Just a color blind mode for me. Souls games aren't the worst for me but sometimes there's something that hard to see.
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So, what accessibility features should From and Co. implement in "Souls-Like" games? (read the OP)
- Thread starter Plum
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Gotcha. And by tap you mean toggle or tap how rockstar does sprinting?
I don't get neuropathy much, but I do get it sometimes in my fingers (my dad has it as well, although more in his feet). When that happens though I just can't even play anything. It's like an attack that just goes until it calms down. Drumming my fingers can help or hurt depending. Problem is with my muscle fatigue rapidly tapping something can do a number on me and cause muscle spasms. So that's really interesting to read kind of the opposite.
God that sucks. A lot of my chronic pain I can push through, but then I'm punished severely after, and I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
That's fuckin awesome though that you could use that. What about it made it not hurt?
Man this like. Fuck. This shit hits me in the heart honestly. So. Okay, where I'm coming from with these games. The difficulty these games pose were very helpful in helping me face ADHD, Depression, being on the spectrum, chronic fatigue, chronic pain, audio processing issues (I need subtitles for this reason for example; I use it as an example of how helping those with disabilities helps more than those with the very obvious ones), and a lot of emotional trauma. Also other things too lol. So it's a struggle right, because a lot of my issues made dark souls very difficult for me, much more than for most people, and I would absolutely have jumped at the chance to make it easier, but its difficulty was so instrumental in helping me fuckin, like, develop the mental model for facing these struggles. Like I had ADHD as a kid, but all the other issues started coming out of the woodwork when I was around 10 years old, including the abuse. Within about three years all the issues had come in full force and as a kid with a family who just did not understand that I was having issues, I was made to believe that I could not do anything. I internalized it because that was the environment I was raised under. I was gaslit by being told that I didn't care about things, when I actually deeply cared about everything probably too much, but ADHD complicated that in a way no one around me was willing to understand. Had the abuse that you're probably familiar with where my social blindness caused anything well meaning by me who just genuinely cared about people to so often be interpreted as malicious. Like, I went from being a decently bright for my age kid to completely losing everything past 10 years old. At no point had I had the chance to learn how to face adversity in any kind of healthy way. I was already so maxed out facing just the day to day. The concept of victory being not only nice but genuinely fun was utterly foreign to me. Games were an escape. I played then as now, most everything on normal or easy. I played to get lost in stories so I'd forget for a moment how miserable I was. It got...pretty bad.
Dark Souls, which I only played because it was free and I had nothing else to play, in repeatedly challenging me beyond what I thought I was capable of, over and over, and never allowing me any quarter, having to adapt any which way worked for me, helped me slowly, over and over to train within myself a mental model of "wait, this seems impossible. But...but wait, but I thought that before. And it didn't matter. And I remember last time this happened I thought it was a fluke but now it's happened so many times. I know what to do now mentally." I talked to myself a lot, but I had not learned self talk in that way. It genuinely helped me, through that repetition develop this awareness beyond my own emotional outlook, which was probably the single-most empowering thing ever. I was not much allowed to go to therapy because my parents didn't exactly...believe in it, preferring I spoke with spiritual leaders in my church, which of course did not help my mental struggles. The ADHD made it impossible anyway, to well understand any kind of counselling. I had to experience it, and in a way that fit within my small ADHD mental RAM budget. The idea that I could have that kind of awareness was fuckin life changing. I use it, still, to help me face adversity when I get overwhelmed, and I've been complimented by therapists/counselors in the past on how I know how to do things that take them a long time to teach some patients. I had one woman who perked up at my mentioning of the game because a former patient had mentioned dark souls to her as well, which I found kinda funny.
So like, to me, it is fundamental to my struggle and the fact that I'm alive right here to day that that game existed as it does. And it's tough to hear people say that the game being different with options wouldn't affect me, because it absolutely does. And I think a lot of times someone like you gets caught in the crossfire of such a conversation, where fans who have had my emotional experience with this game (and boy there are many) desperately want to communicate that to people. And worse there absolutely are toxic fans as well.
So then I look at a situation like yours, and idk where you as a person are at in life. I don't know you from Adam. But I don't like the idea that someone like you, who let's say you could find the experience of the game valuable if it was less difficult, might miss that opportunity. I want anyone to whom it might be valuable to experience it. It won't be the same as my experience because I had my needs it spoke to in the way I needed so desperately at the time in a way nothing else did, but that's okay.
So that's why I ask like, how the game affects you and why I've read your posts with a lot of interests because I feel like often the person I'm debating with is an abled bodied person who just thinks I am able bodied person who just wants to be exclusionary, and thinks I don't know what it's like to be disabled, and I'm like, buddy, I absolutely do. It's not as often that I feel like I read something like yours that's more in depth with the whys, like an actual situation. So like, I'm glad you spent the time to do as you've done and write it out instead of staying small.
