First of all, the mouse arrow. Please make it so we can adjust its size and color. There are many times where I simply lose my mouse arrow during a boss encounter in operations, and it's aggravating when healing or when multiple adds come up and I have to click on one specific one to attack when tabbing through all the enemies takes too long and sometimes overshoot on the tabbing and have to cycle back through. It's made worse in resolutions beyond 1920x1080.

Name plates: When you start dealing with resolutions beyond 1920x1080, the nameplates get harder and harder to read no matter what you do. Allow them to be made bigger so they're easier to read which would help also it's handy to have name plates scale by distance to make it easier to read all the name plates in a group.

Players who suffer from migraines and optical overload/pain: Playing Republic toons is the worst culprit because more of the classes have bright lights to their actions, and group content with multiple of those bright light actioned classes can trigger migraines. Turning off bloom doesn't help enough. Recommendations: 1) Be able to dim the brightness of actions and even other brightly lit items on the screen (think holograms in certain situations), 2) not sure how feasible this is, but provide the option for the old animation before its upgrade (e.g. Jedi Shadow's Psychokinetic Blast replaced Project, and Psychokinetic Blast is brightly animated ball of light whereas Project is a giant rock).

Clickable Lore objects/clickable objects for missions: Allow us to change the color of them because blue on places like Hoth or Ilum make it darn near impossible to know it's there unless the map has the mission icon right on top of it. I don't suggest an arbitrary color by the devs but give the player the option to choose from the colors of the rainbow so that way a clickable object that was once obvious becomes hidden (e.g. changing it to green in a planet covered in green would make it hard to find).

Onderon Daily Missions: There are missions where you have to set something on the ground, and it's marked by a yellow square in deep foliage. It's hard enough on a good day to find them, people who suffer from color blindness or migraines with optical pain/aura, it's downright impossible to find them. Recommendation: replace the yellow square with the bright yellow pillar of light that you used on Ossus for certain dailies.

SM Flashpoints: Incorporate save states into them like KOTFE/KOTET chapters have. Players who can't sit through a long play session due to real life stuff or physical/mental disabilities and need to take a break are penalized for it. Incorporating those save states will allow those players to enjoy the story of the flashpoint but at their own pace and be able to come back to it. Having to kill a handful of the same enemy when returning is far better than having to start completely over, especially if you were near the end and had to stop and didn't even know you were near the end. Please please please also provide the GSI combat support droid for all the newer flashpoints. Not everyone is maxed out in endgame gear or is capable of playing their classes to perfection, and the GSI droid would help those people get through SM flashpoints more easily so they can enjoy the story aspect of the game without feeling like they're slogging through the endless horde of enemy for hours before getting to the next set of cut scenes.

As someone with a physical disability with a lot of severe chronic pain, and as someone who totally loves SWTOR, I'd love to see official controller support in the game similar to what you see in STO. I know there are ways around it through third party applications to make a controller work, but that's something that may take a bit more computer knowledge than many people (myself included) have and you really shouldn't have to use a third party application just to be able to play the game more comfortably. For me it's VERY painful to use keyboard and mouse to play SWTOR, and I am forced to use the arrow keys for movement as the ASWD option is too painful to even consider, and that in turn rules out using number pad for skills as my right hand is already busy with the arrow keys, so it leaves me with using the mouse pad on my laptop to fire off skills and I wouldn't even be able to use an external mouse properly unless facilitating my ambidextrousity and using an external mouse with left hand, but not everyone has that luxury either. Long missions with a lot of running in them, for example when doing VOSS planetary missions and class missions, can be absolutely agonizing because of the amount of time you spend running or being on a mount as you have to sit there and press the key all the way from point A to point B. Using a controller such as an Xbox controller is a lot more ergonomically correct for a lot of people with hand and arm pain as you can then keep your arms closer to your body and keep your hands in a better position. As for key binds on a controller, a lot of controllers even have little keyboards you can buy and attach to them, so if there's an option built into the game for controller, a controller with attached keyboard to it could solve the issue with the amount of key binds you might need for at least basic game play. I for one would get a keyboard to my controller if SWTOR started to support controller in the game and my hands would be so much happier if that day comes!

Also, do something about the bright flashing lights! Like the tiny healing drones that some NPC's uses (example the repair guy on the platform in the large room of Trouble in deed heroic on Coruscant) that flashing is seen here and there and because it's almost like a strobe light type flashing, there's a huge risk it could trigger a seizure in people with epilepsy, and it could trigger a migraine for myself and others who are prone to migraines, or just cause general headaches and eye discomfort. That flashing from the healing drone thing doesn't contribute game play wise so there's really no reason for the visual to even be there. I also wouldn't mind if the armor thing that flashes was toned down a bit, there's just no reason for such visual effects and they can be outright dangerous for people with medical conditions and cause a lot of discomfort for others. Wouldn't mind if the dance floor is toned down as well, that decoration is the nemesis for me because it triggers headaches, and if someone is dealing with seizures it's yet another item that could be outright dangerous for them to be around.

