Guild Wars 2

This is actually a very reasonable request, I’m surprised there wasn’t already something in game to help out color blind folks.

Yup , i agree. I hope they come up with a solution to your request. It must be hard to try and be competitive with this kind of disadvantage.

good luck +1

I would like to see them include an options setting for those who are colorblind that would change the colors of certain affects in the game to help them out.

Great suggestion.

like having the option of making the AoE circles bright yellow.
Makes sense.

This has bugged me for ages. It’s crazy there isn’t at least colour blind developer who could’ve noticed something like this.

Red is a tough colour for the colour-blind, quite possibly the hardest to see for all the different types of colour-blindness. I know it stands out to people with normal colour sight, but not to us.

I almost never see the red circles, especially when they’re nearly always on green/brown ground, and I really LOOK for these circles. I notice when a boss or mob has a delayed AoE mechanic and start looking for them.

Some of my friends have told me that sometimes I’ll move out of a red circle then straight back into it, in time to get hit.

Aren’t there alternative colours to red that, just by changing the pigments a little, are much easier to see for people with colour-blindness?

+1 to make them bright yellow or something similar

No single colour will fix the issue of the circle being hard to see imho.
I would be more in for double-circle: one ring red as it is for clear message DANGER for everyone, one that inverts colours so it’s always easy to see, no matter what the surface colours are.

Actually, even better, why not just invert the ground colors wherever the red circle color is supposed to be? This should be easy to achieve with some sort of shader effect or similar.

A solution to warning circles for colorblind players would really help a lot of people- about 1/6 of males are colorblind (and a much smaller number of women).

I certainly have a lot of trouble seeing the red circles- in some situations they are entirely invisible to me. One player I met had been in the game a month without even realising there were warning circles!

I made a thread about this back during the beta events, nothing came of the suggestion then, so its unlikely they’ll do anything now.

It’s a shame, especially now that a lot of games have added colour blind modes and settings. It’s evidently important to companies like valve (TF2’s jarate colourblind options for example), but not arenanet?

It’ll really be great if they implement something to help out colourblind folks here. Remember, a little extra goodwill will do wonders for PR :].

Also, let us have the option of changing the colour of the cursor. Its brown, the ground is often brown, when things get messy its very hard to find it.

i have post this before launch but well cause its ignored, my brother quit the game
its good if they finally listen

TimeBomb.3427:

My goal here isn’t to make it easier for everyone to see the red circles as to lower the necessary skill level, my goal is to allow color blind gamers such as myself to be on par with non-color blind gamers.

Your post was reasonable until that statement.
The option of changing the circle colors is reasonable.
Lowering the skill level of the game for a vast majority of people just to compensate for a group that make up less than 1% of the gamers is not reasonable.

marnick.4305:

I’m very sorry to hear that but honestly, being handicapped means you’re handicapped. This means certain things are either far more difficult or simply impossible. Maybe your brother could ask a blind person how he feels about never even playing a video game? Maybe ask a paraplegic what he thinks of GW2?

I don’t want to sound rude, but in this case there’s not much you can do. TS in WvW and dungeons is virtually required for serious play. He does have the option of starting a guild for deaf players (an option which blind players don’t have) and it might be pretty successful.

We all have our fair share of trouble in life, and I’ve personally learned to suck it up and either go for it best I can or completely ignore the impossible. What you can’t do is blame others for wanting a talkative guild and because of that require TS.

On the other hand, Nihilum had a deaf player as main tank for a while. Hard work really can overcome everything. Chin up and take responsibility.

I know you’re just being straightforward…but the thing is it shouldn’t be that hard to make things more convenient for them. Instead of “red”, make the circles “black”, so its tonal based rather than colour based. There, solved!

This is a very good idea +1

Grey Warden.2983:

Lowering the skill level of the game for a vast majority of people just to compensate for a group that make up less than 1% of the gamers is not reasonable.

Colorblindness is something that affects 9% of male population. Some more than others.

I wrote a post about that a few months ago, didnt change anything.

Maybe this time.

TimeBomb.3427:

Hi. I’d like to have a discussion in regards to the issue of red circles, the ones made on the ground by enemies right before an AoE hits, and the issues that I, and surely others, have due to being color blind.

