PSA: Macro Sound Effects Harm People with Sensory Issues

[Kisagami]

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.

[Syrehn]

I mean, goodness gracious, you’re acting like I asked for butt sliders or something.

You should be! Butt sliders need to be a thing. XD

Seriously though, I support this thread 100%. Take all my likes! There should be an OPTION for a user to disable the macro sounds and some of the suggestions (listed on your first post) are very good. Hopefully the dev's are paying attention and we'll see some changes to this in the future.

[Vstarstruck]

First off no, just gave options and alternatives. Second get off your high horse and read carefully. In a perfect world yes everyone would hold hands and would put their online gaming experience on hold so that everyone can play perfectly, they would also listen to advice and stick to mechanics. The reality is that no, people want to get things done fast and expect others to take proper precautions beforeplaying a game that everyone knows is not MSE friendly. That time and time again has been brought up and little has been done. The few options and advice that has been given has had no acceptable results, based on the community forums standards who have this issue, everyone pays a subscription. While changes take time, probably will take longer do to the small percentage of world wide players being affected compared to the larger percentage that are not affected, people have choices. To expect everyone to be sympathetic about it and stop their world for those who need it would be nice. is it reality? No.

You are being pretty insulting, Billykaplan had a fitting reply to you. I do not need a discord chat, you do not know me how having sound on helps my general awareness of the dungeon. I do not want someone's annoying macro to be triggering me for no reason, and when I said harassment, I mean harassment. Sometimes people give me crap about it instead of just removing the noise like a lot of people do. You do not need calls in macros anyway. I want my sounds to go into important chats like hunt ls, fc, special ls, because it helps me know someone may need something while i am in the middle of something else.

Lastly, you can take your own advice, if you need macros during fights, or even worse macros with calls on them, then you can also not have them and be on voice in discord if you need that so badly. This game is not hard enough to warrant calls in macros.

Sound adjusting should be a thing, and there should be some adjustments to character sound. There is this one miqo'te voice that made me leave a DF once. I had a minor headache going in the DF and that character voice was just obnoxious so i left because it made my headache too much to bare.

If you do not want extra options for more people to enjoy the game, i find it very odd...

[Iscah]

Sound adjusting should be a thing, and there should be some adjustments to character sound. There is this one miqo'te voice that made me leave a DF once. I had a minor headache going in the DF and that character voice was just obnoxious so i left because it made my headache too much to bare.

There's a separate volume channel for voices already - muting it will silence all players during gameplay and also turn off voices in the cutscenes.

[uvuvwevwevweonyetenyevweugwemu]

They have an accessibility option called "Visual Alert", it shows you sounds in oscilliscope form around the screen edges.
It's something like that wave looking thingy they put in media players or your car radio when a song is playing.
Not sure if it applies to every sound or macro sounds. Is that something you're looking for?

[Texa]

They have an accessibility option called "Visual Alert"

That's intended for the hearing impaired. The op's sense of hearing is overstimulated by certain sounds that's like the opposite end of hearing difficulties. The only other way I know how to explain this very well is that suggesting visual alerts for over-stimulation is like telling someone who can't handle how bright the lighting in a room is to use a cane meant for the blind. Learning to use tools like that takes time and is asking them to give up on using a sense all-together if it's a problem versus allowing for adjustments to bring an overwhelming stimulation down to a tolerable level.

[uvuvwevwevweonyetenyevweugwemu]

The op's sense of hearing is overstimulated by certain sounds that's like the opposite end of hearing difficulties.

I see, I don't mean it like that. I do want something like this too because I play mostly at night and if the sound effects might bother people sleeping, I just toggle them on and off with an in-instance and out-instance macros. It's same one has been suggested with /systemsounds 0-100. But it is temporary, so even if SE provide a checkbox option for it we still have to open configuration and check it on and off everytime.

The problem for devs is optimization of most sound cards, they are only allowed opening x number of sounds going on and those already assigned to bgm, boss fx, player fx, ambient sounds, system sounds, chat sounds etc. Just bottom lining that volume for every individual sound effects maybe not doable because the slots are already used for many/other things. -But- it's doable if the sounds effects tied to the visual alert because macro effects have distinct spike on it. At the very least, when we turn off /systemsounds, it should still show some alerts for those moments we need to pay attention to something.

edit: Don't think of an accessibility option as a utility for the handicapped. Think of it as utility to perform better under non-ideal situation/condition. A cane also helps elderly walks, not just the blind.

[Niraye]

i'd love to mute certain macro sounds, the ping ping noise from tells i cannot stand and a lot of people use it in macros. i dont think it would honestly be that hard of a thing to put in a mute button for certain sounds, its not game breaking or game changing in the slightest. I have to stop what im doing and mute my setting when i get a tank or healer that has constant noise macros for everything, attack this target im pulling etc, it gives instant migraines and to have something where i dont have to always turn off system sound would be nice.

[Texa]

edit: Don't think of an accessibility option as a utility for the handicapped. Think of it as utility to perform better under non-ideal situation/condition. A cane also helps elderly walks, not just the blind.

Bro, you have no idea how a probing cane works compared to a support cane if you say something like that it is not built to bear full weight from an adult and aid in balance those two things are in no way interchangeable. Blind people who need both USE both.


Also I AM physically and cognitively handicapped. I will think of accessibility in all shapes and forms as I please as it's an issue I deal with every day of my life online and off. What can just be a minor annoyance for the abled can be a complete barrier from entry for the handicapped. Trying to water it down as a "utility" takes away from the fact that we need a certain amount of awareness for the deaf (visual alerts), colorblind (graphic design color theory classes that cover how to create palettes for them), autistic (sound and visual customization options), and the chronically in-pain people (controller options) to be able to access games at all. Sometimes things added for us can benefit everyone and that's fantastic! But it shouldn't have to in order to justify whether or not it's needed.

[Kazrah]

I fully support the fix for this problem.

Also, an in-chat report option for idiotic chat macros wouldn't hurt either. Not that hard to identify since it could be identified through things such as spotting sound effect cues in text, tracking timers of text inputs, or simply and proudly admitting that every chat macro is idiotic.