Colourblindness And Warframe - A Personal View

[H3dsh0t]

Hey guys, I just wanted to make a post about something that is pretty near and dear to my heart, and that is about something in the game that really bugs not only me but quite a large percentage of people, and that is colourblindness in warframe. Now I have done a video on this before which you can find here:

 

 

But for those that don't want to check that out, the gist of it is that there is a large amount of problems within warframe related to colourblindness, and the way that it is currently dealt with.

 

Colourblindness is something that actually affects a large proportion of males, almost 1 in 12, and cannot be catagorised into one single deficiency. Not all deficiencies are exactly the same, and this I admit is a problem for a game developer like Digital Extremes. And this is where the problem with the current approach is really highlighted. 

 

Colour deficiency is something we have talked about on the forums before, and the last official answer we got on the issue that I saw, was on the problem of mod card colours, which was that a certain website said that the colours were OK for colourblind people. This led to a discussion on the forums about the approach towards colourblindness talking about how this is a poor way to approach the issues, since there is no magical colour that all colourblind people can see, and that a more visual approach was needed, which led to lockers changing their appearance, mods getting dots on them to say rarity. I had a fantastic quote on my video saying "Many many moons ago when I was in college my foundation design teacher put it perfectly. A good design especially UI is one that reads quickly and clearly no matter the colors chosen. Colors are just an element of the total communication being conveyed to the viewer. Values and profiles that don't contrast clearly become very muddled, if not completely invisible for those of us afflicted with colorblindness"

 

Warframe is a fast paced game, it always has been, and having to stop to try and determine colours, or running to locked doors all the time, slows not only yourself down, but also your teammates while they wait for you. There are more problems right now than people would admit, and maybe its due to not being vocal enough on the forums, or the times people are vocal it falls on deaf ears and give up, I don't know, but so many elements are just not friendly to people with a colourblindness.

 

Lets take a really recent example of this, the introduction of the permenant marker on the enemies in sharkwing and archwing. This went down with so much joy from me, lots and lots of it, because I have previously complained about not being able to see the enemies at all, so I launched into Sharkwing and went to see if I could finally play the game mode, and what colour greets me......a red marker. Well gee thanks, the one colour that blends into everything all of the time. Now I admit, that this is a tough thing for the UI team to decide on with this sort of UI element, due to the lack of customisable UI and the variations in colourblindness, but maybe some options to choose from to change the colour of those markers would be something that could be done to try and help this issues out.

 

All of this really leads down to what the UI team want to do and how they want to approach this, whether they want to try and make visual elements visible to everyone no matter whether they have normal colour vision or not, or whether a recolourable modular UI is something that is on the cards, allowing people to choose the colours of various UI elements to suit their own tastes and colour deficiency if they so wish. But either way, its time some of these issues get a look over, especially with U18 on the cards, and some of these issues having been in the game for years now without change.

 

I'll leave a list of problems I've personally had problems with in-game below as well as those posted in the comments on my video, and for those of you that also have problems, feel free to add them here and I'll add them to the OP.

 

- Sharkwing Enemies blending into environment. Red enemy marker also blends in too easily.

- Grineer Doors - Locked/Unlocked

- Scanning - Green/Red for scanned not scanned

- Red Veil / New Loka medallions hidden in patched of grass are near on invisible to me

- Ammo Drops, they do have a shape to them, but so small that they are barely able to be seen at distance, and colour differentiation is not easy at range. Leads me to use carrier more often than not to try and pick up ammo, reducing the usefulness of other companions.

- Exterminate Mini Map, room goes red to say there's an enemy in the room, enemy marker is also red....

- Energy Disruption Fields / Grineer Sentry Drones' Beam on Spy.

- Chroma UI doesn't tell the element until colour selected, which is severely frustrating and can lead to selecting colour and after colour trying to get the right one.

- Vulkar dot in the centre of the scope blends into any grineer tileset ridiculously easily, meaning that it can be very difficult to use!

- Banshee silence debuff graphical effect is almost identical in how it looks to an ancient healers aura. Literally couldn't tell if it was Banshee debuff or Ancient Healer buffing.

 

It would be amazing to see a response from the UI guys about how they approach this issue, and whether that approach has changed at all, and whether its on the cards to try and make this easier to play with colourblindness, or to have a modular UI that allows even a certain amount of recolouring. I know some of this comes down to general design decisions and not necessarily just the UI team, so if it seems I am being unnecessarily harsh to the UI guys that is not my intention, but I have no idea who has final say on what in DE when it comes down to colours on ammo boxes etc.

