Accessibility options urgently in need of update

[Ayden-Erebus]

It's been 5 years playing this game and its become a running joke with a group of friends when new content drops, will I even be able to clear it properly without needing outside help LMAO (Voice Callouts until I can learn to do the fight based on sound if able). I was practically barred from EW Tier 3 Savage because P9 has an all light blue floor with light lines and I straight up could not see the lines due to colorblindness. A friend dragged me through normal and stood with me after the clear and asked me if I saw the lines on the floor. I see 0 lines.
I cleared P1 and P2, saw P3 and just busted out laughing because if people without colorblindness were struggling with that stage? No way in hell was I clearing that. I have to swap to purple/green mode for that fight, and that HURTS my eyes. None of the colorblind settings help me whatsoever, and often times I might as well play without them! The settings are extremely outdated, and I am constantly telling people when I hit a wall in game that's due to my colorblindness, I just go "Wow, the Devs reminding me that colorblind people don't exist in their country yet again, bless" xD (Thumbs up as my corpse lays on the ground).

I do get tired of having friends have to practically hold my hand and walk my sorry butt across the stage for fights when I can't distinguish AOEs from the floor. When new dungeons drop, I run it with NPCs first to make sure I can practice certain mechanics in case colorblindness stumps me. For the newest dungeon, one of the bosses does a bunch of light orange/yellow triangles/cone AOEs on the floor but the floor also looks light orange/yellow to me. I was unaware there were even AOEs happening but I saw G'raha moving in a weird way so I just assumed something was happening that I just couldn't see. I chose to just eat the double AOEs on the both of us stacked together because a friend told me getting hit by ~the Unknown Nonsense I Couldn't See~ resulted in death. For the Field Station Dungeon, "Free Spirits" mechanic (Haha we love this one), I CAN'T SEE THE LINES ON THE GROUND. So I do it based on zooming all the way in on my character and I LISTEN VERY CLOSELY with my eyes on my visual audio bars to see if it gets TOO LOUD and the bars SPIKE REALLY HIGH. This means I am most likely standing right in the middle of the path and I walk forward or backward depending on how loud it is. Thank the gods each spirit makes a noise when they go by or I would just eat the dirt every time. I still get clipped sometimes as it is not a perfect method, but I am trying my best!

[Ayden-Erebus]

I have learned to play a good chunk of this game with surround sound so I know when to move based on how close the AOEs are to my character (this doesn't always work by the way). There were many fights (like Bozja Savage in particular), where I slammed up audio queue settings and whatnot because I knew I would not be able to see certain mechanics. I feel like I play the majority of this game based on hearing. So I turn off most voices unless a fight needs voice lines for mechanics. The amount of adjusting I do in the game to get the "same experience" as other people sucks.

When new content drops, I make it a point to run it 10+ times, especially if I see colorblindness will be an issue. I try my best to immediately learn to adjust because I don't want to be a burden to Duty Finder players who are just trying to do their roulettes. I even have an in-game macro for party chat for the times where I do swap to green/purple mode to warn the party in advance and thanking them for their patience.

I will be progging Ex4 this weekend. I have been warned up and down about it that people without colorblindness were struggling. Friends telling me I can get by with some mechanics by following the party. I might be doing it in green/purple mode. I might not. I won't know how screwed I am until I step foot into it, and I am very nervous if future fights going forward will be like this. Normal mode was a huge struggle already for me. I thought the Devs listened from Endwalker when we complained about this and it feels like they went completely backwards instead or chose to ignore everything.

Friends have suggested Reshade and other options, but I am so determined to not have to go that route because I would once again have to do a ton of EXTRA adjusting on my part just to have the same experience as them. It's exhausting. I am not asking the Devs to make this game easier (I love harder content). I just want more options so I can SEE LIKE EVERYONE ELSE.

[firesreply]

Completely agree. Would love to see some more consideration for visual clarity and settings that would allow everyone to be able to engage with what they want.

[ExiaKuromonji]

In regards to EX4. This isn't a colorblindness issue. People without colorblindness are also finding problems with this fight. It's really bad...

[Aexnidaral]

I want to add my voice to this thread because I've played this game for a long, long time and this issue (genuinely) does not seem to be improving.

The native colorblind settings are just dogwater. They're just plain bad. It's pretty insane that some folks have to go look for third party programs to assist them to see the game to a reasonable degree.

Why Square Enix doesn't test their content with players who have these kind of disabilities is beyond me -- it's clearly not something that's particularly rare.

[Souljacker]

I want to add my voice to this thread because I've played this game for a long, long time and this issue (genuinely) does not seem to be improving.

The native colorblind settings are just dogwater. They're just plain bad. It's pretty insane that some folks have to go look for third party programs to assist them to see the game to a reasonable degree.

Why Square Enix doesn't test their content with players who have these kind of disabilities is beyond me -- it's clearly not something that's particularly rare.

Some degree of colorblindness exists in a significant portion of their target demographic (some 1 in 12 men) so I agree - no idea why this doesn't get priority status come dev time. The visual noise in every aspect of this game is quite stunning. I wish we could turn it all off.

[Balmung_Griffin]

EX4 is a great fight, brought down by this oversight. If you're a console player, you're out of luck, there's nothing you can do.

Really hoping they'll patch, it's a great fight and more people should be able to enjoy it.

[SnakeBlue]

I have a number of colourblind friends who love this game as much as I do, or more. But to hear of their struggles with certain fights, and face my own when indicators are beyond even my relatively normal vision. (Nearsighted here.) We definitely need these suggestions implemented. No half measures, please? Let us adjust attack indicator colours and anything else we need to, so we can see what we're fighting, and avoiding.

[fafrir]

I also wanted to add my voice to this as I may not be colourblind but I also suffer with getting headaches from seeing too many colours at once and bright, flashing lights.
When I first progged EX4, I had to close my eyes for a while between pulls and it was to the point I just couldn't take it anymore and physically felt exhausted. I would go far to say that it actually made me feel exhausted the next day so when the static wanted to do it again the next day, I physically couldn't. I took a small break from it and even with fewer pulls, I could feel my eyes hurting me a bit and that's with my screen's brightness and contrast turned down. Once I got my weapon, I was pretty much done with that fight.

Accessibility is so important I really wish companies would focus less on making games that prioritize being as flashy and epic looking that results in sacrificing on the actual gameplay that turns off a fair bit of people.

[Anarnee]

Giving this a like and some attention because a lot of us have been dealing with eye strain and issues since 7.0 and the new trial makes me SO nauseous and I can't even get mods or tools to help because I'm on console. I've had to skip every EX this expansion, old fights that I use to love make me dizzy and even some of the new zones give me a hard time. The most I can do is turn my gamma all the way up.

Something needs to be done, I've even heard people that haven't been having issues like me complaining about this fight, but many people have complained about how awful this expansion has been for them and it's a shame that this far in very little has been done.