I'm also all for settings to make the game more accessible for people with colorblindness, I'm not affected by colorblindness myself but I really do want the game to be accessible for as many as possible regardless of what type of disability someone has. Also would appreciate if it was possible to customize font in more places that the chat box, the text can be very small at times and poor eyesight is a thing. Games can be a very good way to distract yourself from severe chronic pain, anxiety and so on, or just be a way to actually socialize with people and make friends, so it's really super important that people can actually play and take part and have fun.

I personally deal with severe chronic pain, light sensitivity and I've been a migraine patient for many years (though thankfully migraine attack free for some years now, though can feel the start of one from certain flashing)

Posting after digging through FibroJedi's blog, Fibro I hope you don't mind I quote your blog from 2016:

https://fibrojedi.me.uk/swtor/open-letter-bioware/

Open Letter to BioWare from a Chronic Pain GamerDear BioWare Developers,

Let me start by saying that you’re doing a great job with SWTOR. Others may be quick to criticise, because they expect perfection for a small fee / month. I don’t, but maybe that’s because I do database development as part of my day job. The cinematography, the creation of new worlds, intricate plots and great voice acting mean I get engrossed in chapters really easily.

The reason I’m writing this open letter, though, is because the Outlander is at the centre of Fallen Empire and not the gamer. Your ‘auto playing’ of the next chapter is becoming a burden to me. Let me explain why:

I have Chronic Pain due to a condition called ‘Fibromyalgia’. That means I have to play at a level that suits each day’s pain levels. As KotFE Chapters are intense I can’t always play them if my pain is really high. So, often, I want to play a character but not a chapter, maybe

Go to a planetary arc I haven’t done

Start the Macrobinocular or Seeker Droid missions

Do Alliance Crate Heroic Missions

Do an expansion I skipped – e.g. Ilum or Makeb

However I no longer have a way to play to my strengths or pain levels because you auto-play chapters, very often locking out all companions. You can’t easily return crates to the Alliance Specialists because the chapter auto-plays. Granted, I can escape out of it, but that still locks out my companions.

This means I log a character but can’t actually play it due to the pain levels. Please can you return power to the gamer by not auto-playing chapters or by not auto-locking companions until you travel to the chapter’s location?

That way I can still give my characters love even if I don’t have my pain under control, or I have really low energy, and can’t do ‘intense’ Fallen Empire chapters.

Short Attention Span

One of the annoying things about Fibro is an inability to concentrate. So I need a steady pattern in life, combined with some variety. Fallen Empire is the same story for all classes. I keep creating new characters to re-gain the variety. Maybe in a year or so, could you consider doing ‘the next bit’ of the class stories, maybe as Empire/Republic regain control of their borders or something? I’d hate to not want to play some of my characters because of repetitiveness.

Yes I’m just one gamer, and maybe more vocal than most, but an opinion ‘out there’ is better than one just writhing in my head!

I know BioWare is a business, as a business-owner I understand that. But there are more important things than Cartel Random-packs and free gifts. At least for me, I’m not speaking for other SWTOR or BioWare fans.

But, please consider the diverse needs of your gamers and allow us to control our own destiny, rather than the droids of BioWare trying to control it for us. Then we can continue enjoying SWTOR doing what we want to do, at our own pace.

My Thanks,

FibroJedi

As someone with autism and ADHD

1. Like crymaen commented: Flashpoints. I hardly ever do the longer ones (besides when going through story) with non stealth classes as I lose focus easily due my ADHD, some type of "easy mode" or "fast mode" or "turn off level sync on solo" would be really nice.

2. Lowkey falls on QoL but relates to my ADHD, autism and OCD symptoms: general organizing

a. Favorite recipes for crafting and recipe search, scrolling through all the recipes just to find the ones you use the most is tedious and makes me loathe crafting and as the UI can be kinda messy due to the colors (I personally find blue/white super muddy combination), there's a lot of crafting wrong items and getting frustrated due to it.

b. Favorite items. While you can just buy things back at the vendor, accidentally selling something you didn't want to without realizing in a hurry or such can really be nerve wrecking. So having some kind of confirmation system for "do you really want to sell this item?" would be nice.

3. UI color schemes. I really, really dislike the blue/dark blue/white color scheme. I find it really hard to read and see most of the times even though I'm not colorblind, just have eyeglasses. Having different color schemes would be be welcome.

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

Thanks for this thread! I just wanted to second this suggestion. Between the excellent subtitles and my hearing aids, I don't feel like I miss any of the main dialogue, but uncaptioned ambient conversations are more of a problem. Even after many trips through Hammer Station, I still hear the dialogue above as, "Hounds of the Republic...mumble, mumble, mumble, mumble!" I do appreciate the ability to look at System Feedback for dialogue I missed, but I agree with Rorrimeht that other messages get in the way. Also, while I personally don't feel a need for captioning of sound effects, I know some people with hearing loss find it very helpful.

I'd also like to add my vote for a checkpoint system in solo flashpoints that are part of the main story, as many posters have suggested. To be honest, this isn't really an accessibility issue for me, though it obviously is for many people. But my playtime is often limited, and I frequently need to put off progressing a character's story until I'm sure I'll have enough time to finish a solo FP.