Sorry that's a really long way of explaining where I'm coming from. Where I really think that the difficulty these games push is really special, but also I want to figure out how to balance that in such a way that that challenge still happens for everyone regardless of how much, just that they figure out what mechanics work for them. And I feel like so many suggestions are so basic and don't respect the design goals the game has, and I've appreciated some of your more specific accessibility suggestions.
Idk, tl;dr: definitely I think a lot of souls fans like me do genuinely care about this issue. It's just a tough one.
That is true. That was helpful for me, since I grew up on German fairy tales in old beautiful story books when I was very young, so the undead berg was like playing through a fairy tale for me. That and just having no other games to play helped. That's why I think Bloodborne is actually "easier" for some people, because I really think the game is much more demanding, but it is dripping with atmosphere and that pulls a lot of people in.
Yes thankfully Dark Souls 1 has very powerful magic early on. They did nerf it over time, but you don't want to play 1.0 because some of the mechanics are ridiculous (Ex: getting cursed takes half your health away for example, and in 1.0, that could happen infinitely, halving your health over and over lmao. It was horrible). It is still very powerful. Since overall Dark Souls 1 is the slowest paced of the series, it is very reasonable to take things very slowly and kill a lot of things at a distance so they never even get to face you. You can make it comically easy to do, and you don't really need any special knowledge to do so, just maybe some exploration and time. So with needing to slow things down lest you get overwhelmed, DS1 is probably the place to start. You can get through half of the game before you finally face a boss that demands you be more quick on your toes and manage enemies in real time, but it's a boss there's almost always people willing to help out with. Just so you're kind of aware of your options.
You've just gotta understand how many people are taking my posts in utter bad faith when I try to offer suggestions, so hearing you read them how I meant them literally made me sigh lol. Thanks. Yeah I totally get you.
I really hate that this has rubbed off on you that way, but I understand. People are often so insensitive to the issue, even if they don't mean it maliciously.
Yeah a great example of like me myself having to understand an issue I just didn't grasp before was tone deafness. I'm very musical, so like, the concept of not being able to identify tones was just bizarre to me. But I read a lot of people struggled with the sound puzzles in The Witness, which were actually still really hard for me too. And yeah totally the moment you actually start talking about like a disability someone can't just, reconcile with what they already understand in 0 seconds, they just, like, disappear or change the subject lol.
I definitely get that shame sometimes. I have this like, fomo of not doing something as hard as I could, or having an achievement unfinished from time to time, and it's something I need to work on, since while I can do (some) things at their hardest difficulty, doing so puts such an enormous burden on me typically. It doesn't leave room for taking care of myself well, and pushes me to bad pain points at times where I will crash with real consequences. I've recognized there are a few games that I will never get as good at as I like, like doom eternal or tetris effect, that I deeply love, and that's okay. Thankfully doom eternal scales down enough for me to enjoy it in a way that I can get what the experience is about, and can see the trajectory of how it pushes me as I get better insomuch as I can.
I mean do you SEE my post above lmao. It's all good. This shit is emotional.
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Given that invasions are opt in, I think Pause makes sense now. I find myself using the unofficial pause button when I need to use the restroom.
Some great suggestions in this thread. The ones that particularly resonate with me (able-bodied) are control customizations - it's definitely awkward not having toggles for some actions and having sprint and dodge on the same button can easily lead to death if you backstep instead of sprint. Looking forward to reading other suggestions to broaden my perception of this issue. Thanks for sharing, y'all.
Some great suggestions in this thread. The ones that particularly resonate with me (able-bodied) are control customizations - it's definitely awkward not having toggles for some actions and having sprint and dodge on the same button can easily lead to death if you backstep instead of sprint. Looking forward to reading other suggestions to broaden my perception of this issue. Thanks for sharing, y'all.
Audiovisual accessibility would be phenomenal. A big part of these games is sound and visual cues to telegraph attacks and other actions. Having something like a circle projected onto the ground that displays frequency and wavelength of sounds occurring around your character would be excellent. It wouldn't say what is making those sounds, but it would indicate to Deaf and HoH players that there is sound near their avatar. It'd also be great for those folks who play with their speakers muted, for whatever reason.
Alternatively, do what Fortnite does, and give players directional indicators for specific sounds, but the tradeoff is you play monoaural.
As for visual settings, colorblind options would be excellent for people affected, and it's honestly long overdue for the genre as a whole. Going a step further and letting players tint the game with colors they can distinguish would also be great. Souls games seem to absolutely adore reds, greens, blues, and yellows.
Alternatively, do what Fortnite does, and give players directional indicators for specific sounds, but the tradeoff is you play monoaural.
