Guild Wars 2

CC Dalmarus.8397:

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.

Ow… my brain… what?

2nd this. Even if I can see them, they’re still really thin and hard to determine where one begins and one ends.

Thanks for the support, everyone. I can only hope we color blind gamers are acknowledged at some point.

I’m having a lot of troubles not falling in traps in dungeons, or avoiding enemy AoEs since I can’t see the red circles.
I can’t imagine the hard time I’ll have in WvW.

+1 for a colorblind mode. Its fairly standard now in many games…

I don’t understand the opposition to a “colorblind” option. How would a different color make the game significantly easier for most people than red? It’s information that’s intended to inform the player than an AoE is happening in the area. It isn’t designed to be hidden information, red is simply the traditional (for various reasons) color meaning “danger”.

There are a lot of good ideas, too.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Color-Blindness-Accommodations/first#post694909

I don’t have such a problem myself, but i believe this would be a great feature.

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.

You need to reread his pot greywarden i think yoyu misinterpreted it, he isent as in he is not asking for it to be easier, hes asking fior a diff colour so us that are colourblind can see as well as you guys who are not.

I said it before and i’ll say it again. Any suggestions that improve the experience of those with disabilities i will back up FIERCELY. Especially ones that can be dealt with easily like this one (change uber red circle of doom to orange or green circle of doom). it’s not only in the best interest of those with disables, but in the best interest of those without as well since one never knows when life will throw a curve ball at you. from color blindness to a missing limb anything can happen to someone that can rusult in them saying good bye to their gaming. the very thought is kinda scary to me and my heart goes out to those who use to enjoy playing games but can no longer do so because of a disability.

This is a simple matter to deal with compared to other disabilities. But it is my wish that some day, developers put a broad array of features into their games so all those with disablites (within reason of course) can enjoy games.

Glad there was some kind of response here. I posted up over a month ago with few example images too. I’ve got a link in my signature. Seriously, 85% of the time I can’t even see the circles. First few weeks I didn’t even know they existed until someone said something. Changing chat colors would be great too. I can’t tell if I’m talking in Party or Whisper unless I read the beginning where it says ‘to’ or ‘from’.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/GW2-and-the-Colorblind-An-Essay-in-Handicapped-Gaming/first#post449825

Cool documentary on color blindness here. http://www.nosuchthingascolor.com

Zephuros.5073:

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.

I’m not colorblind myself, but there’s a trick that might help with this. Under settings, look for a toggle – I think it’s labeled something about placing a ground cursor. The toggle will allow you to place ground objects (AOEs) directly where your mouse is instead of having to select the spell and then choose where the circle is. The next step is to always be able to find your mouse.

When I play, I stick my mouse somewhere easy to see and toward the middle of the screen- like a certain distance above my Asura elementalist. I’ve also known someone who uses his character’s head as a target and places the cursor directly over it. Then, hold down the right mouse button and keep it held down while you move and cast. If you do that, your cursor will stay in its last position and with practice you can use that knowledge of where the cursor is to place ground AOEs without having to see anything; just use that particular spot on your screen as a target and, voila – no more trouble not being able to see your own AOE rings!

Hope that helps some. Also, I’d like to add in my vote for more colorblind-friendly options.

i’ve also been talking about this issue in my forum suggestion please check it out and share any ideas you have too.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Color-Blindness-Accommodations/first#post825910

I was going to post a topic on the red circles being hard to see for us color blind folks. I wasn’t sure if I’d be alone in this, but I’m glad to see I’m not the only one. If Arenanet could perhaps make it an inverted color or so that would really help. Red circles are very hard to see, especially on brown backgrounds like ground or wood. I’m sure the red circles would be easier to see even if the color isn’t changed, as long as the red circle perhaps gets maybe a bit of a glow effect, or smoke, or some other particle to help catch our eyes you know? Just some suggestions and they could all work. Other than that though, the game has given me no color issues. Thank you Arenanet.