Hello! Thanks and kudos to you all for making the commitment to improve accessibility. For those of you with significant impairments, I highly recommend the site AbleGamers.org. It has some phenomenal information and helps many people with a wide variety of disabilities.

I’m both an eye doctor and someone with a lot of ‘life experience’ with some vision issues (I know, the irony) and bad hand arthritis. I’m also someone who is a lefty and can’t use the MMO mice because they’re too big, so there’s a limit to what I can hotkey (the only lefty MMO mouse is Naga, and it’s also not always available for sale). I have used foot pedals with some success.

Biggest advice: Allow people to create Add-ons like what’s available in other games that fine-tune visibility/targeting/effect colors/etc. That would be the biggest help you could possibly give, because the community can do what you (BioWare) don’t have time/manpower/financial resources to devote. Someone should argue we shouldn’t have to depend on the community, but let’s face it, EA only allows you to do so much, and it has to make money. Letting the community help you would help all of us.

1. Limit red/green and light pink/pale green cues. These are the ones most problematic for red/green color blindness, the most common version of color vision defects. Having a color blindness option that people could toggle on would be extremely helpful. Allow different colors for red and green name plates denoting enemies/friends. Note to color blind folks—your monitor and Windows have (most likely) color blind options in your accessibility panel.

2. Improving contrast is essential to improve visibility for the vast majority of low vision/partially sighted people.

3. Decreasing glare is enormously helpful for improving visibility. For example, the Scyva fight is horrendously difficult because I literally cannot see the rotating pale purple circle on the ground with all the other ground effects going on. I have to warn the healers ahead of time that I have no idea when I’m standing in the poo or not. Even then, with all the ground effects from boss and adds and players, I’m literally blinded by all the bright effects, and I have no way of turning that down so that I can even see what the heck I’m attacking. I have to guess if I’m behind the boss where I need to be with my Infiltration Shadow or Deception Assassin. Turning off some of those super bright effects would be enormously useful.

4. Allowing increase of font size on tool tips, subtitles, and other places where we can’t currently change font size would be extremely helpful.

5. Allowing us to change the color of AoE effects would be super helpful. ESO allows this, and it is enormously helpful to me. It also helps because I can change the color and brightness based on what area I’m in so that I see it in whatever setting I’m in. For instance, a green that I might use on Hoth would be different from the green I might use on jungle areas like Onderon or parts of Yavin 4 or Rishi.

6. Allowing us to snap-target AoE effects to enemies would really help those who play with only one hand or those of us who have arthritis.

7. Having some audio cues when we’re standing in AoE effects would be helpful. One of my friends has severely constricted visual field, or “tunnel vision”, and when she’s looking at a boss, she isn’t able to see her feet. That means she can never see when she’s standing in poo.

8. Audio cues for boss channeled skills would be helpful. I can increase the cast bar size, but only so much. Allowing a larger and wider target cast bar would be useful, also.

9. The mouse pointer is too small, and because it’s a yellow gold, it disappears against similarly colored backgrounds, like, oh, all of Tatooine. If you could add some kind of size and color change, perhaps with a blinking that could be toggled on/off, that would be very helpful.

10. Please get rid of the instancing for datacrons. I don’t have low vision, but I do have problems with night vision. The Ossus one was absolutely impossible to navigate for me until I discovered turning my graphics to the bare minimum lightened the place up so I could actually see where the heck I was going. I haven’t been able to complete the Onderon one because I can’t navigate the run back—the bad tiles in the dark tunnel are nigh on impossible to see. I can’t even imagine trying to do either of these datacrons one-handed. Just go back to allowing people to help out others by summoning those who can’t make it easily to these places. I get having the group for the fleet datacron to encourage community/group participation, but there’s no reason to do that on Onderon and Ossus.

11. Some planets are glaringly bright or too dark for me to see some places well. Having a way to turn the overall brightness up or down easily would be very welcome. That way, I can turn it way down on, say, Hoth, but turn it up for Mek-sha.

12. Gathering nodes are very hard, if not impossible, to see in some places. I can’t see the faint white symbol on Hoth, for example. If I didn’t have the resource icon turned on for my minimap, I’d never find them on the white background. (note to all, turning off grass helps me see the resource nodes more easily on other planets)

13. Tool tips: The green quality item tooltips have very poor contrast between text and background. The best contrast ones are the white text on orange or purple backgrounds. If you darken the tooltip backgrounds and lighten the text on all of them, that will improve contrast and readability.

14. Having the audio cues for finding datacrons is helpful—keep that.

15. Interactable buttons are hard to see since the glow is not that obvious. A number of times I’ve just had to move my mouse around hoping to hit the right area.

16. I do like that you can adjust different aspects of sound differently—e.g. I can make voice volume louder than effects volume.

17. Companion gifts: To get my new companions to rank 10, I usually give them about 80-ish companion gifts. Right-clicking 80 times in a row gets physically painful. Allowing some macros for things like that or bulk-gift giving would be very welcome.

