FF14's accessablitly options are embarrassingly bad

[Erin1491]

So I guess I just feel the need to get this off my chest. I'm sure there are other threads about it but I just wanted to get my personal experience out there.

Why doesn't FF14 have many accessablity options? I have an eye disease and am visually impaired. The bloom after the graphics update has made this game a chore to play. I die constantly even in older encounters I used to be able to do okay in pre dawntrail.

Why can we not change the color of standard aoes on the ground?

Why is the game so grainy and blurry after the graphics update?

Why can you not add closed caption black boxes behind text that appears outside of a text bubble. (Like the "meanwhile .." type text at the end of a msq patch cutscene. I have contrast issues and reading text like this is extremely difficult for me. At least I don't run into it super frequently in xiv but having the option would still help quite a lot.

It's just disappointing. The games changed so much and it used to be one of the games I enjoyed the most. So many good things have happened in my life because of this game and now I feel like I can't keep up anymore. Even the newer fast paced ddr fight design makes it extremely difficult to keep up. I guess it's more popular because it's fast paced. I just miss the older more puzzle like design of arr-stormblood I guess.

Sorry for a long rant. I just feel like I'm basically finished with the game because it's changed so much and there really isn't much to help me stay. It's so hard to see anything in a fight now because of the glow and blur. I just wish we could alter the settings more. It's tough as a console player because I have to rely on the tools SE provides. Oh well.

Thanks for reading anyways maybe others can relate or even if you can't, please support the addition of more accessibility being added to this game!

[Reginald_Cain]

Im sorry to hear this and I hope they improve the basic accessibility features a lot.

[Kaurhz]

You are definitely not the only one..

This started to be a massive problem for me when I did Eden's Verse, and then Endwalker and Dawntrail have just made this issue much worse than it should be... In their endeavor to try and turn everything into a visual spectacle.

Completely support the addition of more accessibility options, or at the very least tuning down the visual bloat so that it is more akin to earlier expansions.

[GraceHorizon]

Strong agree, there need to be better visual accessibility options and better visual clarity in general. I get that the devs want things to look spectacular and visually impressive, but sometimes it gets in the way of gameplay and I want the option to tone it down. I already have graphical effects from others’ abilities set to minimal, and SMN summon sizes turned down small (before that I would sometimes fail mechanics because someone else’s Titan blocked my view!) but that doesn’t affect boss mechanics that make a lot of visual effect clutter and light bloom, nor does it affect limit breaks (looking at you, RDM LB3). Just an option to turn down the visuals would be great, in fights only or throughout the game.

[Alicie]

Even as a not visually impaired player, the amount of vfx bloat is insane. Though you can disable all effects of players, you can't disable huge flashes that bosses do that literally don't need to be there. Any high end raid progression feels like a torture because your screen constantly flashes white from every raidwide aoe that comes 30 seconds into the fight. Recent train trial, I just can't do for more than 30 minutes because of it's moving background makes me dizzy.

[Jeeqbit]

In fairness, accessibility is easy to forget amongst designers that don't have those disabilities themselves and it's quite common for accessibility to be overlooked everywhere.

That said, I feel like if they tried they could add a huge raft of settings to help accessibility like changing AoE colors. I don't expect they will, because they can't seem to shift their "development resources" in any way than how they are currently distributed.

[Vesplume]

Fully support this rant and more accessibility options in this game. The current state of it is dire. The visual direction of this game has doubled down on the flashier aspects of things in a way that's made it actively worse to play.

The accessibility in this game has been a sore spot for a long time, going as far back as Shadowbringers but escalating with the graphics overhaul in 7.0. There's a megathread on the forums for issues relating to that update and the eye strain it causes (plus migraines and seizures). It's been reported as an issue by multiple people via support tickets, the forum thread, and at one point an email address was given, but the only actual accessibility update that's gone through was the addition of a couple of options for colorblind players in 7.4. There was also a question about it that came up in a recent KR Q&A and YoshiP said he'll look into it.

[hydralus]

Very much agreed, especially with the AoE markers. It seems like a natural evolution for game options.

[Asari5]

there is that one time (i think in 5.3?) where they use a light blue colour for the subtitles... which is horrible for the background there. sometimes i do wonder who is responsible for that xD