Difficulty in latest story dungeons/trials due to hand disability.

[Endeleon]

So I am a huge FF fan. I love the story and the world created by it, and as such, even though I have some limitations that prevent me from being a truly great player, I want to experience the story int his game.

But lately, this is proving incredibly difficult for me as my hands get cramped up from trying to dodge all of the AOEs in the latest trials. It started with Shinryu, and has continued in a worse way with Castrum Fluminis. I did end up clearing Castrum, but I fully believe that I was carried and it was incredibly close anyway, and frustrating (and abusive, if I am honest) even though I was trying my best.


I am not under any delusion, I know that I can not do savage content. I know I can't do any of the difficult for difficult sake content. But why are the story trials continually getting harder? They are not meant to farmed or run repeatedly, the experience gained is completely useless(and these are 70s anyway...)
Why, for example, is a STORY trial more difficult than the new 24 man alliance raid? Castrum Savage, go ahead, make it eye bleedingly difficult for the people who love it, but you are just skill and able gating people out of the story at this point.

I just feel like they are making things difficult to cut out people with disability, or even people who just can't get there due to skill or enough time to train in their job.

I mostly stick to myself in this game, I do hunts, fates, crafting/gathering, etc. I don't even do duty roulettes because it is often too difficult for my hands. But I love the story and I want to experience it before I get spoiled. But this is proving more and more impossible for me to do, and I don't see a particular reason for it to be that way.

[Vidu]

While I'm sorry to hear about your troubles with the game, I cant share your sentiment about story content needing to be - excuse my language - "faceroll-easy". I know you're not asking for that out of laziness and you're self-aware enough of your own limits to decide what content you can actually do and what isnt in your range, but... a lot of people arent.
They go into all sorty of content without being aware of the need to improve - and they dont even want to. You're constantly encountering people who are getting away with subpar play (due to laziness/the lack of will to improve) because the content doesnt really require you to pay any attention. And thats not good - it sucks for people like you, but I'd actually say we need more difficult story-content so that people are actually "forced" to pay attention instead of watching netflix on the second screen and pressing 3 buttons because they can easly get away with it.

For the average player non of the content actually requires that much skill - again, I know that is for no fault of your own not the case with you, but at the end of the day they cant really balance the game around people with various disabilities :/ at least not without making it boring for the majority...

Storytrials shouldnt just be role-over content - they're supposed to be somewhat epic, mildly challenging fights. Whats the point of a building up a boss only to have it turn out to be a training-dummy in the end? That would be quite disappointing. Its not only Savage that needs intresting mechanics - even a NM should be able to make the player go "Wow, that was an intresting mechanic!" or give them some puzzle to solve.

Sorry, storycontent doesnt need to be easier. Not even considering people with disablity :/

But the community is actually nice for the most part! Honestly, I'd say your best bet is to stop sticking to yourself, find nice people, a good FC and make some friends - tell them about your issue and ask them for help. I know my FC and friends wouldnt mind helping someone in a situation like that!
We would however mind faceroll-easy, boring storycontent...

[Squintina]

I think doing those with friends/FC will at least make it more tolerable, if you're not already doing that.
You're listed as being on Faerie. If you ever want a chill run, no people being jerks, look me up: Squintina Nightgard. The FC I'm in is full of kind people of all skill levels.

The next thing I'm wondering is: mouse & keyboard or controller?