18. The little pale yellow swirly interactable circles on Onderon disappear in the foliage. I have trouble finding them. My partially sighted friend can’t find them at all and has pretty much given up playing Onderon because of the frustration.

19. Some quest items are very small and hard to find. I don’t mind a little challenge, but for visually impaired folks, it’s next to impossible. If they were larger and/or brighter, or if there was a sound cue when you got close, that might help. Making sound cues and accessibility controls like this optional would make these things more accessible without changing the original experience for players.

20. The camera bug that suddenly has you staring at the ceiling makes me dizzy, and I don’t even have vertigo problems.

21. I do like that you can change font colors in chat.

22. My partially blind friend has trouble with the chat box being too small for her—she uses the largest font size possible to read. If she could make it both wider and longer, it would help her read it more easily.

23. It is hard to hit the lock/unlock and plus buttons on the main toolbar due to size for those with arthritis issues.

24. Combat proficiencies panel—tooltip font is pretty small.

I’m going to try to go planet by planet to show some issues as well.

Ord Mantell—Inside the volcano base can be a bit tough due to the dark areas. The other areas seem to be ok for me personally. People with limited visual field might have trouble navigating bridges and staying out of the lava.

Tython—The lighting seemed to be ok for me. It’s not always easy to see the faint glow of interactable buttons in some places. The little quest marker for the baby flesh raider quest is not easy to see due to its small size and location on the ground. People with tunnel vision might miss it entirely. The ramp up to the Matriarch is easy to fall off of for someone with tunnel vision. The temple for going to Rajivari and also the big cave are pretty dark. The scene where you make your lightsaber is still just the coolest thing ever.

Korriban—Outdoors is fine for me, although it might be a bit too bright for some. Some might find the caverns/temple rooms might be a little too dark.

Nal Hutta—Lighting seemed to be ok for me, although finding a gold cursor in yellow poison poo can be a bit tough.

Coruscant—the Works area can be a bit hard to navigate due to different levels and dim lighting.

Dromund Kaas—The dark temple is, well, dark. And while the Sith Sanctum is going for the same giant chasm vibe that we see on the Death Star, I doubt that Imperial OSHA approves of people with tunnel vision walking off the platforms to meet their demise. Some guardrails in the Sith Sanctum might be nice to help visually impaired folks not plummet to their deaths.

Taris—I found it hard to find some of the quest objectives because the mini-map doesn’t indicate a location above or below where you’re at. That’s frustrating enough for people without disabilities, but it’s very hard for someone to find a location when the map doesn’t indicate height as well (Balmorra, I’m looking at you….)

Nar Shaddaa—some areas are very dark. The map can be a bit tricky in some areas that have a lot of ramps and levels (especially when running for the world boss).

Balmorra—trying to figure out where I was altitude-wise took me forever. I like the fact that the world isn’t flat—it adds verisimilitude—but without a topographical map, it’s damn hard to navigate until we learn the areas.

Alderaan—resource node indicators are invisible against the snow. Light colored interactables on snow are extremely hard to see. There is a strobe light flashing at one of the outposts on Republic side that is extremely annoying and flashes at a rate that could trigger seizures.

Tatooine—light gold cursor and the light gold text in the quest tracker are hard to see against the light brown sand. Bioanalysis nodes are sometimes hard to see due to contrast.

Quesh—Not much to say there since you sneeze and complete the planet. It can be hard to see the red AoE effect that the world boss puts down on the reddish ground.

Hoth—the world is glaringly bright. Seeing white resource node symbols against the white background is nearly impossible. Finding the datapads lying on the ground in one of the heroics is exceedingly difficult.

Belsavis—Agent Mynock, while dead, could be a brighter corpse to be easier to see in the dark cave.

Voss—dark gold text on the quest tracker and the gold cursor against the gold/orange background is hard to see.

Corellia—It’s hard to figure out which direction to go from looking at the map for some quests out in the map hinterlands.

Ilum—the white indicators for resource nodes and light interactables are near impossible to see against the snow.

Makeb—most of this area was pretty easy to see, but it’s easy for someone with tunnel vision to walk off the plateaus. The datacrons are a beast to get to if you have hand arthritis due to all the jumping.

Manaan—the boss fights in the heroic can be very difficult. Light gray electrical ground effect is very hard to see against the darker gray floor. There’s not enough contrast.

Yavin 4—resource nodes and some quest objectives on the ground disappear in the grass. The interactable that you have to scan with binoculars can be hard to find.

Rishi—resource nodes and interactables disappear in the grass unless you turn off grass. Figuring out how to get back to the main deck if you forget where you are underneath the town can be a bit tricky the first few times. It’s also pretty easy to run off the deck edges.

CZ-198—pretty easy to do for me. The instanced area is pretty hard, and finding the ceiling pipe to target might be hard for visually impaired and those with tunnel vision to find.

Ziost—resource node indicators disappear in the ashy apocalyptic landscape.

Oricon—The caves/instanced areas are pretty dark. It’s easy for people with tunnel vision to walk into lava.

Ossus—the instanced datacron area is extremely difficult to navigate because it is so dark.