Holy cow! I’m so glad I found this. Yes please!

I’m not colour blind. However, (and this might be weird) I find it difficult and painful to play – occasionally just in general, and usually with elementalists and guardians due to their flashy skills. I get powerful headaches. On my desktop, my video card has the option to desaturate my entire computer. I can play with reduced colour, or no colour at all.

A thought for the OP and anyone else having problems with red circles: I have a hard time imagining how you would do this, but try to check if your video card driver/software supports modifying specific channels. I’m sure I saw in mine an option to lighten/darken reds, blues, and greens, or even simply rebalance them. This might help make red circles more visible.

To ANet: Only certain brands and models of video card support these options. It would really helpful for players at a visual disadvantage for you to experiment with and implement options to adjust colour balance in the actual client. It gives ALL players more options, AND you wouldn’t have to change the red circles for everyone.

Could this work, lairds and ladies?

100% Agree with Original Post.

+1 One of the disappointing limitations of this great game. Makes running high-end dungeons very frustrating.

I’m throwing my bump in here, as someone full spectrum color deficient the only way I survive some of these dungeons is to fully memorize trap locations through trial and error, not fun when I hit those gauntlet run sections where you have to cross traps only while they’re faded out and there’s no way around.

Well, playing GW2, i might have discovered that i’m color blind. Because i can’t see those red circles at all. I’m not even looking at the dungeon boss, i’m looking at the floor trying to see them. And i don’t. And those Aoe still comes. And I die.

I just discover that i’m not alone having this problem. I think it would be simple enough to solve that problem and win the approval of the community of player. So please find a solution or else you’ll loose players. tx

This explains so much! I’ve wondered why my husband keeps ignoring the red circles. He just stands there & gets hit — or dodges right into them. It never occurred to me that it was a result of his red/green color-blindness. He gets so frustrated when he dies more frequently than the rest of us in the party.

Please, Arena, I think this is important and would make a significant difference in play experience for many people.

Perhaps adding a yellow line to the outer red line on the circles — a double line. I’m not a programmer, but it seems to me redefining the outer perimeter line as two-tone might be a simple change?

even though i’m not color blind it is still hard seeing those circles sometimes. first of all they are often very big and if your camera is zoomed in they are easy to miss. they often end up bugged inside of terrain (eg, they won’t render in puddles of water). the edge is thin and it being red doesn’t help that much – it doesn’t stand out as much as it could.

red colour is actually not the most noticable color in the spectrum. this is why color blind people have so much trouble with it.
the most noticable colors are bright orange and bright yellow. this is why special safety gear (such as construction worker’s) is made in those colors, as well as resque equipment like liferafts, mountain backpacks, etc.

Any news on this topic? :\
It’s so annoying..

You don’t have to be colorblind to have problems seeing them.

They are hard to see in many other situations, like on snow under bright light or on reddish terrain.

Oscillating colors, different merging light-merging methods and more noticeable border animations could help with that.

I dunno, I sort of think that the red circles need to be changed in general to be easier to see for everyone (even for people without color blindness). I understand that they don’t want to clutter up the battlefield with effects but there’s gotta be a better way than what they have.

i think instead of Gw2 deciding about the colors, just allow players to customize these colors for themselves.

+1

Eli The Yahoo.9782:

i think instead of Gw2 deciding about the colors, just allow players to customize these colors for themselves.

+1

Thats actually a great idea, but allow everyone to adjust not only color but also the dotted line that outline the AoE, it would make it easy for everyone with any type of color blind to see what works best for them.

+1
I made a similar suggestion a while ago; I’m not color-blind, but a friend of mine is. Not only are AoE circles a problem if you have red/green color-blindness, but you also can’t see your health, ally and enemy name-tags, the red target above an enemy’s head when a target is called out, and I’m sure there are other things as well.

If I recall this correctly, this is the reason why Battlefield 3 uses orange and blue colors to identify friendlies and enemies.

