Accessibility — Praise & Grumbles

[Hypnowulf.7403]

Guild Wars 2 can be an extremely frustrating experience largely because of what it almost is, yet isn't. There are areas where the game lets itself down and I feel like a lot of profitable players would (and have) bounce off of it because of these issues. So I want to look at some positives and negatives.

Praise

After recently playing Final Fantasy XIV I realised just how much I value that Guild Wars 2 doesn't really have any invisible self-buffs with tiny timers to watch. World of Warcraft traumatised me with that nonsense as, due to my disabilities, I have a bad memory and very poor sight that can't be fixed with glasses (optic nerve issues). I think the closest GW2 has in spirit are the shield buffs but you can at least see those on your health and it's more how long they last rather than a timer. Other buffs can be seen in the world, such as engineer turrets, glowing ground circles, domes, et cetera. This makes GW2 a joy to play and it's the only game of its ilk I can play.

The balancing has been top-notch as well. I've played so many games where players are punished for not being a part of a grinding guild and spending their lives grinding away for resources. The iterative approach to balance in GW2 is part of the reason that I stick with this game. It means that I know that a month from now my characters won't be utterly destroyed. I mean, if they were? I'd just leave. I don't like that, it feels abusive and disrespectful of the people who're giving a company money. I'm glad ArenaNet isn't like that.

Grumbles

Your crafting system sucks and disincentivises anything other than DPS builds. If, for example, I wanted to kit a character out in a full set of trailblazer's exotic gear (including jewellery, backpack, et cetera)? The amount of grinding I have to do in Heart of Thorns makes me want to vomit. I can't do it. It's sickening. It's just horrible. Heart of Thorns is... disgusting, frankly, from an accessibility perspective. I can barely see where I'm going due to all the visual noise, I can rarely ever tell a physical platform from background details, and deadly attacks come out of seemingly nowhere. The way to fix this is to reduce the requirements and give us alternative places to grind other than Heart of Thorns.

There's just too much grind overall. I mean, look at what you need for the latest infusion. It's just too much. That's going to traumatise anyone who isn't a hardcore grinder. On top of that, you have forced grouping for some items that those with themed characters will really want. For me, it was the Whisper of Jormag mini. That required joining a strike as a group. Forced grouping is never okay, it's the MMO industry's cancer. It killed WildStar before it even had a chance to try to survive. Sickeningly, anxiety-inducingly high requirements for simple, cosmetic rewards and forced grouping will turn away players. The way to fix this is to offer alternatives. Sell them on the gem store if you have to.

Conclusion

Guild Wars 2 is almost the perfect game for disabled people. Though until the issues I've spoken of are fixed it can't really be recommneded. Whilst it doesn't feel quite as actively, vindictively, sadistically hateful of disabled people as other MMOs, that it feels somewhat actively, vindictively, sadistically hateful of disabled people is not okay. Ableism is not okay. You can do better, ArenaNet. Your game is so, so amazingly good. I wouldn't be telling you this if I didn't care.

The thing is is that by ignoring how much your game could attract disabled people who don't really have many options, you're hurting your bottom line. I'm sticking it out but... it wears on me. It's tiring. It's a horrible thing feeling loathed just because I'm disabled, because I have limits in regards to my endurance due to problems relating to physical issues, sight issues, panic problems, and anxietieis. I've been very gneerous with my money in supporting Guild Wars 2 so I hope my word counts for something.

There would be a lot more appreciative disabled people playing this game if these problems were fixed. It's already so good, so much bette rthan other MMOs, you only have so far to go to really be in the best position to bring in a great many disabled gamers.

I'd ask any community managers to pass this along because this is important.

Addendum

I think that some of the designers have a misunderstanding of why people would stick with GW2. Is it because of operant conditioning chambers? Heck no. Stop with that garbage. People play GW2 because it's actually fun. It's fun to replay the story, to roll an alt, to do the events, to just run around and explore, to do map complete, to just doop around and enjoy it. So please... Try to understand the audience you've managed to build here. This isn't WoW. Every time you try to move even slightly in that direction, it hurts the game. The less you do, I'm betting the better you do financially as well. These elements that feel kind of WoW wannabe? They don't belong here. GW2 is too good for them.