If I recall correctly, I’m red/green color blind. I haven’t done a ton of dungeons, though usually when I do them, I played ranged. As a ranged player, I often have less enemy’s closely surrounding me, which allowed me to more easily see/notice the red circles on the ground. When I play melee anything, it often becomes quite a bit more difficult for me to see/notice the red circles.
Also note that it’s slightly easier for me to see the red circles on the ground if the ground is light, and it is very difficult for me to see the red circles on the ground if the ground is dark.

I consider myself a good player overall. I am quite competent when it comes to any kind of combat in GW2. I’ve done well in general PvE of course, as well as SPvP and some dungeons. Often the harder it is for me to see the red circles on the ground (and the more necessary it is to see them, i.e. with certain bosses), the worse I do.

I opened this thread for two reasons. To see if any other color blind gamers out there are ever having similar issues, and to discuss what possible solutions we can apply to this problem.

My goal here isn’t to make it easier for everyone to see the red circles as to lower the necessary skill level, my goal is to allow color blind gamers such as myself to be on par with non-color blind gamers.
Offering alternative colors could be a solution, or perhaps just a gray color. Making the circles brighter would probably help as well.

Having studied geographic information visualization, I approve this message!

I ended up poping into the first post about this when it came up way back then, and I’ll pop into this one, I would not mind an option for something in game to help me out, out of 10 spells 4 of them end up hitting me due to not being able to see the ring at all. I’ve been able to get by so far, but most games now end up having an option for us.

@marnick.4305
I understand what you are trying to do, but what you are trying to judge it by is not even close, nor do I think you fully understand what it’s like for us that are fully colour-blind, I may not need a card, but I did have to grow up taking special classes with students that were disabled as well, I also remember very well getting yelled at over and over until they found out that I really could not tell the two apart.

There are levels to what a person is, I can’t suddenly see something that I can’t. This is not something I can man up and get over, nor is it one I expect everyone else to go out of there way to make it work for me.

I am also colourblind and I approve this message.

marnick.4305:

I’m very sorry to hear that but honestly, being handicapped means you’re handicapped. This means certain things are either far more difficult or simply impossible. Maybe your brother could ask a blind person how he feels about never even playing a video game? Maybe ask a paraplegic what he thinks of GW2?

But you’re kind of missing the point. Many games do implement colour blind options, they CAN do this.

Your argument isn’t logical. We don’t tell paraplegics to just suck it up and get on with their lives, they have arms after all, they can drag themselves along the floor to get around!

We provide people with things like wheelchairs to help them, we introduce EU legislations that legally require buildings to be constructed with accessibility in mind. Would you suggest we scrap these laws and that physically disabled people should ‘chin up and take responsibility’?

Sure, it’s arenanets game, and they don’t HAVE TO accommodate anyone. But as there is a way of helping colourblind gamers to enjoy their game, with no detriment to anyone else’s game play experience then SHOULD they implement this? I would say so.

I’d like to concur with adding some sort of colorblind support. I can’t begin to count how many times I’ve been hit by some AoE because the red circle blends in with the terrain around it.

+1 to the idea of having the option to make the circle yellow.

I have this same problem. I have a very hard time with targeting in general in this game. When there are a lot of mobs/players present, and depending on the terrain, I can NEVER tell which mob I have targeted. Please fix this Anet.

+1 to letting me pick the color of ground circles, so I can pick a color that I can actually see

Another vote for something to make the make the red circles an adjustable color.

marnick.4305:

I’m very sorry to hear that but honestly, being handicapped means you’re handicapped. This means certain things are either far more difficult or simply impossible. Maybe your brother could ask a blind person how he feels about never even playing a video game? Maybe ask a paraplegic what he thinks of GW2?

I don’t want to sound rude, but in this case there’s not much you can do.

And yet… there is something that ArenaNet can do to fix this issue. Just like a number of other games that have already addressed this.

As I’ve mentioned before, I think that changing the color of the AoE rings alone is not a good approach due to the variety of color blindness. I would hope to see configurable color items, allowing each user to choose a color for enemy AoE and friendly AoE and so on. Differing patterns for the rings would also be beneficial, though that doesn’t help if you can’t see the rings in the first place.

This doesn’t break the game for the people with perfect color vision, but it sure would improve it a lot for those of us that have problems with some colors.

