Pickup screen blink.

Whenever I wander over a clip or shotgun shells, the screen blink makes feel like I have been shot. I would prefer some pickup feedback that would not trip my instinct to duck or shoot back.
The color of a blink does nothing for me, as I do not even see it.

I am considering having just the status bar blink, or some other limited feedback.
Any other generally accepted solutions. ??
Any "I tried this solution" but .. stories ??
Any comments. ??

The ammo counter corresponding to the ammo you pick up could flash, and the health or armor numbers when finding those. I'd like to see how that would feel, as the full screen blinking can be annoying (especially in ports or on computers that stutter when vsync is on and the iwad palette transition is used).

It's just something you get used to if you play long enough.

PrBoom-Plus allows you to disable this.

Esc>Options>General>3 pages right>
Change Palette on Bonus.
Setting this option to "No" will make the only indication of picking something up be the sound of picking up an item and the text at the top of the screen.

There is also options to disable changing the palette on Power and Pain, but for game play reasons I could not recommend disabling those.

I'm used to it, and since it's not a standard feature of every source port it might be best for you to try and adjust.

No, after 10 years of playing, I can still confuse it with getting shot.
It is much worse when you backup over something that you were not aware of. Then that blink can be mistaken for being shot, leading to a frantic search for the shooter, which cannot be found.

What I really wanted to know was the degree of irritation that would justify such a change. The prboom-plus answer says yes.
Thanks for responses.

wesleyjohnson said:

What I really wanted to know was the degree of irritation that would justify such a change. The prboom-plus answer says yes.

I think the main reason Andrey added these options to disable palette changes was that he originally developed PrBoom-plus for his own TAS runs. Since they featured a lot of rocket jumps and heavy damage situations, he wanted to be able to see eaxctly where he was going in tics that would otherwise have some major red-screen.

I suppose if you're going to add one such option in, you might as well add the others. I don't think it was because a lot of people found the palette change on pick-ups to be particularly troublesome.

Grazza said:

I suppose if you're going to add one such option in, you might as well add the others. I don't think it was because a lot of people found the palette change on pick-ups to be particularly troublesome.

To be honest this is the first time I've ever heard anybody have a problem with it.

Unless you're colorblind, I'm really not sure how you can mistake the yellowish pickup color with the red damage color. And there's a pickup sound effect to make it even more obvious. And the DOOMGuy makes a grunting sound only when he's hurt so... Really, how can you mistake the two?

I am colourblind and also half blind to boot. I probably would get confused by the colour on occasion if it was the only indicator. Happily, the sounds and other visual clues are quite useful. Now if I was also deaf and playing with glare on the screen...

Sometimes I panic because I think that I've suddenly gone blind but then I'm relieved to discover that it's only because I've just blinked my eyes.

I'm colorblind, too. You learn to pick up on other clues (in everything) rather than relying on color which can be frustrating when getting directions from someone.

"I'll be waiting in the blue building."

"I'm colorblind. Can you give me the address?"

"Don't know it but my green car will be out front."

I hardly notice the pickup change (it's quick enough) but the Berserk and Invulnerability are murder on me. I'm glad to be powerful/invulnerable at that moment because I can't see a damn thing. ;) BLIND IN ONE EYE! oh.

I try to hide my colorblindness because when people learn of it I'm sure to get; "What color does this look!? What color does this look!? What color does this look!?" :/

bytor said:

Sometimes I panic because I think that I've suddenly gone blind but then I'm relieved to discover that it's only because I've just blinked my eyes.

Haha, once I thought I had gone blind when I was sitting on the toilet at some event somewhere. I'd been getting way too little sleep for quite some days, so assumed that the vision part of my brain had simply shut down. Then I realized that a timer had turned the lights off, and there was no source of any other light in the room.

Slightly more on topic, what colours would work better for those who are colourblind? Perhaps the palette could be modified to help.

BTW, I think the invulnerability effect is meant to make it hard to see what is going on, even for those who aren't colourblind - especially if you are playing with the brightness turned up quite high.

Grazza said:

what colours would work better for those who are colourblind? Perhaps the palette could be modified to help.

That's an interesting idea. From what I understand without having gone to any great lengths to find out more about it, most people that are colour blind have difficulties with reds and greens. These colours are my problem as well, but only really become an issue when the shades of both colours are so similar and clustered that it becomes difficult to make out shapes and outlines. It's certainly worth looking into, anyway.

Invulnerabilities, on the other hand, play absolute shitting havoc with my eyes because everything becomes so damn bright. Every time I see one - rare as they are - I have to pause the game and switch all the lights on next to me so I don't get a massive KO just from picking it up.

Grazza said:

I thought I had gone blind when I was sitting on the toilet at some event somewhere.

LOL Had a restroom at a place I worked that would do that. Motion sensor. Sitting there on the toilet, pants down around my ankles, leaning wayyy foward while flailing my arms trying to trip the sensor. Took me a few 'sessions' in that restroom before I figured out that it was ok to just sit there in the dark. X( Still, I found it unnerving. Yeah, the first time throws ya for a loop.

what colours would work better for those who are colourblind?

It wouldn't matter for me. On any pallette there is going to be several shades of any color that I can't see apart. Like st.alfonzo, green and red are my worst. I have trouble with all of them, though. It's a dull world.

The closest thing I think you can have to a universal approach is to choose colours such that their luminance values are significantly different. If colours are hard to differentiate in grayscale they will often not make sense to people with colour blindness affecting those colours.

I have troubles with reds and greens, but only sometimes. I will often see one colour and not know if it's red, green or brown. Mixing colours gets very interesting sometimes. There could be a bright-red flower in the middle of a load of bright-green leaves and I won't see the flower at all. Once I do notice the flower I will wonder how I ever missed it. Mindfuck.

Thanks for the stories.

Some of my work involved LEDs that blink. Changing the blink pattern was noticed more than the LED color. LEDs that change color are hard to notice. It took two or three blinks to notice the color (unless the subject was staring right into the led).

With Doom, I have never noticed what color it blinks (and I am not colorblind), I just see BLINK.

Worked on one test tool that had colored buttons. One of the co-workers was colorblind. Had to make sure that on and off had distinctive shapes and that nothing differed only by color. Most anything made for public consumption should follow such design rules.