Feature Request: For Morale!

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Jumvapace, Sep 20, 2022.

  1. Jumvapace The Most hated

    Ok, the 'new' consider system of Grey, green, light blue, blue, white, yellow, red has been in the game a while now. Yes I do say 'new' because it was a change from original EQ, and for us old people.. anything that happened in the last 10-15 years... is still 'new'. And in all this time I've never seen an actual request to have this changed or give players some control on the user side for it.

    I have to admit.. it did take me a year or more, once this change was put in, to actually notice that there were 'light blue' mobs in the game. When they first introduced this new color scheme, 'considering' a mob did not show the level of the mob like it does now. I wondered for a while after this change, why there was 'variety' between a mob that was 'kind of dangerous', and one that was 'quite a gamble' as an even con? Was it because one was a caster? one had some extra ability? one was a 'city guard/protector so would be an 'under-con'? I had no idea.

    You may be wondering why I went so long, not realizing what such a simple 'feature' in the game was actually communicating to me. Like, it's soooo obvious, how could you NOT know this? Well the answer is simple. I'm stupid.

    But also, because I'm colorblind! Red-Green to be specific. Sooo many times in Everquest have I been on the receiving end of jokes and friendly teasing because of this. I mean, how could you NOT want to make fun of someone leading raids who can't differentiate between simple colors? It's a golden opportunity!

    It's kind of like seeing that fellow raider who won the Blade of Carnage over you get charmed on the very next raid... I mean you just HAVE to kill them right? Same thing when your raid leader is trying to tell the raid to target and kill/move/charm/split/dance with the White con mob; all the while, the raid is staring at you and saying... uh... there ARE no white con mobs sir... do you mean this light blue one? I mean come ON, my 5 year old grandkids can tell the difference between colors and they eat paste!

    For every single mob on the ETW, while everyone with normal color vision, at a quick glance, can see what every single mob considers; some of us can't. When the ETW fills up, some of us have to target each mob and cycle through them all quickly hit the 'c' key if we want to know their 'consider' level.

    As I've primarily played a cleric on raids for many years, I don't target mobs often in a raid except to land a Turn Undead. I went more than 6 months of Beta and Live ToL raiding thinking that every single mob in the ToL T1 raids were either blue, or even con. When I finally made a bard this year and saw they could only charm up to 118, I was wondering how they could charm the newborn drones if an enchanter died...My 'supportive' guildmates were quick to inform me that basic color issues beat me again!

    As funny as it is sometimes, I know it's an issue that definitely affects a lot more people than just me. Being able to change colors for almost everything else in the game is a greatly appreciated feature. We can change text to whatever color we want, we can even change things in UI elements like our aggro meter numbers! Since I can't see red very well, I've changed my '100%' aggro to hot pink to stand out. But there is no way to change the consider colors for mobs. The closest you can get, is changing your target ring color. I have done this as well and my 'light blue' has been fluorescent hot pink for a while now. But I still need to target every single mob and wait for the (sometimes) laggy target ring to update around them.

    So, as the original title says, I would really like it, if, on the user end, we could change these to custom colors for Morale! It is extremely de-moralizing to be playing a game and not being able to accomplish something so basic that a 5 year old can do. Hell, maybe the feature is actually in the game and this whole post is drawn out and useless. Someone will point it out and I'll be happy; Dumb and stupid... but happy :)
  2. Nennius Curmudgeon

    Agreed. Color blindness comes in many flavors and can be a great hindrance at times. Some way to help those with color blindness would be a very good thing. How easy/simple/hard ???
  3. Ranonman Elder

    I'm glad you brought this up. Accessibility issues are and always have been a thing for as long as I can remember. I'm deaf player. I rely on in-game text messages or emotes. To address accessibility issues in the game is a whole world itself. Fortunately, there are guides and tools that devs can research what are good practices to implement accessibility friendly games (or any applications like websites). In your case, the color codes would have to be updated to accommodate few different cases for people with mild to severe eye disabilities. So, I'm very much supporting in providing accessibility for players who needs and can continue enjoying.

    I would start small and build more features as we go. This can be a simple options in the general settings. Dropdown menu with options for eye DA. Red/Green and inc. That will update your game and meet your needs. Might need to zone to force update.
    Rijacki and Rexa like this.
  4. zleski Augur

    Please, make this change so we can switch to teasing Jumva for mixing up cardinal directions instead of colourblindness.
    Rijacki likes this.
  5. Jumvapace The Most hated

    Uh.. I never mess up North/South. you just have to realize there is no east/west... just Left/Right.
    Rijacki and Svann2 like this.
  6. Pintoy 3 Journeyman

    Readers of the Zanth series might wish that Norrath had and East Pole and a West Pole. :-0
  7. Rexa Ask someone else for buffs

    As we all know, I have my own versions of North and South. I think you should have your own version of color/con mobs in game!
  8. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    There is no left/right, just your side and my side.
  9. Act of Valor The Newest Member

    This is an excellent post and I now fully agree, the game should have a colorblind friendly mode.
    Wyre Wintermute likes this.
  10. Wyre Wintermute I'm just a butterly dreaming I'm a man

    I agree. I do think OP is asking for something a bit larger than can feasibly be delivered (custom CON coloring) however, a "Colorblind" mode(or modes for the different types of CB) would be fair. I've seen many other games implement such an option when recognizing specific colors is a key element to the game.
  11. a_Paladin_Main82813 New Member

    Colorblind mode would be fitting.
  12. Rexa Ask someone else for buffs

    I really suspect it's quite the opposite and not that large of a task. Most of the functionality is already there. It's simply about working with it and making modifications in a few places.

    Consider the following of where these con colors are being found and applied:

    a) the chat text (when conning a mob)
    b) the target box when you target a mob
    c) the extended target window (the mob names are colored based on the same con values)
    d) The target ring.

    Therefor the only things are:

    1) to allow the player to pick the color (via options window and just add the con colors there) and
    2) modify the existing code to pass the values to a, b, c and d by doing a check to see if a custom value exists.
  13. Jyve Augur

    Gave up looking at colours, got the /con command firing on everything and only look at the text for what I need to know. And whenever it was added showing the actual level of the mob being /conned? WONDERFUL!

    But anything to help make things easier/clearer/able to be user changed? All for it.
  14. Vumad Cape Wearer

    That is a lot of reading to ask for colorblind options.