Edited May 12, 2016 by H3dsh0t

[Hixlysss]

As a colorblind player of warframe, I agree.

[Blakrana]

Well said, and it is a rather irksome situation.

 

From my own testing around, the only difference I can see between Colour Correction being on or off is that with it off, things are just a bit darker. It's not really much use in all honesty as a work around. Haven't even turned it back on since testing it out.

 

As of yet, it's mostly similar to yourself: Grineer laser doors are a pain to pre-empt (though the new hp display has helped a bit), I can't clock a door from a distance, Derelict Lockers are still using the outdated Orokin ones, despite the very recent touch up actually (I've checked).

 

Still nothing to tell you what colour you're choosing in the customisation options, which is a bit of shame as I do want to try other colour combos but...well, Red, Gold, Orange, Dark Blue, Black and White are pretty much my lot for 'obvious enough'. It's really galling, as the Dojo has things like Antiviolet or so on for the researchable colours. Why can't we have some fluff labels like that when colouring frames you know?

 

I'm not sure at the moment what to suggest, beyond trying to figure out some symbols or what not. Even something as simple as labelling colour palette cells with a letter to determine shade (Light Medium or Dark) and colour by either number or what not...which then comes under the palette. Hover labels would be nice, after all.

 

I think the only other one I can have issue with is when the reticule actually 'registers' a target, as well...Red, brownish environments more often than not...Honestly, I go by whether I see a health bar rather than the reticule changing when it gets like that.

[Stouty22]

I am not color blind but I do agree something should be done for those that are.

[MagPrime]

Adding visual changes would be beneficial for everyone.

[Choggo]

To not sound like a total jerk, I'll first start by agreeing that there should be options for those who are color blind.  

 

But I'd have to argue that this bugs "a large percentage of players."  going off your numbers, 1 in 12 is 8.5% of the population, and while the other 91.5% of the normal players may be like me and agree there should be options, I find it hard to believe it "bugs" them.  

Edited October 17, 2015 by Choggo

[ThymeL0rd]

One of the best options would probably be introducing UI colour options, then people with colour-blindness could go into options and Change the UI colours to work for them? I am not very aware of how much colour-blindness limits vision, but if what was mentioned above about the fact that not all colour blindness is the same, giving each person the opportunity to alter their UI colour settings would make sense? It would also bring a bit more personality into your UI. I don't know if this would work or not but maybe its an option,

[DeMonkey]

Still nothing to tell you what colour you're choosing in the customisation options, which is a bit of shame as I do want to try other colour combos but...well, Red, Gold, Orange, Dark Blue, Black and White are pretty much my lot for 'obvious enough'. It's really galling, as the Dojo has things like Antiviolet or so on for the researchable colours. Why can't we have some fluff labels like that when colouring frames you know?

 

I'm not sure at the moment what to suggest, beyond trying to figure out some symbols or what not. Even something as simple as labelling colour palette cells with a letter to determine shade (Light Medium or Dark) and colour by either number or what not...which then comes under the palette. Hover labels would be nice, after all.

 

This would be really helpful, too often do I say something to my mate along the lines of ''Hey, check out my cool blue Excalibur'' for him to say ''Dude, it's purple''. 

[Rippz0r]

I have colour-blindness and do face similar problems like u mention H3dsh0t, most games do have 3 choices for us to go with, presets or even u can change each item color on HUD, would appreciate this a lot too, making the locked red doors more visible or something and the other stuff.

Thx for the topic mate.

[TychusMechanicus]

I absolutely support this.

 

I'd love a smart design that allows pattern differences (like current Void and Grineer lockers) and smart label placement (Chromas energy colour and the respective elements) to make the UI more intuitive without having to rely on colour to determine what is what.

 

This of course along with options and presets for UI colour sets for various types of colour blindness if not free colour selection for various UI elements.

[H3dsh0t]

Added to the list of things that are difficult to differentiate.

 

Orange / Green buttons in the new raid

Edited November 22, 2015 by H3dsh0t

[H3dsh0t]

Added to the list:
 

Vulkar dot in the centre of the scope blends into any grineer tileset ridiculously easily, meaning that it can be very difficult to use!

[Rippz0r]

hehe I was having problems with the same weapon, missed whole clip before i realized which was the dot that you needed to use.

[Yargami]

   I don't have any color-blindness that I'm aware of, but I also have problems with both the exterminate mini-map and the locked Grineer doors. I also have a slight problem with Sharkwing enemies, but that is because the glowing light on Grineer enemies continues to glow after they are killed. This often leads to me using half my clip on a corpse while still getting shot by his allies.

