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Posted (edited)

Hi all,

 

Just like the title suggests, we would love to hear your suggestions for accessibility. I know that some threads already exist such as this one from Sewolf (http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=988390) and I will be adding them here as I find them. Additionally, if y'all see any others, feel free to link them here or add your own suggestions below.

 

We cannot guarantee that every suggestion is going to be implemented, but we do want to hear about what can improve the game in terms of accessibility.

Edited by JackieKo
  • Like 1
Posted
One of things that i personally think would be beneficial, would make certain colors used in certain boss mechanics brighter, for example i have trouble seeing the red circles around my characters feet at times because i have colorblindness that deals with red and green spectrums.
  • Like 1
Posted (edited)
One of things that i personally think would be beneficial, would make certain colors used in certain boss mechanics brighter, for example i have trouble seeing the red circles around my characters feet at times because i have colorblindness that deals with red and green spectrums.

 

Then they should probably add a seperate option for you to turn on somewhere in the interface section because the AE-Voids for example are already REALLY bright and big and don't really need any change. WoW for example has an option for colorblind people in the graphic section if I remember correctly, so thats something they could do I guess.

Edited by Jesseriah
Posted

As someone with arthritis, could you please do something about the story mode for FPs in the expansions after KotET? They are not easy and they're quite long. You have no idea how reluctant I am to do even easy FPs from earlier in the game simply because I may get most of the way through and have to quit and start over because the difficulty of the combat has left me in too much pain. That's incredibly frustrating.

 

But the newer (much harder) FPs are required to advance the story. For me (and others I've talked to) it means we've resigned ourselves to never seeing any of the new story personally even though we're still paying for a game sub. I play SWtOR purely for the stories and companions. So much of the newer content now seems intended to exclude or discourage solo players (even though the game was marketed as solo-friendly. (Absolutely nothing will coerce me into playing with a group. Sorry, but I've had really really bad experiences with group play which aren't relevant here.)

 

These required FPs either need to be truly story mode or something you can quit and return to so everyone can advance the story as a solo player. Preferably both.

  • Like 1
  • Haha 1
Posted
Not sure if this counts but heck i'll share my pitch anyway....

I would Really Like to see more done for Guild Flagships. I know guilds are allowed Strongholds and such, but it's just not the same as being able to bring together your team on the Flagship and travel the Galaxy that you've created for us! I would like to see more utilities and activities that would bring a guild together on their Flagship. There's only 2 things I would like to see for Flagships...

 

1) I would like to extend the guild Flagship hooks limit from 800 to 1000, for 4 decks on a Flagship 800 is just slightly not enough to bring out full creativity when decorating.

2) A PVP Arena? Apparently Flagships we're supposed to have a PVP arena on them, If we can have those built into the Flagships that would be so cool! I know the Rishi Stronghold has PVP Arena's and that's great! -but it's just not that same.

 

Thank you for asking for suggestions I know you guys get a lot of flack from players but it means a lot that your listening to us and doing your best. :)

 

Sincerely El.

 

Sorry, but no this has nothing to do with accessibility. Please don't derail a thread just because it has a gold post

 

I suggest you create a new thread or find an existing one for your suggestions

 

 

On topic:

I really hope you manage to work your magic Jackie, because accessibility has been getting worse the last few years, not better (which is especially disappointing since so many other games have finally started taking accessibility at least half seriously)

Posted

One thing that often frustrates me is that there's a lot of conversation in the world that doesn't have directly toggleable subtitles.

 

Specifically, I'm referring to Overworld NPC conversations, and Flashpoint "announcements" (when you get to a certain point in the world and an NPC says something to your character outside of a full conversation, eg, the final line in Hammer Station, where the enemy announces "Hounds of the Empire..all that power. Yet, you still fear us!")

