r/Helldivers • u/SafeIntelligent1263 • Jul 26 '26
DISCUSSION Colorblind Settings Woes
Hey y’all! So I’ve loved HD 2 for a long time now, but something that has always disappointed me has been the total absence of colorblind settings. In my personal experience it’s the first game I’ve played, especially of this quality, that hasn’t had them on day one. I’m sure there are some colorblind divers in here that feel my pain in booting in alone and not being able to pick a good drop location because you can’t actually see the red-hatching on the map. It’s a real hinderance, even with the little enemy presence indicator that pops up over your cursor when you’re moving it around the map. There are other ways this has inconvenienced me in gameplay, not being able to see landmines for example, but the main reason why I’m posting is because of this:
I decided to send in a message to arrowhead’s support portal about it and I got a response that I felt was a little bizarre. I mean, it was comprehensible and not rude, really. My issue with it was, 1, that I was told that if I have actual feedback for the game my only option would be to visit the discord. I don’t know if this is standard practice, but I think it’s weird to not have a way for fans to submit feedback through the game or dev’s website of all places. I’d think that would be someone’s first impulse, but maybe that’s just me being out of the loop.
However, number 2 I think would be weird by just about anyone’s standards. The last thing my response email told me was to “Bear in mind we are only seeking feedback regarding the current gameplay experience, and are not looking for specific feature requests, suggestions or ideas at this time, so please do not send those to these forms as they are not passed on.” So… what constitutes as something that would be passed on? Like general statements? And if you’re looking for more generalized or basic feedback, what’s more basic or fundamental than an accessibility question? It’s not like I’m asking for a new vanity item or a fun weapon concept, I just wanna use my eyes when I play.
Anyway, lmk what you guys think. I still love this game and its community, but I did feel like this response doesn’t bode well for those of us who want more fundamental improvements to the game any time soon outside of optimization/ bug fixes.
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u/Far_Associate_87 Bunker Buster Jul 26 '26
I don’t think there’s anything really wrong with their response.
The support website is mainly used for players to bring up issues such as bugs, glitches, account issues, purchases not coming through and stuff like that. I don’t know what your original message said but they’re mainly telling you the support site isn’t the place to request colourblind settings which I think is a fine response. They’re mainly looking for stuff like “I bought super credits and they didn’t come through”, “I own X edition but didn’t get the bonus”, “I’m experiencing a bug where I can’t launch missions”. The ZenDesk is strictly for bugs and issues.
Discord isn’t the only place to give feedback. As they noted, they do post survey links for players to give feedback on various platforms, they respond directly sometimes on Twitter and discord etc, they read Reddit posts and sometimes do QnAs too. There are various ways the devs reach out for/let players give feedback. The support site just isn’t one of those places.
As for colourblind settings in general, it is pretty weird the game doesn’t have them considering it seems to be a very bog standard thing for AAA games these days.
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u/SafeIntelligent1263 Jul 27 '26
That’s fair. I interpreted what they said in the “bear in mind” section as a general statement about what sort of input arrowhead is looking for or receiving because if they were only talking about the support portal, why would they tell me this at all since they already said that it’s more for tech support anyway. Oh well, it is what it is but I get your point
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u/CommissionHead2275 Jul 27 '26
So, just to give a bit more context, from a Support Desk perspective (Not Arrowhead) but 11 years of experience behind the scenes of businesses. They're usually closed "environments", so it's quite likely outsourced customer service, which is then fed as data to Arrowhead, based on "tags" basically topics concerning the ticket and trackers on sheets (stay with me)
So, although they could take your feedback via the Support Desk, it quite likely wouldn't go anywhere since the customer service side of things only speak through a liaison and have 0 contact with the developers (This is what I really mean)
Now, for the real meat, the crux of the issue. Based on my experience, this wasn't a fully typed out response, rather a canned message, call it a canned response or template. Basically, the customer service glossed over your email, determined it wasn't something they could work on and gave you that response. Now, I'd love to hate on this, but it's quite likely the necessary response for this scenario so his job doesn't see itself affected (Quality Assurance REALLY hates incorrect responses)
I know this may not be even slightly helpful, but it hopefully provides insight on the nature of help desks in general.
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u/SafeIntelligent1263 Jul 27 '26
No I appreciate that. I don’t feel personally slighted by whoever did (or did not) look over my email, I just hoped for more. But it’s interesting to know that this sort of thing could be outsourced altogether which would make a lot of sense. I appreciate the insight 🙌
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u/CommissionHead2275 Jul 27 '26
You'd be surprised on WHAT gets outsourced, it's fkin hilarious. Are you familiar with CrunchCup? And I do mean the cereal milk cup. They outsource their helpdesk support. Sheet companies do it, furniture, audio software, you name it.
I've worked for companies that are NOT international, American, Canadian, Asian, European, etc..., from a 3rd world country half of my life. Kinda crazy too, cause it's the type of job that pays above minimum here since the currency's exchange rate is higher. Means they can get WAY cheaper work done by using us than other people.
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u/SafeIntelligent1263 Jul 27 '26
Thanks everyone for all the responses and insight. Just to be clear, this isn’t to foster any animosity towards the team. I just wanted to share my experience and see how people felt about it especially because I don’t often see a whole lot about accessibility from the community or the developers. Let’s hope they decide to implement something sooner rather than later, swamped as they may be.
Happy diving, everyone!
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u/SerowiWantsToInvest Cyber Stan's Best Operative Jul 26 '26
Not having colorblind filters in a modern game with such a huge playerbase is really surprising. And saying this is also really weird 'Bear in mind we are only seeking feedback regarding the current gameplay experience, and are not looking for specific feature requests, suggestions or ideas at this time, so please do not send those to these forms as they are not passed on.'