Dizzines & Intense Nausea while playing Tower at Paradigm's Breach

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

But this seems to be a failure of their QA who normally handle these things. Whether he took the wheel or not, the content still should have gone through the normal QA processes.

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Agreed. I'm not saying that the dev team or even the QA people are always going to think of every single outcome humanly possible, because that is an almost impossible task, but for a game that prides itself on accessibility they kinda let this one slip through the cracks, which honestly does surprise me.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

Agreed. I'm not saying that the dev team or even the QA people are always going to think of every single outcome humanly possible, because that is an almost impossible task, but for a game that prides itself on accessibility they kinda let this one slip through the cracks, which honestly does surprise me.

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You would have thought that after Mt Gulg they might have considered their choice of design, but apparently not :( I've made peace with it at this point, though my problem is rare.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

Agreed. I'm not saying that the dev team or even the QA people are always going to think of every single outcome humanly possible, because that is an almost impossible task, but for a game that prides itself on accessibility they kinda let this one slip through the cracks, which honestly does surprise me.

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Makes me wonder how much input the team responsible was allowed to have. We use outside consultants at my company sometimes, but the QA process always goes through our established internal procedures and checks. Because we're ultimately responsible for the quality of the final release.

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Originally Posted by SomeRandomHuman

May I recommend giving this a try:

If possible hook your laptop/pc up to a tv where you can sit a little farther away from the screen. This has helped me personally with motion effects like the elevator. Then as mentioned prior, the tinted gunner glasses or the identically functioning feature may help with the flashing colors.

Yoshi P and his team are generally pretty good about things like this but Yoko Taro did take the lead for the Nier Raids. I'm sure if this gets forwarded that they'll try to tone back some of the problematic effects.

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I play on my ps4 so I'm several feet (approx 5-6 feet) from my tv screen plus I usually play during the daytime when there is alot of light, if i play in the evening, i have alot of lights on. I only played the Breach once but didnt have any sight or motion sickness issues with the exception of trying to read the mechanics 6 feet away. I usually just following everyone...lol.

I know some people have had issues with certain intensities of colour in game. I always play games with my Nightlight mode on (Make everything a slightly amber tint to reduce strain on my eyes)

But if it does bother you, I'd suggest speaking with a doctor and possibly show them the fights on youtube to say why it's bothering you exactly and see what they say.

Also a lot of the effects used in the raid were also in Nier Automata, and many games usually have a warning and to speak with a doctor if something like this happens. My mom actually couldn't play tetris anymore due to her own epileptic issues

Given how many people are reporting issues with this particular raid, is there a thread we could post on to bring it to the devs' attention?

When you try to imitate Wildstar's raids you also imitate the motion sickness that occured there x)

Newer content can make you dizzy just because of how much stuff goes on outside the actual arena so your forever spinning ypur camera round to try and see everything. It's not exactly fun.

Simply being able to zoom out further would help reduce alot of that I feel. As it reduce the amount of camera spinning you need to do to try and see things

As for the color blindness thing someone mentioned. What exists in game is actually pretty good for the most part. And it does help a lot. However they could do more definitely. Sometimes I struggle in Castrum because the water ice and thunder orbs can all look the same color especially with all the other effects going off. It,d be cool if they were more distinctive.

Ironically theres a boss in one of the 50 dungeons. Might be wanderers hard I don't actually recall. But he does that sacred standard thing. And I find that mechanic is well designed because even if you can't identify the colours they're all still easily identifiable by shape.

It would be nice if more of the games mechanics followed that example. Make the orbs in castrum a different shape or put distinctive markings on them. A big water drop on the water one. A snow flake on the ice one, a thunderbolt on the lightning one.. make them more distinctive than just blue blue and blue.

They do admittedly have very faint auras but they can be hard to see when you have Doton circles healer bubbles, giant bahamuts and lots of explosions going off.

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Originally Posted by Rosenoire

Given how many people are reporting issues with this particular raid, is there a thread we could post on to bring it to the devs' attention?

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This one. If it stays active with reports of different people feeling nausea/strain/dizziness/headache it should be noticed.

