Friday Facts #348 - The final GUI update

[Koub]

[Koub] Merged into the main FFF thread.

[Drury]

I am sorry we are not capable of making the game good enough for everyone. I really am.

Don't let the feedback get to you, you're doing well.

[Yxen]

I am sorry we are not capable of making the game good enough for everyone. I really am.

Don't let the feedback get to you, you're doing well.

Agreed

[5thHorseman]

I am sorry we are not capable of making the game good enough for everyone. I really am.

Don't let the feedback get to you, you're doing well.

Thirded. I prefer the vast majority of the new icons and also the general look of them overall. My nit picks are just that: minor changes desired.

And, I may add, asked for

[Akujie]

I'm sorry, been bugging me and I know I'm not the only one.

The 2 icons for the Burner drill and electric drill are far to similar. It makes it a little difficult to distinguish them sometimes when you are in a hurry crafting things. On top of that, the electric drill icon at least resembled the actual machine that it represented. Not a big fan of this one thing. Everything else is great.

[mizzmatrix]

Sound Effects:
The sound effects are just too much. Why is there a delete placed bp sound effect? I really liked it being silent. There is zero reason to have most of these sound effects, and I feel the game is going to be a horrible cacophony of noise. (Many people on the steam forums have complained already at the sound changes). In general, I've always felt that Factorio is a very chill game. I love to just sit and listen to the soundtrack while playing. Having sound effects for every single thing you do is not a welcome change, and definitely detracts from the character of the game.

Icons:
They look AMAZING!

I've always loved the sound and ambience in Factorio. It's always been chill, even with enemies. But the new sound of the inserters is so bad.
It has a super high pitched noise I just can't stand, and I had to mod it away to the old sound that was pleasant to the ear.

All that being said; the new icons look smashing. Job well done, guys!

[Nyakko]

New chest limit color is veeery unpleasant.

[Oktokolo]

New chest limit color is veeery unpleasant.

That looks like the first fallout from trying to make the game more accessible to colorblind players.

[Illiou]

New chest limit color is veeery unpleasant.

That looks like the first fallout from trying to make the game more accessible to colorblind players.

How does more saturation help colorblind people?
But more importantly, colorblind-friendly colors should just be an option in the settings. Trying to find something for both is mostly a compromise for both.

[Drury]

New chest limit color is veeery unpleasant.

That looks like the first fallout from trying to make the game more accessible to colorblind players.

How does more saturation help colorblind people?
But more importantly, colorblind-friendly colors should just be an option in the settings. Trying to find something for both is mostly a compromise for both.

A game can have clear and aesthetically pleasing visuals while simultaneously being perfectly readable for colorblind people. For an artist who understands colorblindness, no tradeoff is necessary.

[Oktokolo]

New chest limit color is veeery unpleasant.

That looks like the first fallout from trying to make the game more accessible to colorblind players.

How does more saturation help colorblind people?
But more importantly, colorblind-friendly colors should just be an option in the settings. Trying to find something for both is mostly a compromise for both.

I remember that color being a subtle rosé featuring a similiar brightness as the non-blocked (medium grey) slots. Now it is an in-your-face orange with extremely high contrast to non-blocked (dark grey) slots.
It definitely screams "If you can't see this, you can't see anything at all". I am pretty happy, that HDR didn't hit the mainstream yet...

Whether going for high saturation and adding green to the red matters to people having which colorblindness variant - i really don't know. But having that ultra-high brightness contrast should definitely "fix" both: The beatifull subtlety and any vision-related accessibility problems apart from actual full-spectrum blindness.

[invisus]

New chest limit color is veeery unpleasant.

That looks like the first fallout from trying to make the game more accessible to colorblind players.

Yeah, not sure if this actually has anything to do with colorblind accessibility, but I will say I'm personally not the biggest fan of this new color for limiting chests.

[Optera]

New chest limit color is veeery unpleasant.

Yeah that color looks like it belongs to some colorful skin, not the dark theme factorio is going for.
Classic GUI fixes this among other things.

[Illiou]

New chest limit color is veeery unpleasant.

That looks like the first fallout from trying to make the game more accessible to colorblind players.

How does more saturation help colorblind people?
But more importantly, colorblind-friendly colors should just be an option in the settings. Trying to find something for both is mostly a compromise for both.

A game can have clear and aesthetically pleasing visuals while simultaneously being perfectly readable for colorblind people. For an artist who understands colorblindness, no tradeoff is necessary.