Dantooine—one of the heroics is in a dark room and can be difficult to see in.

Mek-sha—my partially sighted friend says she cannot play a lot of Mek-sha because it’s just way too dark. She also falls off platforms fairly often due to her tunnel vision.

Onderon—I love how gorgeous this planet is, but the foliage hides a lot of the interactables. If you made the interactables taller (like loot lines but maybe not as tall?) that might help. The quest items for the one-time quest were small and hard to find. Perhaps adding an optional sound cue when you get close to quest items might help? The instanced datacron is next to impossible to do if you have vision and/or arthritis/hand mobility problems.

I'll have to think about the Operations--the biggest problem my visually impaired friend had was being able to interrupt skills in time and being able to see the poo at her feet. Some people with mobility problems might have trouble jumping from rock to rock in the Gharj lava pit and managing the platforms for Soa.

Some areas require running a long distance from the respawn point to the boss if you die. That can be frustrating for someone who gets tired out easily.

I'll probably think of more later, but this is plenty to start.

For those that have asked for Addon support in Swtor, be careful about what you are asking for. To use a cliche, addons are a blessing and a curse. Certain types of addons can quickly become a mandatory requirement if you do group content. For example, boss (operations / flashpoint) addons quickly create an arms race between developers and addon authors leading to much more complex boss fights. DPS meters become common, along with using them to boast and/or kick "low dps" from groups.

You have issues where conflicts between addons crash your game or make parts of it unworkable -- with the developers getting the blame, not the poorly written addon. Speaking of which, the developers now have another major system to support test, fix, and change as some addon authors will abuse the system as much as possible to gain any advantage.

I know many of you are thinking of another MMO's addon support, but don't forget to look at its history of dealing with problematic addons. It is best to be specific about just what things you want addons to do, for example, change the appearance of the mouse cursor. Those things may be easier for Bioware to implement without opening the can of worms that are addons.

I just submitted a bug report and that small yellow font made things hard to proofread, please change.

Also, platforming is not easy with a few conditions. I am not entirely sure how to alleviate that, but could the daracron hunt be a tad easier on the platforming

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.

Colorblindness options are definitely needed. They need to be able to perform at their best too.

The only time I've had problems with the AoE indicators though is when they're on extremely bright surfaces, such as with Gargoth on Hoth.

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

I've never had this problem, as I use a separate chat window for only system messages. As long as it's an option and not mandatory though, I don't think players would have problems.

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.

Subtitle size can be changed separately in the UI Editor. Just pick Conversation under the drop-down.

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.

3. Sound indicators for what?

4. Missile locks already have a visual indicator. You can change its size in the UI Editor. What doesn't have visual indicators that could use them?

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.

They already have shapes best exemplified with the Feast of Prosperity Dining Rush minigame, so this should be easy to implement, as they already have shapes they can use.

It would help to have combat noises in their own Sound channel. I have a type of hearing disability where sharp sounds are painful and disorienting, so I have to have the sound effects down VERY low, but that means I miss out on some of the really great sound work that isn't explosions, lasers, etc.

Sound dynamics have been a lingering probelm. The loudest sounds are like this game is

Posting on behalf of another player:

 

Add controller support. I know it's easier said than done but the lack of controller support is the main reason I stopped playing the game. Using a physical keyboard and mouse is very hard for me.

This request, unlike the other requests you posted for controller support is extremely vague. The person doesn't say why using a mouse and keyboard is very hard, when the other requests state it is because of a physical condition. For all we know, they could just be someone that is a console gamer that lacks the determination to learn a mouse and keyboard as gaming perhiperals, usually the reason people request this. Many PC players would probably be OK with controller support, as long as it didn't result in the game being dumbed down. Bioware, however, doesn't have a good reputation when it comes to making changes in SWTOR that don't result in dumbing down, so trust is very low.

Please ask them to clarify the nature of their difficulty.

Thank you for asking us for our feedback on this, Bioware. You were lauded for the accessibility accommodations in KotOR, and I've heard much disappointment about the accessibility in SWTOR and noticed some shortcomings myself. I hope all the suggestions in this thread will be given serious consideration.

Now, my observation:

The subtitles are quite frequently inaccurate. They sometimes miss words and/or completely omit entire sentences and vice versa. All the subtitles should be reviewed and revised to reflect the dialogue, including fillers and utterances, instead of them always being represented by ellipses. I used to submit corrections, but I saw my concerns fell on deaf ears, so I stopped.

An option for descriptive subtitles would also be great for the hearing impaired, but I realize this would be a huge undertaking to do.

As many others have said here - thank you for addressing the issues of accessibility, there are more of us out here than the general public thinks, and little differences to some can make a huge difference to people like myself with these kinds of challenges. I have severely debilitating Migraines. I know some of the things I have below might seem like small issues, but they can make a huge difference. Many excellent points have already been mentioned, so these are just the things that are important to me from the perspective of a migraineur.

