This game made some good changes to help with accessibility, but it also created some big new problems.
As a player who is both visually impaired (aka color-blind and terrible eyesight, especially when looking at things that are moving) and hearing impaired, I’m used to games being hard to see and hear. The clarity is often poor. But that’s one of the reasons I always LOVED Halo growing up. The brightly colored Spartans stand out from the background like a sore thumb, and it’s remarkably easy to tell who is on what team. In addition, the radar and grenade indicators help alleviate my issues hearing things, because where other players can hear footsteps or the clink of grenades, I just can’t. Halo has been one of the only fast-paced games I can really play and keep up with people despite my sensory problems.
In this game, there are some major differences; some help, but some very much hurt. They are…
- Colored outlines that you can set for friendly vs. enemy instead of set team colors
- No grenade indicators
- Minimal indication of the direction one is taking damage from
- Very small radar (both in terms of in-game range and the literal size of the radar circle on the HUD)
Now, the ability to choose friendly and enemy UI colors is very helpful, especially for someone with difficulty telling colors apart. However, the fact that people can choose whatever armor coating they want, and the set UI color is only an outline, makes this extremely problematic. If I set my enemy UI color to red, and an ally has a red armor coating, I often think they’re an enemy at a glance. Likewise, if I set my friendly UI color to green, and an enemy has a green armor coating, I’m going to think that’s an ally, at least for a second. This is highly frustrating, and gives me a headache when it keeps happening.
Solution: There should be a setting that allows you to make the set UI colors cover the entire spartan, at least for enemies, if not for allies too. That way, regardless of their armor coating, I see only the color that I have designated as the enemy color (or ally color, respectively).
As for the lack of indicators, I’m aware not every past Halo title had these, but in my opinion, the most visually clear games did. And more importantly, those games didn’t have friendly fire disabled in the standard game rules. In this game, some grenades are hostile; some are not. Not only can I not tell there are grenades nearby because there are no indicators (and as I said above, I can;t hear them); I also can’t tell whether I even need to move, cause I don’t know who threw the grenade in the first place.
Solution: Enemy-thrown grenades should cause a danger indicator to appear on the screen, letting you know there is a grenade close and in what direction, like in past Halo games. This indicator should not appear for friendly-thrown grenades that won’t hurt you.
As for damage indication; there are indicators, I just feel they aren’t very clear. I find myself often being shot from the side and thinking they’re on the other side. By the time I find the person shooting me, I’m almost dead.
Solution: I feel the indicators need to be more clear, or at least that there should be settings to make them more obvious on-screen.
Finally, the radar; this is the biggest problem for me, because as i said above, I can;t hear things in this game. I’m not deaf, but with all the various other noises going on I might as well be. I can’t hear audio cues in the game at all, meaning I can’t hear people moving around me or vehicles driving up near me. The radar used to be the big tool that mitigated this, because I could see enemies without needing to hear them. However, in this game, the radar is drastically smaller than it used to be; it says “18m” but honestly it feels even shorter than that. And this applies to Arena too, not just BTB, so 343’s “we’ll make it 22m in BTB” doesn’t really help at all. In addition, the UI element itself is so small that even on a PC monitor, I can;t see it in my peripheral vision; this means I have to look away from what’s going on the check the radar, rather than having it always in the corner of my eye.
Solution: The range of the radar in game should be increased to, at the absolute minimum, 25m in both Arena and BTB. The UI element on the HUD should also be made a bit larger, maybe 33% or so, until the customizable UI that was mentioned is implemented.
So, @343 please take this all into consideration. I really like the core game play so far and am excited to see where the game goes, but right now it gives me headaches, and I feel frustrated that I can’t understand what’s happening on-screen the way I always used to. This game is my childhood, and I want to see the next generation of it be as amazing as ever. Thank you, and again, please seriously consider these ideas.