Well sometimes. It still places considerable restrictions on the artist, which might or might not be reconcilable with the artist's vision (no pun intended ) and might or might not limit visuals for people with normal color vision. I mean you're literally trying to find colors for multiple ways of seeing these colors.
I personally would much rather design something just like I want to and then afterwards go over it with some filters and change problematic colors for a colorblind variation rather than having to consider it/being limited by it straight away for every color I choose.
There are certainly situations where always taking colorblind people into account is important (e.g. websites, science, diagrams...), but I don't really consider a game where you have always available display options one of them.

[Drury]

New chest limit color is veeery unpleasant.

That looks like the first fallout from trying to make the game more accessible to colorblind players.

How does more saturation help colorblind people?
But more importantly, colorblind-friendly colors should just be an option in the settings. Trying to find something for both is mostly a compromise for both.

A game can have clear and aesthetically pleasing visuals while simultaneously being perfectly readable for colorblind people. For an artist who understands colorblindness, no tradeoff is necessary.

Well sometimes. It still places considerable restrictions on the artist, which might or might not be reconcilable with the artist's vision (no pun intended ) and might or might not limit visuals for people with normal color vision. I mean you're literally trying to find colors for multiple ways of seeing these colors.
I personally would much rather design something just like I want to and then afterwards go over it with some filters and change problematic colors for a colorblind variation rather than having to consider it/being limited by it straight away for every color I choose.
There are certainly situations where always taking colorblind people into account is important (e.g. websites, science, diagrams...), but I don't really consider a game where you have always available display options one of them.

It's not as limiting as it seems, at least from a pure aesthetics standpoint.
Green/Red/Orange/Brown contrast can be a problem, but only if you go out of your way to make the contrast between those colors necessary for gameplay - which Factorio does in many cases. However, there is no problem if you have, say, red blood on green grass, as long as it's not necessary for the player to spot it. Colorblind folk are used to blood on grass not being super obvious, so to them it doesn't matter. You don't have to adjust the game's entire color palette to suit colorblind people - they are used to seeing the world the way they do, with all the colors they can't distinguish as much as the rest of us can. It really is no big deal from a pure standpoint of aesthetics - until you functionally start demanding them to distinguish the state of a single lamp that can be two different colors that they can't distinguish. You really want to have two separate lamps in that case. I.e. train signals good(-ish, they're still kinda small to tell the difference), miner indicator bad.

[Illiou]

How does more saturation help colorblind people?
But more importantly, colorblind-friendly colors should just be an option in the settings. Trying to find something for both is mostly a compromise for both.

A game can have clear and aesthetically pleasing visuals while simultaneously being perfectly readable for colorblind people. For an artist who understands colorblindness, no tradeoff is necessary.

Well sometimes. It still places considerable restrictions on the artist, which might or might not be reconcilable with the artist's vision (no pun intended ) and might or might not limit visuals for people with normal color vision. I mean you're literally trying to find colors for multiple ways of seeing these colors.
I personally would much rather design something just like I want to and then afterwards go over it with some filters and change problematic colors for a colorblind variation rather than having to consider it/being limited by it straight away for every color I choose.
There are certainly situations where always taking colorblind people into account is important (e.g. websites, science, diagrams...), but I don't really consider a game where you have always available display options one of them.

It's not as limiting as it seems, at least from a pure aesthetics standpoint.
Green/Red/Orange/Brown contrast can be a problem, but only if you go out of your way to make the contrast between those colors necessary for gameplay - which Factorio does in many cases. However, there is no problem if you have, say, red blood on green grass, as long as it's not necessary for the player to spot it. Colorblind folk are used to blood on grass not being super obvious, so to them it doesn't matter. You don't have to adjust the game's entire color palette to suit colorblind people - they are used to seeing the world the way they do, with all the colors they can't distinguish as much as the rest of us can. It really is no big deal from a pure standpoint of aesthetics - until you functionally start demanding them to distinguish the state of a single lamp that can be two different colors that they can't distinguish. You really want to have two separate lamps in that case. I.e. train signals good(-ish, they're still kinda small to tell the difference), miner indicator bad.

You certainly have a point. But at the same time, the Factorio creators didn't go out of their way to use colors that are hard to distinguish for colorblind people. They just used want they thought looked good. And that's exactly what I meant. Different colors which are easier to distinguish for colorblind people might still look perfectly fine for the artist, or they might not.
The miners are a perfect example: for people with normal color vision red, yellow and green just are the clearest and best-looking choice. Trying to find new colors or adjust them so that they are easy to distinguish for all people is harder to do and comes with more compromises for all, than just having two different color themes. At least from my perspective. (oh and for having multiple lamps instead the above questions still apply)

[Drury]

Trying to find new colors or adjust them so that they are easy to distinguish for all people is harder to do and comes with more compromises for all, than just having two different color themes. At least from my perspective.

It's actually not that big of a problem. Changing the colors of the few problematic elements is actually kinda straightforward and a win-win for everyone, so is adding alternate means of conveying the same information to the player, such as via shapes, multiple lamps etc.

