[v278] Zoom is not centered on the cursor

[Zeckul]

As a long-time RTS player, my expectation in a game with RTS-like camera controls and zoom is for zoom to be centered on the cursor rather than on the center of the screen. This allows me to zoom-and-pan in a single motion which is very efficient. See Supreme Commander, Sins of a Solar Empire. Not being able to control where zoom takes its center point feels clunky.

Edited September 8, 2014 by Zeckul

[Sensuki]

It's an extreme edge case for games to center on the cursor

 

Warcraft 3 certainly doesn't. DotA 2 doesn't, Aarklash Legacy doesn't ... etc etc

I would say no to this.

 

You control the zoom by moving the screen to the position you want.

Edited September 8, 2014 by Sensuki

[Zeckul]

In Warcraft 3 and Starcraft 2 it's a zoom-and-tilt that serves practically no gameplay purpose - most players actually disable the functionality to avoid accidentally triggering it. I haven't played DotA 2 but I would assume it's similarly useless.

 

For the little I've played PoE I found myself zooming in and out often depending on the circumstances (zoom out is useful to get an overview, zoom in for combat, etc.) There's no advantage that I can see to having zoom always centered on the center of the screen. If you spend any sort of time playing a game that supports zooming on the cursor it just feels primitive and awkward to have to do this movement in two distinct motions rather than one.

[Falendor]

^{I usually find zoom on mouse annoying. id say don't bother.}

[Zeckul]

Note that this is also the behavior in Google Maps, which everyone is familiar with. Or the Windows Photo Viewer, or any good image editor. 

 

Basically in any application where zoom is actually important it will be implemented like this.

Edited September 8, 2014 by Zeckul

[Falendor]

Note that this is also the behavior in Google Maps, which everyone is familiar with. Or the Windows Photo Viewer, or any good image editor. 

 

Basically in any application where zoom is actually important it will be implemented like this.

I knew there was something I used that zoomed on mouse that had bugged the **** out of me. wish google maps had a way to change that setting.

[Sensuki]

People use the zoom function to determine the level of zoom they want for the game. Some people don't like the claustrophobic zoom level the game has by default (which is the level of the source art), so they zoom out.

[Zeckul]

 

Note that this is also the behavior in Google Maps, which everyone is familiar with. Or the Windows Photo Viewer, or any good image editor. 

 

Basically in any application where zoom is actually important it will be implemented like this.

I knew there was something I used that zoomed on mouse that had bugged the **** out of me. wish google maps had a way to change that setting.

Current workflow in Google Maps with zoom to cursor, if you want to zoom on a particular point on the map:

 

1. Put the cursor where you want to zoom

2. Scroll with the wheel until the camera is at the position and zoom level you want

 

You're telling me that you'd prefer:

 

1. Scroll with the wheel a little

2. Pan a little to approximately recenter the camera where you want it to be

3. Repeat until the camera is at the position and zoom level you want - this may take arbitrarily many repetitions

 

This is clearly a lot more work and fussing about.

[Zeckul]

People use the zoom function to determine the level of zoom they want for the game. Some people don't like the claustrophobic zoom level the game has by default (which is the level of the source art), so they zoom out.

Are you arguing that they don't change it often? I find that not be true in my case, although the unnecessary amount of work to reposition the camera due to it being centered on the screen seemed to encourage me not to. People are more inclined to use a feature when it works well.

[Sensuki]

No I'm not, I'm just saying that for the vast majority of games that have a zoom, it zooms on the center of the screen rather than the mouse cursor. I wouldn't want it to zoom on my cursor, that would be annoying.

Edited September 8, 2014 by Sensuki

[Zeckul]

No I'm not, I'm just saying that for the vast majority of games that have a zoom, it zooms on the center of the screen rather than the mouse cursor. I wouldn't want it to zoom on my cursor, that would be annoying.

The vast majority of games that have a zoom also auto-center the camera on something, i.e. the player character. I think I illustrated well that in games and applications with zoom and panning and where zoom plays an important role, it's implemented as zoom to cursor. I'm not sure why it would be annoying other than perhaps being unfamiliar, but there are enough widely used applications with zoom to cursor that it shouldn't be that strange to players.

[Sensuki]

That's locked camera games, not free camera games.

[Zeckul]

That's locked camera games, not free camera games.

Exactly, so they're not relevant.

[Sensuki]

No, you were talking about locked camera games.

 

I was talking about free camera RTS style games that have a zoom - like Warcraft 3, DotA 2 and all that.

[Falendor]

 

 

Note that this is also the behavior in Google Maps, which everyone is familiar with. Or the Windows Photo Viewer, or any good image editor. 

 

Basically in any application where zoom is actually important it will be implemented like this.

I knew there was something I used that zoomed on mouse that had bugged the **** out of me. wish google maps had a way to change that setting.

Current workflow in Google Maps with zoom to cursor, if you want to zoom on a particular point on the map:

 

1. Put the cursor where you want to zoom

2. Scroll with the wheel until the camera is at the position and zoom level you want

 

You're telling me that you'd prefer:

 

1. Scroll with the wheel a little

2. Pan a little to approximately recenter the camera where you want it to be

3. Repeat until the camera is at the position and zoom level you want - this may take arbitrarily many repetitions

 

This is clearly a lot more work and fussing about.

 

Basically what I run into with Google maps is I tell it to center on a location and it does, then I zoom in to get a closer look at it and it zooms on my mouse instead leaving me looking at something miles away.

PO does not zoom out nearly as far Google maps but as a game I would find mouse zooming to be very counter intuitive.

[Zeckul]

No, you were talking about locked camera games.

 

I was talking about free camera RTS style games that have a zoom - like Warcraft 3, DotA 2 and all that.

Ok then I misunderstood you, I thought you were talking about all games. Well, as I said, in these games you typically don't zoom except perhaps for the fun of inspecting animations from time to time. In RTS games where zoom plays a really important role because of their scale, as in SupCom or SoaSE, it's implemented as zoom to cursor. These games would be impossible to play otherwise.

 

Anyway, PoE zoom scale isn't that large so it limits the inconvenience of having to pan the camera to recenter it after zooming (you won't have too much panning to do), but still, it's a slight inconvenience. I'd probably use the feature more if it allowed me to move the camera around faster.

Edited September 8, 2014 by Zeckul

[Zeckul]

I should add that zoom to cursor is a convenient way to scroll around when some edges of the screen are difficult to access, which can happen in windowed mode or in multi-monitor scenarios.

[Sensuki]

That's what the arrow keys are for.

[NCarver]

Hello all,

 

Thank you for your feedback. It seems to me that this is more or less a topic that should be held in the discussion forums as it comes down to a matter of preference.

 

Thank you for your support during the backer beta!