FFXIV’s Yoshi-P: accessibility training “tends to be neglected”

pcgamesn.com:

Since Final Fantasy XIV producer Naoki Yoshida recently reaffirmed Square Enix’s stance against the use of third party tools for the popular MMORPG, players have been fervently discussing use cases for UI mods such as colour blind accessibility tools which they feel are not currently well supported by FFXIV’s in-game options. PCGamesN spoke to Yoshida about how his team’s development process factors in accessibility considerations, and some of the possible solutions that are being considered for the fantasy game‘s future.

Final Fantasy XIV does a lot of things well in the accessibility space, including full controller support and extensive HUD placement and scaling options. However, its colour blind accessibility tools are quite limited. Currently, the game offers filters for the three forms of dichromatic colour blindness – deuteranopia, protanopia, and tritanopia – with sliders to change their intensity. Players can also manually customise the colours of almost all text in the game, but no option is provided to do the same for other UI elements.

Colour blind players such as Reddit user ReviloD18 have spoken about their difficulties reading mid-combat tells such as ground AoE markers and tethers, which can appear very close in colour to the ground they are displayed over. This issue isn’t necessarily exclusive to colour blind players, either – the recently released Pandemonium Asphodelos: The Third Circle Savage raid fight was criticised by some for having an almost entirely red and orange colour palette, making AoE markers difficult to see as well as causing general eye strain for some players over extended periods of play.

In his post regarding the use of third party tools, Yoshida speaks to the team’s understanding