Guild Wars 2

Hi I was just wondering if there was something you guys could do to make the game more accommodating to people with color blindness.

1. I know with gear it will say fine, masterwork and such for it’s rarity but when it comes to other things like materials and trophies it just shows a color not what rarity it is. Something simple like an option to turn on for colorblindness that will put in words for what the rarity of the item is, would be awesome.

2. Also for the first time today a friend told me that there are red circles for AOE damage when an enemy attacks, because I’m red/green color blind, I’ve never seen it before.

3. When I use a skill attack that has a marker showing where it’s field of effectiveness is it tends to blend into the ground and I can’t tell where I’m placing a skill at.

4. An option to pop out map markers more so I can see where things are when finding points of interest and vista’s. The colors of the things on the map sometimes are too close to the background colors that I can’t see them.

I’m not trying to criticize your game, it’s very well made and I love it. These are just some ideas that would help me and others that have various forms of color blindness. Thank you very much for taking your time to read over this.

As a fellow victim of being Red/Green colorblind?

I’m hoping for the same changes as well.

Still thinks about the Elementary School’s Color Tests, naming states via Color-coded maps, and wondering how in the world people could so easily tell the difference between Blue and Purple.
All they are is that usually purple is slightly darker then blue … except when its not.
Along with people mentioning these imaginary vivid red flowers on a leafy bush.

Why do people complicate the world with imaginary things like that?
:-P

I’m not color blind, but I support this anyway… And would probably use it. An option for more notorious red/green damage areas would be good (areas checkered with Xs or Os perhaps?).

Anyway, this options should be added, and I’m willing to bet they would be used by more people than just color-blind people.

I turned off the circles on my screen because they confused me, now I just get kitten by dragons teeth and ice spikes because I cant see above my head. For the circles I’d like to be able to change the colors with a slider and adjust their brightness. same goes for the names floating above enemies. the red really doesn’t pop out for us like it does for all the color normal people. when I run around holding ctrl down searching for enemies I fine it much easir to pick out the gathering nodes than the stuff that can actually kill me.

I’d really like to be able to toggle colorblind mode like I can in the civ games to get text telling me what the colors are for on everything.

Not a big priority, for me personally. I’ve come to accept that most of the visuals in a game are designed by artists who, almost without exception, think that purple is a real thing not just a brownish blue. You could grab a colorblind person or two at some point and get some color sliders in so we can adjust the UI so we can see it as well as you. Just a little extra polish for those who like to customize the UI, but it’s big show of understanding to the people who drew the genetic short straw.

edit: I did not realize that “shaft” was kitteh worthy. Especially when I hear NPCs in the game saying “hell” all the time… there probably a kitten there now too. what I’m saying is that I get [inclined plane wrapped around a conical wedge]ed by overhead ele droppings all the time.

I am not colour blind, but I am 150% behind making the game more accessible.
I’ll come down and program this game myself to make it happen.
And I mean it!

Its hard for me to see the red vista symbols on maps.

I gave up on reading the map icons, I do my exploring with a guildie who can see them for me. now if only she would catch up so I can finish the lvl20-80 zones.

I’m color blind to red and green and need this

I’m surprised that a moderator has not commented on this topic yet. Its a feature that’s appearing in more and more games each year… Global conflict, Battlefield 3, Maplestory, League of Legends, Left 4 Dead, and Call of Duty are just a few… http://www.howtogeek.com/93502/are-color-blind-gamers-left-out-science/

I’ve had color blind mode on all those games and downloaded a Mod for others (HoN).

I thought this was the standard?

How many gamers are male? 63%
How many men on average are color blind? Red-green (Overall) 7 to 10% – America
http://www.theesa.com/facts/gameplayer.asp
http://www.colour-blindness.com/general/prevalence/

Scorpio.3821:

I’m surprised that a moderator has not commented on this topic yet. Its a feature that’s appearing in more and more games each year… Global conflict, Battlefield 3, Maplestory, League of Legends, Left 4 Dead, and Call of Duty are just a few… http://www.howtogeek.com/93502/are-color-blind-gamers-left-out-science/

Yeah I’ve played many games that have this feature and it really helps. I’m amazed they didn’t have one at the start.
I’m also surprised that this hasn’t gotten the attention of a moderator yet. It’s a big thing seeing as though I’m sure about 7%-10% of their gamers are color blind too. Hopefully they notice it soon.

I am not color blind, but I fully support this.