The colorblind circuit network mod is a fantastic example. It changes red and green wires to blue and yellow. This is great on multiple levels:

First, most colorblind people can distinguish between blue and yellow. Second, the ones who can't and maybe even see the world in literal shades of gray still get to see the difference. Blue is a dark color, yellow is a bright color. When you completely desaturate them, one still shows a considerably darker shade of gray than the other. And the contrast is still there for the people with full color vision. Nobody is inconvenienced, everyone wins.

For indicators and signals, you can substitute to how Japanese traffic lights work - replace green light with blue and adjust the brightness of the red light. You can also make the lights different sizes, i.e. how many western traffic signals are. You're not making a compromise - it's gonna make things more readable for everyone. And nothing else in the game needs to be touched except the problem areas.

EDIT: Also, if we want to go for like separate colorblind modes that's supposed to be somehow suitable only for a certain type of person, ironically that's more work than to just make the game accessible for everyone from the get-go. It may also actually lead to crappy compromises, like just changing the colors rather than changing the sprites as well in vain attempt to keep it in line with the non-accessible base version.

The Outer Worlds has no colorblind modes. It's a perfectly smooth, aesthetically pleasing experience for everyone. This is kinda what we should be shooting for.

[Illiou]

The colorblind circuit network mod is a fantastic example. It changes red and green wires to blue and yellow. This is great on multiple levels:

First, most colorblind people can distinguish between blue and yellow. Second, the ones who can't and maybe even see the world in literal shades of gray still get to see the difference. Blue is a dark color, yellow is a bright color. When you completely desaturate them, one still shows a considerably darker shade of gray than the other. And the contrast is still there for the people with full color vision. Nobody is inconvenienced, everyone wins.

For indicators and signals, you can substitute to how Japanese traffic lights work - replace green light with blue and adjust the brightness of the red light. You can also make the lights different sizes, i.e. how many western traffic signals are. You're not making a compromise - it's gonna make things more readable for everyone. And nothing else in the game needs to be touched except the problem areas.

For the circuit network this works well because the colors don't rely on any known semanticity regarding the color - red/green indicators do rely on the known association of red = problem, green = all good.

And while the brightness difference is an advantage for colorblind people, it's usually not something you want: you don't want one circuit cable to be much more salient/easier to see than another. Same goes for traffic lights, where different brightnesses could be very problematic.
Just as a note: as far as I just read the reason that some traffic lights in Japan are blue is only that historically they used only one word for blue-green, which makes the color choice ambigious. Newer traffic lights are apparently green again.

You may still be right that if you consider shape rather than color changes in most situations there will be some acceptable way of making thinks work for everybody, but I don't think it's nearly as simple as you make it out to be and especially not without compromises.

EDIT: Also, if we want to go for like separate colorblind modes that's supposed to be somehow suitable only for a certain type of person, ironically that's more work than to just make the game accessible for everyone from the get-go. It may also actually lead to crappy compromises, like just changing the colors rather than changing the sprites as well in vain attempt to keep it in line with the non-accessible base version.

I'd rather consider one mode for all colorblind people (if possible). And of course half-assed implementations don't help. Though in the case of Factorio they say they procedurally tint the sprites, so not a problem here.

Ultimately only the artists can decide what they think will be easier/more flexible/less work for them.

[Oktokolo]

EDIT: Also, if we want to go for like separate colorblind modes that's supposed to be somehow suitable only for a certain type of person, ironically that's more work than to just make the game accessible for everyone from the get-go. It may also actually lead to crappy compromises, like just changing the colors rather than changing the sprites as well in vain attempt to keep it in line with the non-accessible base version.

Factorio proved that if it is modable, there will be mods implementing it.

Most things related to the look and feel of the game are already modable. And some mods changing some visuals to make the game more accessible for some player groups do exist.

But the elephant in the room is that you can't have an accessibility mod installed and be still able to play with players who don't want that mod.

That is the only feature that needs to get implemented to fix the usability issues for all color-blind and contrast/brightness sensitive/requiring players instead of fixing the problem for the most mainstream or loudest minorities only.
Wube will not make the game perfect for every partial blindness there is.
But players will, because they literally are million and if you deal with such big numbers of users, you don't only get reports about cosmic-ray-induced memory errors, but also mods catering for every existing or nonexisting problem someone might or might not have.

[Illiou]

That is the only feature that needs to get implemented to fix the usability issues for all color-blind and contrast/brightness sensitive/requiring players instead of fixing the problem for the most mainstream or loudest minorities only.

To be fair, 5% of humans have some colorblindness, 8% of men - which are probably the main audience of this game. This is not something that should be outsourced to mods.