and they know that there are fans who will defend whatever they do and however they do it. Anyone who doesn't agree and explains clearly what their problem is? They just "don't understand the design intent". Get a little angry at your concern being brushed off without understood? Now you're being abusive, and no longer worth listening to because you're a part of angry forum noise.

Every time they make a change of this sort, they design the game around it. In the last few years, their decisions have sucked more than soared, but it's not going to change. The most worrying thing about Warlords of Draenor is that Ion Hazzikostas got promoted, and nobody got sacked.



I agree, actually.

Yet again, he's put one half of the community at the other's throat because the finger-pointing has already begun. As he's a trained lawyer, I don't believe he's stupid enough to have done this (again) unwittingly. It's pretty clear they want the community at its own throat. The "hardcore" and "casual" player bases are each other's dead cat on the table. While it's there, Blizzard can do almost what the fuck they like with the game, and we'll be too busy arguing amongst ourselves to actually call them to task over it.

Oh they can. And we can force them the fuck to take their shit back, like with flying.

Also, talking about conspiracy theories, pro post.