Make certain colours count as the same "primary colour"

Open

Joel (kqrrot222)56 messagesstarted Sep 14, 2026, 11:04 PM

gameplay

Joel (kqrrot222)OPlast month

Some of the colours are quite similar (namely pink and purple)
At first glance they are hard to differentiate. I think it makes sense to make it so you cant have pink/purple as your primary and secondary. If you purple, and the opponent has pink as primary, opponent is forced to take secondary.
I'd suggest same for green/lime and blue/cyan. and maybe orange/gold/yellow.

The difference is more noticeable if you have the opacity up to 100%, but I think especially for accessibility, the colours should be as different as possible.

Emilylast month

Vouch, I dont believe there should be likewise colors in the same game

Joel (kqrrot222)OPlast month

Probably also prioritise supporter tiers primary colour > elo if the same tier - but thats separate but linked

Joel (kqrrot222)OPlast month

This is how the colours show in game at 100% opacity btw. (ignore the legibility test thing, that was me making sure text was readable in the twitch extension - but i also darken/lighten the background of that bit)
At 100% opacity they are mostly fine, still think the likewise colours should be disallowed.
And this is at 50% over the board background all 45 pairs of colours. (But in game the background is transparent, only the inventory background in match history)
I'm not colour blind, and at these only really the pink/purple and red/orange look too close imo. But i think for viewers on twitch etc being able to say "blue" and not have it indicate more than 1 colour would be useful.

Its also not too much of an issue in game I think, as who completed which goal already isn't info thats too useful (knowing if opponent got a redstone goal and theres more redstone goals on the board etc is an exception to that), and the update a while ago that meant you could put the overlay on top so you can easily see which goals are left was more important.

marinlast month

this is good comms, we might add simple patterns on top of the colors or something

marinlast month

they should be more differentiable

tjthingslast month

100% agree

tjthingslast month

LOW BITRATE, LOW GUI SCALE

Katherinelast month

i dont think they need to be grouped but just making each shade more unique would be good, like making the similar shades lighter and darker to increase the contrast between them (light blue and dark blue, light green and dark green, a darker purple instead of a lavender, a brighter or darker pink to make it more different than red, etc.)

Katherinelast month

orange and red are also really bad in terms of contrast

marinlast month

it's not perfect, but this should be a bit more readable

marinlast month

they still need adjustments

marinlast month

same for this board, again not perfect, but slightly better maybe

Artnautalast month

Not much of an improvement tbh

marinlast month

thoughts on these

Joel (kqrrot222)OPlast month(edited)

im in love

Joel (kqrrot222)OPlast month

opens you up to having a players "colour" just be a block, and it takes up the whole board (i.e. a blackout instead of being 25 copper blocks, would be one copper block - if you get what i mean)

marinlast month

mmm yeah

Joel (kqrrot222)OPlast month

but yeah to me having them join up like that looks really cool, and is easier to differentiate between the players

pinkpufflast month

I like the outlines but I think the orange and red are still too similar of a value in this example. Someone earlier suggested increasing value range in alike colors and i think that could be helpful too. The orange could become a pastel instead, but red stays the same, and now these two are easier to differentiate even though their hue is similar.

pinkpufflast month

Would it ever be possible if on your screen the opponent always was just more grayed out? If your color is just most vibrant thats even easier to tell at a glance. Could be hashing so its colorblind friendly too. Or maybe thats back into the discussion of client side colors altogether idk

pinkpufflast month

Something like this, but transparent?

marinlast month

that seems promising

marinlast month

i think it looks kind of messy with any sort of pattern ingame

marinlast month

i tried adding checkmarks/Xs:

marinlast month

(your own goals are

, opponents are

)

marinlast month

and here it is with only

marinlast month

i think the checkmark/xs are the cleanest so far, but it's a big difference from the current system, not sure what most players would think

Emilylast month

ngl the checkmarks and Xs are kinda charming to me

Emilylast month

id upvote that change but it might be smth worth polling with the general playerbase?