While I don't have a disability, I do have really bad circulation in my tiny hands (I wear kids gloves -.-, it's like my hands are still 12 years old. Good thing I'm short or it would look weird).
Because of those 2 things, playing on mouse & keyboard for games with a lot of skills is difficult.
Tiny hands = using Ctrl/Alt for using skills is difficult, which means more clicking for skills.
Too much clicking = fingers cramp up and go numb, and it's awkward to have to dodge when doing clicking at the same time.
The solution I first came up with was getting an MMO mouse. This was great for resolving the small hands part and the dodging-while-clicking part, but I would often still go numb.
As a person who likes difficult content (I do savage and the equivalent of those in other mmos I played in the past), this was just something to get through :/

Then I moved to controller. It was really difficult at first, but that's because I had never played an mmorpg of this type on a controller. Getting past years of playing on mouse & keyboard took a lot of practice. But once I got past it, I realized that controller is vastly superior - being more comfortable, easier to reach for dodging, and easier to access skills overall. Sure, targeting sucks (which is why for large scale pvp I go back to mmo mouse play), but overall it just feels so much better (especially since I started using a Switch Pro controller and not an x360 controller, as the x360 controller is not comfortable for small hands due to the amount of pressure needed on the triggers, whereas the switch pro has smaller triggers and a more curved shape for less cramping). I never go numb anymore, can last for hours longer, and my response time is so much better that I can even rank competitively in fflogs.

So I guess my point is: try using a different input method to see if it'll help.

[Sebazy]

Apologies in advance as this isn't going to be sugar coated or such.....

So yeah, I'm sorry but content that is effectively the gate of entry into the current endgame shouldn't be tuned to the lowest common denominator to cater for a very specific minorities needs when it's not even really any kind of an obstacle once you apply a little bit of initiative. Completely neutering regular trials even more than they already are (Even Shinryu was a piece of cake compared to TitanHM in early 2.0 IMHO) is just needlessly ruining the experience for the overwhelming masses for the sake of the few.

Don't get me wrong, I completely feel your plight, but at the end of the day, should tens of thousands of mainstream players be shovel fed a completely pointless and anticlimatic boss fight for the sake of your hands? This isn't about savage so don't even play that card here. This is about giving the player base as a whole a conclusion to the story that's more than 'press f to roll the credits '.

At the end of the day this is an MMO, it's easy enough to gather up some friends or even make a trap PF and simply get carried through the content if needs must. None of the regular mode primals have ever been a hard wall no matter how incapable a player is providing you've got the initiative to simply ask around. So for the rest of us out there, I can only suggest that you suck up some of that pride and carry on as you are. The advice above from Squintina is also solid and well worth considering.

Should I turn up to my local moorland cycling event and demand that they take the flat route because I'm old and my knees can't hack the climbs anymore? Absolutely not in my book. Some things are just not meant to be.

Rather than decrying the existence of boss content that offers some vague semblance of a challenge, consider being glad that you can simply enlist the help of other people to get the job done for you. You simply wouldn't have this option in a single player RPG.

[Azhra]

As a person who also has a physical disability that prevents me from playing many games, I can't say I agree in the MSQ content nor Story Trial content being difficult. I even found Tsukuyomi EX to be a pleasant, but not difficult, challenge. With the new patch the only thing I found difficult was the story for unlocking Ridorana.... and let's be honest, a good majority of players had a rough time there.

As a "disabled", and I use the term lightly, player... I for one enjoy the constant challenges presented to me by FFXIV. If they made it easy simply because the minority found it hard, this game would have died far too quickly. Do I wish that they'd make instanced quests party-wide? Yes. Because I love doing quests with friends, but hate having to go "herpderp sorry gotta leave for 5 min". Would be nice if they could treat party members the same way as chocobo's for instanced quests, but I digress.

Is the game too difficult for disabled players? No. Is End-game content too difficult for disabled players? No.

Like others have said, if one method of control doesn't work for you due to pain, perhaps try switching to the other as it might feel better for your hands.

I feel bad that your hands get cramped and causes pain, but I will not sit by and let people use disabilities as an excuse for getting easier content. I'm tired of my disability affecting how people treat me in real life, and so I come play these online games because people don't know I'm disabled and actually treat me like a person and not someone who constantly needs help. We don't need that following us into video games as well.

TL;DR - Don't use your disability as a crutch. You're giving other disabled gamers a bad name.

