Product: FIFA 18
Platform:PC
I want to talk about something you don't mention above: Sorry if the title sounds funny. I'm fully visually impaired and i'm a big fan of football. I play fifa 18 with all controls set to assisted, and with full familiarity with the team i'm playing and the formations and the players abbilities. I'd just like to say that i'm not the only football fan who has lost their sight but still loves football. I enjoy playing fifa 18 and I can beat a lot of teams with the difficulty set to amateur. I love fifa 18 and i'm happy that me and my brother purchased it. I just am very frustrated by losing my way around the field and giving the ball straight to the opponent or putting it out of play by accident, Because I don't know what player i'm controlling (I can't see the screen).
How accessible is the current experience? I can use parts of it
Summarize what in the product is difficult to use. When i play a match with all controls set to assisted, I always know how my team formation looks like and who plays in what part of the field. When the commentator announces the player in position, I get a sense of my current location in the field and based on that decide on what to do with the ball. But when the commentator does not announce the player name, -which happens a lot of the time-, I'm left with moving, passing or crossing the ball in a random direction, which most of the time causes me to lose the ball or put it over the touchline.
How is this making it more difficult? Imagine that i'm playing with Tottenham Hotspur, default formation which is 4 2 3 1 (I think). now i'm in control of the ball and the player who is in position is Christian Eriksen. If Martin Tyler says "Christian Eriksen" I know that passing leftward will mostly aim for Alli, forward and left will mostly be Kane, and behind him can be Trippier or Eric Dier. I also know that i'm on the right side of the field and based on the fan noises, I'd know how close i am to the goal. Now imagine that Tyler doesn't say Eriksen's name, which happens a lot do to various events (e.g. Commentary being natural, he already talking about other things, ball interception or He not saying it because he doesn't want to for some reason), I will not know who is controlling the ball and where i actually am. So most likely i will lose the ball for moving/passing/crossing to a random direction.
How can we reproduce this experience? If you play fifa 18 you notice that half of the time player names will not be announced because of the events mentioned. (ball interception, challenges, commentary being natural, Tyler not knowing the player's name, Tyler talking about something else, other reasons)
I have my solutions but i like to see Fifa 18 developers considering my issue and finding out what implementation possible can help me and any other visually impaired players who'd like to play fifa 18.
Here are my solutions:
1. An accessibility option, When activated, a pre recorded voice will keep reporting the ball's position as it moves across the field. The pre recorded voice needs to be only in 6 phrases: middle, Final third, penalty area, goalbox, left hand side, right hand side.
For example, If a winger is in position, the pre recorded voice would say: middle, right hand side.
2. Use of the system's text to speech engine to announce the player's shirt name or position info such as AMC or AMR. For windows being windows tts and same for xbox as well.
3. Increasing the frequency of the commentator announcing player names to an unnatural level.
Please note that there should be an option to activate for any of my suggestions to start working in the game.
