I’ve been playing heroes since 5 years more or less and I always played it with the camera locked, I know ex-pro and high gm players (and probably 90% of all other players) play with the camera unlocked, so my question is, it is a must to have the camera unlocked, even if I’m used to play locked, to improve my performance, or I can make my own playstyle work with locked camera. Thanks.
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I used to be like you. I stubbornly clung to the default camera lock setting. There was no reason other than that I preferred using it.
Eventually I figured out that you can see stealth easier (at the time stealth worked entirely differently) if the camera wasn’t moving around all the time, so I reluctantly forced myself to at least try it out for a while to help deal with the annoying stealth heroes.
Unsurprisingly, it did indeed help. It was difficult to get used to at first, but over time it just felt natural and infinitely better than having my camera locked onto my hero.
Even now that stealth is no longer an eye-test, I still wouldn’t switch back. I prefer it that much.
I don’t really have any evidence as far as strategical advantage to use to convince you otherwise except for the fact that pros definitely prefer it, but if you do what I did and forced yourself to use it then, over time, you will likely prefer it too.
On a side note: For certain heroes it may actually be preferred to use locked camera, such as on Tracer or similar heroes that jump around a lot on the screen. But I don’t know. I’m not going to test it unless they let me save my preferred camera settings on a per-character basis.
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locked camera is NOT acceptable. you dont wanna be thought of as a class F noobie do you 
all you have to do to center the camera is press the space bar.
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I think the locked camera prevents you to observe the whole situation on the field. Which is not good for making exact decisions.
And, you always can hold the spacebar if you need your camera to be locked for a while.
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When I play Gall, if I don’t use Locked camera, I lose track of everything too quickly. I swear my legs are drunk…
I do use Locked camera on several melee heroes, especially when facing displacement. On healers or ranged assassins, it is much easier to hit skillshots with an Unlocked camera.
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Only hero I use an unlocked camera on is Abathur, and even then I switch back to locked during clone.
I get seasick when my hero moves and the camera doesn’t. It’s very disorienting.
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I find it to be just a personal preference. Locked makes me feel visually constrained, and it took me about 15s to undo that and have never looked back. Other people, Locked helps them focus on what’s around them. If you’ve tried both and figured out what’s best for you, or whoever you’re playing, there’s no reason to think that there’s a correct answer to this preference.
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I have a friend who can only play Gall when the camera is locked to Cho… Otherwise they find themselves looking too far ahead, anticipating where to go next-- only they arent the one in the driver’s seat, so the likes of planning and thinking ahead simply become a matter of “over thinking” to them.
It is absolutely easier to play with camera unlocked. That was one of the first things I did when I started playing this game, I unlocked the camera in my very first match because I couldn’t stand being locked in like that
Here’s a couple reasons why I’d strongly suggest you unlock the camera.
- It feels incredibly limiting to constantly have to click the minimap to scroll more than half a screen. It makes it very difficult to quickly check your surroundings. It also drags your view back to your own character after a short duration, meaning you have to constantly readjust your viewbox just to continue looking at the same spot.
- It often makes targeting skillshots and AoEs more difficult as it basically makes it so the ground is moving instead of your hero, so you have to adjust your cursor position constantly even just to hit a stationary target. It basically forces you to play this game more like an FPS, where your movements cause parallax and forces you to take your own movement into account when trying to click at/on target.
- This reason Darhide mentioned, which I had not realized before (due to always playing in unlocked cam) but makes complete sense now that I think about it.
- The motion blur of the background moving along your screen would help the shimmer blend in so much better.
I find that having free control over your camera’s position and having to readjust by hitting spacebar every now or then just is soooooo much easier and more convenient.
You might be able to make locked cam work, but I guarantee you’ll be putting yourself at a disadvantage.
That being said, there are heroes you might actually prefer to keep camlock on.
Like Hoku mentioned, playing Gall on unlocked cam will make either your head or your stomach hurt. Or both. It’s very disorienting, and so he is the only hero I would always recommend keeping camlock on for.
Zeratul is another one that you might prefer to keep it on (or even better, toggle it on or off as need be), as it can be difficult to keep up with all his Blinking around.
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You can make it work, and do well with it.
But unlocking it and getting used to it being unlocked will force you to become better, faster.
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Use whatever works for you I guess but don’t be afraid to give unlocked a good try. You might realise it works out better for you but don’t force yourself to use it if it doesn’t, you could be within that 10% of players who stand by locked. Personally I like it unlocked so I can track whats going on in a fight more, rather than it moving about all the time.
Same applies to quick cast, I was stubborn at first to not use it then when I tried it it really worked for me. Most will stand by this but some don’t, including Fan, so you don’t have to go with the majority
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The advantage of locked camera is positional awareness. You’ll always know your hero is at the center of the screen. It helps with some heroes and cannot be turned off while Abathur uses Symbiote on somebody. For the rest of the heroes it’s a matter of preference, really.
So what do you lose when you lock the camera?
- Freedom to look around. Although you can just press a button to shortly unlock it whenever you want.
- Some environmental awareness since everything moves with you. This is again less of a deal than they make.
- The ability to position the camera so your field of view adjusts to the current situation. This is something advanced players do.
