[Accessibility Suggestions]

YES! This would help make gameplay more accessible. I am legally blind, have chronic migraines and rheumatoid arthritis. I struggle often and have to quit playing because of the lack of accessibility.

 

 

Hello!

These are the things I have seen come up the most:

 

1) Colorblindness fixes. Biggest one seems to be Operator IX. Loved seeing colorblind accommodations for the Feast of Prosperity delivery game.

 

2) Text / UI size issues - increasing the size of the UI helps, but it is not the same as increasing the size of the text independently. For example, there are over a thousand wonderful lore codexes in the game that are inaccessible to some players. And some things do not increase, example there is a bug to do with tooltips especially, making them difficult to read for those with varying degrees of blindness, reading disabilities, and players who simply have large resolution monitors. Examples of what it looks like, what it could look like: https://imgur.com/a/nLtsWKB Dyslexia seems to be fairly common in the SWTOR playerbase, and as our playerbase tends to cover a wider range of ages than most games, poor eyesight is likely to be more prevalent. I will say the User Interface Editor has been a FANTASTIC addition for Legally Blind players!!! Great comment from last month from a player, "If you're a visually impaired player, SWTOR has an AMAZING interface editor. The global scale alone goes from itty bitty to "OH GOD TOO BIG HALP!" I'm legally blind for example, and I've tweaked the UI to where I can comfortably play 👍"

 

3) Difficulty of non-difficult-mode content - There are a lot of disabilities that benefit from making content "easier", making the story, environment, basic combat and basic gameplay more accessible to more players. Many disabled players have found the ability to solo the story flashpoints a god-send with the GSI droid. Please continue making that an option, for example Spirit of Vengeance was a failure for accessibility, and much of the less-experienced playerbase is still saying they are struggling with the difficulty level in story mode. Making solo-story mode very accessible benefits those with many physical disabilities who may have to simply quite the story if they can't get through it, or get through it at a decent pace. To give an example, the recent Spirit of Vengeance Flashpoint in story mode before updates took me TWO HOURS and I didn't even complete it - I was exhausted by the end and gave up on it, preventing me from getting to see the very cool Mandalorian story conclusion. Fibro Jedi, who has Fibromyalgia which can make regular activities painful and exhausting, also talks a lot about how the difficulty of story content can affect those with physical disabilities. Ideally, this comes with more difficult versions of the content as well for players looking for a challenge, for example the Chapters have story, veteran and master, for solo players. Please make sure all solo content still allows you to bring a friend in for help (ex Spirit of Vengeance failed this test when it launched).

 

4) Solo mode. There are a lot of disabilities that make grouping up very difficult, even if you have a very understanding and accommodating group, which isn't always available. Please continue with the trend of making Flashpoints available in solo mode. Please don't make story content require finishing with an Operation (ex Oricon, bonus points if you can craft an alternate solo quest). This makes the game more accessible to players who deal with overload from too much going on, like those on the autism spectrum, as well as players with other physical and mental disabilities that have trouble "keeping up" with a traditional group. This also benefits players who simply don't like grouping up.

 

5) Starting and stopping content. While the main storylines are quite friendly to starting and stopping, the story Flashpoints can be incredibly daunting to take on as a disabled player who may have to step out at any time - it can be very upsetting to have to stop partway through a Flashpoint, and come back to it the next day and find out you need to start over. Whether it's a mental disability where you need to take breaks when things get overwhelming, or a physical disability that causes you to be in too much pain to continue playing today, Flashpoints have a better checkpoints in solo mode would be a big boon to playing that type of content. This is also great for parents and caretakers that need to prioritize their dependents, and of course for any player that's ever had to attend to "real life" in the middle of a Flashpoint.

 

7) Sparkling and flashing effects. You will sometimes see players mention seizure possibilities due to the inability to turn off abilities that cause large bright particle effects. The ability to turn these off would also highly benefit those who get overwhelmed easily by stimulus, like those on the autism spectrum, as well as those with eyesight or migraine problems. This would also benefit players who simply don't like how chaotic the game can get, and reduce lag for those doing group content.

 

8) Physical disabilities - strangely, SWTOR seems to be pretty accessible to those with physical disabilities. The ability to keybind combined with the large variety of peripherals that exist these days makes for a lot of options. Neat little article covering it in 2020: https://caniplaythat.com/2020/01/22/mobility-review-star-wars-the-old-republic/ Player AccessibleGamer on Twitch is paralyzed in both hands and players SWTOR with a cool combo of tech "Mouse Input: TrackIR SmartNav4 head tracking mouse w/ sip/puff pressure switch for clicking" https://www.twitch.tv/accessiblegamer - I would like to hear more about if there are any keybinding missing features still - one of the ones I have heard is the inability to change they keybinds for the right and left click mouse - for example to interact with a glowing blue object you must right click it, and that there is no way to unbind the auto-attack (1 key attack) from the mouse.

 

9) Continuing to discourage language that puts down our disabled playerbase. There are a lot of slurs kicked around, especially in pvp, and often in general chat, that shouldn't be acceptable in a game that is meant to be welcoming to players of all backgrounds.

 

10) Continuing to find a balance between RNG, profit, and gambling and gaming addiction. I know this is a difficult line to find but continue to remember some of our dedicated playerbase deals with these and make sure when introducing new features not exacerbate it. For example, the Daily Login rewards, was very pleased to see that it did not require logging in every single day of the year, and instead was "at your own pace".

 

11) Continue supporting and improving guild features. From my experience with my guild, we have many players in our guild who have a wide range of mental, physical, and learning disabilities, from dyslexia to autism to lower ranges of movement. Being in a good guild is a great way for these players to get additional support that the game itself may not provide, and that they might not be able to find from the randomized player base. For example, being able to talk about disabilities without being made fun of, or being able to find groups who are looking to play the game in an accommodating way rather than the most efficient and fast way (think groupfinder flashpoints vs a group you put together in guild chat.) Please continue support guild features and make it as easy as possible for guild leaders to maintain their guild so they can focus on the social and interactive parts of the guild instead of administration! For example, for all players, it can be quite difficult in-game to find someone in a specific guild, and manage to contact someone who has permission to invite to get invited, while both players are both online. This process, that has no true in-game interface to guide you, can be doubly hard for players with dyslexia and for players with learning disabilities. Outside tools, like Discord, have helped a bit to ease these issues, but not fix them.

 

I hope this collection of what I have seen over the year as both a player, guild leader, and content creator are useful! I want everyone to be able to play and enjoy this wonderful era of Star Wars!

[Game Update 5.4a]

So, still issues? Not complaining. I am a little concerned that I saw free stuff being passed out? Or not true? If I can't play a game, I do other things. I don't even log into forums. However, I don't have much to do today except cook (did that), play video games or go to the gym because it's cool and rainy where I reside currently. I already don't play every day and am still a subscriber, but if you're passing out codes it should be to all subscribers for fairness.

So you don't play regularly and think you should be treated and compensated for missing out on something, that you didn't know about because you do not pay attention to forums and don't have time to play.....

It actually would not be fair to give you compensation for missing game time, that you aren't using. Seeing Complainers whining about a fairness that doesn't exist, takes away the fun of trying to catch a bonus while waiting for those who would be gaming but are just sitting around waiting. It's us who had planned on being here that matter and no don't complain but appreciate the effort and thought to try to help time go by with what THEY personally can offer at the spur of the moment.

 

Now know one gets any chance at getting codes and trying them.