134 replies to this topic

[CrazyWorm9]

im not color blind but but i do have poor vision sometimes the IS reticle is hard to see would like a option to change its default color abit as well should say i thing changing any hud color to better ease the eye blair should be allowed clans color is ok its easy on the eyes but the is is so bright yellow it hurts at times. another thing i noticed is weapon detonations on the cockpit glass from missiles is bright can we get a way to lower the brightness on them ass well

[Fiona Marshe]

Blue-Green colour blindness.

Ever since the haze filter was applied to Forest Colony at the end of Closed Beta, I can't see much over 200m on the map *unless* its a 'high-contrast' location (sky outline or garish camo).

Just after ECM was introduced, an Atlas DDC walked strait up the road... in the open... and I didn't see him until he fired at 250m range... even though I was looking at him the whole time.

[Insects]

Tina Benoit, on 22 April 2015 - 10:38 AM, said:

I'm creating a list of your recommended changes to share with the team.

Change list:
1 - Hud colors in a user editable (rules) xml/config file

Quote

and over what kind of time frame we might be able to implement some of these improvements

Before lunch.

[Thorqemada]

Not Colour Blind but getting old eyes and the reticles be often very hard to see for size and shape and colour.

[FatYak]

with everything this game needs, how does this even rank amongst thing to be talked about?????

I do agree though, changing HUD color is needed, and should have been from day one

Edited by FatYak, 24 April 2015 - 06:58 AM.

[MoonUnitBeta]

Tina Benoit, on 22 April 2015 - 10:38 AM, said:

Thanks so much for all the feedback, really appreciate this as there's so much more to it than simply adding a filter.
I'm creating a list of your recommended changes to share with the team. With this we can decide what is possible and over what kind of time frame we might be able to implement some of these improvements. You may not see changes appear all at once, however there may be small implementations one at a time in the future.

Thanks Tina! Every little bit helps.

[TheCaptainJZ]

It seems the first "fix" to help everyone the most initially is to add shadows or outlines to the Hud elements.

[Uthael]

Some games have easily editable HUD elements, all in the same image. Different instances of which appear one beneath another (or something like that). That would be great.

Although I'm very often blind to mechs, too...
... Unless I'm using Heat Vision which is now blurry and cut off at longer ranges. Not to mention you can't distinguish if you're looking at it's front or back.
If I remember correctly, the problem with the old heat vision was too much strain on the game clients. I'd switch to it in a heartbeat, even if it meant dropping my FPS to below competitive levels.

Paint-mechs-blue vision at all ranges would be great xD

[DevilCrayon]

Sadly, the other problem with the "predator vision" thermal imaging was that it gave an unfair advantage to snipers as 'Mechs were super easy to target at 1000+m.

[eitsch]

Monky, on 17 April 2015 - 12:11 PM, said:

The simplest method is to allow customization of all elements of the HUD, color-wise.

This can be done with a 'change the color of everything' selector, breaking it into different groups like 'things that are by default red, yellow, blue, etc' or just allowing each element to be individually configured.

This benefits not only color blind players but people who want to highlight specific features for ease of eye relief and for people who value consistency between CLAN/IS HUD displays (currently, clans = blue, IS = yellow)

this. instead of taking the burden to find the right color for the specific colorblindness you get the burden of implementing the flexibility of coloring everything but this definitely would be much more catering your customer. simple mode: drop down for 2-4 pre selected color-setups (like graphics details which come in low/med/high) ... advanced: color all the colours \o/

[IronChance]

I just wanted to quickly point out a red-green colorblind example.

In this post:

https://mwomercs.com...-may-19th-patch

The red and green characters look EXACTLY the same color to me, EXCEPT where they are placed near all the white (light green?) text in the intro paragraphs. The only way for me to tell the numbers on the quirks are good or bad is from the +/- sign.

Just thought I'd throw that out as a good example of how red/green colorblindness can sometimes be nothing at all, but usually is maddeningly frustrating.



EDIT: OK, I'm dumb. Just noticed the note. LOL. Still the green numbers are far less "green-like" to me when away from contrasting colors.

Edited by IronChance, 20 May 2015 - 04:35 PM.

[BulletChief]

My three biggest problems are pretty obvious:

- The paper doll doesn't tell me anything. unless it's deep red and about to break off i can hardly see it. (as in untouched - yellow - almost off). The bars from all earlier MW games would certainly help.

- Missile door indicator is rubbish. Sorry to say it that harsh but that one is even tough for non-color-blind people. A small HUD indicator would help. Just like for NARC.

- Night vision. Different shades of green... guess what . The old blue one was good. Never understood the change.


Battlefield 4 has a good solution as does Planetside 2. Look at those

Edited by BulletChief, 20 May 2015 - 08:58 PM.

[Thorqemada]

Yeah - Night Vision is very annoying...i allways hated the old Monochrome Green Monitors and now i have different shades of Green all over in that view - makes me pretty much never use it aside of Smokescreening.
Imho Blue/White is much better bcs it does not annoy me.

[dezgra]

I am red/green color blind. I do see blue very well. I grew up not knowing I was color blind, so I have learned to compensate. The biggest issue for me is the mini map and the enemy target indicators. They do not catch my attention and I must actively search for them.

