Disability Assistance Software whitelisting

Hi,

I'm part of a small gaming community for people with disabilities, and some need assistance software to be able play games (think moving around, using the cursor, shooting or casting abilities and such). Have you guys thought about whitelisting such software? Software such as Voice Attack or JoyToKey comes to mind.
Some of my members are asked as testers for other games sometimes, so I could ask them to get in touch with you. I imagine this is pretty low on the development priorities ladder but just throwing it in here.

Doran

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winner909098

Sadly, things like that are used by bots too much.

wArchAngel

I would imagine you would get a much better answer, both from players and from devs, if you would name your disability, since different disabilities might require different approaches, deaf people wont benefit from assistance tools that were made for color blind, and etc.

I am sure if you make a really detailed post about various disabilities your community is sharing, and their possible solutions, or even software that you, or someone is aware of, the devs will definitely take a look into that. While yes, not as a first priority, but at least it might be added to the list.

Doran

wArchAngel wrote: »

I am sure if you make a really detailed post about various disabilities your community is sharing, and their possible solutions, or even software that you, or someone is aware of, the devs will definitely take a look into that. While yes, not as a first priority, but at least it might be added to the list.

I'm still waiting for a response in my Discord regarding types of software used. I don't use any myself because I'm just a regular wheelchair user with an OK set of arms, haha. But disabilities range from quadriplegics who can only use mouth joysticks to Cerebral Palsy or partially paralyzed in arms and hands, that sort of stuff.

winner909098 wrote: »

Sadly, things like that are used by bots too much.

While I'm sure the game will be prone to botters testing out scripts on how to bot in this game at first, I heard from Jahlon (official AoC content creator) that bots will be IP banhammered into oblivion, and the devs will do anything to code the game as watertight as they can to prevent botting in the first place. Besides, I don't think those who want to bot are looking into downloading mouth joystick software to gain some sort of advantage over another player anyways. I could be wrong ofcourse but that's my take on it.

I will elaborate more once I get more answers from my community to get the ball roling in this discussion, and I'm hoping for more disabled players in this community to throw in their knowledge too.

Noaani

Most actual disability assistance software isn't all that useful to bots - and the aspects of it that are make finding them easier.

One of the more commonly cited things in this regard is auto-follow. Bots sometimes use a games auto-follow feature. If the game logs the percentage of movement a character makes using follow vs moving normally, they could then audit the top hits to see if there are signs of automation. To me, adding auto follow along with a basic tracking of it as above would go a long way to assisting in finding and thus banning bots, rather than making it easier for them.

When it comes to alternative input methods - as is more the case here - they all have somewhat distinctive characteristics. If someone is using software like this in an exploitative manner, it should be easy for Interpid to spot.

From Intrepids perspective, they should be able to white list a whole lot of this software without too much issue, on the assumption that people using it know their actions may be more closely scrutinized in order to ensure Intrepid do catch bots that try and use it.

I don't want to speak for others here, but I would imagine these people would be willing to accept this as they would find it distasteful (to say the least) that software and such that they require for access to games may be used by others to gain an advantage in that same game - and they would like people that would do such things to be found out.

CaptnChuck

Doran wrote: »

Hi,

I'm part of a small gaming community for people with disabilities, and some need assistance software to be able play games (think moving around, using the cursor, shooting or casting abilities and such). Have you guys thought about whitelisting such software? IDK any names of software they use though so I might come back on that later. Some of my members are asked as testers for other games sometimes, so I could ask them to get in touch with you. I imagine this is pretty low on the development priorities ladder but just throwing it in here.

Doran

I hope you get a solid response from the devs. Best of luck man.

Doran

Allright 2 types of software I got recommended would be

1: Voice Attack

''VoiceAttack takes your PC games and apps to a new level by adding your voice as an additional controller. With a comprehensive toolkit, you can design your very own macros to control virtually all aspects of your Windows experience or add a brand new layer of immersion into the latest sims!''

Quoted from Steam where you can buy this for €11,99 (so I assume it's not anything from a shady scripters website.)

2: JoyToKey

''JoyToKey (or Joy2Key) enables PC game controllers to emulate the keyboard and mouse input, so that windows applications and web games can be controlled with your favorite joysticks! Whenever buttons and sticks are pressed on the controllers, JoyToKey converts them into keyboard strokes and/or mouse movements so that the target application will work as if a real keyboard and a mouse were used.''

Quoted from joytokey.net where you can download it for free.

CaptnChuck

I don't think that no.2 is a great fix as there will be a lot of buttons to press.

No.1 however, is something that a lot of people have talked about and most seem to not mind it. Allowing a single macro won't affect botting/multiboxing.

FuryBladeborne

I'm not sure where you got "allowing a single macro". #1 said, "you can design your very own macros"; as in plural.

I'm not a developer, but it seems like being able to program macros from any source provides a way to give commands to bots since we know that macros are at least one way that bots are controlled.

CaptnChuck

FuryBladeborne wrote: »

I'm not sure where you got "allowing a single macro". #1 said, "you can design your very own macros"; as in plural.

I'm not a developer, but it seems like being able to program macros from any source provides a way to give commands to bots since we know that macros are at least one way that bots are controlled.

You're just allowing a single macro. Allowing it won't mean that other macros will get through. A handful might, but most won't. This is because you can easily make it so that macro, different from the one allowed, isn't capable of being used in the game. Bu there's a simpler solution. Just integrate it into the game itself. Then you won't have to worry about other types of unwanted macro getting through.

FuryBladeborne

The description seems to be allowing a single program (Voice Attack) to make as many macros as necessary.

As I understand it, the problem isn't whether some other macro makes it through; but, whether there are macros available as they can be used to tell bots what to do.

Having a program that can run macros makes it possible to direct bots.

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