This is one of the first games where my colorblindness has really hurt my performance (not counting puzzle games, screw you Puzzle Fighter!). I’ll die constantly in dungeons due to it. It’s actually the main reason why I try not to run dungeons, unless it’s with friends. And even then, they are constantly telling me to move out of the way haha.

marnick.4305:

I’m very sorry to hear that but honestly, being handicapped means you’re handicapped. This means certain things are either far more difficult or simply impossible. Maybe your brother could ask a blind person how he feels about never even playing a video game? Maybe ask a paraplegic what he thinks of GW2?

That’s not exactly comparable. ArenaNet can definitely implement a fix for colorblind gamers. It’s just a small color change. Other handicaps can’t be helped as easily. This is pretty much a “There’s starving kids in Africa!” answer.

I played for a month before I realized there are red circles on the ground. This is something we really need addressed.

marnick.4305:

I’m very sorry to hear that but honestly, being handicapped means you’re handicapped. This means certain things are either far more difficult or simply impossible. Maybe your brother could ask a blind person how he feels about never even playing a video game? Maybe ask a paraplegic what he thinks of GW2?

First thing I’d do is get a disability check from the government. Until that happens, its not a disability, just an abnormality.

Also, simply changing some colors is not an impossible or undue burden.

marnick.4305:

I’m very sorry to hear that but honestly, being handicapped means you’re handicapped. This means certain things are either far more difficult or simply impossible. Maybe your brother could ask a blind person how he feels about never even playing a video game? Maybe ask a paraplegic what he thinks of GW2?

I don’t want to sound rude, but in this case there’s not much you can do. TS in WvW and dungeons is virtually required for serious play. He does have the option of starting a guild for deaf players (an option which blind players don’t have) and it might be pretty successful.

We all have our fair share of trouble in life, and I’ve personally learned to suck it up and either go for it best I can or completely ignore the impossible. What you can’t do is blame others for wanting a talkative guild and because of that require TS.

On the other hand, Nihilum had a deaf player as main tank for a while. Hard work really can overcome everything. Chin up and take responsibility.

I see apparently Marnick just copied pasted what he wrote on my thread to here. I hope you will never experience being handicapped, or if you already are, I’m glad you’re handling it better than other people who are.

Rpgtabbycat.5869:

I would like to see them include an options setting for those who are colorblind that would change the colors of certain affects in the game to help them out.

Great suggestion.

Good suggestion. Actually, I’d like to take that one step further – allowing players to tone down effects in general in this game.

You don’t have to be colorblind to have a real hard time during many, many encounters to actually see what’s going on with so many effects going at the same time.

For example, as a ranger with a shortbow, I try my best to always flank opponents. Sometimes that’s more or less impossible due to the effects cluttering the view, making it next to impossible to actually see the mob we’re fighting.

I understand you want to make a pretty game with lots of cool stuff, but more isn’t always better you know.

I can see there is a lot of misinformation being tossed around by those that are not informed or educated on the subject, I thought I would toss this in here so that a few people that do wish to know will be able to easily.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness

First off, yes this is a disability, Color blindness is usually classed as a mild disability. This does not take away from the fact that yes it is a disability. Also for those that do not know playing games does help with learning how to cope and handle it, and most schooling is now leaning to push students into games to help.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/11/06/cure-for-color-blindness-may-be-on-horizon-apps-and-video-games-offer-help/

We enjoy playing games on the same level as anyone else, we just play at a disadvantage…

We have been seeing more games over the past few years pushing to put these features into games, such as WoW, swtor, rift, EQ, EvE, and so on, honestly the list is huge when it comes to game devs that wish to support there player base.

Now for those that do not know what it’s like, there is a feature that will help you learn what we deal with in game already. Go into Options and under “Combat” check the box for “Disable Area of Effect Rings” and then I’d say go into WvW, Spvp, or a few dungeons. This should give you an idea of how many times you’ll be sitting there getting hit before you can get out.

I really gotta agree to the majority of posts here, such an option wouldve saved me countless deaths in dungeons and in traps..
There’s just no way I can see those circles if theyre on a dark ground.