[Pastahnak]

I have arthritis in my knuckles so I can understand that hands hurting and all that. I wanna double down on what someone already stated and say plug in a controller, once you get the hang of it you'll have 0 issues doing any sort of content.

[Penthea]

Hello OP, I don't know many details about your disability but hopefully my own experience can help.

Due to similar reasons I have experienced difficulty playing the game in combat. I love the game and I didn't want to quit so I researched ergonomic pc accessories. Maybe you play on console, I don't know but as far as I'm aware keyboard and mouse also works with the ps4.

No doubt you have already spotted the very weird mouse in the image below. Despite its odd appearance, the design changed my gaming life. I went from being unable to do any combat to being able to do a few roulettes a day. There is a wired and wireless version, and it is very cheap (cost me about £10). If you search for "Anker ergonomic mouse" you'll find it pretty easily. I got mine on Amazon.

It has all the basic functions you would expect from a generic mouse as well as two extra buttons your thumb can easily reach, and a dpi toggle which is handy if you happen to play any games where that might matter.

I know you mentioned character movement is one of your issues, and I know that with keyboard and mouse you generally use the keyboard to move. However you can also press left and right click together to move your character and steer with the mouse. Most mmorpgs have this function. So if the hand on the keyboard cramps up, you can switch to using the other hand. Another tip is if you increase the sensitivity of your mouse you can greatly reduce the movement you need to do while using it.

Using the ergonomic mouse at first feels very strange. I recommend playing a simple game with heavy mouse movement like Solitaire or Bejeweled to get used to it before diving in to a more advanced game like FFXIV.

Good luck and I hope you will find a way to increase the quality of your gaming life.

[Paladinleeds]

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2018/05/...ve-controller/ - this might also be of interest to you. Sure you'll be paying a fair wedge of cash overall for it, but here's the start of an adaptive controller world. If you have Windows 10 it'll work on that too. This will hopefully allow you to get certain controllers going and find a control scheme that works for you. The reason Microsoft are doing this are to try and help enable disabled gamers to achieve their gaming potential.

[AppleJinx]

You can stop playing until SE introduces a stormblood skip potion for when 5.0 comes out.

[Kohdo]

I can sympathise with the disability impeding your enjoyment of the game, but this is just silly.

I just feel like they are making things difficult to cut out people with disability, or even people who just can't get there due to skill or enough time to train in their job.

MSQ content is very, very easy. Shinryu and Castrum Fluminis are the only two that stand out as slightly tricky as far as MSQ content goes, but it's still not hard by any means. If your party can't carry you through, they're genuinely bad, it's not your fault alone. As for SE "making things difficult to cut out people with disability", this is a hilariously narcissistic way to think. Nobody at SE goes to work each day and dreams up new ways to screw over the >1% of players with disabilities that render them unable to complete casual content. To put it plainly, you as an individual just aren't that important to them.

As for "players without enough time to train in their job", you really should know how to play your job by the time you get to Shinryu and Yomi, by that point you're at the current endgame. There's really no excuse there.

I mostly stick to myself in this game, I do hunts, fates, crafting/gathering, etc. I don't even do duty roulettes because it is often too difficult for my hands.

I don't know how you got to level 70 without doing any roulettes. Honestly, if dailies are too difficult for you, you might want to reconsider what you actually want from this game. The content delivered through roulettes is the easiest combat content the game has to offer. There's really no way to make it easier without making it so easy it becomes unenjoyable for the majority of people.

you are just skill and able gating people out of the story at this point.

No, they aren't. "Able gating" isn't a thing, and MSQ content doesn't require a lot of skill, just knowing your rotation and moving out of the orange circles. This is like claiming professional sports discriminates against amputees by requiring the use of hands and feet. You can't demand that the majority of people have their enjoyment of the game impeded to cater for less than 1% of the population. I really do sympathise with your situation, but you're acting incredibly entitled.

End-game story content is likely going to get more challenging going forward, since there has to be a difficulty curve as your level increases, even for MSQ stuff.