As for visual settings, colorblind options would be excellent for people affected, and it's honestly long overdue for the genre as a whole. Going a step further and letting players tint the game with colors they can distinguish would also be great. Souls games seem to absolutely adore reds, greens, blues, and yellows.
I've seen games that do it properly handle this in three different ways:
- There is a selection in the options menu to select which decides whether the Crouch and Sprint buttons/keys are toggles.
- Both Crouch and Sprint have two different buttons/keys, one which is a 'toggle', the other is the 'hold as long as you want it active'.
- For Sprint specifically, if you tap the button/key while moving, your character will sprint up until you physically decide to stop moving.
more controller options, ability to lower gamespeed, text size, AC style spatial sound, colorblind modes, and invincibility cover all bases imo
Right yeah, it definitely bugs me especially on PC when some games don't do number 1 since some custom set ups rely on toggle, and just like, there's no reason not to meet someone with what makes sense for them. It doesn't affect the actual experience in a meaningful way other than just making it worse. I like 2 even better.
I don't think I've seen 3 ever, but it's just crazy for because the tapping is often the thing I hear complained about in rockstar games. I find it fatiguing and some people find it very painful. It's interesting to learn it's actually the better option for some people. Does seems pretty straightforward to implement.
Souls games would need to figure out a different button for running in that case since rapidly tapping would just cause spam rolls, given they're on the same button, so it'd be a challenge. No excuse for it not to be a thing on keyboard though.
As far as Elden Ring goes, it's actually alright. "Alright" at least in the sense that it does feel like a reasonable game to play on a mouse and keyboard, but you need to do work with third party software to get it there. You'll need third party software to single-bind multi-button inputs like item shortcuts and the camera likes to wrestle you as you pan your mouse and run in a conflicting direction that feels bad, but you ultimately adjust to. I don't think there's a sprint toggle (Which is also annoying because your sprint and your roll share the same binding), but at the very least the act of locking on to enemies and strafing around and engaging them in combat, all that does feel good.
That said, if you can comfortably play a tab-target MMO, you really ought to give Monster Hunter World/Rise a go with mouse and keyboard. The original version of World absolutely botched its implementation of its mouse-look by trying to emulate an analog stick, and there were a lot of completely un-rebindable actions that were tied to other actions contextually simply because that's how it was on the controller (I.E. Everything tied to monster mounting).
Nowadays, you have 16 individual sets of Melee/Ranged Button Keybind settings you can assign things to. All but two multi-button combinations in World (And I think just 1 in Rise?) can be mapped to a single button. Mouse-look works as it ought to which eliminates the need for a lock-on. Toggleable Sprint/Crouch bindings are present, as well as bindings for just about every contextual action in combat. Also, there are special UI elements to facilitate the layout of a keyboard, like an item "Wheel" that presents itself like an MMO action bar.
There's still some annoyances tied to its console heritage (The abundance of buttons you have to bind for menu interactions, some actions being fine with sharing a key bind and some not, even though contextually those bindings may never have a chance to conflict). At the end of the day though, it's probably the most considerate set of PC binding options I've seen in any Japanese action game and they deserve way more credit for it. It really ought to be the bare minimum for third person action games.
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Colorblindness-accessibility options are a must - for Elden Ring in particular, it suffers from a specific issue of it that previous Souls games haven't:
The game's general color scheme has a lot of gold/yellow in it, but this can make friendly summoning signs difficult to see sometimes, as they're also a bright gold color (e.g. near any minor erdtree, summoning signs have a tendency to camouflage themselves within fields of yellow flowers, where the summoning pools typically are). Similarly, duelist signs and bloodstains are an almost identical shade of red - while accidentally summoning an adversary can be avoided, the identical color scheme is causing differentiation to fail right out of the gate - bloodstain playbacks can pretty easily be visually-confused for an invader at a glance as well, particularly since the invasion pop-up happens after the invader has already arrived in your world.
There should just be a menu to fully-customize the colors of other players and their respective sign colors. A common mistake made with colorblindness accessibility is having only pre-set protanopia/deuteranopia/tritanopia settings available, instead of having those as quick presets to use as a starting point and full customization available as well.
The game's general color scheme has a lot of gold/yellow in it, but this can make friendly summoning signs difficult to see sometimes, as they're also a bright gold color (e.g. near any minor erdtree, summoning signs have a tendency to camouflage themselves within fields of yellow flowers, where the summoning pools typically are). Similarly, duelist signs and bloodstains are an almost identical shade of red - while accidentally summoning an adversary can be avoided, the identical color scheme is causing differentiation to fail right out of the gate - bloodstain playbacks can pretty easily be visually-confused for an invader at a glance as well, particularly since the invasion pop-up happens after the invader has already arrived in your world.
