Accessibility support for deaf players | Subtitled sound option |

  • Bun E Hopps
    Rogue

    SoT needs updated deaf support, its too frustrating to play when you can't hear cannons, explosions, etc and don't get me started on skeletons spawning behind me with a keg. Its not a fun experience and in pvp its extra hard and most of the time unwinnable because sound is so important in every aspect.

    There needs to be an option to visualise some of the sound elements by displaying loud sounds in game as subtitles.

    There are already some accessibility options for deaf such as voice to text chat but its not enough when the game is very focussed on sound, Everything from mermaid statues to enemies to gunfire, are all heavily sound focussed with visuals playing second fiddle to knowing surrounding dangers or opportunities to find loot.

    There really needs to be an option developed to help out those that can't hear clearly enough these cues.

    and I know a lot of arguments against such features include mentions it will disrupt the gameplay, give away enemy position and add an element to the game everyone will need to use to play on a level field, so with that in mind I know its not feasible to include all possible sounds in the game to be visually displayed, this suggested feature will only include sounds in the following categories:

    • Cannons

    • Gunfire

    • Megalodon, Kraken, Skeleton Ship, etc spawn sounds

    • Explosions

    • Enemies such as skeletons, ghosts, etc

    • Ship crashing/damage

    • Ship anchor raised/lowered

    • Sound puzzles

    Thank you for reading, Please offer your support for this feature so it can be seen by Rare. An upvote would be appreciated, lets keep the seas open for all.

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  • DrizKillz
    Commander
    Insider

    The game has elements of not being seen, nor heard, at the heart of PvP tactics, I'm not sure how anyone would address those without disrupting the core gameplay. I can only hope there is a solution without nerfing them!

  • Bun E Hopps
    Rogue

    @scurvywoof said in Deaf support | Visualised sound option |:

    [Mod edited]

    Its not my intention to alter the gameplay in a large negative way where the visualised sound shows too much and gives away enemy position such as taking away the option to flank by secreting boarding an enemy ship, that would almost be as bad as using an esp cheat.

    Think of my suggestion as subtitles but for weapons and general sounds, if you have ever watched a movie with subtitles and see sounds presented as "gunfire" you will know what kind of system I am looking for.

    and only loud sounds would be displayed, to my understanding during a battle its hard for people with perfect hearing to hear other players board the ship or flank them, there would be no must have advantages or meta changing gameplay if there was the option to show only when a cannon has been fired or a megalodon has spawned, such things would annoy and clutter the screen of the majority of players yet would prove a useful addition to the game for the hard of hearing.

    I have updated the first post to reflect this.

  • mferr11
    Vanguard
    Insider

    I could see this working similar to how Minecraft does it. Have sounds around you appear as text descriptions of the sound at the bottom of the screen.

    Here's a mockup.

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  • Bun E Hopps
    Rogue

    @mferr11 said in Deaf support | Visualised sound option |:

    I could see this working similar to how Minecraft does it. Have sounds around you appear as text descriptions of the sound at the bottom of the screen.

    Here's a mockup.

    Imgur

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    looks good to me, thanks for the examples!

  • AribAlam
    Lord
    Insider

    @amybun I would suggest raising a ticket under new accessibility feature here.

    That way it’s guaranteed the devs will see your request and think about about adding it in.
    which i do think they will, it’s a fairly good idea

  • Bun E Hopps
    Rogue

    @aribalam said in Deaf support | Visualised sound option |:

    @amybun I would suggest raising a ticket under accessibility new accessibility feature here.

    That way it’s guaranteed the devs will see your request and think about about adding it in.
    which i do think they will, it’s a fairly good idea

    Thanks I will be certain to do this

  • Bun E Hopps
    Rogue

    This idea has been passed onto Rare via support channels but was recommended to me by support to keep it alive for discussion in the forums, so I will see that I keep this thread where it can be seen. Thanks for reading!

