Potential accesibility improvements

[Tensoon the Kandra]

I wanted to make some suggestions to improve the existing accessibility options in Pokemon Reborn.  When I started typing out the suggestions it occurred to me to rather post it here as opposed to the discord as it would be easier to find later.

 

Suggestion for blindstep accessibility improvements:

Background:

I am completely blind and have been playing reborn for a week or two now.  In game I am currently clearing the events just before the second gym.  I have a good feel for the game and for what to expect going forward.

Firstly I would like to bring a mod to the attention of the developers or any other modders who might be willing to assist in improving the navigation experience for blind players.

 

A couple of years ago a mod was made to assist blind players in navigating the game: https://www.rebornevo.com/forums/topic/55210-accessibility-mod-pack-reborn/

 

I have been using this mod during my current playthrough and cannot imagine playing the game without it.

Simply put this mod scans the area for an event or teleport tile nearby and then provides you with a list of results.  The player can then choose from the list of results to get a directions guide on how to reach the selected location.

 

Basically an item finder that can also find NPC's and doors all in one.  Using this mod somewhat more closely simulates traversing the world as a sighted player character as opposed to a blind one and also brings the player experience for blind players closer to that of sighted players.

 

The blindstep improvements and the addition of TTs support have done a great job in improving accessibility.  However, as it stands, navigation simulates exploring unknown terrain with a white cane, i.e. you poke at things to figure out what they are.  Although this makes traversing the world possible, it takes extremely long to progress the game.  For example, finding Fern for the first time is like finding a needle in a haystack.  Statistically speaking, if one considers every traversable tile prior to clearing the first gym, the odds of bumping into exactly Fern is a bit on the low side, even if you use a walkthrough and have a rough idea where to look.  It took me two hours to find him even after consulting a walkthrough and while having the additional benefit of this mod which can locate nearby NPC's.

I suggest that this mod be included in the base game and that it be activated when the blindstep password is used.  Call it an all finder instead of an item finder or something.

 

There are several issues with this mod and numerous improvements that can be made to make it function faster and better.  I do not think that implementing any of these improvements will be too time consuming or difficult to implement.  When looking a the current feature set all the parts are there, the mod just has to be modified and added on to a bit.

 

Issues and improvements:

 

1) Currently, to bring up this mods unique menu the F6 key is used, this may conflict with the debug console.  The input will likely have to be changed.

 

2) The range for scanning events is too short.  It might not be ideal to scan for every NPC and item on a whole map all at once, but only having a short range scanner can make certain maps like Obsidia Park which is basically a maze, to me at least, on which you have to locate cuttable trees to progress an absolute nightmare to traverse.  I suggest adding a separate long range event scanning option to the menu that will scan the entire map.  The short range scanner should remain as it is quicker to scan nearby items when using a slower PC.  My PC scans the whole map instantly, but I remember that it was not the case with my older PC back when this mod was first introduced.  I used a 3rd gen i7 with 8GB RAM back then and scanning the whole map took about 3 seconds, so only having long range is not ideal for slow systems.

 

3) Then for further QOL, I would recommend that the coordinates of any option being selected be saved and should be recallable with a single key press.  Let's say you wish to go from Jasper Stairway to Lower Peridot Ward, the directions are going to be long.  If you run halfway there and want to check the directions again, the only way to do so is to scan the whole map again and scroll down the list and select Lower Peridot Ward again.  Also, since most of the destinations are unnamed and only have coordinates, or even share the same name at times, it would go a long way to not have to remember to which one of the 20 items on the list you are actually heading towards.  The mod does currently have a save and load option, but those options save and load your coordinates, it could easily be repurposed to automatically save a location when selected and then to load it at a press of a key and supply updated directions.  This would just be a huge time saver.