There should just be a menu to fully-customize the colors of other players and their respective sign colors. A common mistake made with colorblindness accessibility is having only pre-set protanopia/deuteranopia/tritanopia settings available, instead of having those as quick presets to use as a starting point and full customization available as well.
I feel like they need better tutorials at the beginning. The Elden Ring did well with that small tutorial area at the beginning, but I feel like they could have done a lot better.
I think they did better with Sekiro, gradually introducing the controls, one at a time. Letting players become familiar with controls more easily. It also lets you switch around buttons you don't like. When they throw everything at you at once, it feels overwhelming to make changes.
I think they did better with Sekiro, gradually introducing the controls, one at a time. Letting players become familiar with controls more easily. It also lets you switch around buttons you don't like. When they throw everything at you at once, it feels overwhelming to make changes.
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As a toggle! How Rockstar does sprinting (constant tapping) is 100% the worst option for me. In fact, it's one of the things I absolutely hate about some high level FFXIV duties. They have a mechanic called Active Time Manouver where you need to either click a circle on screen rapidly or mash any key on your keyboard, some for up to 15sec or more. The clicking sucks so while it's less painful (assuming that my brain doesn't just stop sending signal to the clicking finger, which is definitely more common in a button mashing situation) I mash the keyboard with my fingers down closer to the first knuckle where it doesn't hurt, or sometimes curling my fingers up and mashing with my curled first knuckle, cause it doesn't need to be precise. In some story duties, even one person failing this mash sequence wipes the party, so while it sucks to do, it's important that I can do it. But there's another story one in the newest expansion that actually punishes you for using the keyboard, which I only just scraped through. And it's been a complaint raised a few times on the forums and the like that some players are stuck behind these story duties because they can't physically mash as needed, and have to get their significant other or another 3rd party to come and mash the buttons for them. I understand they bring tension, and making a toggle to have a hold rather than a mash takes away from that tension, but it's also just a mechanic that just sucks to do in my circumstances. Even then as I say holding toggles work, my hands cramp really easily after everything these days, and sometimes holding positions for my hands cause involuntary contraction and pain that I can mitigate by grabbing and pulling out the muscle before it gets too bad. But, the cramping is much less common than the neuropathy, so if I got to pick, I would take a Hold over a Mash input any day. So for movement it kind of goes Toggle on/off -> Hold -> Mash for ease for me, and for QTE events it's the same, but you generally only get the Hold and Mash options, I've only just recently started to see a toggle/single tap for QTEs in games.
There are definitely really bad days with pain where I can't really interface with any control schemes, but, alas, my neuropathy is constant, so I just have to learn to work around what circumstances my fingers provide me each day. One of the chemotherapies I had, it pretty much had a 50% chance to cause the permanent neuropathy, and I was that unlucky 50% (I developed neuropathy during the previous 3 regimes of chemotherapy as well, but those recovered over a period of months to years). I have to really be mindful to not push myself so hard in the current day, because I have been so unwell previously it's very minor comparatively, and its easy to push through...but then the chronic pain and fatigue come and kick me in the ass and my SO gives me the look of "I told you to pace yourself.". It's so hard to try and pull yourself back from the capacity you could do, to match the capacity you can do now.
And what made it not hurt was the stylus the Note series came with (And I guess the regular series Samsung phones now too). My neuropathy comes down to about midway down to the first knuckle of the tip of my fingers, with the worst being at the very tips, so I'm able to hold a stylus while not applying pressure to that area. And I was having a bad hand day when my SO showed me and it was just like "Wait a second. I can...interface with a phone without being in pain???? I had just accepted this would be painful forever". I already do some stuff like grow my nails out a little longer (So glad it's socially acceptable for me as a woman to do this LOL) to provide a bit of a protective buffer over the tips of my fingers where it's the worst, and I thought that that was about as good as I could get for interacting with the world around me.