Edited February 16, 2016 by Yargami

[H3dsh0t]

I've kind of neglected this topic recently, I apologise for that. This is something I feel very strongly that needs to be looked at, and I hope that I can keep trying to raise awareness that this is an issue that needs addressing!

[dealingtrap]

I am not affected by any colorblindness, but kudos nonetheless for raising the issue as i know many friends that are struggling with this hurdle and stay away from games that they are not able to navigate.

I confirm that i struggle too at finding underwater ennemies, but i expect my vision to be hindered when going underwater. With that said, i fully understand that a blurry effect would push the difficulties to distinguish the ennemies even further.

As far as visibility goes, my main issue is the size of the aiming dot on archwing, as soon as the background is bright (like in the reactor zone of corpus ship) i am unable to know where i am aiming at, i would love to be able to set the size and colors of the aiming dot in archwing and warframe, that would be a huge QoL improvment for me.

[kubbi]

Warframe being a huge as it is now I definitely think its time we add more options. I don't have colorblindness but I strongly think we should have options for people that do suffer from it.

[jackswift7]

I just want to express my support regarding colorblindness as well. I am red-green color deficient and would love some of the options that warthunder has to its marker system. I'm not sure what could be done in some situations but any options or ability to adjust colors, tints, hues, etc. to very opposing colors would be welcome. 

[H3dsh0t]

Added another one to the list:

 - Banshee silence debuff graphical effect is almost identical in how it looks to an ancient healers aura. Literally couldn't tell if it was Banshee debuff or Ancient Healer buffing.

Lets hope that we get some word on some of this list fairly soon :)

[UnderFiend]

In Devstream 74, DE talked about changing the door colors. That's great but there are more pressing issues like simply adding aura symbols to enemies. The Scan targets auras are hard to perceive, especially when they are Corups due to the blue shield color.

During the discussion on Friday's Devstream, DE talked about changing the color of the lights on doors. That's great, but that's not a high-priority issue with some colorblind players. We can see the door and that we are not able to enter. What's not clear is the aura on enemies.

I was really hoping for a discussion on changes to make the game more colorblind friendly, but the stream devolved into a series of jokes which was not appreciated.

Some of Warframe's player base is colorblind; I get that DE may not think about it much but there are easy solutions.

One suggestion would be to add patterns to auras so that it's clear that a scan target is special, such as having the Synthesis/Simaris symbol pulse on the target like Nyx's mind control target.

Edit: changed content for tone and requested thread-merge.

Edited May 15, 2016 by UnderFiend
tone, due to feedback and adding suggested changes

[OMHOMHOM]

I don't mean to be rude,but i think this might even be the first game/dev to talk about such personal issues.People with such issues are uncared-for especially in gaming because they're a minority,therefore i think them actually noticing people with issues like this and actually trying something is already a huge step up.You're just pushing it at this point.

Edited May 14, 2016 by OMHOMHOM
Changed sentence structure.

[UnderFiend]

11 minutes ago, OMHOMHOM said:

I don't mean to be rude,but i think this is the first game/dev to talk about such personal issues.People with such issues are uncared-for especially in gaming because they're a minority,therefore i think them actually noticing people with issues like this and actually trying something is already a huge step up.You're just pushing it at this point.

I appreciate what they're trying to do, but as far as being the first - that's simply not true. PlanetSide2 allows for GUI changes. This isn't a new concept.

My point was also not to focus on the finite but other issues that come up with colorblindness, and frankly, they should be easy to resolve.

[Blakrana]

8 minutes ago, UnderFiend said:

Some of your player base is colorblind. Take this issue seriously

Whilst I can appreciate that people having a bit of levity about the whole thing can rub the wrong way, the fact is if they weren't taking it seriously they wouldn't be making an effort in the first place. The fact they've actually made efforts on the Locker patterns, and now Doors are on the agenda, is a good start. If they didn't take it seriously, frankly they'd never bother with it in the first place and would, as in other places potentially be clearly malicious in the nature of jokes made.

I think you should know as well as I and the rest of us that it's still a very uncommon thing to come up in games as something people take into consideration at the outset; heck, the sheer accusations of 'pandering' that get thrown about at times is rather disappointing, let alone some think it's funny for us to be frustrated by colour only information (Prototype's map was bloody terrible). Things are getting gradually better with more and more games figuring out that there's no reason to not have considerate UI, but we've still got quite some way to go.

