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Deleted member 3815

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Oct 25, 2017
6,633
So I started TOW today on console and I stopped playing after one hour because subtitles are so small I couldn't stand the game anymore, since I suffer some sever eye problems.
I checked for an option to increase the font of subtitles and there's no option, it's ridiculous in 2019 having an rpg with no way to make the text readable for everyone.

Jeez, I was planning to get the game on Switch. 😕

Bloody hell.

Make accessibility options part of the certification process for PS5 and NextBox, pretty please. At least make developers do it right this way.

Unless Sony and Microsoft hire disable folks on the certification process for accessibility options, I don't trust Sony or Microsoft to get it right either.

Heck the new PS5 controller gives me pause for concern with the adjustable trigger pressure points.

I cannot understand why so many games make their subtitles small as fuck.

Because they work close up on a monitor and don't take into account that folks will be playing it from a distance.

Honestly speaking developers should not be the one adding subtitles as they are bad at it, like take the recently released Medevil remake. I saw footage of the game and its subtitles is horrible as the developers decided to be stylish and artist with the subtitles completely forgetting the sole purpose of Subtitles.

In order for Subtitles to be accessible it needs to be clear and it needs to be readable.

Subtitles are fine to me and the dialogue option. Seems normal size to me. But options would be great probably. Cant really judge. Playing on a monitor.

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Think the text size in the inventory can be abit bigger tho.

Yeah those subtitle is just pure garbage.

The text size is too small, there are too many text on screen and there isn't a background border to make the text readable.
 

60fps

Banned
Dec 18, 2017
3,492
Yeah those subtitle is just pure garbage.

The text size is too small, there are too many text on screen and there isn't a background border to make the text readable.
Exactly. Stretching the text across the whole screen is uncomfortable and super exhausting for the eyes. Again, look at the movie subtitles posted on the previous page.
 

Deleted member 3815

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
6,633
Exactly. Stretching the text across the whole screen is uncomfortable and super exhausting for the eyes. Again, look at the movie subtitles posted on the previous page.

Honestly developers are just bad at subtitles and do well to follow the standard that the TV industry have set out. It's 2019 and the fact there isn't an industry standard is just quite frankly is just embarrassing and frustrating. This isn't the 90s where voice acting in video game is brand new thus no industry standard has been set.

Developers also need to stop dumping story plot during heavy combat action section, I can't play the game and read the subtitles at the same time.

Insomniac games was guilty of this during the Spider-Man DLC with the base mission as they thought it was a bright idea to dump the backstory during the combat sections. I had to pause the action by pressing L1 and let the dialogue play out.

Astral Chain was also guilty of this as well.
 

Ianhamilton_

Member
Sep 5, 2019
14
Some are obvious and can be on a system level :
  • Subtitles (like any video player / services in the world)
  • Color inversion
  • Zooming
  • Control buttons mapping game by game (and not for all system)

I know. But I can count on one hand how many times the menus was too tiny for me (mostly Switch handled) and I can count on one hand how many times subtitles wasn't too tiny.

Subtitles are friendly to small
Some are obvious and can be on a system level :
  • Subtitles (like any video player / services in the world)
  • Color inversion
  • Zooming
  • Control buttons mapping game by game (and not for all system)

I know. But I can count on one hand how many times the menus was too tiny for me (mostly Switch handled) and I can count on one hand how many times subtitles wasn't too tiny.

None of these are actually good solutions.

Different game have very different needs for subtitles, not just visuals but structure too. Subtitles being addressed at engine level gives this flexibility without requiring each developer to reinvent the wheel from scratch.

Inversion is a hack to allow dark on light documents to be swapped to light on dark. It has very little benefit in games.

Similarly zoom is a hack to compensate for lack of scaleable UI. The primary means of addressing low vision (size and contrast) needs to be in game.

System remapping is a safety net, not a substitute. Xbox have said as much themselves. Per game mapping doesn't allow multiple mappings per class (e.g. overwatch) or per context (e.g. driving/walking), or have any distinction between game and UI, or have any ability for in game instructions and prompts to reflect current mappings. And most people who is remapping don't regsrd themselves as needing accessibility features - they look in game settings > controls, not system settings > ease of access.

There are some things that are well suited to addressing at system level, but honestly these four aren't amongst them.
 

Deleted member 9486

User requested account closure
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Oct 26, 2017
4,867
How is it 2019 and we're still dealing with hard-to-read subtitles? Is it as simple as game devs almost exclusively working at desks, and so small subtitles are totally legible to them?

