Developers Need to Acknowledge Macros are Accessibility - Access-Ability

Following a hoax regarding Path of Exile, this week Access-Ability is going to talk about the importance of Macros for disabled players.

Edited by Jane Aerith Magnet

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

[JackChristmas]

The sheer audacity of that "educator" who (supposedly) felt a fresh demonstration was needed to show how easily misinformation spreads. Reminds me of those 'experiment' features written by men that are like "I lived as a woman for a month, and I was shocked at the amount of casual sexism I experienced". You could just believe people, dude.

[Ardn]

I think I've said this before, but it's so great to have this series specifically dedicated to various aspects of accessibility. Major outlets do the occasional story or feature, but it's the exception, not the rule. And if we want to get rid of gatekeeping in gaming culture, these stories and ideas really need to be addressed in a substantive way, as you do every week.

[TheBT]

I agree with it being left open for everyone, there is a great phrase 'You shouldn't need to make the private public'. You should be able to ask for accessibility without saying you have a disability, and people who aren't disabled having access makes this a lot easier.

[WarMomPT]

Huge +1 on the topic of how devs should make clear statements as to what actually is and isn't allowed. Even outside the use-case scenarios of disabled players, most devs with anti-macro rules are assumed to have 'grey areas' like a macro to type in a command for a cosmetic emote (as in, literally type backslash wave in chat) or 'one button for one action' like functionally replacing push-to-talk with a toggle-to-talk (I have a really bad PTT response and some dexterity issues which leads to me doing this whenever possible) but all players can do is just assume they use good faith rules like these, and that's before you move on to more complex macros as accessibility features. Be clear and be open, devs.

I also feel compelled to mention that WoW has macro support built into the game, and I don't know how robust it is, just that it's there, I don't play content that demands I look at it. But the flip side of that is that content is subsequently built on the assumption that everyone playing it is using Macros and addons like Deadly Boss Mods (gives you audio and onscreen warnings) which then repeats the cycle of the content being potentially tougher on disabled players.

[Eshplode]

Some extra context on the PoE-specific part of this is that the optimal way to use flasks in a lot of later game situations is to press 12345 every 5-10 seconds to keep all five flask buffs active constantly. That has long been a community complaint about the game, in large part because of the RSI it causes. Flask macros are discussed commonly enough that there's a running joke in the community that taping a popsicle stick across the keys is "illegal" and bannable.

Part of the reason the fake story spread so quickly is because it played into a reason some people, myself included, have trouble playing the game for long periods of time without hurting themselves. I understand that it's hard to change a core mechanic of the game, especially when it's truly fine in some circumstances (like early on or in boss fights where flasks don't recharge fast enough to spam), but this is yet another case where making a mechanic more accessible for disabled players would benefit non-disabled players by preventing injuries as well.

[M_M_ODonnell]

The troll's claimed reasoning just doesn't make sense..."People will believe a story if it's entirely plausible and fits in the range of things that actually happen on a regular basis" isn't exactly a revelation. So no points to the troll, but maybe we can use the no-point(s) troll to actually make some improvements in accessibility practices.

[QuestingRefuge]

Thank you! So frustrating when games lockdown on macros too after having figured out a way to play the game

[LemmaEOF]

8bitdo's now got software which lets you bind buttons on their controllers (or any controller used through their adapters) to full macros instead of just other buttons, as well as adjusting sensitivity of analog sticks and triggers. It's really helpful and I'm definitely gonna be using it.

[jemolk]

You know, if the character can only perform actions so quickly, and inputs are queued (up to a certain point) rather than being executed more rapidly the more quickly you can press the buttons, this could be completely resolved, and macros could just not be a problem full stop. Rather than relying on the limits of humans to balance games, the game should be balanced internally. Then you can base things around the actual skills of playing the game, without unnecessary hurdles that hurt some people disproportionately. The only case where I could see this being a problem is fighting games, where quite often the skill involved _is_ to be able to rapidly but consistently input complex sequences without error, but not every game should be that, and not everyone needs to be a world-class Street Fighter player.

[Cassapphic]

FFxiv has a macro menu, but for in combat gameplay, macros are unfortunately really unreliable and often fail to use all inputs requested, and combat is when fast inputs are most needed (for most classes some are more slow paced and accessible) (edit: spelling)

[Sandreline]

I don't like the idea of only allowing macro use for disabled people, as that ends in gatekeeping disability.