1- As has been mentioned here several times, the numerous flashing lights in the game are very problematic for people with migraine and seizure disorders. (this is roughly 1 in 4 women and 1 in 15 men, according to the American Migraine Foundation). It's nearly impossible for me to run operations and other group content even with my very understanding guild most days. I avoid playing large swaths of the game because of the flashing lights, or if I choose to play, it means deciding between being left out or triggering a migraine that can last for days. Even players I know who don't have migraine/seizures complain about this. The ability to turn off these effects has been suggested; however, there are times, such as a healing AOE or if you are standing in a damaging AOE, that it really is needed to be able to actually see them. I am not sure what would be involved in having more control over what kinds of effects you are seeing, but it would help.

2- There are many messages that pop up, such as conquest announcements, that some of us would appreciate being up there a little longer to be able to read. Migraine (and other types of disabilities) cause serious cognitive effects making it difficult to understand those messages if they are dissolving too quickly. There doesn't seem to be a way to adjust this. I know this was an issue when 6.0 was released, but I really appreciated having the messages up there longer. Maybe there is a way to let the player decide how long it takes to fade out? Or is there a way to count those as conversation messages so that they are still readable after? I find it challenging to try to figure out which conquest or achievement goal I met when those flash up too quickly (i.e., do I need to keep killing bormu? What did I achieve?). There doesn't seem to be a way to retrieve them once they fade out.

2- There are all sorts of fun little messages from NPCs that pop up in the game, but they are only audible, not visible as a conversation. I love the messages, and it really shows off the creative talent of the Bioware team. Unfortunately, a lot of those do not appear in the chat windows. I'm still not sure what some of the announcements on the Fleet stations are saying because there is SO MUCH stimulation there in general. This is a challenge for people with other issues such as dyslexia or ADHD would benefit from adding these to the conversations that appear in the chat boxes.

3- There are many background "white noise" type of sounds - the background noise of the Corsucant stronghold or the noise of some ships is very problematic for me and others such as those with autism. The current system of turning off all of the background (including Music or approaching enemies) seems like it could be adjusted.

4- I agree with what others have said about making it possible to pause flashpoints without losing your place. Because it is challenging for me to keep up in group content, I mostly solo play, and there are some Flashpoints that I have never been able to finish. Sometimes because of the flashing or other issues, and sometimes because I need to get off the computer. I get worn out, and pain levels exceed what I can manage, and if I keep pushing, I end up spending several days recovering. I'm sure there are a lot of people who have the same issues. Give flashpoints the same timeout as operations to pick up where you left off. (There is a lot of game content, people don't actually need to run Hammer Station 10 times a day to get to

5- PLEASE - while everyone is talking about color blindness and other visual impairments, can we please rethink using the same blue shade that denotes the quest items for the general background? This happens very often for Imperial side backgrounds, and especially areas where the "ice" color is prevalent such as the entire planet of Hoth or Ilum. It literally took me 3 years to get through the storylines the first time because I couldn't see a lot of the items because of their colors. I'm relying on memory or external guides to complete the missions now when they are absolutely necessary to move forward. I'm positive with all of the creative talents that make this beautiful game, there have to be other color options. High contrast options wouldn't change having everything the same shade of blue to start with.

Thank you for reading!

I just submitted a bug report and that small yellow font made things hard to proofread, please change.

 

Also, platforming is not easy with a few conditions. I am not entirely sure how to alleviate that, but could the daracron hunt be a tad easier on the platforming

Targeted jumping would solve this issue. The devs could put a cast timer on it (say 3 to 5 seconds) so that it doesn't get abused. I've had plenty of times where I go to make a jump, hit the space bar, the engine fails to jump, and my character falls to her death. Being able to put a reticle where I wanted to get to would solve those issues.

As many others have said here - thank you for addressing the issues of accessibility, there are more of us out here than the general public thinks, and little differences to some can make a huge difference to people like myself with these kinds of challenges. I have severely debilitating Migraines. I know some of the things I have below might seem like small issues, but they can make a huge difference. Many excellent points have already been mentioned, so these are just the things that are important to me from the perspective of a migraineur.

 

1- As has been mentioned here several times, the numerous flashing lights in the game are very problematic for people with migraine and seizure disorders. (this is roughly 1 in 4 women and 1 in 15 men, according to the American Migraine Foundation). It's nearly impossible for me to run operations and other group content even with my very understanding guild most days. I avoid playing large swaths of the game because of the flashing lights, or if I choose to play, it means deciding between being left out or triggering a migraine that can last for days. Even players I know who don't have migraine/seizures complain about this. The ability to turn off these effects has been suggested; however, there are times, such as a healing AOE or if you are standing in a damaging AOE, that it really is needed to be able to actually see them. I am not sure what would be involved in having more control over what kinds of effects you are seeing, but it would help.

 

2- There are many messages that pop up, such as conquest announcements, that some of us would appreciate being up there a little longer to be able to read. Migraine (and other types of disabilities) cause serious cognitive effects making it difficult to understand those messages if they are dissolving too quickly. There doesn't seem to be a way to adjust this. I know this was an issue when 6.0 was released, but I really appreciated having the messages up there longer. Maybe there is a way to let the player decide how long it takes to fade out? Or is there a way to count those as conversation messages so that they are still readable after? I find it challenging to try to figure out which conquest or achievement goal I met when those flash up too quickly (i.e., do I need to keep killing bormu? What did I achieve?). There doesn't seem to be a way to retrieve them once they fade out.