I mean maybe, but is it that hard to just build in options to let users increase or decrease font sizes? That makes it all moot other than maybe the default would be small for many people's liking, but that's a "who cares?" if you can just go into options and increase it at will.
 
May 18, 2018
588
I love the game so far but they hardly have any options. The options they have were an after thought so accessibility isn't even crossing the brain.
Having to Hold E to enter places.
This irks me so much. This had console port written all over it which, whatever but having to press escape to go back instead of letting me click the visible "back" button is just irritating. I just went with a controller.
 

BossAttack

Member
Oct 27, 2017
42,954
I love the game so far but they hardly have any options. The options they have were an after thought so accessibility isn't even crossing the brain.

This irks me so much. This had console port written all over it which, whatever but having to press escape to go back instead of letting me click the visible "back" button is just irritating. I just went with a controller.

YES!
 

Samaritan

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,696
Tacoma, Washington
I mean maybe, but is it that hard to just build in options to let users increase or decrease font sizes? That makes it all moot other than maybe the default would be small for many people's liking, but that's a "who cares?" if you can just go into options and increase it at will.
You might be surprised by how complicated game UI can be. I'd imagine a text scaling option is the sort of thing that needs to be thought of early into development so the UI can accommodate it. If it was so simple, then more games would have the option.
 

DeoGame

Member
Dec 11, 2018
5,077
I have no problem reading the text but they need a HUD shrinker/fit to screen. Mine is cut off at the sides
 

ThreepQuest64

Avenger
Oct 29, 2017
5,735
Germany
I remember TW3 suffering from the same issues. They patched it later, though, giving you options to significantly increase text and interface size.

Playing on a PC monitor I don't have any problems, but I'd probably would playing farther away on a TV screen.
 

Deleted member 15227

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Oct 27, 2017
1,819
My wife asked me why I was standing next to the TV instead of sitting on the couch.

I replied: "Dear, the developers prefer, demand even, that we play their game this way."
 

Deleted member 9486

User requested account closure
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Oct 26, 2017
4,867
You might be surprised by how complicated game UI can be. I'd imagine a text scaling option is the sort of thing that needs to be thought of early into development so the UI can accommodate it. If it was so simple, then more games would have the option.

Fair enough. Just seems like one of those basic things that should be coming up in the earliest stages of UI planning and development. Nothing else about the UI matters if people can't read the damn text! And it's not like it's a mystery that people are playing games on a huge array of screen sizes at a huge array viewing distances.

That said, I can definitely see it being harder with menu text etc. as they need text to fit within buttons/icons and what not. But there's not much excuse for subtitles as those are just text on top of the screen during dialogue etc. While I'm sure it's not trivial, it should be easier to allow users to change the size of that even if they can't for menu text. I think there's some evidence of that as I have seen games that allowed you to increase subtitle size (at the least small, medium and large) but lacked options for menu text etc.
 

Fredrik

Member
Oct 27, 2017
9,003
Just tried it on PC, it's actually not too bad at least when you sit right infront of a screen: 24 inch screen, 1080p, maybe 80cm distance. And the game is sooooo good =)
But it can't be easy playing this on consoles in the living room sitting 3 meter from the TV.
 

Jmdajr

Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,534
Developers need to think of 40+ year old gamers.
Haven't started the game but that doesn't sound fun.
 

dmr87

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,186
Sweden
Generally they test games on big screens close to their faces
Yeah I could see that, they should have rooms that simulate a living room.

Having worked in QA, I can assure you that 99% of day 1 problems are already known about. What's most likely is illegible subtitles go mostly ignored by the developers as a low-priority problem.

Make sense, but accessibility options should be moved up the priority list.
 

adj_noun

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
17,174
The text is small enough that I just skip through the letters, messages, etc. you find without reading them.

I'm sure there is some good stuff there, but alas, I am not an ant.
 

Res

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,607
Yeah I really dislike the small subtitles. I hope obsidian includes some type of text size option in a future patch
 

60fps

Banned
Dec 18, 2017
3,492
Honestly developers are just bad at subtitles and do well to follow the standard that the TV industry have set out. It's 2019 and the fact there isn't an industry standard is just quite frankly is just embarrassing and frustrating. This isn't the 90s where voice acting in video game is brand new thus no industry standard has been set.

Developers also need to stop dumping story plot during heavy combat action section, I can't play the game and read the subtitles at the same time.

Insomniac games was guilty of this during the Spider-Man DLC with the base mission as they thought it was a bright idea to dump the backstory during the combat sections. I had to pause the action by pressing L1 and let the dialogue play out.