  • KAKAROTO9766
    Ship Mate

    @scurvywoof

    Lies.
    I play fortnite and for some reason in my computer 3d sounds would not work in fortnite. I had some pretty good headphones yet I would hear everything stereo with no way to determine position of sounds. So I enabled that sound effect alternative.

    Its more useful than having absolutely no idea where a sound is coming from, but it can also be very confusing on close proximity, as you can see steps in multiple spots if someone is above or below you. It also does not help to know if the sound is either above or below.

    Just recently I checked and NOW 3d sound works for me. I switched back to it and I love it so much more than the deaf option. (Which you cannot mix now, you either get 3d sound or the deaf thing).

    They could do the same thing here. And it would be a huge service to people with hearing issues. This game would be so much more difficult without hearing sounds, I cant believe people like you would try to take away something to help deaf people just because you THINK it MIGHT be somewhat abusable. If it was to give such a humongous advantage...you know what? You could enable it too!. So lets not screw handicapped people because you dont conceptually like something.

  • ScoobyWRX555
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder

    All for accessibility so this is great. If a sound is played then text can be included; from those keg skellies behind you to pirates swimming to your ship.

  • squoozles
    Captain
    Insider

    EXCELLENT idea, and a perfect progression if you consider the most recent accessibility change of adding navigation narration for B/blind and VI players.

    Something as simple as CANON FIRE popping up on screen somewhere, to tell you to look around and find where it's coming from and take action would help and wouldn't be an unfair advantage.

    Other ideas, mostly relating to the useful music stings many of us take for granted:

    SAILS FULL - when you get the little tune telling you all sails are full

    SKELETON SHIP or EMISSARY SHIP - when you get the tune when looking at a ship from a distance through the spyglass

    ENEMY NEAR or DRUMS or BOSS FIGHT - not to denote other players, think more like OOS voyages when you're running about trying to find the captain/s and the battle music starts as you get near, to tell you you're going in the right direction, usually before you can see them

    MEGALODON or EMERGENT SKELETON SHIP - again, there's usually music or a sound cue before they appear on-screen giving hearing players a warning that you just don't get without the sound

    FINAL BOSS - you're on (or even just sailing past) an active fort - if you're a hearing player you can tell from the music how far it's progressed

    MUSIC 1, 2, 3 etc - you're doing, eg, a siren shrine with a music lever puzzle, if you hit the levers in the wrong order you can HEAR it - except when you can't

    CHEST OF TRIBUTES DISCOVERED - vault puzzle completed successfully

    ANCIENT SKELETON NEAR - unless you're looking right at it, you only know it's there from the noise it makes

    The ideas above don't give an unfair advantage, they just level the playing field.

    If you were to play with the sound off, what other sound cues would you miss which you might not even be aware you unconsciously use? The number of times a sound happens and one of my crewmates immediately asks "what was that?" gives an idea of how many cues we take for granted.

  • MisereNZ
    Captain
    Insider

    I like it. There could also be two levels of sound help. The ones above that would not screw the balance i.e. all PVE sounds.

    Level 2. PVP sounds. These would be harder to get right. For instance swimming. My thought would be a sound meter/indicator at the bottom of the screen. Differnet noises would have diff colors, say blue for water noises. Any water noise would register on this, waves lapping at the side of the ship, rain AND a player swimming to board you. So if you are in a calm bay then the meter would have little movement, a player splash would stand out the louder the splash the more the visual cue. However if the rain was falling hard you would not be able to tell. This would still mean your eyes would have to jump between the front view and the meter so it would itself come at a cost.

  • KAKAROTO9766
    Ship Mate

    @scurvywoof
    Fortnite mostly shows

    • Chests
    • Steps
    • Gunshots
    • Animals
      And the most useful is by far steps, so you know where someone is approaching for.
      SoT Could do something similar, and I think you confuse "USE" with "ABUSE", you cant abuse something everyone has access to.