[Randulf.7614]

It is difficult to fully disagree with your points as I am not approaching it from your perspective so it would be unfair to challenge most of your points when I don’t have the accessibility issues. My arguments would therefore be invalid and unfair.

However I fully disagree with your point that forced grouping should never happen in an mmo. On the contrary, it has to happen - even if limited to some areas - for an mmo to function and survive. Even GW2

The mini you speak of isn’t a case of forcing players to group - that would be akin to the Zhaitan fight from launch which was forced grouping to do the story. This is a case of incentivising or rewarding group play which is massively important and healthy for the game. The problem is not in the forced grouping but that it just happens to be the item you want.

The only suitable way round that is just to make it gem store buyable as well or a black statuette item, but not rewarding a few exclusives to group based content would not be good for the long term health if the game

The rest of your points have a lot more validity. Whilst I find thecrafting system excellent, it has got overly complicated and unnecessarily grindy to get certain stat combos and that could use streamlining for sure

I will also add that Anet are generally receptive to accessibility feedback - they for example have made many changes for colourblind players over the years amongst other things. I don’t think large wholesale ones will happen, but I do think it is important to continue to stress where difficulties lie for anyone with a disability because it can aid them to design content from a different perspective - something Anet are usually good at.

[Linken.6345]

Dident anet go back and fix skyscale ball play to help a disabled player be able to complete it in season 4?

[Rogue.8235]

@Hypnowulf.7403 said:Guild Wars 2 can be an extremely frustrating experience largely because of what it almost is, yet isn't. There are areas where the game lets itself down and I feel like a lot of profitable players would (and have) bounce off of it because of these issues. So I want to look at some positives and negatives.

Praise

After recently playing Final Fantasy XIV I realised just how much I value that Guild Wars 2 doesn't really have any invisible self-buffs with tiny timers to watch. World of Warcraft traumatised me with that nonsense as, due to my disabilities, I have a bad memory and very poor sight that can't be fixed with glasses (optic nerve issues). I think the closest GW2 has in spirit are the shield buffs but you can at least see those on your health and it's more how long they last rather than a timer. Other buffs can be seen in the world, such as engineer turrets, glowing ground circles, domes, et cetera. This makes GW2 a joy to play and it's the only game of its ilk I can play.

As a blind player I find GW2 to be the only MMO I can really play. It has enough sound cues that I can play it without needing to see anything. There are still some things that are extremely difficult due to lack of distinctive audio cues/feedback, but those aren't really that common.

So you know, I have one eye, and it's blind. The only vision is in the lower left corner (rest is completely non-functional), and in that field of view I can only really detect motion, no visual detail. On top of that, I can't perceive higher frequencies of light (blues and the like). As such, I don't have usable vision for video games.

The balancing has been top-notch as well. I've played so many games where players are punished for not being a part of a grinding guild and spending their lives grinding away for resources. The iterative approach to balance in GW2 is part of the reason that I stick with this game. It means that I know that a month from now my characters won't be utterly destroyed. I mean, if they were? I'd just leave. I don't like that, it feels abusive and disrespectful of the people who're giving a company money. I'm glad ArenaNet isn't like that.

Grumbles

Your crafting system sucks and disincentivises anything other than DPS builds. If, for example, I wanted to kit a character out in a full set of trailblazer's exotic gear (including jewellery, backpack, et cetera)? The amount of grinding I have to do in Heart of Thorns makes me want to vomit. I can't do it. It's sickening. It's just horrible. Heart of Thorns is... disgusting, frankly, from an accessibility perspective. I can barely see where I'm going due to all the visual noise, I can rarely ever tell a physical platform from background details, and deadly attacks come out of seemingly nowhere. The way to fix this is to reduce the requirements and give us alternative places to grind other than Heart of Thorns.

I actually mostly agree with this. I view leveling and gearing as a tutorial, not an aspect of core gameplay. As such, I don't like most MMO's. However, this is something core to the genre and so I accept it. While I dislike it, it's not enough for me to avoid this game. I just casually gear up my 21 characters at a leisurely pace.