As a fellow autistic person, I understand and empathise where you're coming from a lot. I wasn't diagnosed until much later in life (Around 16) so for a lot of it, I was just 'quirky' or 'rude' or 'gifted' or one of a gazillion other labels throughout childhood. My mother and I kind of lucked out, I was sent to a psych when I was in preschool where they taught me how to interact with my peers from a more academic perspective which was able to blunt a lot of ongoing issues until things all boiled over in my teens, and that was when my chronic fatigue syndrome kicked in as well. I was very lucky. I was receptive to the therapy and training I got when I was in those younger years, and while my mother didn't really understand autism, at least initially (She is wired in almost a completely opposite way, we just could not communicate effectively), we did joint sessions to work on strategies that could work for us both. But, that experience was not universal unfortunately. I was disowned by my father because 'autism isn't a real diagnosis', and a lot of the broader family just thought my mother and I were some kind of crazy. I still get it these days from health professionals, 'Did you self-diagnose?', when I have to go to hospital and they get me to list off my pre-existing conditions. Building up that self-talk to claw your way through difficulty is something that is incredibly important, and I'm so glad that Dark Souls was a way for you to build that up. I know it took me years and many years of therapy to build it, and even then, no doubt there are still areas I'm weak in it. And yeah, it's like you say, that's what makes these discussions hard. I don't want to take anything away from anyone else, the idea of that just makes me miserable and anxious. I hate feeling like I need to be worked around or adjusted for but...the ultimate thing I hate to admit is, sometimes there are times when that's the case. And there's definitely been a lot of Souls fans who when I've been talking to about all this, have been nothing but helpful in trying to get things working for me because they want me to share in their experience too! And I do think the difficulty is integral to the experience they're looking to share. And that's the portion of the community I love. It's just the toxic bros that get me down sometimes, cause, man, I already tell all that shit to myself, I don't need other people confirming that shitty voice I logically know, is toxic and makes no sense.
Yeah, even I'm not immune to it either! If there was one thing I played a lot when I was in hospital, it was puzzle games, strategy games, turn based games, all that kind of thing. It helped with the brain fog, and keeping me engaged with doing -something- while I wanted to just do absolutely nothing. And, I know especially with the way my autism is, my brain does the puzzle one way, and can't comprehend other ways (Which is why I'm a terrible teacher/mentor lol). So my first like, inital gut reaction to someone struggling with a puzzle that I had no issues with is "What how it's easy, just like this" but then the logical brain has to take over and be like "Shut up gut, everyone's got different skillsets. Listen and see if you can help." And yeah, for me, the big thing is...the loss of function 'suddenly' (I say suddenly, but, my cancer treatment was over 5 years and things just deterorated and compounded over those years so, it wasn't really sudden, just more in the terms of 'versus my whole life') and the grief of dealing with that. It took me a long time to accept there are just some things that may not be possible for me anymore. Like, I work a casual position in the field I study right now but...a lot of people don't ever expect me to be able to work full time. And as of right now, they're right, a 40hr work week knocks me on my ass for the weekend afterwards. It's...a process. And I'm still working on it, accepting what is beyond my reach and what I can reach to with help. I'll probably still be working on it for forever. And I don't think there's an easy answer to all of this, alas. But, I'm really grateful for your advice and your stories and perspective, because, well...I think that's where we find the middle ground of this discussion, so to speak.
I didn't know this! I played with friends who had picked it up with the original version, so that's where the advice came from. So cool to hear it's been improved so much over time. I believe I got up to the Pink Rathian in MHW when I played with my friends, so I think I got somewhat decently into it (Google tells me it was the start of High Rank?). If I ever pick Rise up or go back to World, i'll definitely have to give it a try. Thank you!
- Pause function
- Colourblind mode
- Subtitles for multiple languages at a readable and customizable size along with a easily readable font and high contrast with the background.
- The option for QTEs to be just button press holds
- Rebindable keys for Keyboards and controllers along with being able to adjust the sensitivity of the controls
- A log or journal that acts as a reminder for you were doing if you take a break or had to stop playing.
- A log to read and listen to previously said dialogue (something I found very useful while playing Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
- No small FOV
- Multiple audio sliders for all the types of dialogue (Main, background etc), sounds and music in the game
- Makes sure cues aren't done by audio alone so they can't be missed by people with hearing impairments.
Button configuration and altering the subtitles might be the two biggest things I think they can enable options for.
I'll even ask for something Fromsoft did in a game that's not here. A dialog compendium. Some of you Soulsborne fans might be going "huh? Fromsoft logged conversations before?" and the answer would be yes, in King's Field III. A 1996 PS1 game. These games are already cryptic as shit, but just imagine if you had to take a break from the game for a few weeks because life got in the way, unless you have a keen memory, this hazy rhetoric and ways characters talk becomes a Google search to reintroduce yourself to what you might have done so far. Go one step further and bring back a Mirror of Truth item, a literal lore button that gave you detail about anything in the environment when you used it.
I'll even ask for something Fromsoft did in a game that's not here. A dialog compendium. Some of you Soulsborne fans might be going "huh? Fromsoft logged conversations before?" and the answer would be yes, in King's Field III. A 1996 PS1 game. These games are already cryptic as shit, but just imagine if you had to take a break from the game for a few weeks because life got in the way, unless you have a keen memory, this hazy rhetoric and ways characters talk becomes a Google search to reintroduce yourself to what you might have done so far. Go one step further and bring back a Mirror of Truth item, a literal lore button that gave you detail about anything in the environment when you used it.
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It's definitely weird in Elden Ring specifically because there's an item that allows you to be summoned by anyone in your general area, but not an item that summons anyone from your general area. You still have to wait for a summon sign, run over before someone else gets it, and hope that it works.
