PSA: Macro Sound Effects Harm People with Sensory Issues

[Kisagami]

Full Disclosure: I am a disabled adult with PTSD, Anxiety, and Depression. I am also suspected of having Asperger's Syndrome, which is high-functioning on the Autistic Spectrum. I have experienced this first hand. I have also been harassed because I have dared to bring attention to this within the game.

If you have sensory issues, high pitched and attention seeking sounds such as the macro sound effects can cause panic, headaches, migraines, and emotional outbursts. I have many of my sounds turned down to less than 10%. I love Final Fantasy's music, voice acting, and many aspects of the game. But the macro sound effects, though a useful tool for some, are making me consider quitting the game. Because when I get a migraine, it comes with the full pain: aura, nausea, severe pain in on one side of brain, panic, and overall an inability to properly function, much less play and enjoy a game. Macro Sound effects are the only sounds in this game I hate and despise.

You may ask, well why not ask them not to use the sound effect? Well people put them into their skill macros for raise, healing, protect, and other sort of necessary skills. It literally cannot be avoided, and once people are in a dungeon, despite knowing they are causing someone intense pain, they'd rather not take 5 seconds to edit their macro and remove the sound effect. Or, because people are rude and think it is fun to troll people with sensory issues, will spam it even more just because I dared to even ask them not to use them.

Square Enix, I implore you to allow a check box to eliminate macro sound effects. You have given special attention to those with color blindness and edited some of the new huds specially for them. Please, as a request from someone who otherwise adores your game and has spent a ton supporting this game, either remove macro sound effects entirely, or give us an OPTION CHECK BOX to remove them. I have even muted the tell sound effect.

If you do not understand why this is major, here is a video explaining what Autism is like and what people with sensory issues may suffer on a day to day basis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M20DIK1Yt3A Full warning: DO NOT WATCH THIS IF YOU YOURSELF HAVE SENSORY ISSUES

Another Good Idea:

i don't think checkbox will be a good option since people can easily abuse it and it defies the sole purpose of the sound effects itself. instead, an independent volume bar for macro sound effect would be nicer. i know it's not that different from the checkbox, but at least it doesn't completely mute the sounds.

This is entirely fair as long as I turn it down to 0% volume.

Another Good Idea 2:

I wonder if just adding a command to the already existent /systemsounds where you can specify the sound effect numbers would be ideal. That way, players with sensory issues can mute just the ones that have an affect on them. Might be harder on the devs(or easier, I really don't know anything about being a developer), but could be something they can look into.

THIS I could deal with. Just a script command to eliminate sounds from certain numbers would be amazing - I enjoy the bongo effect since it isn't high pitched. It doesn't bother me like others.

It's just be swell if they had their own separate volume control, outside from the rest of the system sounds, so I could still hear a Divebomb warning from the game and not have to deal with some rando's "DIVEBOMBS ARE COMING (BOOM BOOM) (BOOM BOOM) alarm alarm alarm" macro when I wasn't expecting it.

THIS. Is this so hard to understand? This suggestion even benefits those who like macro sound effects.

[BillyKaplan]

They wouldn't remove them outright, but I certainly wish they'd put that as an option in already. This isn't the first thread on the matter, this issue pops up every once in a while. And this will benefit the broader population as well, as more than once I had to mute the game in its entirety because someone came in with a sound-effect-spamming macro and we couldn't kick them out of instance yet.

[ilea]

I agree that you should definitely have the option to disable these sounds. But -- hopefully conveying myself in a way that's respectful -- I think the onus is on you to take care of yourself.


Sound macros are used for calling attention in a high-stress raid environment. My co-healer can't read chat? Okay. But he *can* listen for my sound macro, which he recognises as my Raise. With PUGs, this can be used to bring attention back to the chat at a critical moment: i.e., "I just used Living Dead, oh god, heal me."

It sucks that people have harassed you over your requests, but always know you can blacklist and report these people. You can also mute your game and let your party know why you had to mute, or excuse yourself for however long you need to recover.