    I tuck regularly, and while players can HEAR your steps, a lot of times they dont notice simply because they have team mates. Now if you are tucking on a solo he will indeed pay more attention to noises.

    All those examples you described...you ALREADY get input from that! You get the noise! But deaf people dont get that!

    No, they shouldnt do it with text "Player climbs ladder noise". They could do something similar to fortnite, where you get a "Sound wheel" with little icons showing you the direction of a sound, and it would be as easy to miss amongst all the other sounds as if you were hearing it. Not to mention that there are currently 2 ways to silentboard a ladder.

    And I have to say I find it extremely self-centered, repugnant and disgusting that you go "Not many deaf people play SoT, so I am against providing support for them because it COULD MAYBE be abused in some way, besides this is not a game made for deaf players, and they are used to dealing with it". Its an extremely disgusting opinion and I do openly criticise it. I couldnt care less if you pretend to be a nice person by saying "I wont criticise you for playing Fortnite".

    No, the game is not built around deaf people, but adding support for them would be nice, and for like the 3rd time, its not abusable if anyone can use it, and there are ways to design it so it doesnt destroy stealth play.

  • Lady Aijou
    Commander
    Insider
    Boatswain

    @scurvywoof Please refrain from making insensitive remarks toward others in the community. We value disabled players as we do all members of our community, and dismissing others in that fashion is not permitted.

  • KarmicXKoala1
    Marauder
    Insider

    Even aside from accessibility concerns (I'm not saying we should put those concerns aside, mind you) it would be nice for some things.

    There's been a lot of times on the seas when my crew and I will hear an audio cue and have no idea what it means.

    Help with that PLUS helping deaf pirates enjoy the game more? Count me in!

    That said, I'd be interested to see how it would change the meta around some of the sneaky-sneaky stuff that relies on other pirates hopefully not noticing a sound.

    Maybe the opacity/size of the message could relate to the relative volume of sounds

  • ScurvyWoof
    Captain

    @lady-aijou Sorry, but if you did, this post should arguably be locked right now, with the reason that deaf support is an already made decision, no disrespect meant. I, myself, was not being insensitive, or trying to be, and I do apologise for that.

  • ScurvyWoof
    Captain

    @kakaroto9766 said in Accessibility support for deaf players | Subtitled sound option |:

    @scurvywoof
    Fortnite mostly shows

    • Chests
    • Steps
    • Gunshots
    • Animals
      And the most useful is by far steps, so you know where someone is approaching for.
      SoT Could do something similar, and I think you confuse "USE" with "ABUSE", you cant abuse something everyone has access to.

    Wrong. 120 FoV. Whilst, personally, I wasn’t against it, it was an exploit and was abused. Anyone could do it, simply. It required literally watching a YouTube video.

    I tuck regularly, and while players can HEAR your steps, a lot of times they dont notice simply because they have team mates. Now if you are tucking on a solo he will indeed pay more attention to noises.

    Fair enough.

    All those examples you described...you ALREADY get input from that! You get the noise! But deaf people dont get that!

    You forget what I typed. Read it over again, very carefully. I know you get input, but some players miss that, and that gives you an advantage due to their lack of attention.

    No, they shouldnt do it with text "Player climbs ladder noise". They could do something similar to fortnite, where you get a "Sound wheel" with little icons showing you the direction of a sound, and it would be as easy to miss amongst all the other sounds as if you were hearing it. Not to mention that there are currently 2 ways to silentboard a ladder.

    I dislike the sound wheel used in Fortnite. Again, I would much rather have Minecraft like subtitles, maybe with an arrow at the front and end of the subtitle to tell which direction it is from. It requires attention, yes, but the same goes for everyone else.

    And I have to say I find it extremely self-centered, repugnant and disgusting that you go "Not many deaf people play SoT, so I am against providing support for them because it COULD MAYBE be abused in some way, besides this is not a game made for deaf players, and they are used to dealing with it". Its an extremely disgusting opinion and I do openly criticise it. I couldnt care less if you pretend to be a nice person by saying "I wont criticise you for playing Fortnite".

