New Accessibility Setting Suggestion

I DO NOT have vision issues and I struggle to see the birds all the time unless I'm playing on a large TV. I usually play the game on a 22 inch screen, and the only way I can routinely see birds is by spyglassing around where I think the boat sank.

Good heavens yes. My vision isn’t terribly impaired, but it’s very hard to see those birds. Heaven forbid you are in the wilds or devils roar, it’s basically over at that point.

You know what would solve this? A Red parrot circling with the seagulls. Red contrasts well with blue sky and grey clouds, and parrots squawk loudly.

@spectergames706 said in New Accessibility Setting Suggestion:

Good heavens yes. My vision isn’t terribly impaired, but it’s very hard to see those birds. Heaven forbid you are in the wilds or devils roar, it’s basically over at that point.

You know what would solve this? A Red parrot circling with the seagulls. Red contrasts well with blue sky and grey clouds, and parrots squawk loudly.

Having bright red parrots, even what @D3ADST1CK suggested (some type of chime/audio cue) would be amazing. I don't have vision issues, and still I find it difficult to spot seagulls (the contrast is horrible). It's certainly frustrating, and I can only imagine what @throkoPNG goes thru.

I have very minor visual impairment and even I struggle with this. This would be an awesome change

@europa4033 My Merchant Alliance is nearly my lowest level trading company because it mostly involves the birds. I also sank a Skeleton Galleon the other day and i could not see where it sank and it was day time.

The game would have to run a post processor and performance would drop a bit. I’m pretty sure it’d just be client side though, so I like the idea.

@ponjisk said in New Accessibility Setting Suggestion:

Yeah i'm pretty sure we're not talking accessibility here, really. We all agree they can be hard to spot. The question is if this is intentional or not. If so, then I vehemently disagree with adding an accessibility option for this since they'd compromise their vision (pun intended) that way. But if the birds were meant as a more or less foolproof way of locating sunken ships, then they failed and should rework the thing for all players.

As an example I'll name the marked X on X marks the spot maps. These are meant to be seen easily and so having a high contrast version isn't an issue.

Having an accessibility option that makes easier something that is hard usually and is supposed to be effectively only means that all who take the game too seriously will turn it on, clawing at any advantage, regardless of whether or not they actually need the support, which would go against the idea of an accessibility option.

This is not something for debate. Do you have issues seeing them or not? Rare's "vision" has nothing to do with it.

You basically said you have no idea if Rare made them like this on purpose, and you're gonna be ok (or not ok) with seeing (or not seeing) depending on their stance. And that's super weird lol.

All the word salad for nothing. Just agree with the suggestion or explain why not.

I know I do agree fully, and with no impairment. In the Wilds or Devil's Roar is super tricky to spot them. Almost impossible at night even with clear weather, depending on the angle and position of your ship.

@ponjisk They didn't always have birds over where player ships sank. This isn't a compromise to their vision, it's adding to a previous addition that improved the game.

I don't think I've ever seen a post on this forum receive such (almost) universal support (from myself included).

Just adding to this that the birds' draw distance seems to vary wildly depending on
a) Which birds you're looking at (I get birds I can see from a mile off, and birds that I can't see till I'm almost on top of them).
and
b) What device is doing the rendering (I've had instances where both I and a friend are looking at the exact same spot and the birds appear on my screen but not on theirs, and vice versa).

Also the fact that sometimes you sink a ship and their loot just doesn't bob to the surface (or takes ages to do so), and you have no idea if it's the loot-not-bobbing-to-the-surface bug again, or you just haven't spotted the birds yet.

But yes, love this idea. Easy to implement and I don't see a downside. Maybe just have a settings option of "ghost birds", so all loot birds have that distinctive green glow.

@eligibleeel6171 Ghost birds and parrots are both excellent ideas. I think that ghost birds make more sense for night time visibility though