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    Do not add new colors - discussion

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    • Anachronism_A Offline
      Anachronism_ @arma473
      last edited by

      I suggest you guys play on FAF develop more and see how the new colors actually are in practice rather than just basing opinions on how they look in a list that specifically ordered them in a way that makes them look more blended/similar than the other ordering systems.

      @arma473 said in Do not add new colors - discussion:

      How hard would it be to make a lobby mod where you put your favorite colors into an ordered list and then the lobby mod automatically picks your most favorite color available whenever you join a lobby?

      Btw, I already want to make an integrated (not mod-based) automatic color selector for FAF if someone else makes a UI for choosing ranked color preferences. That would be used for custom games. It could be applied to TMM as well if allowed, but that would be a topic for another thread.

      pfp credit to gieb

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      • Dragun101D Offline
        Dragun101 @FtXCommando
        last edited by Dragun101

        @ftxcommando said in Do not add new colors - discussion:

        No one argues that the current FAF color list is perfect, but there is no functional reason to expand beyond 20 colors. There is barely a functional reason to even have 20 colors beyond not making the last dude in an 8v8 sad.

        If people want to optimize the current list of colors I think anybody would be for it, but every list I've seen has problems with making it way harder to communicate what is going on with teams because no generic person has 3 variations of green in their vernacular that can be explained to people that have English as their 2nd or 3rd language or just not a language at all.

        The reason to go beyond 16 in case someone in lobby is a colourblind for a colour in theory we have additional options. Beyond that other reason I could see is have it rainbow colours alternating if as a neat reference (but that could cause isses with casting tmm as noted due to issues of colour scheming)

        I’m a shitty 1k Global. Any balance or gameplay suggestions should be understood or taken as such.

        Project Head and current Owner/Manager of SCTA Project

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        • FtXCommandoF Offline
          FtXCommando
          last edited by

          I really doubt there is a type of color blindness that would benefit from that selection of 5 colors but wouldn’t be hampered by the other 15 colors selected for instance.

          There is a color mode that makes you/ally/enemy units 3 different colors already. Adapt that to a color blind mode and there you go.

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          • Dragun101D Offline
            Dragun101
            last edited by

            Fair enough, its just only reason I can see why we'd have 4 more colours than alloted players (actually that a lie if we had a for people to 'jump' in any already started match that is reason #2 I could see but I also want pie while flying).

            I’m a shitty 1k Global. Any balance or gameplay suggestions should be understood or taken as such.

            Project Head and current Owner/Manager of SCTA Project

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            • D Offline
              Defiant @Femboy
              last edited by

              @femboy I like your list.

              Consider modifying the final list

              • Third item down --> more skin tone brown #743D2B
              • Fourth item down --> more energetic cadmium orange #FF4700
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              • D Offline
                Defiant
                last edited by Defiant

                Another suggestion: most of the colors are neon type energy. We could have a neon set of colors and a pastel set. I do NOT mean add all these colors. Rather it is a strategy to have more contrasting colors.

                068005_tant-12-colors-pastel.jpg

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                • D Offline
                  Defiant
                  last edited by Defiant

                  Last suggestion, we could add skin tone colors. I'm sure there would be no problems in chat.!brown-skin-baby-by-schemecolor.png

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                  • Anachronism_A Offline
                    Anachronism_
                    last edited by

                    There absolutely are types of colorblindness that could benefit from having more available colors by being able to selectively choose the most contrasting colors on the list for their particular form of colorblindness.

                    That concept of a larger color list enabling more people to pick and choose colors that offer more contrast for them is something that applies to non-colorblind users as well btw. Same thing with a larger color list allowing people to pick colors that are more aesthetically desirable to them.

                    That's in addition to the benefits of larger color lists giving people the ability to make more color-themed teams and giving them more colors to choose their preference from.

                    pfp credit to gieb

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                    • FtXCommandoF Offline
                      FtXCommando
                      last edited by FtXCommando

                      More colors means more options for everyone to pick the marginally less different version of X because they prefer it. It looks like it helps colorblindness due to options but people don’t operate by caring what a single colorblind person in lobby has to say about it over their personal joy at being off brand white

                      More options does not equate to more gooder.

                      Show me
                      A) the group of 15 colors that would work for various color blind variations
                      B) the group of 5 colors that would present a problem for these variations that they could choose between
                      C) the intended solution from these 5 colors

                      Otherwise, converting the green/red/blue mode I mentioned prior to a color blind mode is superior than adjusting these colors to fit everything.

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                      • J Offline
                        JediOfTheShire
                        last edited by

                        Positively pewter and lush lavender are NOT the same color!? Please don't make it harder than it already is... ><

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                        • archsimkatA Offline
                          archsimkat @Femboy
                          last edited by

                          @femboy said in Do not add new colors - discussion:

                          Also @Uveso, sadly, being accessible isn't a possibility since either we'll run into very similar colors everyone can see or we can have different colors that the color blind cannot differentiate.

