Colorblind mode progress, Devs?

[KurokouNekoki.7891]

Hello Devs,

I wanted to inquire on how far is the Colorblind Accessibility Option Development Progressing?

The last 2 episodes introduced the Dragons Response Missions, that are practically undoable for colorblind people without any good party that understand that you will be passing most of your time trying to find where the enemies are than fighting.

Most of the time I'm being kicked out for underperforming in the mission.

In that light I would really like to know how far is the is the development for having this option. As unfortunately this makes the new content unplayable.The new Emote is litterally out of my reach because of something that should have been given a workaround from the very beginning.

Please, for all the players that have colorblindness, give us an update!

[Fueki.4753]

As much as I would like you to get your mode,I doubt Arenanet has any developers and other resources to spare for its development.

[Linken.6345]

Well considering they havent said they are even working on it, prob way behind legendary armory and alliances.

[TheQuickFox.3826]

Windows 10 has several colorblind modes and I heard it also works in games. If it does not work, try windowed fullscreen mode.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/9maele/does_the_colorblind_filter_persist_through_games/

And as a side note: Special glasses exist that can help some but not all people with color blindness to see near-full color again.

(Colorblind people experiencing full color vision for the first time)

[KurokouNekoki.7891]

@Linken.6345 said:Well considering they havent said they are even working on it, prob way behind legendary armory and alliances.

I think I have read about them announcing the option for EoD, but considering the content they just pulled in the game, it's kind of very bad for players that would like to do the content, but who cannot due to an accessibility option that should have been in the game from the very beginning.I think this would take more priority than the Legendary Armory, considering it litterally blocks progress for some people.> @"TheQuickFox.3826" said:

Windows 10 has several colorblind modes and I heard it also works in games. If it does not work, try windowed fullscreen mode.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/9maele/does_the_colorblind_filter_persist_through_games/

And as a side note: Special glasses exist that can help some but not all people with color blindness to see near-full color again.

(Colorblind people experiencing full color vision for the first time)

From what I saw, those glasses are not the cheap kind either.

[Mia.5386]

Old topic, but I need to chime in here, Colors in GW2 are a major issue for so many of us, and with the new Season 1 strike out, I need to vocalize this.
TDLR;

Quote

~ Plz add sound customization to boss mechanics

~ Plz change the "prefix" for Squad chat to "d" or "sq" instead of "s".

~ Plz dont brush this off by saying "use glasses" or "use windows colorblind mode"... Those options do not help with the issues we are having here.

 

In the new Old lions arch strike, the new method of handling ground mechanics is amazing, and it should be applied to old content as well. Making the "safe floor" white as a direct contrast against the "bad" red zones which otherwise fade to the point of being imperceivable is fantastic. However, the personally targeted mechanics, (such as the expanding high damage circle which you want to run out from the group) my friends claim put a green-ish filter over the screen when we have it. I cannot see this, so I am stuck trying to pick out a very faint circle under my feet for the entire fight. This is not fun, and if more content comes with personalized mechanics like this, I likely will not be able to do that new content.

 

Now, I know that changing colors is a complex task with so many variants to cover everyone that it would take forever to do (and people would still complain it wasnt done well), so I have a second idea, Give us some sound configuration options, please. If anyone ever played WoW and used the raid addon DBM, you will be familiar with the concept of playing a loud noise when you get certain dangerous mechanics (with a separate volume slider from other "effects"). If we could have an option to play a more obvious, or at least louder than other effects, noise (looking at you, "faint sizzling" teleporter noise on Cairn) when a mechanic is about to hit us, it would do wonders for anyone with a vision impairment of any kind (and for those without for that matter, so many people are more reactive to sound than theyu are visuals).

 

As a followup to the other stuff in this post, colorblind glasses can only help so much. My friends tell me that the "whisper" and "party" chat are different colors, as are "say" and "squad" chat, to me they are not, (on that note, please make Squad chat use a different letter, currently both use "[s]" which does not help with how similar their colors are...). Colorblind glasses to not help to distinguish, they only make colors more "vibrant". The best comparison I can offer here, since thankfully I can see Orange nicely, is imagine if every single color in the world had the strong edge contrast that orange and purple do against each other most of you. It stands out, but it is also headache inducing. That is what those glasses do.

On the other hand, software solutions to change colors can only go so far. They cannot make ONLY the mechanics more visible; they make everything more or less "bright/contrasting", which does not help with the problem we are having.

[Mia.5386]

I have to express my extreme disappointment that despite toting "communication" and "listening to the community" there is no information about colorblind accessibility improvements going on at all, despite the numerous posts requesting it. Nearly half of the global human population is colorblind in some way or another. We are not asking for groundbreaking options to be offered, just alternatives that would be helpful both for those with color deficiency and for those with any form of visual impediment.

 

Basic items like being able to tell which chat channel people are talking in, currently I cannot see a difference between /say and /squad (or /s and /d) and despite both having different / commands to access each channel, they use the same tag to identify them... [s]. Why?

 

Please, a simple option to increase the volume of boss mechanics (separately from all other "effect" noises), and a simple change in the letter used to tag the squad channel (make is [d] or [sq]) would be plenty to make this game more accessible from the get go.

(would a colorblind pallet like World of Warcraft offers be nice, sure, is it necessary, not really, the color isnt important in most of these cases, being able to NOTICE that there is a change is what matters, and for many people, that simple isnt possible in a game an colorful as this one. PLEASE ANET, Throw us a bone).