I think those 2 colors will help against most forms of colorblindness?

Maybe GW2 could use similar colors (and have an option for it in the settings)

Hey, whatever I posted in this thread wasn’t relevant. Because of some forum hiccup it got posted in the wrong thread for whatever reason. The post I made concerning deaf gamers was intended for another thread. If I offended anyone, I apologize.

I have my own handicap which leads to a general inability of playing sPVP, WvW or raids in an organized manner. I learned to cope and in real life I almost completely conquered this disability. However in games I just don’t play the things that are impossible for people with my condition. That’s my choice and that’s what I wanted to convey, with the added message of hope (Nihilum’s deaf tank).

Agree with OP, and while you’re at it, Anet, please also allow disabling the circles/highlights around creatures.
I would much rather play without every single mob having a vague, red highlight around them. I can very easily tell if they’re a mob aggroing on me. Never saw the reason why those highlight silhouettes were there in the first place and they’re rather just making the beautiful world of Tyria uglier.

I think the answer is to have the circles distinguished by more than just color.

Friendly circles should be smooth.
Hostile circles should be jagged – VERY jagged.

This way they can both be white.

Might I suggest taking a tip from League of Legends on this one? They added a colorblind mode about a year ago that replaces the normally red and green rings with (IIRC) purple and blue respectively.

I don’t really have an issue with the colours of the effects (im red-green colour blind), but they definitely need to be more “noticeable”.

As they are now, they are very thin and transparent. You pretty much need to know that they are coming and prepare for them ahead of time. Otherwise, you might miss them.

edit: Combo fields on the other hand are much more noticeable with the whole “puzzle piece” effect around the circle.

Colorblind mode would be much appreciated.

+1

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Might I suggest taking a tip from League of Legends on this one? They added a colorblind mode about a year ago that replaces the normally red and green rings with (IIRC) purple and blue respectively.

Actually, the default colors were blue and purple. Because the only difference between blue and purple is a little bit of red, they were VERY hard to tell apart. They changed it to bright blue and red. Also, the AOE markers and other team color elements are often not transparent, which helps a great deal.

+ 1 from me too. Im colourblind and just like some of the others it took me several weeks before i realised i was standing in red AOE. its a right pain trying to explain to Guildies or worse still pug groups that the reason you die on the “easy” last boss of TA is that you cant see the red circles. After playing WoW for a number of years and being able via ingame or addons to avoid the dreaded red circles, i just cant understand why this cannot be sorted in Gw2. Game developers have known for years about colour-blindness and 3D motion sickness, its about time this was put to rest.

Hello

I realize this has been mentioned before, but it can not be stressed enough:

There needs to be an option ingame to change the red circle to another basic color. White, Black, Red, Blue, and Yellow would be enough in my opinion.

The reason of course is colorblindness. Myself and others have major issues with the red circle on many textures. It is also so feint that I have to focus on the ground instead of the boss to stay alive. This is twice as bad when the boss uses both circles and visual cues.

Keep in mind I am a decent player, I have Dungeon Master, so I am not asking for this option as a sort of crutch. It simply NEEDS to be added with priority.

Please, I am almost begging at this point. Add this accessibility option.

-Tony

Even non color blind people can benefit from this. I find myself squinting sometimes in places like CoF to see the red circles over the reddish brown surfaces.

I do not see any reason for this not to happen.

Im up for this even if im not colorblind!

I can barely see the red circle as well.
Its so transparent and thin I don’t even notice it fast enough to react.

Not even color blind.

I am for it-It would help people alot more at getting used to dodgeing out of aoe-when you can see it. A blaring green circle could be more seeable in certain areas then the red and vice-versa. Have you ever gotten aoe’d on lava? I have-You have no idea its under you till your dead. lol.

I don’t know how I feel about this being moved to the suggestions forum. This is not simply a suggesion or idea for possible future content. This is a change that must be made. To be completely honest this is more of a demand than a suggestion.