It'd be great if people could simply be guaranteed a summoned player every time, or have a way to set a password so that you can summon in a specific player without having to rely on the summon sign system.
I'm sure I saw someone mention a brief slow down window for grab/unblockable attacks, I've always thought that was a good idea and I'm sure i've seen that implemented in other games. Not talking about slow down activating when you dodge but prior to the attack itself.
A log of NPC dialogue or previously heard dialogue would be beneficial. Ideally with the actual speaker of the dialogue identified in the log.
One of the things that I think falls into the idea of being able to pause the game, is something that is actually in game to some extent but could be extended. The shield around some NPCs. I only noticed it as I tend to tap A quickly and would often jump at the end of the conversation instead of pressing Y. A golden shield would appear around some NPCs with one even commenting on me trying to attack. Which I guess the game counts jumping as an attack?
Later on I found an NPC in the wild and got hit in the back. The NPC took the hit as well, but I'm not certain whether this actually harmed them or had the potential to kill them but they were definitely in the arc of the attack. This shield or even a brief world pause when going through a conversation feels like it would be good and would have minimal impact on the game itself.
A log of NPC dialogue or previously heard dialogue would be beneficial. Ideally with the actual speaker of the dialogue identified in the log.
One of the things that I think falls into the idea of being able to pause the game, is something that is actually in game to some extent but could be extended. The shield around some NPCs. I only noticed it as I tend to tap A quickly and would often jump at the end of the conversation instead of pressing Y. A golden shield would appear around some NPCs with one even commenting on me trying to attack. Which I guess the game counts jumping as an attack?
Later on I found an NPC in the wild and got hit in the back. The NPC took the hit as well, but I'm not certain whether this actually harmed them or had the potential to kill them but they were definitely in the arc of the attack. This shield or even a brief world pause when going through a conversation feels like it would be good and would have minimal impact on the game itself.
Pause button would be nice for people playing offline, like a lot of people have mentioned. It doesn't bother me (many years of playing Phantasy Star Online trained me to deal with it) but it's clearly a thing which would help a lot of people and would cost nothing to implement.
And they desperately need colourblind options. I generally have an okay time with From games with regards to this, but Elden Ring has a lot of golds and yellows that all blend together in a lot of areas. There's also a boss in a certain area where the entire background/skybox in the boss arena, some of the boss's attacks, and the projectiles the boss fires are all the same orangey-red colour and I had a really bad time with it. Couldn't see shit. Kept getting hit by attacks that from my perspective came out of nowhere and I had no way of dodging, aside from trying to use sound cues and generally guessing when the attack would land.
^ this should be the standard. The protanopia/deuteranopia/tritanopia toggles are nice but games should really be able to offer the player full customization. Splitgate for example, a game which I otherwise didn't care for, actually had a fantastic colourblind mode which showed the player examples of real life colourblind tests so they could see which type they have, and offered full degrees of colour customization to boot. If an obscure free to play game like that can get it right, other devs have no excuse.
And they desperately need colourblind options. I generally have an okay time with From games with regards to this, but Elden Ring has a lot of golds and yellows that all blend together in a lot of areas. There's also a boss in a certain area where the entire background/skybox in the boss arena, some of the boss's attacks, and the projectiles the boss fires are all the same orangey-red colour and I had a really bad time with it. Couldn't see shit. Kept getting hit by attacks that from my perspective came out of nowhere and I had no way of dodging, aside from trying to use sound cues and generally guessing when the attack would land.
^ this should be the standard. The protanopia/deuteranopia/tritanopia toggles are nice but games should really be able to offer the player full customization. Splitgate for example, a game which I otherwise didn't care for, actually had a fantastic colourblind mode which showed the player examples of real life colourblind tests so they could see which type they have, and offered full degrees of colour customization to boot. If an obscure free to play game like that can get it right, other devs have no excuse.
I just want to say this thread is very appreciated. Being a (mostly) able-bodied person, I hesitate to recommend anything, but I wanted you all to know that this conversation is really valuable.
That's the assumption since you can pause in Sekiro, but honestly it's so weird in Elden Ring since unlike other Souls games you have to actively engage with online to even be online.
For #3, let me clarify. What I mean is, you are walking forward, right? If you press the run button/key once while you are moving, your character will start sprinting and won't stop until you stop moving or perform another action like dodging or attacking. So no, not constant taps.
Mods often don't get due credit so just want to say
"The relitigation of 'Easy Mode' by the able-bodied will not be tolerated"
THANK YOU for this so much. Able-bodied people using the disabled people as props for their 'discourse' around easy mode has been so transparent and so gross.
Anyways back on topic I would like to have a pause button in offline play. This is mainly to benefit parents who have no way of getting uninterrupted play time.