Nilm.2984:

Now for those that do not know what it’s like, there is a feature that will help you learn what we deal with in game already. Go into Options and under “Combat” check the box for “Disable Area of Effect Rings” and then I’d say go into WvW, Spvp, or a few dungeons. This should give you an idea of how many times you’ll be sitting there getting hit before you can get out.

^This. And then go Arah and fight Lupicus, have fun.

It always amazes my dungeon group when I tell them that I pretty much can’t see the red warning circles whatsoever in most environments. If the floor is green or brown (which most are) it is really hard to see red. I can sort of perceive what i’d describe as an animation change, like if I look really really hard I can (through what almost feels like a 6th sense) tell something about the floor has changed ever so faintly. Sometimes, like that tunnel with spike traps in AC, I just have to run through and hope for the best.

It’s nothing new after raiding for so many years in other games… I guess you just learn to overcome somehow. Something as simple as having the option to pick a different color for such warning signs would be an amazing advantage to me though.

Please consider it!

!
Good suggestion. bumping

Please god… I myself am colorblind and Can’t see these circles at all.. I just try and stick with another group member, and hope they move out.

+1

I too am red/green colorblind and have issues with the red circles against certain backdrops. Even making the red circles brighter would help me a lot.

I hope someone from ArenaNet is listening!

+1 I am not colorblind, but I support any changes made to help those who are. This seems like something all game developers should keep in their minds while designing.

As a colorblind gamer, red circles are impossible to see on grass or dirt, so I specifically go to the snowy areas as to be able to play the game. Please fix this!

Thanks for your support all. While bright yellow would help a lot of people, I think that offering multiple colors, or better yet, as someone suggested, inverting the ground color, would be a better choice and work for more people.

Grey Warden.2983:

TimeBomb.3427:

My goal here isn’t to make it easier for everyone to see the red circles as to lower the necessary skill level, my goal is to allow color blind gamers such as myself to be on par with non-color blind gamers.

Your post was reasonable until that statement.
The option of changing the circle colors is reasonable.
Lowering the skill level of the game for a vast majority of people just to compensate for a group that make up less than 1% of the gamers is not reasonable.

I think you misunderstood my post. I said specifically that I did not want to lower the skill level. I don’t know how well non-color blind gamers can see the red circles, so I included the above sentence just to make it clear that while making the red circles more vibrant may or may not make them easier to see for everyone, the main goal here is to allow color blind gamers to be on par with non-color blind gamers. Make sense?

I think the issue with yellow circles is that it may be significantly easier to see such that even non colour-blind players could enable the colour-blind setting for easier game play. There would have to be some middle ground which is more visible to colour-blind players but not noticeably different to normal players.

As an example of what I’m thinking, there is this colour scheme website which has a range of settings for different types of colour-blindness, that alters the colours in the colour scheme so we can discern the differences.

Having a colour blind option that modifies the colour in red circles similarly would avoid the possibility of a ‘colour-blind option’ that makes game play for non colour-blind people easier.

cosmik.2539:

I think the issue with yellow circles is that it may be significantly easier to see such that even non colour-blind players could enable the colour-blind setting for easier game play. There would have to be some middle ground which is more visible to colour-blind players but not noticeably different to normal players.

As an example of what I’m thinking, there is this colour scheme website which has a range of settings for different types of colour-blindness, that alters the colours in the colour scheme so we can discern the differences.

Having a colour blind option that modifies the colour in red circles similarly would avoid the possibility of a ‘colour-blind option’ that makes game play for non colour-blind people easier.

This was my main point of worry, and the reason that I wrote that aforementioned sentence (which Grey Warden didn’t like) in my OP. While I’d love if the color blind option didn’t make the difficulty easier for non-color blind players, if it’s not possible without keeping color blind players at a disadvantage, then so be it (i.e. the color blind option should still be implemented).

Someone on reddit posted this useful message:

Actually I have been hammering on this since beta, since it’s such a simple change. I even created a palette that would give high visibility to all forms of colourblindness.

The game should support colour-blind people

• PvP very challenging for colourblind people
• especially as the key elements you need to know are red and blue
• colourblind men represent up to ~%4 of the male population
• More (%7) if you count all forms of colour blindneess
• Enable a switch to make your game colour-blind friendly.