This sub-forum also gets less attention than the General forum, I find.

Either way, this needs to be done. One of the first things I learned about design while studying architectural is that a building must first be accessible and practical before it can be unique. This is true even for video game design.

So my usual raiding party tried Arah explorable yesterday, all was fine and dandy until we got to Giganticus Lupicus. Now honestly hes not a hard fight, except for the fact that his red AOE circles are nearly indistinguishable for people who are red/green colorblind, infact There were some parts of hios room that even the non-colorblind people could not see the circles well enough to know they were there.

So what I’m suggesting, If a colorblindness fix is not already in the works, is the ability to change the color of those circles, and to make them a little thicker.

This is not the only area that this occurs but was a serious set back for us, and left a bad taste in our mouths of ever attempting Arah explorable again as is. ):

I am partially color blind (don’t get through all color blindness tests, but can tell MOST colors apart) and I have problems seeing the circles on certain surfaces.

I really think that we should have the option of coloring the circles in whatever color we want.

In addition I’d like it if the warning circles had more depth.
Combo fields have those fancy puzzle piece/heart edges which makes them much easier to see no matter what color they are.

If warning circles sticked out of the ground they’d be much easier to see, too.

I have read most of the post but not all of them, so forgive me if this has been sugested. Make the “Target Area” a color selection. the defualt would be red, just make it for those who have a hard time see’ing the color red able to change the color of the “target zone”. this can be placed in the “Options” section. I know this has been done befor in the MechWarrior comunity, though I admit i have no clue as to how hard this would be to code. just a sujestion

Onix A.K.A. Saraya Bloodrain

It would be nice to know if anet is doing anything about a colorblind mode. I’ve been playing since release and when I play I have to change the hue of monitor in order to play because if I don’t ill be dead which in turn makes the game look awful at times. Take AC for example for the first two months when I ran that place I had no idea there were circles for the spike traps so I would just constantly die. It has now been quite a few months with no fix for this.

I too would like to see a “color blind mode” added to the game. I enjoy playing the game, but I don’t enjoy having to squint to survive. I actually need to play with a friend on skype, just so that he can tell me when to roll out…

Wow, I can’t believe I never considered this. As far as suggestions go. I think it would probably be helpful more helpful to add user defined colors than it would be to simply have the color of the warning circles inverted for the color of the surface. The problem is that one of the more common color blindnesses is the red/green and red is the invert of green so the circles would still show up as red on the very common grassy areas.

I realized very early on how important the circles are. I had those types of boarders turned off in the options panel to start because I felt like the graphics looked so much better without them. Then I tried doing one of the jumping puzzles with floor traps. There were several players whizzing through ahead of me, and I kept getting one-shotted by the traps. It became so frustrating that I looked on you tube to see how to solve it. It was then I noticed that the other players where simply dodging the red circles of the impending aoe traps. I can’t imagine how much it would lessen your survivability if you played WvW without the warning circles.

Though I can see the red circles I wouldn’t mind having the option to change this to a differentcolor option as well.

Red circles are hard to see when there’s a lot of action going on as it is, not just for colour blind people! They do need to stand out more, this wont affect gameplay, cuz there will still be those who don’t dodge lol but will help those in gameplay who do dodge :-p.

We have a growing thread about this over on the reddit

Asking for a color blind mode – it seems that for most, having an option to switch the UI elements from Green to blue (heal numbers, AoE indicators, health bars for PVP) would help most of the people who need this, but if more option could be made, that’d be great.

Video how another company is handling it :

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/02/01/why-games-need-color-blind-modes-see-simcity-with-simulated-color-blindness/

http://indephy.wordpress.com/colorblindness-aid-a-d3d-shader-experiment/

A d3d injector (like fxaa injector/sweetfx) that adjusts the colors. Dunno how well it works since I’m not color blind, but it looks like it should work with any d3d game.