 

2- There are all sorts of fun little messages from NPCs that pop up in the game, but they are only audible, not visible as a conversation. I love the messages, and it really shows off the creative talent of the Bioware team. Unfortunately, a lot of those do not appear in the chat windows. I'm still not sure what some of the announcements on the Fleet stations are saying because there is SO MUCH stimulation there in general. This is a challenge for people with other issues such as dyslexia or ADHD would benefit from adding these to the conversations that appear in the chat boxes.

 

3- There are many background "white noise" type of sounds - the background noise of the Corsucant stronghold or the noise of some ships is very problematic for me and others such as those with autism. The current system of turning off all of the background (including Music or approaching enemies) seems like it could be adjusted.

 

4- I agree with what others have said about making it possible to pause flashpoints without losing your place. Because it is challenging for me to keep up in group content, I mostly solo play, and there are some Flashpoints that I have never been able to finish. Sometimes because of the flashing or other issues, and sometimes because I need to get off the computer. I get worn out, and pain levels exceed what I can manage, and if I keep pushing, I end up spending several days recovering. I'm sure there are a lot of people who have the same issues. Give flashpoints the same timeout as operations to pick up where you left off. (There is a lot of game content, people don't actually need to run Hammer Station 10 times a day to get to

 

5- PLEASE - while everyone is talking about color blindness and other visual impairments, can we please rethink using the same blue shade that denotes the quest items for the general background? This happens very often for Imperial side backgrounds, and especially areas where the "ice" color is prevalent such as the entire planet of Hoth or Ilum. It literally took me 3 years to get through the storylines the first time because I couldn't see a lot of the items because of their colors. I'm relying on memory or external guides to complete the missions now when they are absolutely necessary to move forward. I'm positive with all of the creative talents that make this beautiful game, there have to be other color options. High contrast options wouldn't change having everything the same shade of blue to start with.

 

Thank you for reading!

2. Not true, those ambient conversations show up in System Messages. Conquest notifications are a pain. They can't be modified in the UI Editor at all. They really should be added to it as well as other elements that haven't yet. Adding them to the System Messages would be great as well, since they can be configured to show up in a chat window.

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.

A. The text in the item descriptions is FAR TOO TINY! People who are DISABLED like me (partially because of other things but in this case, due to OLD AGE -- i have PRESBYOPIA a visual degradation issue where my eyes can see only larger text, closer up and it is very hard to see FINE PRINT on a computer screen). PLEASE ALLOW SCALING or a MODIFIER for us to INCREASE the TINY TEXT in the section of the popups that contain long text descriptions of items, mainly and PRIMARILY during mouse-over but also in other areas of the came (such as the CODEX window).

People like me CANNOT READ ANY OF THE FREAKING TEXT because it is TOO SMALL and because for the past TEN YEARS you guys have basically NOT ALLOWED us to read the text because you REFUSE TO ENABLE us to MAGNIFY or INCREASE the DANG FONT SIZE!!!!

i have been playing this game MOSTLY FAITHFULLY since 2012 and THIS IS THE WORST AND MOST DETRIMENTAL BUG that is TOTALLY AGAINST ACCESSIBILITY in this freaking game!!!!!!!!!!!

So, PLEASE LET US MODIFY THE TEXT SIZE in LONG-TEXT descriptions of pop-up item descriptions and in other places like the CODEX and OTHER windows which contain TINY text which the Interface Editor DOES NOT ADDRESS.

B. Also there are a SLEW of OTHER windows and items on the screen which you devs have NEVER EVER allowed us to modify in Interface Editor -- THAT IS HORRIBLE!!!! PLEASE CHANGE THIS REAL FAST!!!!!

C. 1 last thing: 1 of the Datacrons on Onderon (the solo instanced one, underground) is LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE to do, because the TIMER (I HATE TIMERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) is way too fast and because my computer LAGS when exiting and instance and by the time the lag is over, the timer is up and then i have FAILED to keep ahold of the datacron, DESPITE I DID GET THE DATACRON ... the computer and game TAKES IT AWAY from me because i did not exit the instance in time BECAUSE OF THE LAG TIME in the process of exiting the instance! THIS IS ENTIRELY FRUSTRATING and is more of an Accesibility issue with the COMPUTER ITSELF (my computer was brand spanking new in 2012 -- which is right after the game came out .... so there really is NO EXCUSE as to why this problem keeps happening. And no i do not have bad background processes or process spike lag when playing that part of the game.... i am a SysAdmin and i know how to maintain my computer).

PLEASE FIX THE ONDERON UNDERGROUND INSTANCED DATACRON. Increase the length of the TIMER ... FROM when you actually get the datacron to about 3 times what it is, to the exit.

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to get the dang thing otherwise (and i did get it about 4-5 times but because of the way the exiting from the "conversation" scene happens, the timer of that instance runs out before i can reach the exit of the instance in time!!!!)

