Regarding Dungeon Feedback: Don’t Listen to People Who Don’t Know How to Play

[Banggugyangu]

I can't believe what I'm even reading here. First you tell someone that their experience (and queue times) are "anecdotal" then from the same perdon "All the disabled people I know..." How many disabled people do you know...2? 3 tops? Have they confided in you their view of content difficulty ramp up in Dawntrail as it relates to their disability?

Furthermore, what do you even know about aging and it's impact on gaming? You speak of these things as though you actually have experience, but you don't...it's pretty gross actually.

Don't you have a post somewhere to argue for wheelchair ramps to be removed from buildings because all the disabled folks you know crave the challenge?

I'll speak on this. My best friend's oldest son is autistic. My best friend and I are extremely close. I'm far closer to him than I am my own brother, and my brother and I are also very close. I consider his kids my own. As such, I attend events for the disabled regularly and have worked with probably 2-300 different disabled people with a broad range of disabilities. There are two things that I have learned about the disable by-and-large through that experience: 1: Don't treat them like they're lesser or helpless. They want to be treated like normal people regardless of their disabilities. 2: Nothing makes them feel better than overcoming their disabilities and accomplishing something that they consider difficult. Obviously, like everything else, this is a generalization, and there are exceptions to all generalizations, but out of that 2-300 sample size that I've personally worked with, less than 1% weren't that way.

[Jaxtaro]

I appreciate you recognizing your limitations, unfortunately you still carry a "one size fits all" outlook, which completely contradicts itself and can best be described as a "lil bruddah" approach..the trope of the "I'm gonna be a quarterback".

I mean, I know for an absolute fact that you haven't engaged in conversation with 300 disabled folks about how they perceive their limitations unless your definition of "disabled" is unfortunately not born with the helpful 3rd eye", and even then I don't buy for a second that you would engage in that specific conversation with so many people that it would take a year and a half in work days to get to them all if you talked to a different person every single day.

You're projecting, there is no 99% uniformity in any trait among disabled folks, because they are completely diverse. Some need assistance, such as braille signs, others need wheelchair ramps, or closer parking spots, or riding carts at WalMart, or crutches, canes, sensory considerations, and the list goes on and on. They don't all play in make-believeland where they pretend to hav3me no limitations, or force those around them to pretend they aren't disabled.

[Banggugyangu]

I appreciate you recognizing your limitations, unfortunately you still carry a "one size fits all" outlook, which completely contradicts itself and can best be described as a "lil bruddah" approach..the trope of the "I'm gonna be a quarterback".

I mean, I know for an absolute fact that you haven't engaged in conversation with 300 disabled folks about how they perceive their limitations unless your definition of "disabled" is unfortunately not born with the helpful 3rd eye", and even then I don't buy for a second that you would engage in that specific conversation with so many people that it would take a year and a half in work days to get to them all if you talked to a different person every single day.

You're projecting, there is no 99% uniformity in any trait among disabled folks, because they are completely diverse. Some need assistance, such as braille signs, others need wheelchair ramps, or closer parking spots, or riding carts at WalMart, or crutches, canes, sensory considerations, and the list goes on and on. They don't all play in make-believeland where they pretend to hav3me no limitations, or force those around them to pretend they aren't disabled.

1: You don't need to engage in a specific conversation to infer how someone feels about something. You can make that inference based on their reactions from being faced with the circumstance itself. Surely you've seen someone do something, watched how they reacted, and determined how they feel about it.... right?..... If you haven't, I'd question whether or not you've even walked outside your home...

2: It's not a "one size fits all" thing.... it's a generalization.... Generalizations are important because you cannot make a rule based on exceptions. Rules need to be made based on the generalization. If your audience is generally English speaking, you shouldn't put the content out in Swahili, unless that's the niche you're targeting with that content. If your audience in a game is generally not disabled, designing the content around disabilities is a mistake. Now, having accommodations for disabilities is fine. What we're talking about, though, isn't accommodations for disabilities. What we're talking about is the point that someone brought up of designing the content around said disabilities.

[Jaxtaro]

One thing is clear, your dancing is unmatched...however using synonyms for projection and stereotyping doesn't make them less projection and stereotyping.

When you "infer" sonething about someone on such a high resolution set of topics, you're literally just projecting your low sample size vision on those folks.

Generalizing only works when the sample you are generalizing is relatively homogeneous, which is precisely the opposite of folks with the myriad of disabilities. Sorry, you can't stereotype a group of wildly different people and expect to have any level of accuracy, it's just...silly at best.

[Banggugyangu]

One thing is clear, your dancing is unmatched...however using synonyms for projection and stereotyping doesn't make them less projection and stereotyping.

When you "infer" sonething about someone on such a high resolution set of topics, you're literally just projecting your low sample size vision on those folks.

Generalizing only works when the sample you are generalizing is relatively homogeneous, which is precisely the opposite of folks with the myriad of disabilities. Sorry, you can't stereotype a group of wildly different people and expect to have any level of accuracy, it's just...silly at best.