And of course button mapping would just be a super easy and super non-controversial win for able-bodied and disabled people alike.
"The relitigation of 'Easy Mode' by the able-bodied will not be tolerated"
THANK YOU for this so much. Able-bodied people using the disabled people as props for their 'discourse' around easy mode has been so transparent and so gross.
Anyways back on topic I would like to have a pause button in offline play. This is mainly to benefit parents who have no way of getting uninterrupted play time.
And of course button mapping would just be a super easy and super non-controversial win for able-bodied and disabled people alike.
Did you read the OP?
Accessibility options does not equal an easy mode.
Edit: I'm just saying, others have suggested fantastic options such as colored outlines, a slow down option, indicators of who's speaking in the subtitles, better audio cues
I think toggle instead of hold and button remap are no-brainers and should be easy to patch in or come standard with all games.
I want to be clear that this thread isn't ONLY for those with various disabilities and limitations to speak, as Lord knows fully remappable actions as one particular example would benefit everyone who plays the game as far as letting one approach the game in the most comfortable way they can.
It's just that the voices of those who are struggling to even ACCESS the games due to From's archaic rigidity in options have been getting drowned out in a sea of able-bodied people who simply find the games too hard. You can already see within two pages of this thread how many people with true accessibility issues have been able to speak about where From is letting them down.
As I said in the now locked thread, Easy Mode isn't even high on our list of priorities and you can already see that ringing true in this one. Playing the game needs to be easier, before we even begin to look at the actual balance.
It is clearly a thread derail attempt.
Edit: The poster explained why they posted that and I understand now. Still probably more suited for its own topic.
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User Warned (Permanent Thread Ban): Ignoring thread rules, relitigating easy mode
Player/enemy Damage sliders. Health sliders, fp sliders. Activating them turns off online multiplayer. Those should all be relatively easy to implement. Text scaling with scroll in menus.
I think it would be nice to see Naughty-Dog level features someday, I'm not sure that's realistic right now.
I think it would be nice to see Naughty-Dog level features someday, I'm not sure that's realistic right now.
I am so happy the mod team feels that way, I used to try to articulate this as someone with cerebral palsy, it was so frustrating that I just stopped engaging with it. I felt like a pawn lmao
I'm so sorry that past threads made you feel that way. The wild thing is that clearly the vast majority of such discussion was apparently exactly using accessibility as a prop, because this thread is sitting at 3 pages in 2 days instead of 50 pages in a similar timeframe. I'm seeing a lot of great discourse around accessibility so far, and think that much of what's been mentioned in the thread would be fairly trivial to implement. Hopefully the industry as a whole moves towards more robust accessibility options sooner rather than later. From is particularly bad in this regard and I hope they improve
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Gonna bump this thread with another idea of mine after playing some more of the game:
I think, in general, there shouldn't be enemies that can circle the player so rapidly and so repeatedly. Not just for lower difficulty, but because locking on to them is a one-way ticket to motion sickness street. The dragonflies, that drop important crating materials for the "cure status effects," items, are just terrible to fight against and offer no good challenge anyway.
I can't really think of a good way to mitigate that motion sickness without changing enemy behaviour, though. So any ideas would be great :)
I think, in general, there shouldn't be enemies that can circle the player so rapidly and so repeatedly. Not just for lower difficulty, but because locking on to them is a one-way ticket to motion sickness street. The dragonflies, that drop important crating materials for the "cure status effects," items, are just terrible to fight against and offer no good challenge anyway.
I can't really think of a good way to mitigate that motion sickness without changing enemy behaviour, though. So any ideas would be great :)
I think Sekiro did something really cool with unblockable attacks - the red symbol + sound cue to mikiri counter was awesome and I could see it being helpful to Souls (especially shield) fans who may have difficulty seeing the subtle "I'm gonna grab you now" animations.
As for enemies that circle you - I think everyone finds them annoying and only a few actually add any challenge to the game. The way the camera zips around is nauseating and disorienting, and I find myself generally skipping the enemies. They should absolutely tweak that behavior if it's causing extra issues for people - I can't imagine anyone likes the locked on behavior of those damn bugs.
As for enemies that circle you - I think everyone finds them annoying and only a few actually add any challenge to the game. The way the camera zips around is nauseating and disorienting, and I find myself generally skipping the enemies. They should absolutely tweak that behavior if it's causing extra issues for people - I can't imagine anyone likes the locked on behavior of those damn bugs.