This is a colour-blind palette you can swap to:

• Red -> Vermillion #D55E00; RVB 213,94,0
• Blue -> Sky Blue #56B4E9; RVB 86,180,233
• Green -> Yellow #E69F00; RVB 240,228,66

These colours are unambiguous to non-colourblinds and colour-blinds (whether they’re protanopes, deuteranopes, or tritanopes) and even in the worst case will still work.

You can further reinforce this by adding symbols to any colour-essential UI element

• If you have have difficulty changing player outfit colour, add a symbol that appears above the character or a mouseover tooltip with name of colour

• Also apply this to circle effects! Red-green colourblinds confirm they cannot see the circle on many landscapes. A pulse effect or texture effect can also enhance visibility for colourblinds. See how the dota-clones implement colourblind circle graphics.

CC Dalmarus.8397:

Thanks for the suggestion, Timebomb. If anyone else has suggestions of their own, don’t be sure to create a thread yourself. That’s what this sub-forum is for.

“Don’t be sure” or do be sure? =P

Also, I would just be happy if you would allow us to change the colors of the circles and the chat text. That would pretty much solve the issue for me I think.
I posted this in reddit as to the problems I am having…

1) Red circles on the ground for incoming enemy AOE attacks or traps. I can tell they’re there sometimes depending on the color of the terrain.

2) I’m an ele so I have a lot of AOE’s, it’s hard for me to see my green AOE rings. So most of the time while I’m trying to cast an AOE, I’m moving my mouse around the screen like crazy just trying to catch a glimpse of where the circle is at so I can position it correctly.

3) Rarity of items: It’s impossible for me to distinguish between masterwork/rare/exotic. They all look EXACTLY the same to me. Thankfully Anet has most things labeled, but some things aren’t and I can’t tell by color alone.

4) Chat: this one really gets me angry sometimes, specifically party and whisper. The colors for those look exactly the same to me. I thought they were the same for the longest time until someone told me they were different colors. So sometimes when I’m having a “private” chat, I end up announcing it to everyone in the party, which can sometimes get me in trouble especially when I’m playing with my GF.

Zephuros.5073:

Also, I would just be happy if you would allow us to change the colors of the circles and the chat text. That would pretty much solve the issue for me I think.
I posted this in reddit as to the problems I am having…

1) Red circles on the ground for incoming enemy AOE attacks or traps. I can tell they’re there sometimes depending on the color of the terrain.

2) I’m an ele so I have a lot of AOE’s, it’s hard for me to see my green AOE rings. So most of the time while I’m trying to cast an AOE, I’m moving my mouse around the screen like crazy just trying to catch a glimpse of where the circle is at so I can position it correctly.

3) Rarity of items: It’s impossible for me to distinguish between masterwork/rare/exotic. They all look EXACTLY the same to me. Thankfully Anet has most things labeled, but some things aren’t and I can’t tell by color alone.

4) Chat: this one really gets me angry sometimes, specifically party and whisper. The colors for those look exactly the same to me. I thought they were the same for the longest time until someone told me they were different colors. So sometimes when I’m having a “private” chat, I end up announcing it to everyone in the party, which can sometimes get me in trouble especially when I’m playing with my GF.

Without going too off topic, do note that you can press the chat options gear in the top left of the non-transparent chat window and checkmark “Show Channel Tag” to see exactly which channel someone is talking in. For example, a guild message will be preceded with [G], and a whisper message will be preceded with [W]. This is how I handle chat issues.

Slightly colorblind here as well. I noticed the circles, but looking for them takes a huge amount of effort, unless they’re on a blue or exceptionally dark or bright floor, and even then I still miss them frequently.

I would make the lines much thicker, and add a second inner gradient ring that darkens the ground or shades it black for incoming attacks, and lightens or shades it white for friendly AOE. Contrast is the most important differentiator, and a larger area of color would be a great help, in addition to a color change for those who really can’t see red. Ideally, these colors should be configurable with a hue slider.

This was suggested back in Beta Weekend 1… Guess it just wasn’t looked at. Again +1 for this as I have family members who are color blind to red/green.

Another option could be a game mode, in the interface, that accomodates color-blind players. I remember seeing such an option in another mmo, i just don’t remember which one.

However, I do like the idea of the red circles being bright yellow.

don’t worry mate, nobody can see the red circles in the melee anyway.