#gonna tag a bunch of things for reach lol watch this get lengthy (i'm not adding these tags as conditions I have just asrelevant ones lmao

[dredgen-dumbass]

(Disabled) player's guide to making D2 more accessible

because so far (correct me if I'm wrong) I haven't seen one on here, & maybe (hopefully) it'll help someone.

Alright, to get it out of the way, I'm disabled. I have neurological damage from a tbi, and more recently another concussion, and among many many other things it makes gaming a lot more complicated. It can (unfortunately) be difficult to find advice for disabled gamers online that isn't just "get good" or "then gaming isn't for you", so I figure this might be helpful, since it was for me.

I can't speak to other conditions, so this is more about adjustments for specific symptoms, but I can only really speak from experience. That said, I've had to learn quite a bit, so it's sharing time :)

(I play on Xbox. Some settings aren't the same between platforms, just a warning. For that reason, some of this post is going to be xbox-specific.)

This is divided up into menus & subjects of bullet points are bolded to be easier to skim.

Controller settings - (and explanations for some of them in case y'all don't know)

Test out different look sensitivity. The default is 3, I moved mine up to 5. I have issues with spacial awareness and saccades dysfunction, and this has made it easier for me to keep whatever I'm looking at on-screen.

ADS sensitivity- if you don't know, this is the speed when you aim down sights. The default is 1, I have mine reduced to .5, and I've found that the larger difference between the look & ADS sensitivity can really function as having two look settings available when using a weapon that doesn't have a very extreme scope.

The default sprint-turn scale is 0.4, I bump mine up to 0.8 for similar reasons to the look sensitivity increase. (Turning this up makes you turn faster, turning it down makes you turn slower.)

Alternatively, if you have more issues with overstimulation/visual clutter/quick movements/etc, you may want to turn everything down a bit to slow down your camera, but that may make combat harder to keep up with, especially pvp.

Axial & radial deadzone. This helps with stick drift. Stick drift is a pain for everyone but if you have fine motor issues, tremors, arthritis, etc, it's even worse. Finding what works best for your hardware will help make sure you're compensating less, which puts less strain on your hands.

I've seen people recommend turning off controller haptics for the same reason- the vibrations make you grip the controller harder and can cause worse strain. Personally, I leave them on because the sensory input helps balance out the awareness issues, but maybe it's for you! (this one's a system setting, not a d2 one.)

Video settings

Brightness can be important if you have issues with eye strain. I would recommend changing this relative to the lighting in the room, not just your monitor. Turning it up may help with visual issues with the tradeoff of risking overstimulation. Again, all of this is very dependent on the person.

Motion blur- Evil, evil, evil, turn this off. Visual problems or not, it's harder to follow things on-screen with it enabled. Combined with any garden variety problem with eye movements or cognitive strain it's even worse.

Chromatic aberration- I turn this off. It's a nice vfx, but it can wind up just being added visual stimulus and if that's a problem for it's worth losing. It can also make the radar harder to read. Not worth it (personally.)

Film grain- off for the same reason. It's a smaller change, but a clearer view is worth it if it helps you.

Sound settings

If you have problems with your hearing/auditory processing, I highly recommend turning the sfx & music drastically down compared to the dialogue, and then just turning up your system audio.

Personally, I often play with music entirely off, but I know that can be a very boring experience to a lot of people, so take that as you will.

(my current settings: sfx 8, dialogue 10, music 1)

if you're playing with an Xbox party or in a discord call, etc, I really recommend messing with the mixing settings there when you first get on to balance out peoples mics, regardless of processing problems.

Gameplay settings

HUD opacity- I turn mine down to high, the default being full. Just another thing that makes it easier to keep track of stuff.

Radar Background Opacity- Opposite here. If you have problems with spatial awareness you're probably relying pretty hard on the radar instinctively, so the clearer it is, the better. I play with mine on medium, you may want to play around.

Subtitles- Are on by default, so that's nice. Let's check out their settings menu for a moment.

Turning on show speaker name can be really good for hearing/auditory processing issues.