While the "System Feedback" channel gives subtitles for these, it often gets drowned out by Experience and Item gains, making it hard to read them as they happen

Posted

/SNIP

 

Unfortunately this is not what they are referring to. I would make a separate thread in suggestions for it if there isn't another one already.

 

They are looking for things to help make it better for those with disabilities. Maybe limited use on one arm, color blindness, flashing issues with those prone to seizures, etc.

Posted

I’m actually really excited to see this thread and I’m very hopeful these suggestions are listened to. I love this game, but at my physical health has declined, it’s becomes almost impossible to play at times.

My main suggestion/request would be to give players the option to turn off flashing/strobing animations. They are absolutely awful for people with photosensitivity like me. As an example, the Stormwatch tactical is a huge offender of this in my opinion- especially when you have multiple lighting sorcs in a group as most raid groups do nowadays.

Another suggestion is being more mindful about how difficult jumping puzzles and extended combat sequences can be for people with joint/mobility issues. It seems lately these things are a requirement in order to progress in individual story. Please leave challenging mobs for the challenging difficulties and make story something that’s accessible to everyone no matter their skill/ability level.

One last suggestion is to make subtitle text larger without having to make your entire UI larger.

Posted
id recommend something to toggle neon brightness on planets that have a lot of bright lights like nar shaddaa, even if the brightness in game is low it can be aggravating to people with light sensitivity
Posted

I would really love the ability to lessen the amount of particle effects in the environment, especially surrounding our player characters and after/while using abilities. It can be pretty visually overwhelming.

 

Hopefully this falls under 'accessibility' enough, though I definitely acknowledge there are far more pressing accessibility issues mentioned in earlier comments.

Posted

Add options for color blind users. I am not myself colorblind but I know it's actually not that uncommon (protanopia affects 1% of men for example), and it's surprising to me that this game is still using red/green with no option to change it to differentiate friendly/hostile. There are tools out there to simulate what your interface would look like to some types of colorblindness. Here's an example of a gsf/pvp scoreboard in this game and why options would be helpful: https://i.imgur.com/z4iWji8.png

 

On a more personal front the ability to change some types of alert sound effects (the missile tone in starfighter comes to mind) would make a huge difference for anyone with sensory processing difficulties of any sort. This is more of a minor concern however as there are other ways to deal with that problem and the game already has decent control over sound.

 

For those with sight impairments, the font size options for chat are helpful, but they tend to bug out the chatbox and cause large patches of black text which of course isn't readable. Resizing the chatbox can fix it but does not always. Investigating that issue (and allowing us to make the chat box bigger) would help there.

Posted

especially the group content is not optimized for some issues and i would like to see some options in the future.

 

1.) enable a high contrast mode for ppl with general eyesight problems.

2.) redesign voids that you add unique identifiers to them to help to community between color blind people and others without any issues. if the raidlead says, you need to pick green, there should be a different symbol to notice, like special runes or so. just copy working ideas from other games.

3.) maybe add some minor sound indicators

4.) add visual effects to game modes, just with sound indicators. like in GSF if a missile is locked on you. this would help with the ongoing sound bugs in GSF, too.

 

as a temporary workaround for people with issues:

 

nvidia integrades reshade in their drivers for several graphic cards. you need to enable the game customization by the driver software to unlock the filters. if done, you could play around with high contrast an color replacement filters and many more options.

 

if you activate combat logs and use starparse as a third party tool, you could read out special mechanic IDs, to connect them to custom made audio indicators. you'll find guides how to set them up, for example on youtube. there are also presets for some operations.

Posted

Colorblind filter for "protanopia deuteranopia tritanopia" with adjustment because there is low-medium-strong would be great to help people with colorblind issues because it will fix it for everyone , also an extra colorblind filter to enable marks for scaling when needed so someone that does not understand the color for importance will understand how important is with a "+" "++" "+++" etc. and white,gray color for those so anyone can see them and be sure.