    Ok, but again, I said from a Rare POV, which I have been warned for, so I will not keep going with that opinion, as I have been told otherwise by a credible person.

    No, the game is not built around deaf people, but adding support for them would be nice, and for like the 3rd time, its not abusable if anyone can use it, and there are ways to design it so it doesnt destroy stealth play.

    Again, 120 FOV. Everyone could do it, but most didn’t, therefore losing an advantage.

    Happy Sailing
    P.S. I would like to mention I am a person who focuses more on the negatives of a situation rather than the positives, so I do apologise for that.

  • KAKAROTO9766
    Ship Mate

    @scurvywoof said in Accessibility support for deaf players | Subtitled sound option |:

    Wrong. 120 FoV. Whilst, personally, I wasn’t against it, it was an exploit and was abused. Anyone could do it, simply. It required literally watching a YouTube video.

    Maybe you are talking about something I wasnt aware of. But anyone could enable the sound wheel, but it disabled 3d sound. Now if you are saying there was some way to have both enabled by modifying some files or something, then thats something that requires a patch, not removing the entire functionality.

    You forget what I typed. Read it over again, very carefully. I know you get input, but some players miss that, and that gives you an advantage due to their lack of attention.

    Would adding some support functionality for deaf people affect stealth play? Very likely. It is certainly difficult to balance so it doesnt provides TOO MUCH warning, but still enough if you are paying attention. But it is worth it.

    I dislike the sound wheel used in Fortnite. Again, I would much rather have Minecraft like subtitles, maybe with an arrow at the front and end of the subtitle to tell which direction it is from. It requires attention, yes, but the same goes for everyone else.

    I think something like the wheel would be less impactful towards stealth play, as a little icon out of 8-12 you can have in the wheel at the same time from other sounds, is a lot easier to miss than text literally saying what is happening.
    Besides your screen would be full of text if you have 4-8 sounds playing at the same time, (Cannonshots, fire, sail, ship creaking, steps, ladder climbing)

    Again, 120 FOV. Everyone could do it, but most didn’t, therefore losing an advantage.

    Of their own choice. If the complaint is "People dont know about it" then its a simple as enabling it by default and allowing players to disable it

    P.S. I would like to mention I am a person who focuses more on the negatives of a situation rather than the positives, so I do apologise for that.

    Focusing on the negatives can be useful to find solutions to negative consequences. But one cant miss the big picture. I cannot fathom how would I play this kind of game without audio ques, there are so many useful/important ones and while it might be a small portion of their playerbase, I would really like rare to offer a solution for those players. And for certain rare can find ways to minimize/reduce ways to abuse it so it does not affect stealth play too much.

  • Bun E Hopps
    Rogue

    @squoozles said in Accessibility support for deaf players | Subtitled sound option |:

    MUSIC 1, 2, 3 etc - you're doing, eg, a siren shrine with a music lever puzzle, if you hit the levers in the wrong order you can HEAR it - except when you can't

    CHEST OF TRIBUTES DISCOVERED - vault puzzle completed successfully

    yes definitely these as well!

    I have to rely on my crewmate to do all the sound puzzles himself, that is when he is not occupied having to relay useful information to me via text chat, so the subtitles for sound will take a load off crews I sail with as well since they won't have to take the time to make sure I am aware of something or having to solve the puzzles for me.