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

59 minutes ago, Mia.5386 said:

Nearly half of the global human population is colorblind in some way or another.

How common is color blindness?

 

 

It's a common problem that affects around 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women. An odd interpretation of 'half'.

[Mia.5386]

The fact that it is defined as "common" at all still proves the point. Admittedly "nearly half" is an exaggeration (yes people do that on the internet). That does not diminish the fact that a notable portion of those with access to this game are colorblind, nor the fact that these requests are not exclusively for colorblind people, there are general accessibility requests for anyone who has any form of visual or perceptual impairment, some people just need more sound control, or more obvious differences.

How many people wear glasses? How many more need them but cant afford them? How many people simply have a learning disability or struggle to perceive rapid changes visually? How many people use a warm monitor color so that nighttime gaming is easier on the eyes, but that makes it so you cant easily tell squad from say chat?

There any many groups who would benefit from the very minor requests we want to see here, and just because you personally do not fit into one of them, does not give you a reason to be rude about it. Please if you are not going to support these simple accessibility requests, Stand back and let those of us who need them have a voice.

[Sirius.4510]

Accessibility is becoming a big deal in games lately, and does seem like the sort of thing ArenaNet would be inclined to support, so re-evaluating issues like these that affect a significant proportion of the game's audience does seem to be a good idea. I recognize, though, that the amount of "visual spam" in some combat events kind of paints them into a corner - it's not always easy to see important signals even for those of us without any form of colorblindness. It may make sense to tackle both issues together. Audio cues are definitely a good tool that has been used elsewhere, but they may not be sufficient for hearing-impaired players.

[Kherae.2109]

slight bit of hope for the issue with them moving forward with phasing out dx9, but...only a tiny sliver really. seeing Grouch mention that they are splitting bloom from post-processing (unless I hallucinated that) was a big step, though one that has taken way too long to show. I wouldn't be surprised if almost all of their rendering pipeline is a spaghetti coded mess that they had to mostly strip down to make the dx11 transition even possible. The hardcoded UI elements also suck. ESO has had chat colors solved for several years; you just pick the color you want the chat to be yourself.

 

Of course, colorblindness isn't the only thing to consider, there's also photosensitivity. I can't do W2's escort encounter other than as backwarg because the ley lines give me migraines. and of course, there's that stupid level-up vfx players have. Did you know that if you use a plastic spider tonic and spam tomes of knowledge for spirit shards you can give people migraines because the flash fills entire rooms? Someone was doing that in the aerodrome. that put a damper on what would have otherwise been a good night of raiding.

I am expecting they'll get to colorblindness settings around the same time they implement photosensitivity settings (so...probably never) but am hoping to be proven wrong on that.

[Seu Nim Rayne.6321]

Adding to this, because even though I am not colorblind, I have friends and guildies who are and this affects them. Additionally, I do raid training and being able to point people in the direction of accessibility options when they're needed would be a whole lot better than the current "well, that sucks" that I have to give.

Having alternative cues for mechanics (audio or visual) would be incredibly helpful, not just to people who are colorblind, but to people that need accessibility options for other reasons as well. Add to that the fact that the visual clutter in GW2 is getting more and more intense as the game moves forward, making alternative cues and customization even more important. 

I kind of get the impression that some of the post-processing changes may allow for better customization but there's no mention at all of options for people living with colorblindness or other needs.

Please, literally any response on this would be encouraging at this point.

[Quirin.1076]

Have you tried to change the Color Settings using the Color Filters provided within Windows on Ease of Access?

It allows you to change your computer to your specific color blindness settings affecting all programs, may help

• Inverted (reverse colors on the display)
• Grayscale
• Grayscale Inverted
• Red-Green( green weak, deuteranopia)
• Red-Green (red weak, protanopia)
• Blue-Yellow (tritanopia)

 

You can also set it up so it is linked to a quick access to toggle it on and off based on need

Windows Key + Ctrl + C

 

 

[Mia.5386]

On 12/15/2022 at 9:30 AM, Quirin.1076 said:

Have you tried to change the Color Settings using the Color Filters provided within Windows on Ease of Access?

Indeed I have, as have many others, the trouble is that this function is designed to enhance the visibility of static items like the border between application windows, it does not help very much in a game world where there are various overlapping functions and color blending going on because simply changing the base colors making up an effect doesn't stop them from blending together, nor does it help to differentiate them when the trouble is "there are 3 close to blue effects happening here" and I also have 2 Mesmer's and a firebrand in my squad" because ALL of those kind of blue effects are changed to be the same "kind of something else".

On 11/9/2022 at 9:08 AM, Mia.5386 said:

On the other hand, software solutions to change colors can only go so far. They cannot make ONLY the mechanics more visible; they make everything more or less "bright/contrasting", which does not help with the problem we are having.

Imagine that you could only see blue, red and green. That's it anything "in between" just becomes one of those three colors. In that case, it doesn't matter if you make purple "a bit more red" or make yellow "a bit brighter" or just decide that blue should be "overhauled completely and become orange" they all still fall into the same swath of "red, green or blue", except now all the confusion between blue and purple becomes confusion between orange and red.

 

I'm realizing now that sadly, a world where better control of audio ques to make the game as a whole more accessible to everyone who has any form of vision impairment or other disability relating to visual reaction times, is not a priority.