The only other way will be for a higher than normal number of people to drop and leave when they get it randomly - which shows up in metrics and causes an investigation.

Too much white overall fatiques my eye.
There is deffinetely something that tires my eyes during this raid.

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Originally Posted by Rosenoire

Given how many people are reporting issues with this particular raid, is there a thread we could post on to bring it to the devs' attention?

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At the moment, this is that thread. So if you encounter anyone online that's had issues with this raid then you can ask them to come here and post in it and give their testimony. It's good to have concrete data for Square Enix to review. Also for my personal curiosity as I want to know how many people this actually affects.

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Originally Posted by GenBroadaxe

I've had photo induced seizures since I was in middle school (funnily enough, the ones in front of a computer have all been in front of word processing software vs video games) but I haven't experienced anything at a frequency in the Tower that would have triggered mine. My twin and I both have them, so LED monitors were pretty much a much have as soon as they became affordable since the refresh rate on old CRT refresh rates seemed to be our initial trigger, but slower things have done it too like sunlight flickering through trees while on a bus.

The lack of contrast might be causing eyestrain in some folks which can cause migraines among other sorts of physical discomfort like dizziness. Had a friend who experienced something similar in the Kholusia areas before you get rid of the endless light weather and in the second half of the Mt. Gulg when you're surrounded by white enemies on a white marble background. I always get disoriented a bit in Aphascape 1.0 with the Bowels of Agony attack where the arena goes black, so maybe this is something similar?

The worry of seizures is definitely understandable OP. If this is something unusual for you, it may have been something compounded with other things like dehydration, eyestrain, or lack of sleep. If it's something you're noticing on the regular, it could be an indicator of needing to see an optometrist or a neurologist. Stay safe!

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Appreciated. The severity of the incident was disturbing, but also unusual...the last time this happened was over 10 years ago. Not sure what to make of that though I'm still planning to bring it up with my guy soon. If nothing else he can give me more information.

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Originally Posted by Rise-chu

*snip*
1) Has anyone else experienced this after playing Tower?
2) Have you needed medical attention after playing Tower?
3) If you are diagnosed with epilepsy, what do you do to protect yourself from the particle effects in this game?
4) If you are diagnosed with epilepsy, are you going to play any of the Nier raids or risk Tower at Paradigm's Breach?

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1: Dizziness and Nausea, no, migraine headaches, yes.
2: Not yet.
3: Not Diagnosed, but as far as I can tell, even if one were willing to violate the Terms of Service and modify the game, it's functionally impossible to remove the VFX from those attacks.

Additionally, is there any chance we could get a response from the community team regarding these problems? Even if the dev team doesn't think this is a big deal, hopefully SE legal should realize that this opens them up to liability.

I once had astigmatism, but had surgery to repair it when I was very young, maybe 3 or 4 years old. I personally haven't had any problems with this raid, but I can see how it would cause trouble for other players. Square-Enix should probably do the following:
- Tone down any flashing and flickering effects that are likely to cause problems, particularly with the Red Girl fight.
- Lower the overall brightness and increase the contrast of the zone.
- Add a grid texture to the plain solid grey/white floors and walls in the "Tron world" areas of the raid (I.e. first 3 bosses).
- Slow down the elevator. I've noticed the elevators in the Praetorium are slower, and I haven't noticed anyone complaining about motion sickness there.

In the mean time, until work is completed and the fixes are released:
- Temporarily remove the Tower at Paradigm's Breach from the Alliance Raid roulette. Players wanting to do that raid will have to queue for it specifically and directly (I.e. Duty Finder > Shadowbringers Raids > Tower at Paradigm's Breach).
- Put up a notice on the launcher that players have to click through, warning players that the Tower at Paradigm's Breach has been reported to cause symptoms in certain players, apologizing for the problem, and saying that fixes are in progress and expected to be completed by (date).

I personally haven't had any issues, and I don't have a history of such relating to games or anything else, but I do hope this gets fixed sooner than later. In fact, I'm kind of surprised it hasn't been fixed already given how serious this can be for those who are affected.

While I appreciate the visual elements particularly in the Red Girl fight and hope they don't go away entirely I'd rather other players be able to have a comfortable and, more importantly, safe experience.

