Letter from the Producer LIVE LXVIII: Ask Your Endwalker Questions!

[Aurelle_Deresnels]

Could you speak about your process on designing for accessibility? Fight design has been highly inconsistent on accessibility, to the frustration of disabled players.

Let's take an easily understood topic of visual clarity for examples.

Eden's Promise: Anamorphosis initially appears to be colorblind-friendly, with different particle effects and sounds to distinguish elemental attacks without color. Yet the Turn of the Heavens mechanic spawns elemental Haloes that are only distinguishable by color, leaving red-blue colorblind players unable to solve the mechanic on their own. (And the colorblind modes don't always help.) From a player perspective, it is unclear why one mechanic is accessible and another is not within the same fight.

We have also had severe lack of contrast in some fight designs, notably The Dead Ends, Asphodelos: The Third Circle, and Eden's Verse: Furor. Colorblind modes have little effect on contrast, and low contrast is not just a barrier to visually impaired players - it also affects motor impaired players who compensate for their impairment by processing mechanics cues faster. (Low contrast cues are significantly slower to process, as they must be done in central vision rather than peripheral vision and this forces extra eye movement.) Even for able-bodied players, these fights are "eyesores" in the literal sense, producing visual strain. Yet Mt. Gulg had adjusted telegraph colors to maintain contrast without compromising the lore fit of the location. The original Ifrit and Garuda fights have dark floors that contrast their light-colored mechanic animations. Could we not have gotten a burnt-black floor for Asphodelos: The Third Circle?

It is hard to believe that there is a consistent process for accessible design in place when many of these issues might be caught by visual concept review of each fight, before any models or animations are moved beyond the concept stage.

[Chopstix]

Can we get a glam storage system that allows us to acquire/store every single item in the game? Seems to me that glam is arguably the most important aspect of the game for very many, and this might just be one of the most desired features to date.

[Chopstix]

Can living dead be reworked pls? At best it is a buy time for your team for 10 secs, at worst, it is make your healers suffer to save u and most likely die anyway unless Bene is available.

[Chopstix]

Can fluff abilities that serve no real purpose be removed please? Largely from a tank perspective, merge orogeny into upheaval (like the splash dmg on expiacion), remove salted earth and maybe add some splash to carve and spit; remove bow shock and maybe add some splash to blasting zone. DRK and GBR are busy as hell already as is.

[Chopstix]

A stack system for DRK's blood weapon would be nice, right?

[Zarkovitch]

In love of numbers, can we have please all numbers in countdown. like 20,19,18,17,16,15 etc.

[Chopstix]

Are there any plans to put bloodfest on a 1 minute CD (and thus have it give 2 instead of 3 cartridges)? The rotation seems kind of off having to go into a 1 min burst phase with exactly 1 or 3 cartridges. Every couple of burst windows needs to be delayed by a GCD in order to not waste any resources. The current 1.5 min CD also does not align with the newly standardised 1-2 min burst meta in EW.

[derma_tek]

Are there any plans to rework DARK KNIGHT abilities? LIVING DEAD, BLOOD WEAPON, and THE BLACKEST NIGHT, specifically.

[Chopstix]

Are there any plans to put The Blackest Night on the standard 25 sec CD, remove the MP cost (and the proc on pop as well), and to merge the button fluff oblation into TBN at 82?

[gavlois1]

Are there any plans to rework White Mage to be on par with the other healers? I assume there were design decisions based on the fact that CNJ/WHM is the healer you get to play with at level 1 and thus should be kept simple, but it results in those who enjoy WHM being punished with less utility and damage than the other healers.