I'll try to be aware of this, but unless I'm asked, I'm not going to edit my one sound effect macros for important info, like Living Dead or raises. I find I have a lot more success in using them than not.

[Cheremia]

Making a checkbox for macross only does sound like a good idea.
The only sound I have is for Alliances in raids. If everybody from other alliances keep dying and i need to hard raise them. But seeing as people still steal the raise and waste mp while i'm literally 2 seconds form raising that person anyways makes me wonder if its worth it. (I mostly go heal with a friend, we have a sytem for raising, we no need no macros)

And to the mobbing part: theres a LOT of people, especially dps(guilty of it sometimes to an extend, busy staring at muh bard proccs), that NEVER look at their chat. I had a co-Bard in expert that didn't dot the first boss because he thought my dots where his. I told him. He only dotted the boss AFTER dying once and seeing the chat while dead.
Of course, not speaaking for every instance here, but blocking those people who legit want to hurt you sounds like the first thing to do.

Sadly, making the text pop up on screen like a short popup probably will not help macros people, nor would coloring the text because you can do that either way already. So getting attention with colors doesn't work...

So yes, checkbox for this please, even if i don't have this problem.

[Sekkei]

Oh dear. I never had headaches or anything like that with sounds. I do have all that you have along with Asperger's and sounds can freak me out, trigger, or outright scare me, but depending on what it is, I can ignore it if my brain catches up first to locate and analyze the source. Electronic media has never done that to me, though I do stay far away from jump scare and apocalyptic crap like zombies and stuff that do that. I only have one sound macro and that's for when I have to use Living Dead and that's just to alert the healer in case they don't notice and it only has the really short and not loud se.3 being used once in it. I wish you luck on trying to get an option for this.

[Nightroad]

I agree , an option to disable that sound or any sound for that matter while leaving others in place , should be there.
Or even a slider option to adjust the levels of that sound .

[Kisagami]

I may ask Reddit if there is a way to change the sound effects myself. I can scream my head off at my friends, which it was a friend that triggered this latest headache, but at this point I feel like in order to enjoy a game I pay for I need to somehow eliminate the sounds on my end. I have put in requests with Square Enix and made comments, but I feel like even though others have requested this, Square Enix will not actually do this because of people's "but people don't read chat" comments. I understand WHY people use them, but if I could just have the simple check box to eliminate them on my end - without muting the whole client - everyone could still have these to use.

But seriously I cannot handle the sound effects... they're so high pitched and awful, but certain sound effects such as the dungeon commence ones are not irritating, and can be necessary if you're in a long queue and looked away for a while. Macro sound effects needs its own toggle box.

[BillyKaplan]

Macro sound effects needs its own toggle box.

Especially because they can so easily be abused and you can't block someone while still in the instance with them, iirc

[Cheremia]

I hope you didn't take what i wrote with the chat the wrong way tho.
Because I will never say that its an excuse for this. Just one reason, because it does happen, but for ME, it only happens when i have alot to dodge, a lot of button to hits and am in a fight. Theres no reason to not see the chat while just running.
But people ALSO do not read the chat WITH macros sometimes so theres that anyways... Probably have that muted or something.

And SE should not take the "but people just don't see" as an excuse. Ever.

[Kisagami]

I hope you didn't take what i wrote with the chat the wrong way tho.
Because I will never say that its an excuse for this. Just one reason, because it does happen, but for ME, it only happens when i have alot to dodge, a lot of button to hits and am in a fight. Theres no reason to not see the chat while just running.
But people ALSO do not read the chat WITH macros sometimes so theres that anyways... Probably have that muted or something.

And SE should not take the "but people just don't see" as an excuse. Ever.

Oh I am not saying you did, but I am full aware of the reasons people use them, but at the same time, they are causing me physical pain in the form of inducing migraines, and thus I need to find a solution or retire myself from my game.