Furthermore, whilst I can't infer anything about your experiences as being colourblind, I'd sooner light ribbing compared to blatant mockery any time; been there, done that, had the crap kicked out of me. Fact of the matter is, statistically there will (or should) be a moderate chunk of people who're colour blind amidst their own staff; having none at all would be an impressive statistical aberration. So by rights, should they cross the line they may get a polite nudge from their own colleagues...and again, we're all more than capable to do so ourselves if there's not anyone to do it that side of it. Wouldn't be the first time and I'll be very surprised if it's the last.

Though Hanlon's razor is perhaps worth considering to apply, all said and done. I mean let's be honest, much as they're aware of the issues they've proven repeatedly that they're not very good on picking up on them until after it gets into the hands of colour blind players, such as the Vay Hek trial needing modifications made for one of its puzzle segments.

25 minutes ago, UnderFiend said:

talked about changing the color of the lights on doors. That's great, but that's not a high-priority issue with some colorblind player

It's not so much changing the colour, it's pattern application with colour, like with lockers. Now as you note, that's not high priority for some...but seeing as it's not a uniform condition as I'm sure you know yourself, it does affect some people; I actually am quite looking forward to it as on some tiles, like Derelicts and the Void, I've got far too little input before I'm standing in front of a door way to know what's going on with it. Veil of Ignorance is a handy tool in these regards.

Right now, it's a start and certainly the first one since the lockers tweaking (Derelicts still use the old system however). And considering how much of a sticking point it was with the Mod cards to get the little Stars added (I think a lot of us still recall Pablo's reasoning was that it'd been put through a filter and seemed fine), I'd rather they're cautious moving forward this time considering the gaffs on this subject before now.

They still get points for trying and admitting they've made some poor decisions that didn't take us into account effectively enough, and made changes to help.

29 minutes ago, UnderFiend said:

What's not clear is the aura on enemies

This is a valid point and I'd be more than happy to throw in when the matter comes up. Perhaps different patterns or particle effects for different kinds of things could be interesting, though possibly visually intensive. I don't know what the best answer here is whilst also taking into account matters like processing and visual clutter to be as minimal as possible. Unlikely to be distinct models for n Eximus variants in each case (even if that could be awesome).

One way or another...they're making an effort, which is more than we can say for some developers on these issues.

30 minutes ago, UnderFiend said:

other issues that come up with colorblindness, and frankly, they should be easy to resolve.

Should be. But that implies will, a certain understanding and the liberty to dedicate to something that sadly, for a lot of people, is decried as 'minority pandering' more often than not. It's important it's done, important steps are made but the fact remains that it's still a very common oversight in modern gaming, despite being a known quantity for at least the last decade in terms of the industry.

It's always going to be more complicated than 'just do it'. Poor understanding of what actually serves as a solution hampers the process as well, as noted earlier with the mod card issue before the stars were added on. Hell, I can guarantee that someone somewhere will, or already has, made a compliment that DE are 'wasting time and resources' on trying to make things better suited for Colourblind players at all since yesterday.

1 minute ago, OMHOMHOM said:

even be the first game/dev to talk about such personal issues

Not true. Borderlands 2, FTL, Dust: An Elysian Tail, League of Legends, Call of Duty, Invisible Inc, Team Fortress 2, Battlenet stuff...I could go on. What is however important is the fact it's still a notable thing to be found absent in a lot of titles. Frankly I love the fact that Totalbiscuit always makes an outright point about it being a problem when it isn't included in a game at all; his WTF video for Dust: An Elysian Tail very neatly highlights the matter.

Any event, sorry for going on.

[Daz11]

4 hours ago, Blakrana said:

This is a valid point and I'd be more than happy to throw in when the matter comes up. Perhaps different patterns or particle effects for different kinds of things could be interesting, though possibly visually intensive. I don't know what the best answer here is whilst also taking into account matters like processing and visual clutter to be as minimal as possible. Unlikely to be distinct models for n Eximus variants in each case (even if that could be awesome)

I think for eximus auras it would be good if they have symbol on top of the enemies. Something like in Path of Exile when you get those relic buffs. A big symbol for the eximus and small but still noticible symbol for those affected. A variant symbol for those negatively affected.

[Blakrana]

1 minute ago, Daz11 said:

I think for eximus auras it would be good if they have symbol on top of the enemies. Something like in Path of Exile when you get those relic buffs. A big symbol for the eximus and small but still noticible symbol for those affected. A variant symbol for those negatively affected.

When you say on top, is that 'over their head' or 'above their health bar'? Puts me in mind of how it was handled in Phantasy Star Universe/Portable 2: different symbols in their name, level and element box in the top right of the screen when targeting something; crowns were leaders, then a bunch of things to show their varying stat perks, like more physical or magical attack/defence.

Maybe more complicated than needs be, but right track?