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Yeah, I think just adding visual cues to attacks in general would be great. The challenge stems from learning cues and knowing when and how to avoid-and-punish, but I often find - in Elden Ring especially - that enemy's cues are almost non-existant and incredibly difficult to discern from others. That wouldn't be the case if a red flash appeared on screen for "this attack is gonna grab you and take away like 80% of your health."
definitely a great recommendation and something that could even be further expanded upon. Even since early souls, the mystery about which attacks can be parried and which cannot has always struck me as extremely odd, considering parrying is a core mechanic of all of them. A symbol, similar to perilous attacks, for any non-parryable physical attacks, would be a great move.
Better item/stat explanations. You got pages of stats, tons of numbers, yet so many things are completely not explained such as magic where you essentially have to go online and look at number testing folks have done and wrote down for you. The game is fine giving all kinds of detailed statistics for weapons and things but then randomly just won't explain certain things at all.
I can't do repetitive tapping and my reflexes are not great anymore. Something as simple as a toggle in place of button mashing can make the difference if I can finish a game or not. Case in point, the original Ori had a wall climb that required button mashing to stick to the surface. This quickly became the boss of the game for me. I never got farther than the first escape phase. Ori and the Will of the Wisps added a charm that could be picked up very early that allowed Ori to stick to walls - no more button mashing. I was able to complete the game and I loved it.
So yeah, I hate button mashing and I need longer dodge windows or very good visual cues.
So yeah, I hate button mashing and I need longer dodge windows or very good visual cues.
Oh man that first escape phase. I got through it after hours of trying but I ended up bruising my thumbs through repetition and that inevitable tension and pressing harder as you die more and more. Had to not play for a while to let them recover. Never could quite finish Blind Forest because of multiple sessions leaving me like that. I just couldn't justify the pain and not being able to play other games while I recovered. I'll have to watch a video playthrough or read a synopsis and revisit the sequel when I have a chance.
My fingers freeze up and get numb then I have pain later. It really sucks.
The wall cling charm in Ori 2 didn't make the rest of the game easy for me (slow reflexes), but I was able to actually finish it.
mode where you can spawn enemies you have already encountered would be cool! To practice. I would use it to make little scenarios tho.
A combat arena would be great for so many reasons! I love this idea
I mean, just supporting the basic ones at this point would be a good start: full controller remapping, text-resizing for subtitles and items, fully functional color blind modes, etc.
Adding a pause option is not necessary, because you can just quit your game and return to the menu. Then just reload your game when you're back, and you're in the same place you were. it's effectively a pause already. The only caveat to that approach is that you can't really do it mid-action or mid-combat, and it's a few button presses instead of a single one. None of those are big deals in my opinion.
Adding a pause option is not necessary, because you can just quit your game and return to the menu. Then just reload your game when you're back, and you're in the same place you were. it's effectively a pause already. The only caveat to that approach is that you can't really do it mid-action or mid-combat, and it's a few button presses instead of a single one. None of those are big deals in my opinion.
I like this idea. It's also a nice way to incorporate testing out a new weapon you have received, without the stress or fear of doing so in the actual world.
In Elden Ring there is a little arena in the hub, Roundtable Hold, where you have access to using your weapons freely. This spot would serve well as a practice arena, for example.
For me i would love it if they used some form of machine learning algarothim to optimise timing windows. (with a possible lower limit)
That way it would adjust the experience to be the same for people who have fast reaction times vs people who don't.
Ie if a person is meant to have successful timing say 7/10 times then adjusting timing to reflect game feel for a rolling average of say 1000 inputs would give all players a consistent experience
That way it would adjust the experience to be the same for people who have fast reaction times vs people who don't.
Ie if a person is meant to have successful timing say 7/10 times then adjusting timing to reflect game feel for a rolling average of say 1000 inputs would give all players a consistent experience
I have a damaged left eye, so it affects my ability to focus on a single spot for long, and I have trouble seeing in the dark (more than normal). So highlights for items of interest will help. I'm hard of hearing, so I'd love subtitles with speaker's names and for noises in the environment. My reflexes have dulled due to age, so I concede that this is a selfish request, but I'd love better "tells" when an attack is coming. MGR with the red flashes help.
Serious question: Does ADHD count as a mental barrier?
The demands the game puts on my "in the moment" cognitive abilities is legitimately too high. I know the things I'm supposed to do, on a technical level, but my ability to perform is non-existant. It's just too many layers of bullshit in too tight of window.
My ADHD was a legitimate problem and one of the things that broke up my Savage static in XIV. I suppose medication would help but I don't think my doctor would be down for prescribing narcotics to help me play video games. Haha.
The demands the game puts on my "in the moment" cognitive abilities is legitimately too high. I know the things I'm supposed to do, on a technical level, but my ability to perform is non-existant. It's just too many layers of bullshit in too tight of window.
My ADHD was a legitimate problem and one of the things that broke up my Savage static in XIV. I suppose medication would help but I don't think my doctor would be down for prescribing narcotics to help me play video games. Haha.