For instance, I have ADHD. It makes it extremely difficult for me to remember long strings of commands. But most people in mainstream spaces don't consider it a "real" disability. Where does that leave me when I sincerely need accessibility options?

[SneakyTogedemaru]

They really should work on this topic. Some rules and restrictions may be built into the macros creation tool, so in this case "if you can't fight them, join them" may be actually the best way to go by implementing cleverly restricted macros system

[andreus]

I wonder if there's any space in game development to see accessibility macros turned into in-game functionality

[Packbat]

I feel like, in a "maximum _n_ presses per second" kind of situation, it'd be useful to have a testing mode that lets gamers confirm they aren't exceeding the limit. Maybe in unranked matches, that information is reported to the player using the macros with replays to examine the context of any moments where they get near or exceed the limit, so they can tune their configuration to be safely within the limits before they play in ranked.

[Shinntoku]

Macros should just be allowed. It wouldn't be unfair if *everyone* can access the tools

[PerpetualNoob]

Such a great point regarding macros Laura. 😃

And I agree with you and Conrad regarding the jackass who made this fake story. I just hope this doesn't cause a rise in ignoring an already heavily ignored gaming population. 😞

[ScottJohnHarrison]

I play FF XIV a lot and it has a macro creation and interface directly in the game but part of this is it is slightly nerfed for its usage in combat as the wait command only is in whole seconds while the global cooldown between things is roughly 2.5 seconds meaning by using macros for fighting you are at a disadvantage but it still works.

[Tobascodagama]

A lot of old-school MMOs would just have built-in alias and macro features. For that matter, so did Quake, and it wasn't a dealbreaker for that game's competitive scene. Macros for QuakeWorld Team Fortress were the rule, not the exception, people had macros for rocket-jumping, grenade cooking, quick-building, even bunny-hopping, and they were all acceptable in the community for everyone, not just disabled gamers.

[raechu_]

There is a tension between the need to lower the dexterity challenge for gamers with disabilities that prevent them from ever meeting the challenge, versus being able to let non-disabled gamers enjoy that dexterity challenge to the fullest. I think it would be great to do a follow up video on this topic and how different games/genres can address this tension.

For example on the extreme end, Super Smash Bros. Melee is one of the most difficult games to play at a competitive level in the world. It's horribly inaccessible, your APM needs to be higher than a professional Starcraft player's. Nobody talks about accessibility in that community because... What's the point? The entire game is that dexterity challenge, so to add accessibility options would mean people who used them would be playing a fundamentally different game.

But, there is only one Super Smash Bros Melee. Basically every other game exists in a grey area between it and a visual novel in terms of how challenging the game is to physically play, and how important that dexterity is. So each game sort of has to decide where it lies for itself.

An example I really like is Final Fantasy XIV Online. At its fastest, you're pressing a new button roughly every 0.8 seconds, and you probably want to be mashing said buttons so that you're hitting it exactly as soon as you're able to. Pressing buttons this quickly, and working out which button to press next in such a short time frame, is a significant part of the fun of combat in that game. But there is a whole macro system in-built in the game to make it so much easier for you. However, these macros are objectively less optimal than just pressing every button yourself because they are glitchy and unreliable. This has the effect that if you want to be doing the hardest stuff in the game, if you want to be the best player at your class on the server, if you want to get an achievement that only like 50 people in the world have, you need to not use macros. This lets people with accessibility issues play pretty much the entire game without issue, while also keeping the difficulty there for players who really enjoy the dexterity challenge and want to push it as far as they can.

Obviously I want them to fix the glitchiness of the system, but I think the fact that it's suboptimal, yet is good enough to get you through anything that isn't extremely difficult, is a really good way of meeting this disconnect between challenge and accessibility.

[MocharaidThree]

I have reduced mobility in my right hand, not like a huge amount but enough that even I'd love Macros to be given the Thumbs Up from game devs (Path of Exile is the main culprit for me too :P)
EDIT: Hell, even if I wasn't disabled, I think Macros should absolutely be allowed. Disabled folks are already so isolated from the world, gaming is a refuge for a lot of us I'd assume :)