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Originally Posted by StriderShinryu

I personally haven't had any issues, and I don't have a history of such relating to games or anything else, but I do hope this gets fixed sooner than later. In fact, I'm kind of surprised it hasn't been fixed already given how serious this can be for those who are affected.

While I appreciate the visual elements particular in the Red Girl fight and hope they don't go away entirely I'd rather other players be able to have a comfortable and, more importantly, safe experience.

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The issue with reducing the effects instead of either entirely removing them or adding a client-side toggle is that even a reduction in the intensity of the fx in this fight will still cause significant symptoms for someone like me.

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Originally Posted by Rosenoire

Given how many people are reporting issues with this particular raid, is there a thread we could post on to bring it to the devs' attention?

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There is, this one.

I am one of those people who gets nauseated/motion sickness playing first-person mode with all the bobbing up and down in tight places. I did not get sick from this new raid, but did find the visuals very difficult to watch and follow. Endless flashing that made it difficult to focus or tell what was going on.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

Simply being able to zoom out further would help reduce alot of that I feel. As it reduce the amount of camera spinning you need to do to try and see things

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This is very true, the camera is too tight, the monsters enormous, some too large/high to even target without camera gymnastics. Then there's all the spinning for those "hey, something going on behind you, look for the jack-in-the-box" mechanics.



A wider view is required. I've always suspected some people have managed to hack this, I have seen videos where I wished I could pull the view out that far.

FML, got this duty in an alliance roulette.

Now I'm sitting in game on a half hour penalty because I don't wanna be injured by the development team's irresponsibility.

I am neither epileptic nor photosensitive, however the fight against Red Girl has led to me using a dark gray-blue filter to darken the screen for that part of the raid specifically.

The AoE "Cruelty" in particular are pretty bad for people who may be epileptic, photosensitive or deal with any form of chronic headaches or migraines or eye strain. Personally, I have a moderate astigmatism in a single eye, so perhaps that's why it bothers me so much, as after I finished running it the first time I had an intense headache, eye fatigue and just found it really hard to focus on anything after completing the instance—likely due to all the textureless white utilized in the instance. However, my partner has also complained of similar issues with this raid and afaik they have no past history of any medical problems like others in this thread. We both are now utilizing visual filters to make the raid playable and after a single run last night, this appears have done the trick for us both, thankfully.

No other AoE effect in the game has bothered me in such a way nor did I have trouble with Mt. Gulg at Shadowbringers' launch. However, like many others, I feel its something that definitely needs to be addressed, as while the aesthetic is cool and I appreciate what they were trying to do, I'd hope more care will be taken into considering the effects the, well, effects might have on more vulnerable players.

Tower was probably the worst raid I've ever had the displeasure of running through. The staircases were disorienting to the point of nausea inducing, the Red Girl fight practically a flash-bang grenade blowing up right in front of my eyes, and don't get me started on "the plot." I enjoyed Factory immensely, and even enjoyed Bunker quite a bit, but Tower is the one raid in that series I will *never* join again. Not even the item drops are remotely close to making it worth a return visit.

Still haven’t run it. Too scared to.

I'm prone to migraines and while this raid hasn't caused one yet, I already can tell that if my head is even slightly feeling like a migraine could happen that I can't run this raid then. Also, the staircases are disorienting. I did feel a bit of motion sickness from them.

I experience intense vertigo in a few specific specific fights in this game: Leviathan (Hard or Extreme) and Sophia (Hard or Extreme.) Also one of the Coils, the one with the elevator in it. Hell, even the moving elevator for Praetorium is sometimes enough to trigger it.

I've never gotten an epileptic attack during those fights, but good lord the horizon going wobbly does a number on me. It was so bad that when we were farming Sophia for the mounts a few years ago I had to apologize to my (very understanding) FC group and tell them to just leave me dead.

Thankfully, the Tower hasn't caused me any problems yet.

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Originally Posted by gotaname1

I do wonder how people react to the RDM LB if Im reading this since that one always makes me feel uneasy. I didnt have it with the raid on that level though. But I would like the option to turn down visual fx. If I could just tun of rdm lb, I'd be so happy.