Maybe they could do something like:
area with xxxx = stay away! damage or whatever from enemies
area with oooo = your aoe area
area with #### = positive areas from other players which can affect you (like boons from chaos storm)

And hopefully a simple system! :-)

I, as a color-blind player, support this completely.

I’m not colorblind but as far as I know the different types of color blindness would not all benefit the same from the mentioned changes.

to help all different kinds of color blind people, they should simply allow the user to specify which colors they want to use for the different effects.

IE you could change the default red for groundmarkers, skill distance hint, enemy names etc to one other color you can easily distinguish. the same for the green groundmarkers etc.
an other idea would be to allow to change the rings from one color to 2. a main ring in one color and 2 border-rings to help add contrast. for ‘normal’ gameplay they could just use the same color (green/red for both types). Even I would like that option, as that would make the rings on the ground a bit better visible sometimes.

Item rarity probably should have an extra configuration as they all have the same background and you only need to find colors you can see well on that background.

I remember a bunch of people requesting this in Beta. One of the devs had said they were looking into it because they didn’t want to exclude their colorblind players. I tried to find the post, but they probably wiped the posts from beta. I believe it was Mike Ferguson who said it.

I am also colorblind, and I have had to learn which circles are bad ones, and which ones are good ones through trial and error. It would be great for a different color option because a red circle on a green/brown forest floor is infuriating because I know its there (due to damage) but I can’t see the kitten thing.

Thankfully, ANet added description words on gear otherwise I wouldn’t have the first clue which one was “Rare” and which one was “Masterwork” level.

Don’t forget about us, please ANet! /signed

I’m not colorblind, but I know a couple people who are, so I understand the frustration. I’d like to see this implemented also.

Nor am I, but I can definitely understand the need for this, as well!

definitely agree.

This hasn’t been addressed yet so I think it needs to go back to the top. I know it’ll take some time to work into the system, but this is still important to us defective people and needs to get take care of please. Get the bugged events fixed first though. I’d rather be able to get squished in an event than be able to see nothing because the event isn’t working

Awesome idea! I seen this implemented in league of legends and more of a utility its a nice gesture towards players. I’m not colour blind but seen images of before and after of LOL games as seen by a colour blind person and I just couldn’t believe how much of a difference a little change of colour makes.

Im R/G color blind, add me to the list!

thanks everyone, wasn’t expecting this much support for my ideas:P hopefully someone sees it soon

Partially color blind here. Some things mentioned I have no trouble with — I can easily distinguish masterwork and rare items, for instance. Other things like the red AoE rings… depends a lot on the terrain. On snow? Forget it. Can’t see them at all, the red is too pale. On dark dirt? Usually.

As has been mentioned, it’s very hard to make a “one size fits all” color scheme. Especially considering the differing degrees of color blindness and the different shades people have troubles with. So rather than try to make something work for everyone, just add more customization.

I would expect this to be a whole separate tab in the options window, with labels. “Enemy AoE rings,” “Friendly AoE rings,” “Masterwork items,” “Player names,” “Friendly NPC names,” and so on and so forth.

Not only would this let people who are color blind choose some better contrasting colors, it would clue some people in to the mere existence of these differences. For example, I have a hard time telling friendly player names apart from friendly NPC names — and didn’t even realize there was a difference until someone pointed it out. I still can’t identify them quickly, so I’ve resurrected a fallen NPC before a player (oops).

i am not color blind but i totally support this. you might link this to the gw2 reddit if you havent already, just for more visibility.

+1 for this feature, I hope it comes to pass honestly as its only fair for all the colour blind sufferers to enjoy the beauty of the game in its full entirety.

F&S. <3

Partial color blindness here too.

Agree with everything. Constantly getting messed up in WvW and some instances because the kitten cricles are invisible!

I have to look very closely most of the time to make out the thin red circles whenever they pop in combat. I am not color blind but for some reason the size of the lines being thin make them hard to see when they do pop.

Perhaps making the red lines thicker and perhaps pulsate, might help some. I do know that something that pulsates gets my attention even when I can see that it is a red line.

Just a suggestion for them.

I’m not colourblind at all, but I think this is a really good idea. I usually use colourblind assist on games because it makes stuff that I can already see (or just about see, when it comes to the red circles) so much easier to see.

I’d be more than happy if this was implemented.

I agree. I even wrote up a big post with some examples of imagery (with help from the GF). I had to tell my group I was with last night that I’m likely to die alot in AC since I can’t see all the AOE circles.