There's just too much grind overall. I mean, look at what you need for the latest infusion. It's just too much. That's going to traumatise anyone who isn't a hardcore grinder. On top of that, you have forced grouping for some items that those with themed characters will really want. For me, it was the Whisper of Jormag mini. That required joining a strike as a group. Forced grouping is never okay, it's the MMO industry's cancer. It killed WildStar before it even had a chance to try to survive. Sickeningly, anxiety-inducingly high requirements for simple, cosmetic rewards and forced grouping will turn away players. The way to fix this is to offer alternatives. Sell them on the gem store if you have to.

I view this as a core component of the entire genre. MMO players, as a market segment, tend to require skinner boxes. At least a vocal subsection of it does, based on the majority of posts in this forum. This is based on motivation for play. I play to enjoy the mechanics of the game itself,. It is intrinsically enjoyable for me I am not motivated purely by rewards, which is essentially a Skinner box.

As for grouping, I can understand this. I don't really group anymore because I can't communicate with other players ingame in real time. It is an exhausting process to convert a picture of text into screen readable strings. This doesn't bother me because that's just the way my disability is. If I really want to do group contact, I can use voice comms with people I know. Everyone I play with in GW2 is someone I met ingame, too.

Conclusion

Guild Wars 2 is almost the perfect game for disabled people. Though until the issues I've spoken of are fixed it can't really be recommneded. Whilst it doesn't feel quite as actively, vindictively, sadistically hateful of disabled people as other MMOs, that it feels somewhat actively, vindictively, sadistically hateful of disabled people is not okay. Ableism is not okay. You can do better, ArenaNet. Your game is so, so amazingly good. I wouldn't be telling you this if I didn't care.

I don't see this at all. I have no idea how you draw this conclusion. I can even do ranked PvP and reach Plat 1 while blind. I have adapted myself to the usable things in game. Example, I'm a perfect thief counter. Stealth is a non-issue, I can't see them anyways. Thief evade frames are the loudest cues on any profession. As a thief player, I am familiar with the evade frame timing as well. Thieves are easy as long as I have a build that isn't countered by them.

By this, I learn to adapt myself to the enviornment. Playing video games helps with my aural reaction times. It is so much easier for me to adapt my gameplay to GW2 than it is to adapt myself to the real world. GW2 has enough to play without usable vision.There are still some things to work out, such as audio culling, but this are nitpicky things.

Again, I do not understand, nor aggree with, your conclusion here.

The thing is is that by ignoring how much your game could attract disabled people who don't really have many options, you're hurting your bottom line. I'm sticking it out but... it wears on me. It's tiring. It's a horrible thing feeling loathed just because I'm disabled, because I have limits in regards to my endurance due to problems relating to physical issues, sight issues, panic problems, and anxietieis. I've been very gneerous with my money in supporting Guild Wars 2 so I hope my word counts for something.

There would be a lot more appreciative disabled people playing this game if these problems were fixed. It's already so good, so much bette rthan other MMOs, you only have so far to go to really be in the best position to bring in a great many disabled gamers.

I'd ask any community managers to pass this along because this is important.

There are technical limitations to making video games completely accessible to everyone in every way. For example, how can they include ambient sound mechanics such that I can hear the environment in the same way that I hear the environment in real life. I can hear patterns of deadspace and reverb to identify the shape, size, and general physical properties of a room. There just isn't a feasible way of simulating this in an online game. It is healthier to have realistic expectations based on economically viable technology. Research is done by companies and organizations created to do research, not video game development firms. I don't expect ArenaNet to research and develop new technologies that innovate the way we live our modern lives; only video games.

Addendum

I think that some of the designers have a misunderstanding of why people would stick with GW2. Is it because of operant conditioning chambers? Heck no. Stop with that garbage. People play GW2 because it's actually fun. It's fun to replay the story, to roll an alt, to do the events, to just run around and explore, to do map complete, to just doop around and enjoy it. So please... Try to understand the audience you've managed to build here. This isn't WoW. Every time you try to move even slightly in that direction, it hurts the game. The less you do, I'm betting the better you do financially as well. These elements that feel kind of WoW wannabe? They don't belong here. GW2 is too good for them.

EDIT: You can see my post history to gain a blind perspective. One thing is that Arenanet changed some races to be more like the halloween races which have checkpoints with sound. Not sure if this was based on my review but I definitely noticed it after the last halloween event.