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I react to that the same way I react to the SMN and BLM onces... &^^$%#@$ I CAN'T SEE ANYTHING!

Flashing strobe lights don't bother me though. =/

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Originally Posted by Rise-chu

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Sorry for the novel but I wanted to explain in detail. My questions are:

1) Has anyone else experienced this after playing Tower?
2) Have you needed medical attention after playing Tower?
3) If you are diagnosed with epilepsy, what do you do to protect yourself from the particle effects in this game?
4) If you are diagnosed with epilepsy, are you going to play any of the Nier raids or risk Tower at Paradigm's Breach?

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If you vomit while playing video games or even just that particular raid, consult your doctor. This is usually what happens to epileptics. There are different levels of sensitivity.

I don't have any problems with FFXIV content and I'm not epileptic.

It's like they learned absolutely nothing from Mt. Gulg, the other bright white instance that they had to change later because people were having issues.

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Originally Posted by Naoki34

If you vomit while playing video games or even just that particular raid, consult your doctor. This is usually what happens to epileptics. There are different levels of sensitivity.

I don't have any problems with FFXIV content and I'm not epileptic.

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Just because it bares clarification, epilepsy is a diagnosis for having two or more seizures without identified triggers. If certain frequencies of flashing lights trigger seizures, then you have a photo sensitive seizure disorder. Vomiting is rare during seizures and generally what people are seeing is spit or phlegm coming out since your whole body is seizing up. If someone is experiencing nausea and vomiting while playing that may be more indicative of some sort of motion sickness or possible photosensitivity. Certain medications can make a person more sensitive to bright lights, not seizure inducing, which can cause migraines. It might also be worth looking at other external factors like levels of hydration or lack of sleep.

There's a loads of reasons that this particular raid can be causing people discomfort but from my two runs, I personally didn't see anything that I'd worry about as someone who has photosensitive seizures.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

It's like they learned absolutely nothing from Mt. Gulg, the other bright white instance that they had to change later because people were having issues.

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That's what I'm feeling from all this. The entire tier is such an eyestrain. You can have your bleak and monochrome environments without it being like this. Looking at the game in general, though, SE has such an aversion to color and color theory.

I have ALL effects off cept for those my character generates and had no issues whatsoever.

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Originally Posted by GenBroadaxe

There's a loads of reasons that this particular raid can be causing people discomfort but from my two runs, I personally didn't see anything that I'd worry about as someone who has photosensitive seizures.

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Our triggers are different, even when we fall under the same classification of disorder, so it's also good evidence why only a broad warning for photosensitive epilepsy is placed on games and is usually left at that.

Aside from the settings within FFXIV - your monitor should have separate settings you can toy with to see if it will help you in terms of color/brightness, etc. Other than that can screen distance play a role in this? As in would symptoms or episodes be more active the closer you sit to the screen? I know some people sit really close to the screen as if their face is glued to it. That would hurt my eyes and probably give me problems.

There are different triggers for everyone, so what is acceptable and doesn't cause migraines/seizures for one may do so for someone else.

Giving players the ability to reduce or remove these effects would help a lot.

I want to assure everyone in here offering advice how to combat things we've lived with our entire lives: We know how to manage our conditions in the vast majority of cases. The issue is the content. In 2021, there shouldn't be any reason to be releasing content that can trigger epilepsy or migraines or otherwise photosensitive people when a lot of the times the triggers should be obvious by now.

Forced overlays, strobing lights, intense bright lights and situations like the elevator (moving sideways and having to look at something moving sideways and you can't look away) are all common triggers that can make people sick. You can, to some degree, still include these things in your games as long as you give players a way to turn them off or negate them somehow, and that's not happening either.

I am epileptic and have had problems with the elevator sequence for sure. I also politely let my group know that that spot gives me troubles and I will likely mess up a lot because I cannot look at the bosses effectively to do mechanics, unfortunately.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

It's like they learned absolutely nothing from Mt. Gulg, the other bright white instance that they had to change later because people were having issues.