Here’s the write up with examples.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/GW2-and-the-Colorblind-An-Essay-in-Handicapped-Gaming/first#post452852

Check out this thread. I posted what color blindness looks like in this thread the other day, using information from research done on the internet.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/This-is-what-color-blindness-looks-like/first#post661475

The thickness of the lines is fine, it makes you have to pay a bit of attention. The red/green thing, perhaps just make it so you could toggle one of them as dashes rather than a continuous trace.

Spiders Spiders Spiders.8043:

The thickness of the lines is fine, it makes you have to pay a bit of attention. The red/green thing, perhaps just make it so you could toggle one of them as dashes rather than a continuous trace.

just changing it to dashes doesn’t help, it’s still red. and on most backgrounds a person with red/green color blindness can’t see it at all, doesn’t matter if it’s a continuous line, dashes, random shapes. they need to make it so we can customize the color so it’s something we can see.

Wow, I’m really surprised that this thread was created nearly a month ago and still has no official acknowledgement. Even if it was commented on before, if the forums were wiped and the comment no longer exists, I think another acknowledgement is in order.

C’mon, ANet… I’ve actually been saying good things about your communication. Don’t shy away from this.

minbariguy.7504:

Wow, I’m really surprised that this thread was created nearly a month ago and still has no official acknowledgement. Even if it was commented on before, if the forums were wiped and the comment no longer exists, I think another acknowledgement is in order.

C’mon, ANet… I’ve actually been saying good things about your communication. Don’t shy away from this.

yeah i’ve been checking on it every day since i first posted it and not once have i seen any acknowledgement from them. it’s not like i’m asking about something that doesn’t matter, this effects many gw2 players so you’d think it would be important to them. i really hope it gets the attention of someone soon.

I’m all for anything that can help a playerbase getting more out of their game!

I can’t imagine what it is like being any kind of colorblind, heck I probably see more than I should.. (darn Asura gadgets)

I found these lovely peppers to illustrate for us “normal-visioned”; what colorblind people see compared to what we see.

… Charrs furballs! All brings a new meaning to seeing red in the heat of battle!

I too am surprised there hasn’t been a reply from Anet on the issue…
This is really important to me, as I too suffer from colorblindness.
I have all the same issues everyone else in this thread has stated and it’s really starting to get frustrating. I can understand why they didn’t include it at launch, but there really should have been at least an acknowledgement from the dev team by now.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been killed because I couldn’t see the red rings, or how many times I’ve accidentally said something in party chat (the colors look EXACTLY the same to me) instead of whisper, or vice versa.
Also I play an ele so it’s really frustrating for me when trying to lay down an AOE and not being able to see my AOE circle…

Please Anet, at least say something!

I usually don’t like to whine about my color blindness (a game doesn’t have to adapt to every handicap and/or disease), but I’d love to be able to change the color of the AOE effect red circles on the floor, and eventually also to make those circles more visible and/or thicker. That’s my only problem in this game with color.

Totally agree, I find it -really- hard to see the red rings around enemy AoE as well as around traps. My partner was so surprised at first as to how I kept running blindly into them and complaining when I died.

Haha, Party and Whisper are different colors? They look the same to me.

http://www.colblindor.com/2008/12/23/15-tools-color-blindness/

I’m not sure if this will help at all, but there are some programs which change saturation hat help make the colors more distinct. I don’t think Arenanet will have too much time to make a filter of their own, but there are plenty of filters that can be found on the web, I am sure of it.

I’m not color blind and support this thread. I’d love to see this game be more accessible.

Still no official response to this thread? Pretty disappointing, ANet. I really expected better from you.

+1 from me. This is bought up in every single mmo i’ve played. Surely you would think developers would have got the message by now.

I’m not colorblind, but my roommate (who also plays GW2) is. Watching him play is very strange. He has to dodge out of even friendly effects since he never knows whether he’s about to get healed or damaged.

still colorblind… still not addressed… still an issue… yeah this is a bump so maybe one of those fancy red posters can come along and let us know if this is even being looked at as a possibility in the future.

Just showing interest as I haven’t been able to fix my color blindness. All the repair bills are really getting me down.

yeah it gets very pricey after i do a dungeon. i think the worst i came out with was 3 broken armor pieces. plus it’s embarrassing cause it makes me look like i’m bad at the game when all my problem is that i can’t see when i’m getting attacked by aoe skills or walking into traps.