Ignore this post. I cannot delete it.

I shall move my post elsewhere.

Thanks for the advice.

I am not so sure if I should post this here, but anyway, I have two suggestions (please, notify my in case I have to post this elsewhere so someone in charge can read them):

This thread is for people with physical disabilities to post their needs in. Not for people's wishlists.

For on-topicness, I could do with the captions being a bit slower in some places, because there are times when they go by so fast, I need to go into system messages to see what the heck was just said. (Given this is most noticeable when there's alien-speak going on, this is an issue for hearing people as well.)

This is probably minor, but would be helpful for the hearing impaired who can't use voice comms but still like to do harder content than story mode:

Let us have a setting that enables target of focus target.

Currently we can have target of target enabled, but there is no way to see who our focus target is targeting.

When I am healing I usually focus target the boss to keep an eye on their health and cast bar, and being able to also see who the boss (my focus target) is targetting would save me a lot of 'catch up' time when the boss targets anyone besides the main tank.

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.

I feel you, I’m nearly 50 and there are days I can’t play certain content because of arthritis.

One thing Bioware could add is a healing / tank / dps droid that players can turn on or off. That way if you are having trouble, you can use the droid and if you are not having trouble you keep it turned off.

The droid should be turned off by default and have a pop-up telling people they can turn it on if they are having problems. Having it on by default would be detrimental I think.

Also someone who can’t always keybind due to increasing arthritis and has to use the mouse to click the task bar sometimes :

I would ask that Bioware to decouple the “consumables” (med packs and adrenals, etc,) from the mouse over and put them back the way they used to be.

Ie when you mouse over an ability, the description pop is moveable and you can set it up anywhere on your screen. This is how the consumable pop up used to be. But now when you move your mouse over a consumable in your task bar, you get a big pop up at the end of your mouse pointer that covers other things on your task bar and you can’t see them (like timers) or position you’re mouse properly.

Please add consumables back onto the same pop up described as other task bar abilities.

For visually impaired:

As someone with poor eye sight (I have keratoconus and short sightedness), I can say that the new font changes have made it so much harder for me to see text, especially in chat.

The old font was much easier to see before you started messing around with the fonts post 6.0. Please consider going back to the old font.

The other thing that affects me is the bloom from the graphics if I turn it on, it makes things blurry. This isn’t a big deal because I can turn it off. But it would be great if I could have it on and we had an option to adjust how much bloom is added. Something like a slider to turn it up or down without turning it completely off.

A personal target marker to target other players in pvp would help. We currently have the communal ability to mark other players in pvp, but everyone can see it on your team and that can become problematic because not everyone wants everything marked. And if you mark something, other people can turn it off.

Being able to personally mark a target helps if you have trouble reading the txt or the buffs or symbols. Being able to mark every player on the other team so you can tell who they are and what class they are on can make a big difference Having the ability to personally mark targets for your own usage and not interfere with the communal group marking would be helpful and reduce some toxicity in matches when people rage at you for marking targets or take them off targets you’ve marked.

Also, on red / green colour blindness. My wife suffers from that. Having the option to change the markers that are green or red to another colour would help in that regard. As would making target rings brighter. But I would ask that if you are going to make things brighter, you give other players and option to turn it down because brightness like that affects my keratoconus condition and it makes it hard for me to see.

Incase the devs don’t know what keratoconus is, here is a link that simply explains it.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/keratoconus/symptoms-causes/syc-20351352

For visually impaired:

 

As someone with poor eye sight (I have keratoconus and short sightedness), I can say that the new font changes have made it so much harder for me to see text, especially in chat.

The old font was much easier to see before you started messing around with the fonts post 6.0. Please consider going back to the old font.

 

The other thing that affects me is the bloom from the graphics if I turn it on, it makes things blurry. This isn’t a big deal because I can turn it off. But it would be great if I could have it on and we had an option to adjust how much bloom is added. Something like a slider to turn it up or down without turning it completely off.

 

A personal target marker to target other players in pvp would help. We currently have the communal ability to mark other players in pvp, but everyone can see it on your team and that can become problematic because not everyone wants everything marked. And if you mark something, other people can turn it off.

 

Being able to personally mark a target helps if you have trouble reading the txt or the buffs or symbols. Being able to mark every player on the other team so you can tell who they are and what class they are on can make a big difference Having the ability to personally mark targets for your own usage and not interfere with the communal group marking would be helpful and reduce some toxicity in matches when people rage at you for marking targets or take them off targets you’ve marked.

 

Also, on red / green colour blindness. My wife suffers from that. Having the option to change the markers that are green or red to another colour would help in that regard. As would making target rings brighter. But I would ask that if you are going to make things brighter, you give other players and option to turn it down because brightness like that affects my keratoconus condition and it makes it hard for me to see.

 

Incase the devs don’t know what keratoconus is, here is a link that simply explains it.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/keratoconus/symptoms-causes/syc-20351352

Perhaps i should elaborate on what i meant by brighter colors, by that i mean using a brighter shade of the colors used.