 

4) My final suggestion would be to have some logical order to the results when scanning.  It would be ideal if every result could have a name, but since I don't know why some locations have names and some do not and why none of the  events ever have any names I would not even suggest anyone touch that as it might be a huge undertaking if everything actually has to be named.  For what it is worth though, I noticed that the areas in Peridot mostly only have coordinates whereas nearly every building and map in Obsidian has names, so perhaps naming conventions adopted later on might already partially solve the issue with just an unorganised list being spat out when you scan.  My suggested solution be that results just be sorted from largest to smallest Y-Axis coordinates.  This would make the most sense, but since the X-axis coordinates are supplied first, it would probably be easier to sort it that way.  I would just be happy to have a logical way in which to tackle possible destinations.  Sometimes a scan picks up a hit or two it did not before, it is time consuming to go through the whole list of random items to figure out which are the new ones added.  This task would be much easier to do if the hits were sorted logically.

 

Just as a note, the mod package linked above contains two mods.  The one was the navigation aid and the other was a mod that used sound files to indicate to the player how many steps they are away from any given event.  The introduction of TTS support has made the latter mod redundant, however, its code is still contained in the script and might as well be removed.

 

I am not sure who has been consulting with the developers regarding accessibility improvements and I am not sure whether they have been made aware of this mod.  I stumbled into all the new support by accident when returning to the game after a long time away.  I just figured that this mod helped me a lot and on the off chance that no one knows it exists I thought I should bring it up since it might help someone and that it might be improved on as the original developer went silent shortly after I suggested the above improvements years ago.

 

I had a look at the code myself and some of the suggestions is really just copy paste stuff, but some of it is not.  I am no programmer and the little bit of programming I know is of no help when reading this confusing as hell language. I can't even figure out what the purpose of half of the stuff in this script is.  It is completely beyond my ability to improve, much less add on to.

[enu]

We're well aware that door detection is the main issue and we are working on it.

 

[Tensoon the Kandra]

Thank you for taking the time to respond to this.

 

For me personally it is a bit more than just door detection.  Some maps have a lot of twists and turns and it can get very tedious to try and navigate it.  Having a tool that can give you accurate directions to a specific NPC you are looking for or a tree you can cut down is very helpful.  There are so many events you can accidentally walk past because you cannot see the whole screen at once and you just happened not to bump into that specific square that has the Pokemon or NPC you should interact with to get a quest. 

 

It is not really fun playing with a walkthrough all the way, but it is also no fun knowing you are definitely missing things that are obvious to other players because you are not using a walkthrough.

 

If you already have something in the works that is great.  I just figured I already had a tool that works well and that could be implemented with minimal effort.

 

Thanks for all the accessibility work that has been done thus far, it is much appreciated.

[enu]

That's why it's so complicated. The solution we're working on isn't limited to door.

[Kisusde]

On 6/22/2024 at 3:41 PM, Tensoon the Kandra said:

Thank you for taking the time to respond to this.

drift boss

For me personally it is a bit more than just door detection.  Some maps have a lot of twists and turns and it can get very tedious to try and navigate it.  Having a tool that can give you accurate directions to a specific NPC you are looking for or a tree you can cut down is very helpful.  There are so many events you can accidentally walk past because you cannot see the whole screen at once and you just happened not to bump into that specific square that has the Pokemon or NPC you should interact with to get a quest. 

 

It is not really fun playing with a walkthrough all the way, but it is also no fun knowing you are definitely missing things that are obvious to other players because you are not using a walkthrough.

 

If you already have something in the works that is great.  I just figured I already had a tool that works well and that could be implemented with minimal effort.

 

Thanks for all the accessibility work that has been done thus far, it is much appreciated.

 

I have the same thoughts as you

[saypurr]

On 6/22/2024 at 3:41 PM, Tensoon the Kandra said:

Thank you for taking the time to respond to this.

 

For me personally it is a bit more than just door detection.  Some maps have a lot of twists and turns and it can get very tedious to try and navigate it.  Having a tool that can give you accurate directions to a specific NPC you are looking for or a tree you can cut down is very helpful.  There are so many events you can accidentally walk past because you cannot see the whole screen at once and you just happened not to bump into that specific square that has the Pokemon or NPC you should interact with to get a quest. 

 

It is not really fun playing with a walkthrough all the way, but it is also no fun knowing you are definitely missing things that are obvious to other players because you are not using a walkthrough.

basketball stars

If you already have something in the works that is great.  I just figured I already had a tool that works well and that could be implemented with minimal effort.

 

Thanks for all the accessibility work that has been done thus far, it is much appreciated.

I agree. This answer helped me a lot.