marinlast month

yeah thats what im thinking

marinlast month

but there would also be a "legacy" setting in the client nonetheless

Emilylast month

oh thatd be dope, give ppl the ability to switch to the old one themself

pinkpufflast month

Ooh yeah I like that with the X and

especially if we can still make those transparent

marinlast month

mhm, transparency is less concerning now that there's like. actual shapes to discern

marinlast month

same 2 boards for reference

marinlast month

looking at it now, X could be slightly smaller

Emilylast month

yea i think shrinking the X slightly and its legit perfect

marinlast month

ok final post, it's even nicer with darker background

Joel (kqrrot222)OPlast month

The one thing about it that is worse than the other solution imo is that its much harder to see what the goal is behind those icons (maybe the opacity slide helps?) but otherwise its a very clean and elegant.

Id also vote for either getting rid of the borders totally, or having them around all 4 edges again if it were to use the checks/crosses as its the only thing making it look messy to me in this version

marinlast month(edited)

what about a hotkey to toggle the symbols (?)
i agree with the outline part

Katherine4 weeks ago

the checkmarks/x's look good from a viewer perspective but for the players not being able to see the goals is kinda bad. i think the problem is still in the saturation of the colors themselves and making them more distinct rather than goal overlay

Artnauta4 weeks ago

Yeah I agree, this still doesn't pass the black&white test

marin4 weeks ago

alright, ill send some images later

Joel (kqrrot222)OP4 weeks ago(edited)

The issue i think with just solving it by making these 10 colours more distinct in saturation, is that it makes it really hard for them to add more colours/custom designs in the future. And trying to find a fix that solves it entirely even if the colours are identical is probably better - but yeah i'd be keen to see how it looks with the ticks/crosses opacity down

pinkpuff4 weeks ago

If the client side Xs and

s work, is it too much of a stretch to have client side opponent colors too?
Then i can personally set it to whatevers most readable. Or it has defaults like dark green is always opposite red or something for the most contrast ..?

marin3 weeks ago(edited)

opponent colors are slightly darker in general now (except orange/lime)
there is still some pairs that are hard to discern, i tried to make them as different as possible (yellow/gold is pretty bad)

it's as far as colors alone can go

there's also a hotkey to toggle between colors/symbols (and both are fairly configurable)

pancelor3 weeks ago

IMO the main issue is that both of these marking methods (solid colors and X/check) call attention to the least important parts of the board - the goals that aren't relevant anymore, because they've been claimed. I wish all the colors were a lot darker and desaturated, I think that would make the board easier to read while playing

pancelor3 weeks ago(edited)

this first one looks best in terms of readability, but the ingame version (second image) doesn't look as readable. my eyes can't instantly find all the remaining goals, or be sure that I didn't miss any
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1549194096982102116/1550197137306951730/image.png?ex=6abb4cd6&is=6ab9fb56&hm=dd018eb9758afde0726b2d50525246663ba6167a2fba76ac4ee704197e4a0bad&=&format=webp&quality=lossless
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1549194096982102116/1552645520793542656/image.png?ex=6abafa92&is=6ab9a912&hm=1650cab6fb8240be100cd520a382ce927d2395dd9886b4c24d4e0749f8d2d852&=&format=webp&quality=lossless

pancelor3 weeks ago(edited)

personally I use the transparent overlay (completed color: in front, opacity: 50%)
it feels best to me, tho it would be worse if I was colorblind

pancelor3 weeks ago

ofc making the colors desaturated and dark would maybe feel bad if you care about what your color is. maybe there could be different colors ingame versus during a replay? not a great solution, idk. the in-game colors are what people will see most

pancelor3 weeks ago

seems like there are a bunch of goals all conflicting here:
1. want the board to be readable as easily as possible mid-game (de-emphasize completed goals, make them "fade into background" somehow)
1a. want the completed goals to still be visible in some way, not a huge priority tho. some people may care, some people may not
2. want the colors to be nice and pretty, esp if people supported draftout to get nice colors (directly conflicts with 1?)
3. want the info to accessible for colorblind folks (no info should be conveyed through color alone)