Per your own logic, what I said applies EVEN MORE to the game, in that, by and large, the most homogenous sample of players of a game are going to be the non-disabled producing the largest general sample by which the game design should be centered. So again... you cannot design the game around disabilities, as doing so would cause the game design to suffer in regards to the non-disabled. Provide accommodations for disabilities that are outside of game design.

Now, I will be one of the first to admit that the game DEFINITELY needs better accessibility options, but difficulty is not, and should not be one of those options.

Now, there are some harmless design decisions that can be made which would accommodate some disabilities... for instance, P3 should be redesigned to use telegraphs with colors other than orange for obvious reasons... but that's not something that affects the difficulty in any way.

[Zakuyia]

Man i can't wait to see these dungeons get nerfed to become endwalker part 2 walking simulator cause ppl struggle with the basics of to look, learn, and remember (brownie points if you know who said that.) Also remember peaps. If your struggling to clear just look at guide. And remember these words thou must live die and know. Those words also help.

[Jaxtaro]

How on earth could you come up with homogeneity as a design principle out of "you're stereotyping people to force fit them into your head canon"?

Also, you absolutely can design content for "the slows". The idea that the population is too small to justify it is absurd when the population of folks who consume savage and ultimate raids is super small relative to the general population as well, yet that doesn't prevent content from being made for them, and the labor/testing requirements for the change from normal to savage, and especially ultimates is considerably more than tuning a few numbers downward. Also, I am not even advocated anything for normal raids anyhow, raiding should be more challenging than MSQ stuff, and AAC seems fine to me

[Banggugyangu]

Also, you absolutely can design content for "the slows". The idea that the population is too small to justify it is absurd when the population of folks who consume savage and ultimate raids is super small relative to the general population as well, yet that doesn't prevent content from being made for them, and the labor/testing requirements for the change from normal to savage, and especially ultimates is considerably more than tuning a few numbers downward.

Who exactly are you quoting with that? Because that seems extremely offensive in the way you said it....

Also, yes, it's obvious that the hardcore population is extremely small, but here's the thing that the hardcore content does that literally no other content can do: Create an immense amount of hype around the difficulty of the content. Content tailored to disabled players does not generate hype. Content tailored to casual players does not generate hype. Hype for FFXIV is generated from 3 things, primarily: 1, the narrative, and DT is arguably one of the weakest points in said narrative (coming from someone who relatively enjoyed it.), 2: the community generated content (things like the night club scene and other similar things), and 3: The race to world first on high end raids. There's quite literally nothing else that gets hyped up in this game, at all. Even solo leaderboards for deep dungeons don't get hyped up, and that's something that I think SHOULD get hyped up.

Hype draws an audience. There are players that will never do savage that start playing because they see a race to world first stream and get excited about all the hype around it. I'd be interested to see a poll of the entire playerbase of "Why did you first try FFXIV" to see the ratio of how many were drawn by the hardcore content vs how many were drawn by anything designed around disabilities.

[Jaxtaro]

You are right about hype justifying complex content, although it is mostly short term curiosity based interest, as does word of mouth justifiy content for "the slows". WoW didn't have the single most "cataclysmic" player exodus in MMO history because there wasn't enough hype over difficult content.

Incidentally, the term was specifically chosen to illustrate the dripping hostility, arrogance, and elitism that has plagued these forums surrounding this question. I am using it to mock those who predicate their value not on their capabilities, but on whether others can keep up or not.

[Banggugyangu]

You are right about hype justifying complex content, although it is mostly short term curiosity based interest, as does word of mouth justifiy content for "the slows". WoW didn't have the single most "cataclysmic" player exodus in MMO history because there wasn't enough hype over difficult content.

Incidentally, the term was specifically chosen to illustrate the dripping hostility, arrogance, and elitism that has plagued these forums surrounding this question. I am using it to mock those who predicate their value not on their capabilities, but on whether others can keep up or not.

Length of interest in said high end content doesn't matter when it draws the audience and brings interest into the game-proper. You made a statement trying to equate designing content around disabled with designing content for the hardcore due to their similar populations, and I'm saying it doesn't equate because players aren't joining the game based on disabled-centric content, but players ARE joining the game based on hardcore content, even if they're not playing that content themselves. My point was that your comparison was apples : oranges. Again, I'm all for accessibility features, and I'm perfectly fine with having casual content, but that casual content needs to have caveats:

1: ALL content, casual or otherwise should increase in difficulty as the game progresses. The overall increase doesn't need to be large, and for the most part, FFXIV does a pretty good job at this. The earliest content is easier than the latest content, with the exception of Endwalker. This isn't a gatekeeping thing, but rather just progressive content. Every RPG in history has implemented this in some form or fashion, and FFXIV is no different.

2: MSQ should be accessible with reasonable difficulty due the the narrative being the primary focus. Things outside of the MSQ should incorporate a higher level of difficulty with the exception of certain things such as Hildebrand. Again, FFXIV does a pretty good job at this already.

3: It should be mandatory to clear all casual content on Normal difficulty prior to being able to queue up for non-casual content.