  • squoozles
    Captain
    Insider

    @amybun I can't imagine how frustrating it must feel, not being able to take part in the full experience. Subs would absolutely open that up to you more and remove some of the barriers. I'm really slow at the puzzles myself, my crewmates will often get them finished while I'm still swimming about getting stuck on bits of environment or falling off things with my rubbish dexterity, or just getting sidetracked by shiny things 😆

  • BigBroBear1789
    Captain
    Insider

    ok so late responce but basicly, im kinda her second mate, or is she mine? whatever point is i have played with her sence we got this game, the amount of times i have had to call out things such as mermaid statues, meg spawns, spawn sound ques, anchor touching and such is a lot. i do ask constantly or test her on her hearing because of well of course im curious on it. and it is quite a different story when things your used to in the game like finding the mermaid statues or guarding the ship from boarders and one cant do it do to some of them have audio ques such as splashing, clanking, climbing, ( i cant describe the mermaids statues sound outside of a lower pitched THX effect ) i did not originally wanted to post as i believe that she should be able to do her own things but she did insist on my comment so here it is, one of the people she sails with frequently on what i do to help her such as call outs and effectively being her ears in an environment that in some cases requires them

  • PersonalC0ffee
    Captain
    Insider
    Boatswain

    Sound plays a very critical role in this game.

    100% support this suggestion.

  • Bun E Hopps
    Rogue

    @personalc0ffee said in Accessibility support for deaf players | Subtitled sound option |:

    Sound plays a very critical role in this game.

    100% support this suggestion.

    Thank you for your support!

  • j0toro
    Lord
    Rare Employee

    Just popping in with a note to say that I have seen this, I am passing it on and I do support it as an idea.

    However, this would be a huge undertaking due to the nature of the game so will need much wider conversations and input that I can't give as a Community Manager. I am passing it along to the right people now though.

    I hope it is something we can look at for you, I really do.

    Thanks,
    j0toro

  • BekkBloodaxe96
    Marauder
    Insider

    Partially deaf player here! I am 100% behind this suggestion. I am conscious of the complexity of such an ask but I am passionate about SoT and the challenges of playing games with limited/no hearing and |I am sure we can all pull together to find ways to help makes the seas more inclusive!

  • Nitroxien
    Captain
    Insider

    Not opposed to these the only one I would be afraid of adding is ladder grabbing sound since this is an extremely difficult to hear audio queue and adding it will force all players to use to text setting since it would be a disadvantage not to

  • Nitroxien
    Captain
    Insider

    @drizkillz their are only a few key sounds in pvp really (mainly the ladder grab) which is hard to hear the rest are pretty obvious sound effects.

    Definitely suggestions such as cannons, meg, kraken, and other pve stuff will not make an impact.

    The sound effects that are impactful for pvp and should prob not be shown to not make all players not feel like they should have the setting enabled is: ladder grab, gun reload, walking sounds, mast falling, and arguably anchor dropping and wood damage since those are a bit hard to react to at times in the midst of combat.

    The rest of the suggestions mainly impact strictly PVE or are such loud and obvious anyways (ex cannon shots) and would make no impact to the rest of the community if an option existed for deaf players!

  • Bun E Hopps
    Rogue

    reviving this thread.

  • Nex Stargaze
    Commander
    Insider

    That's... not the move, there is a forum rule that prohibits necro'ing threads.

    This thread will soon be locked, you'll probably want to recreate the topic yourself or check the recent pages to see if this topic has been brought up again in some format!

  • Bun E Hopps
    Rogue

    @nex-stargaze

    that is pointless, why rewrite the entire thing and lose all the feedback others have added?

    locking this thread would be stupid. How can devs work on a system if the 31 posts of feedback just get deleted for no reason except being old.

    its not my fault its been 2+ years since I made this and there has been zero accessibility added for hard of hearing.

  • Soulstinger2k20
    Master
    Insider

    What is with all the necromancy here in the last day or two?

  • Nex Stargaze
    Commander
    Insider

    @bun-e-hopps Because chances are, they already are working on this system, but probably don't have this in a state that it can be showcased, hence the lack of updates or implementation in the past year.

    Patience is a virtue, and they take accessibility very seriously.

  • WaywardF0x
    Master
    Insider

    Reminder: Bumping old threads is against the rules of the forum so I'm going to lock this thread for now. May the seas be in your favor.

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