You can also change the color for the speaker name/caption text if the clearer contrast will help you.

The best background style for visibility is box, but it won't look as nice. Another trade.

Background opacity may be easier to lower if you switch to box, since the faded style isn't even. A lower background opacity may help you follow things on-screen at the cost of caption readability

If you don't need captions but do need to reduce visual clutter, try turning them off!

Colorblind mode is, obviously, helpful if you're colorblind, but I have also heard it recommended because the color changes can help improve contrast. Not one I've tried, but worth including.

Full auto firing/Full auto melee- Does what it says. Turning this on might help in the same way as turning off haptics/messing with deadzones, ie by changing how much you need to click. You can still fire normally with it on, so if anything it just gives you another option.

Reticle location is slightly below the center on d2. I prefer to center it, though it takes some getting used to. More helpful if you frequently switch between other games that center theirs.

Neutral/targeted reticle color- The defaults are white and red respectively. I prefer black for targeted because I feel like it makes it easier to see what I'm actually aiming at, but you may want to leave it for contrast. To each their own.

Other

Brief overview of Xbox accessibility settings

Xbox has a narration setting. I would assume anyone who needs it is aware of this, but just in case.

If you need more assisted play, there's controller assist where you can combine two people's input

Turning off haptic vibration (as mentioned) is in accessibility -> controller

You can make the on-screen keyboard larger!

There are party chat settings for both text to speech and speech to text

There's also game transcription!

Games that have the function can also do their own read-aloud. I don't know if/how this applies to destiny

Mono output for audio may make things easier to understand depending on your audio setup

There's also high-contrast mode for both dark or light

Colorblind filters are here, too

Night mode! You can change how much it dims/filters your device. If you have problems with blue light or eye strain, or have to limit screens for medical reasons like me, this setting is a lifesaver. The filter will affect how your games look, but personally it's worth the tint. Same is available on most PCs.

Hardware, etc.

The Xbox Adaptive Controller is highly customizable and great for anyone with physical impairments that make the standard Xbox controller difficult to use. Find it here.

I've seen thumbstick extenders recommended for arthritis, might also be helpful for similar conditions

If you have arthritis/fine motor issues/muscle weakness/tremors/etc/etc/etc controller grips might make holding a standard controller easier

If any of those are the case for you, then you might also benefit from a lightweight controller (or playing with a standard controller plugged in & removing the batteries for a lesser weight adjustment)

evilcontrollers also has one-handed controllers and a one-handed controller customizer much like the standard controller customizers

evilcontrollers for hardware accessibility in general

If you play on PC and have muscle or joint issues then you may want to look into different keyboard/mouse shapes. Lightweight, vertical, and ball mice are all options, though there's apparently some argument about using them for gaming. I've also seen good reviews of the Azeron keypad from people with muscular/joint problems. There's also split keyboards, wave keyboards, one-handed, etc etc etc.

If you have problems with auditory processing I would HIGHLY recommend gaming with noise-cancelling headphones. (Hell, do everything with noise cancelling headphones.) I would recommend these for everyday, but they also work pretty well for gaming. The mic is mid, but it works well enough, and there's multiple sound modes + active noise cancelling.

Other other (oh no I forgot these, editing now)

Compression gloves !!!!!

Pause and do hand exercises after a while

20/20/20 rule for eye strain

may come back and expand this as I think of more things

There is a lot that Bungie could do to improve the game's accessibility without causing an imbalance with abled players, but I'll save that for another post. Feel free to reblog this with any other advice/anecdotal stuff/whatever, I'm considering this as opening a discussion.

I don't know of any clans specifically for disabled players but I'm sure they exist? If anyone has recommendations for community stuff, please do throw that in.

As always, my dms are open. Being a disabled gamer can suck sometimes and if you need a space to vent w/ someone who gets it, I'm your guy. If you're just curious how it impacts gaming, I don't mind being asked, I just don't feel like posting about myself that much unprompted.

I think that's all for now. Happy gaming :)