 

I dont know if allowed and i dont want to advertise anything but enchroma.co.uk has a very nice test for colorblind people , i did the test and got protanopia strong so i know exactly my severity of colorblindness so it was helpful.

 

 

Thank you for taking time to help us with our accessibility.

Posted

yes, like the above mentioned... sound indicators. I miss whispers frequently in chat whenever in combat. Old eyes!

Thanks for listening and smart endeavor!

Posted (edited)

Custom font size for tooltips:

 

Chat window and cooldown timers already have it, but the only way to increase tooltip text is to change the global scale which affects all UI elements. Most UI elements can be reduced in size, but secondary windows like char sheet, inventory or galactic guide have no such option, so the choice is between larger text and oversized secondary windows.

 

Since the tooltip frame also needs to increase for the larger text to fit in, adding a Tooltip Scale slider might be the best.

Edited by Mubrak
Posted

Sorry if this was already posted, but I would love to see the story quest map markers either changed to a brighter color or to be given the option to change their color. My colorblindness makes it hard to see them and I've gone right by them countless times because I couldn't see them.

 

Otherwise, I'm with the other people asking for colorblindness settings and things to help colorblind people more.

Reven's

fight the first time was a nightmare for me.

Posted

I am in favour of supporting players with vision deficiencies beginning with color and ending with "common" vision impairing.

+ I would like to support implementation of different colour filters to the game in order to match our visual needs

+ I would like to see the quality of a given item (Green = Premium, Blue = Prototype, Pink = Artifact, Purple = Legendary) included somewhere in its description to avoid guessing its quality :)

+ to avoid confusion (green/red) enemies could be marked automatically with a "skull/lightning/something unique" icon

+ The ability to enlarge fonts in game would be also helpful

+ An option to dampen the stroboscopic lights (Nar Shaddaa's neons are a good example here).

Posted (edited)

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. UPDATE: I have also had players tell me that the green/purple circles on the green floor of the rakghoul event are very difficult to see.

 

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!

Edited by LadyAdmiral
Posted (edited)

Bloom Slider - Especially for lightsaber. Iam a big fan of Vanilla Lightsabers becouse Cartel Market (Temped "aka Luke", Valor, PvP Lightsabers, well every new lightsaber in cartel market) got very slim lightsaber blade. Hilts are great but iam not a fan of toothpicks.

 

Green Color Crystal - Would be great to change default one, but probably impossible. Add Green that was in swtor beta

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Yup3QRrbLI8/TuOoRjY8YsI/AAAAAAAAAyE/3TnYRd6o4MI/s1600/SWTOR+Miralukans.jpg

Someone tried to recreate it https://i.imgur.com/3v4xy5W.jpg

For me and many players its very important. I know we got many green crystals like Desert Green but they're not even close to this one. Waited for great green crystal since 2013 when i started to play.

 

Weapon Designer option

 

Bubble chat - For people with low PC spec it could be disabled and work only normal chat like now.

 

KEL DOR PLAYABLE RACE!

 

One of most important things... engine upgrade if its even possible. Low PvP frames is normal thing becouse limit of this 32 bit client.

Edited by tummiswtor
Posted

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!

Posted
Clickable nameplates for targeting purposes. Trying to tab through a number of enemies to get the one you really want can be problematic if you have arthritis. It would also be nice to have the aggro indicated on the nameplate, such as green if you have it as a tank, red if you have it as a dps / healer. Obviously a symbol / flair for these states would be needed for colorblind folks.
Posted

Posting on behalf of another player,

 

"I feel that gendered outfits, to this day, can and do strongly affect people with dysphoria. Even players without dysphoria have commented that this sexist practice should end. Please consider removing this constant reminder."

 

(Gender dysphoria involves a conflict between a person's physical gender and the gender with which he or she identifies. While the practice of dimorphic outfits has mostly faded away for newer armor design, quite a few of the launch outfits were designed very differently for male and female characters, with some being only designated for female characters like the 'dancer' outfits).

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