                          We should try our best to maximize accessibility, not claim it can't be done. What we can do is maximize the contrast or difference in hue between each individual color, and the way we do that is to minimize the total number of colors we have—to the amount needed for the largest amount of players, which seems to be 16 (as I have personally never seen a match greater than 8v8). That way the difference in hue between individual colors is, on average, maximized, and the game becomes easier to read for people with the most common types of color blindness (Red–green and blue–yellow), as well as people with normal eyesight.

                          I think we could all agree that the CURRENT color scheme is bad because it offers alot of greens and it's quite confusing

                          I agree that the current color scheme isn't perfect, and like I said in the original post, the focus should be just on improving them (perhaps by removing some colors), not adding new ones. By the way, the greens are not any better in the PR, if anything it's even worse:

                          Screen Shot 2022-03-24 at 2.41.00 PM.png

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                          • S Offline
                            Softles
                            last edited by

                            Could we simply have a selection of different colour palettes that can be toggled between by the user? There are a few different kinds of colour blindness, so having a colour palette designed to provide maximum contrast for each kind of colour blindness would be ideal (it's not a one sized fits all thing).

                            i.e. there are 20 colours in the game now, have an option that swaps these colours like for like with a set of 20 high contrast colours depending on your kind of colour blindness.

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                            • archsimkatA Offline
                              archsimkat
                              last edited by

                              I think ideally we have a few preset options for color blind users that change how the colors look on an individual level, so a preset for red–green color blindness and a preset for and blue–yellow color blindness. Someone will have to weight in on if that' possible to implement/if anyone wants to actually implement that.

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                              • B Offline
                                Blade_Walker
                                last edited by

                                Hey all,

                                Funny to see this thread and the other popup - I have spent the last couple of weeks trying colours from https://www.canva.com/colors/color-meanings/ to try and get the brightest and most contrasting highlights for a strategic icons mod.

                                I would have to agree that 16 colours is all that is needed, and having more just gives more descriptions to try and remember. While you can ping something of specific importance in game, being able to say 'red is all t3 mex' or 'yellow has no tmd' is of much benefit.

                                So below is my take on what these could be, forgive the editing i saw that someone had done the half work for me on Wikipedia and i just threw in the rest with Gimp

                                faf_colours.png

                                Now ideally, the colours are all simple to describe and identifiable to players regardless of background or language.

                                So we start with the rainbow colours, since this is a thing for FAF, and then we add some more which are distinctly different as possible (likely better choices for these!)

                                But whichever other ones are chosen, what you then want is for players to be able to tweak these somewhat to their preferred variety, of pink say. This could be done either with some preset options or by using set limits on the hex values which you can choose from within.

                                Either way, your version of 'pink' which your game displays is still instantly recognisable as that colour. This gives customization especially for players with colour vision impairments to help maximize the difference for them on their screen.

                                Then the team colours mode, with three colours to represent yourself, your allied team players and enemy players, should have free reign over which colours you can choose to maximize accessibility for those players with really bad eyesight....

                                Lastly, as well as customizing the colours, players can also choose a preference of the first, say 3 that they would like in game. Then the host would have free choice of their own player colour, and the others could be decided by player rank 🙂

                                Anyway my .02 or more, hope the ideas are helpful

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                                • K Offline
                                  Katharsas
                                  last edited by Katharsas

                                  I think for color blind presets it should just switch out the colors that are problematic for that preset's color blindness. This way the people using that color can memorize, when somebody sais "red please do x", that it maps to the replaced color from their preset. For this to work, as many colors should stay the same in all presets as possible. I'm not sure if just allowing people to choose from a range of "red" would enough for color blind people.

                                  Alternatively, we could maybe have color replacements to chat, so when you type "/red please do x", the "/red" gets replaced with player's name automatically.

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                                  • T Offline
                                    Tagada Balance Team
                                    last edited by

                                    I am color blind and I very rarely have problems with the colors in the game tbh.

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                                    • BanthaFodderB Offline
                                      BanthaFodder
                                      last edited by

                                      More colours = better

                                      Type someone's name, or half of it you're referring to someone in a game, don't rely on their colour

                                      Also, where is black?

                                      JipJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                                      • FtXCommandoF Offline
                                        FtXCommando
                                        last edited by

                                        POV: me and farm go back to naming ourselves variations of 271A5P3RG3R274

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                                        • JipJ Offline
                                          Jip @BanthaFodder
                                          last edited by

                                          @yew said in Do not add new colors - discussion:

                                          More colours = better

                                          Type someone's name, or half of it you're referring to someone in a game, don't rely on their colour

                                          Also, where is black?

                                          Combine black with the strategic icons 🙂 .

                                          A work of art is never finished, merely abandoned

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                                          • Anachronism_A Offline
                                            Anachronism_
                                            last edited by Anachronism_

                                            FYI for those reading; we plan to investigate the possibility of creating multiple preset color lists that people can choose from for different forms of colorblindness as well as for different aesthetic/contrast preferences. The idea includes having the colors be similar from list to list (so, blue in one list would still generally be blue in another list, just a different shade or smth). Certain technical hurdles would need to be overcome, so this is a possibility, not a definite, but it's something we'd like to implement soonTM.

                                            pfp credit to gieb

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