So let’s talk about the last one. When your camera is unlocked it can look anywhere, yet you still want to see your hero. A common trick with camera which more experienced players use is to use it akin to a more flexible locked camera. Basically you always adjust the camera relative to the position of your character to fit the situation. For example you are doing camp and expect enemies to come from the left side. You move the camera to the left so you are provided more vision from that direction. This is also something you do when using “artillery heroes” with long range attacks but in higher leagues players do make use of the camera to also obtain little advantages like this.
EDIT:
An old guide on camera usage which you might still find useful.
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I just can’t do unlocked. Call me a noob or whatever. I also don’t stutterstep with a-move.
I personally find it way more difficult to aim skillshots when camera is unlocked. I’m moving, enemy is moving, I miss everything. I have no idea where I am when playing unlocked, or where I am going. Yes I know you just press spacebar to recenter. Yes I know the advantages of unlocked. Yes I have played a whole game with unlocked.
I just cannot stand it. I think it is that every game that I have ever played (outside of tycoon games) the camera is locked in by default, with no option to move it. My character not being in the center of the screen is a completely foreign gameplay experience.
I probably could relearn, but I play fine as is.
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Im on team: Cam lock-on
The only legitimate benefit to lock off is as Darhide said, it greatly improved visibility of stealth shimmer. Now that stealth is no longer an issue, everything else boils down to personal preference. Any argument can be counter argued.
Very true, scouting does require more mouse movements and more APM. However, scouting is typically done during downtime (i.e. moments in the game when you can afford to spare the extra APM).
Conversely, during high intensity, micro management moments (e.g. in the middle of a fight) extra APM spent on camera adjustments are significantly reduced thanks to locked. This frees up your precious time allowing you to make better micro plays during these critical moments of the game.
Even pressing space bar (as others have mentioned) requires time to regain your bearings and re-adjust the position of your mouse curser relative to your screen (albeit this takes milli-seconds).
This purely comes down to personal preference and what you’ve practiced. Regardless of what you prefer, aiming skill shots requires a static point of reference. For lock-off players, that reference is the static terrain. For lock-on players, it’s their static hero.
The benefit of lock-on is that you have fluid sensitivity adjustment in your skill shot. What do I mean by that?
Let’s say you’re Jaina casting a simple skill shot (frost bolt). Jaina is in the centre of your screen.
If you move your mouse on the edge of your screen (far away from jaina) and move your mouse approximately 1 inch on your screen, your skill shot will change angles by about 5 degrees.
However, if you move your mouse close to jaina’s feet and move that same inch, your skill shot will change angle by a dramatic 170 degrees.
So the further away your curser is from your hero, the more sensitive your shot. Kind of like a sniper resting his gun on a ledge.
This obviously doesnt work for all skill shots (e.g. limings missiles requiring a focal point), but this general rule applies to most shots in the game.
…
Sorry, ive put a lot of thought into my rational so hope it makes sense. As Teamascott said:
A grand master can make non-quick cast work.
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As someone who plays a bit of locked camera because symbiote just has to be camera locked… the fluidity of aiming skillshots is identical to me for each.
Maybe I actively adapt to whichever I’m in.
Both are viable. Although I stand by unlocking the camera will force you to get better faster overall.
(As in you’ll be forced to become a better player in a shorter period of time versus locked camera. Not that you will instantly become better and play faster, or will end up being better after hundreds of games).
What I really wish locked camera would do is allow you to set where on the screen you want your hero to be locked to.
On that note, it would be cool if you could set lock on/off in settings per hero like quick cast can be done per ability.
I’m in the same boat with quick cast in a way. There are enough abilities I don’t want to quick cast that if I had to choose on or off only, I would choose off. The 20-30% of abilities I don’t want quick cast on would suffer more with it than the other 70-80% that are quick cast. Although thankfully you can just choose what is quick cast manually! And figuring out what I want to quick cast has made me better.
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Its much harder for me to aim for an enemy with a locked cam ironically. When I was first introduced to it I was praying this wasn’t the only format available.
This, I mean if a player like Fan can make Locked camera work, it just means there is zero difference which one you use and it’s purely up to personal preference.
And with that in mind, most people with Unlocked are still people in bronze-gold ranks like anyone else. Yet if even GM has a few Locked users, that means it has no bearing on your winrate whatsoever.
The reduced visibility is a bad argument too, because you can achieve the same thing by clicking on minimap (which is even faster than moving the mouse to slowly pan the screen).
I personally switch between both depending on which hero I play.
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Hard to draw any conclusions without knowing how many people use the feature.
If half the Masters population use hero lock most/all of the time, only a few in GM using it could mean a lot.
I don’t think that is the case, and I completely agree that camera lock doesn’t hold you back overall. But with the lack of data we have, hard to draw conclusions either way.
Not to say “a few GMs use it so it is equally good” or to say “only abnormally lucky and good people who lock their camera make it to GM, so it makes you worse”.
It seems to me that these are the personal preferences of each player, depending on the hero he plays. On some, for example on Abathur, I personally turn off the camera follow function. And on some other hero, on the contrary, I shall turn on this function as it is more convenient for me.
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The only relevant thing is your overall performance.
Use whatever setting is confortable for you.
I do recommend to at least give it a long enough try to form your own opinion on it.
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