Patch notes 6.3:

2.x
Custom settings for camera controls applied in the Character Configuration menu will now be reflected in the Try On feature and portrait editor preview images.
* Updated on Wednesday, January 11, 2023 at 1:00 a.m. (PST).

So it was an intentional change.

But I think the developers don't quite understand why people reverse camera controls, and to be fair, I think many who have never used them don't understand.

For me and others I've spoken to who use reversed camera controls, the mental modal is that I'm moving the camera itself, like a physical object. It has a pivot arm locked on the character and has to move left in order to show what is to the right of the character, and if I want to look up to the sky, the camera needs to move downwards in order to look up.

However, in the character preview window, the camera isn't moving, the character is. If I am rotating or moving the character, it's like a direct touch screen (the cursor is now like my finger touching a phone, if I move up, the character does too. And swiping left and right rotate in the respective directions).

I wondered if this was a difference between mouse and gamepad, but no. It's just as bad on gamepad. In fact, even worse to an extent because the movement up/down/left/right is on the left stick and inverted and the rotate is on the right stick (again inverted). Left stick control being inverted only makes sense in a 3D space with tilt, pitch and yaw movement. Here is it manipulating movement on a 2D plane and having that inverted is mindboggling.



Dear devs,
Please revert this change. If there are any players who prefer this inverted controls for a static camera, maybe consider giving it to them as a separate option.

It doesn't align with the mental model of camera movement vs static viewpoint movement at all, and feels really unnatural for the reasons stated above.

Kind regards,
Winta Phoenix

(Apparently you can't use the word "phoenix" in forum usernames, which I assume is because it includes the word "enix"... *grumble*)