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I wonder if its because of Covid doing something to QA testing, it's not like it would be strange for Square to chop something as soon as it became inconvenient. But who knows.

Unfortunately I don't think this is going to get any traction at Square Enix, at least not unless something really drastic happens and the gaming press writes some splashy articles about it. CDPR needed to see a photosensitive journalist recount personal testimony about how Cyberpunk 2077 gave her significant medical problems to deal with, and I wouldn't expect anything less here.

Just really unfortunate and frankly I expected better from Square. But that's on me for having expectations.

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Originally Posted by Rise-chu

I wonder if its because of Covid doing something to QA testing, it's not like it would be strange for Square to chop something as soon as it became inconvenient. But who knows.

Unfortunately I don't think this is going to get any traction at Square Enix, at least not unless something really drastic happens and the gaming press writes some splashy articles about it. CDPR needed to see a photosensitive journalist recount personal testimony about how Cyberpunk 2077 gave her significant medical problems to deal with, and I wouldn't expect anything less here.

Just really unfortunate and frankly I expected better from Square. But that's on me for having expectations.

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I am just hoping we someday get blacklists to DF. I used to joke that I wanted it to keep CT out of my roulette forever (I actually got very upset that they made CT mandatory. My alt went for years without CT in her AR roulette.. what wonderful times.), but I really just have to eat the penalty for CF and Tower.

I have a friend who lets me put them on follow for Tower now while I glare bot for my weekly, but I'm really hoping EW comes out soon..

DF blacklists sound like a fantastic idea!! At this point we have so many instances that cutting out a small handful per player wouldn’t make a dent on wait times.

Terrible idea, would just make all high levels block out low level. Think less selfishly

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Originally Posted by Puc

Terrible idea, would just make all high levels block out low level. Think less selfishly

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You're thinking pretty selfishly here.

I for one would blacklist a small handful of duties, not everything low level, and there's a simple reason why: if I don't want to get low level duties, I don't run roulettes that include them; if my desire is to say, do only eden raids, I'll just queue up for the handful of them that I want to be dropped into at the time.

Sure, some people would abuse it, but people abuse everything in this game, and that's nothing new. Besides, knowing the devs, they'd put a comically low limit on the number of duties, probably like 10 of them. That's not even enough to rid oneself of all the leveling duties in ARR.

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Originally Posted by Arkevorkhat

You're thinking pretty selfishly here.

I for one would blacklist a small handful of duties, not everything low level, and there's a simple reason why: if I don't want to get low level duties, I don't run roulettes that include them; if my desire is to say, do only eden raids, I'll just queue up for the handful of them that I want to be dropped into at the time.

Sure, some people would abuse it, but people abuse everything in this game, and that's nothing new. Besides, knowing the devs, they'd put a comically low limit on the number of duties, probably like 10 of them. That's not even enough to rid oneself of all the leveling duties in ARR.

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What makes more sense is looking at the purpose of each roulette then seeing whether that feature could possibly be rolled out. That is fairer - you just admitted that some people would abuse that feature - that could possibly lead to some players not completed quests required for the MSQ or relic quests, etc.

Example:

Look at MSQ roulette- if the answer is "it was added to help newer players because no one wanted to queue for it after a certain point"

well then then - don't allow anyone to deselect it OR - alternate solution - consider changing it to a solo duty

Alliance roulette - >it was added to make it easier to form parties"

could possibly enforce that checks such as:
- are any alliances required for MSQ -- cannot disable
- are any alliances required to advance in relic quests (example)
Finally: or maximum number allowed to disable rule - > checks that person has not disabled more than "x" alliance raids out of "y" that are available

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Originally Posted by Puc

Terrible idea, would just make all high levels block out low level. Think less selfishly

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All the people who remove their gear to guarantee a LotA run would like a word with you <3

Maybe it's those people forcing CT to pop for the majority of people's AR roulettes are the real selfish people here?

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Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

That is fairer - you just admitted that some people would abuse that feature - that could possibly lead to some players not completed quests required for the MSQ or relic quests, etc.

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People already abuse the ilvl system. What would be fair is just give us a handful of available duties to lock. 2-3 would work.