Astral Chain was also guilty of this as well.
Agreed!
 

Ricker

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,983
Beautiful Province of Quebec.
I am guessing they need to repass the whole game in a different resolution then 1080P or 4K to make the text/font bigger,like 1024x768 or something,as an example, to explain what I mean and why they dont do it...? something like that,no time,thats why its patched in later...
 
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Dphex

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,811
Cologne, Germany
yeah, i am not buying the "developers work close to monitors" thing resulting in small subtitles...big studios should at least have one big TV in their studios where they can check the game on a big screen. if they haven´t they are missing an important tool when developing games which will land on consoles.

besides that, if the text is too small it is also too small on a monitor, whether you are sitting in directly in front or not doesn´t matter in this case. too small is too small, period. just do 3 settings: normal, big, really big. this can´t be rocket science at all.
 

Stop It

Bad Cat
Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,350
Having worked in QA, I can assure you that 99% of day 1 problems are already known about. What's most likely is illegible subtitles go mostly ignored by the developers as a low-priority problem.
Which is why it needs to be part of certification.

Because otherwise as you say, it gets ignored.
 

Jojo Sonoshe

Alt Account
Banned
Aug 19, 2019
72
Subtitles need more attention.

I really hate Modern Warfare's subtitles as well. They aren't subtitles, they are close captions. I don't need every noise presented to me. Really ruins the presentation. I want to say Gears did this as well.
 

Slick Butter

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,500
Not totally related but they also messed something up with the sprinting, FOV gets narrower rather than wider while sprinting, it's annoying and throws me off. The overdone AO also has been messing with my eyes it feels like. Like it's hard to focus.
 

Leveean

Member
Nov 9, 2017
1,086
Even sitting next to a monitor some text is not easily readable. Too much menu text is dulled out or slightly transparent.
 

Deleted member 48434

User requested account closure
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Oct 8, 2018
5,230
Sydney
Oh good, it's no just me then, I was worried my eyesight was failing me.

The text in outer world's is stupid small, and I'm playing on a 72" TV.
 
Oct 28, 2017
2,216
Brazil
Some things I wish they patched:
  • Unholstering the weapon with the action button is annoying. Every time I try to interact with an item or NPC, my character draws the weapon. That ain't the best way to start an interaction, and I'd hate to accidentally shoot someone I just wanted to talk with.
  • A faster map cursor would do wonders. It's ridiculously slow.
  • There should be an option to break down all items marked as junk. Holding the action button on each of them takes a long while when you have a lot of stuff to dismantle.
  • In fact, everything that involves holding the action button takes a tad too long. Dismantling equipment, moving to a different area, dismissing a tutorial window.
  • Some conversation options disappear during conversations and you have to leave the conversation and reapproach the NPC for them to be made available again. That's weird.
  • This one is more of a personal thing: I really wish there was a control scheme just like the default, but with crouching assigned to the right stick and melee to the B/Circle button.
  • And, as OP said, adding a font size option would do wonders. I play this game on a 55-inch, sitting less than two meters away from the TV, and the tutorials, memos, journal and item descriptions get hard to read sometimes. The HUD is just fine though.
Other than that, I love this game so much. It's a love letter to those who love the best Fallout game there is, and it plays wonderfully. I want a ridiculous amount of sequels, please.
 

Deleted member 3815

User requested account closure
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Oct 25, 2017
6,633
Subtitles need more attention.

I really hate Modern Warfare's subtitles as well. They aren't subtitles, they are close captions. I don't need every noise presented to me. Really ruins the presentation. I want to say Gears did this as well.

Subtitles and close captions are the same thing and having nose presented is accessible for players who are deaf/hard of hearing.

What you want is an option to turn them off which is fine.
 

Deleted member 28461

User requested account closure
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Oct 31, 2017
4,830
I played for an hour tonight and now my eyes feel like shit from squinting so much. I'm loving the game, but I don't think it's worth it until this is fixed.
 

ThereAre4Lights

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
4,858
Maybe I will postpone playing until they patch it. I was really looking forward to starting this tonight, but I can't stand dealing with small text on my living room TV.
 

AtomicShroom

Tools & Automation
Verified
Oct 28, 2017
3,075
So I started TOW today on console and I stopped playing after one hour because subtitles are so small I couldn't stand the game anymore, since I suffer some sever eye problems.
I checked for an option to increase the font of subtitles and there's no option, it's ridiculous in 2019 having an rpg with no way to make the text readable for everyone.

That's what happens when developers only build and test their games on PC work stations and when testers test the game sitting just inches away from a TV. Sigh.