[Groutknoll]

So I stumbled across this then just seen this topic. Thought someone here may have a interest in it.

http://enchroma.com/

They make glasses that help color blind people see more colors.

[Chuck Jager]

Wonderful thread and an excellent real world step towards outreach by PGI.

I have many years experience designing websites for a university that is governed by strict accessibility laws and the fact that our site had to convey multiple types of information for many goals to a very diverse audience. The hardest issue I faced was making presentations to my bosses and internal committees that had short attention spans and their goal was to be "wowed" by the creative person. They did not have the same need to gather specific information while keeping the ability to take different paths.

The reason that I mentioned this is that the best way to get a "wow" factor is with a beautiful picture involving very subtle use of complimentary colors and eliminating as much clutter as possible. Imagine if the text on a page with important information was all shades of yellow and red and the lines under links was removed. This is not just an obvious issue for people with colorblindness, but also for folks who need to see what the link has to offer especially if it is the schedule of registration information. The issue around color blindness revolves around how contrast in value delivers logical information especially with how the brain translates the real world jumble into shapes and words that the brain sees in a mathematical way. Color and movement becomes a qualitative experience that the individual reacts to.

Any formally trained artist should be able to remove all color from their piece and know if the information that is needed is being translated. Also almost all good implementation of accessibility features make life not just useable for some, but also easier for all. We all have to hear, see, touch and process the world around us.

I say this because my talent in visual arts also shares my diagnosis with Asperger's. I use the settings for color, transparency, hud symbols and bar locations in all games and software to organize the information at hand or I become lost in too many options. This is the difference between being mentally disabled or being a talented genius. Aspergers is part of the Autism spectrum that everybody is placed on and it specifically addresses how people are able to translate the real worlds information into actions shared by a social community.

The short and long of this post is that instead of making a quick fix to deal with just color blindness, it may be better to add a gui wizard that deals with these factors for various HUD elements (where applicable):
Transparency - many of the color blind issues may be solved by eliminating the loss of contrast with the background. This is usually a property of all graphic elements
Size and location - I love maps and symbols and can use these easily while other people feel that these same items remove from the "feel" of the game. There are many conditions including age/eyesight and left/right dominant that can be addressed with this options. Even if it looks funky, allow a wide variation of change
Value, symbols and lines - by allowing someone to choose BW and color settings of certain objects as well as the symbol shape. This can specifically address colorblindness plus help players of all levels share a more level playing field. The background/real-time layer is usually treated as an object

Once the coding is developed to change/move/adjust a couple of items it is usually not that much work to add more. I have worked with alot of "design" programing in Flash/CSS/JavaScript and have found the biggest problems is not with my individual ease and the number of available options , but how the other programming (and its programmers) react to it. Custom/Plugin software and hardware (including game engines) may not make certain parameters easily available or worse may have bizarre conflicts with what appears to be a simple adjustment. Unfortunately, the person who did the research on this can at best take all of the blame for something they had no ability to predict or control. I have found it best to just accept this as proof that computers have the potential to mirror human behavior.

Also some "exploit"/"assistive" technologies use color and shape recognition to provide useful graphic changes/layers like the ones discussed, but they can possibly also help in other ways like macros for dealing with weapon sequences based on heat scale (possible example). The same research for how humans perceive and react to patterns and symbols should also explore how software can do the same thing. As PGIs team probably knows this is an ongoing battle that is hard to really predict.

The HUD is now weighted towards "feel" or "immersion" over the ease of information through symbols. This is as painful an issue to deal with as in game class balance. One persons weakness is another person strength and a boss/committee may also perceive this as a potential wasteful use of resources that removes quality or gives an advantage to others . To whomever deal with this - Good Luck.

[Racersky]

I am not color blind, (at least the Department of Motor Vehicles) has not told me while taking the drivers test. Anyway, I do have a difficult time picking out the enemy mechs from the landscape. If you gents and ladies pilot would change all your mech colors to that neon pink for me, I think that would greatly enhance my success. Thanks in advanced!

[bar10jim]

I don't have a color differentiation issue, but even someone with common sense can see where the devs blew it in the new UI.

Using a color-coded dot to denote the existence of ECM, AMS, and ARTEMIS is a big fail.

Instead of this:



how about this?



Easy to see at a glance for everybody.

Edited by bar10jim, 02 June 2015 - 01:54 PM.

[Modo44]

If only you could change the various UI item colours, or, like, select from different UI themes.

[Fat Jack Murphy]

good friend is colourblind (red and green both look the same colour as light chocolate to him).
he says if you got a greyscale mode that works, he`ll come back playing

on some maps i would prefer greyscale, too. here`s what i play maps in:
HPG: heat
viridian bog: heat
acustic valley: heat (shoot black dots)
river city night: head or night
frozen city: heat
...

basically heat vision makes life easier. its grey. it has moving dots. bam.



PS: i think its really cool to add such a colourblind mode, few games have any at all.
thinking of it - targeting indicator lights are a pain to use (the gauss thing is next to unuseable)
and using coloured dots for stuff which need huge glasses to see is a pain, too.
use a X and a checkmark and its fine - think about people who dont see colour at all - if you
cant read your screen in greyscale, think about it again.

Edited by Fat Jack Murphy, 24 June 2015 - 10:11 AM.