Can we talk about 3rd party tools and disability?

[Enjuden]

Like i said in an earlier post I dont mind things that benefit everyone, that would be something that anyone can use and it makes sense. (unless the devs made the floor colour the same on purpose which would be rarely the case.)

And i mentioned call outs because it is something the OP mentioned when they said they feel they need it because they cant focus on the entire encounter, hence my point that if you cant do what the encounter requires due to personal permanent inability you shouldnt be there and should absolutely not be asking to have the encounter's mechanics' trivialized because you feel you should be part of something you are not capable of doing.


You do realize we are talking about permanent inability correct?
Everyone needs some time to see and understand the mechanics, some need more time than others, but if someone is incapable of achieving this in a reasonable amount of time or even ever and demands training wheels, that is a very different case.

And I'm telling you that you didn't clear enough of the MSQ. You yourself cannot judge on these things if you haven't even finished MSQ, let alone trials, or Savage, where the difficulty floor is so notoriously low in XIV that people still complain Savage is still difficult because the game does not teach you, or does such a poor job teaching that these things are necessary.

Or going back to even Stormblood, the server ticks were bad enough that a mechanic was difficult, if not impossible to complete for certain players due to technical error (Exdeath Black Hole mechanic, as a light example.)

If you want to say callouts are bad, I guess you can't use voice chat while playing. Is this hyperbolic? Possibly, but people use voice for call outs, so therefore people who use voice chat do not deserve to clear content.

[Xirean]

Like i said in an earlier post I dont mind things that benefit everyone, that would be something that anyone can use and it makes sense. (unless the devs made the floor colour the same on purpose which would be rarely the case.)

And i mentioned call outs because it is something the OP mentioned when they said they feel they need it because they cant focus on the entire encounter, hence my point that if you cant do what the encounter requires due to personal permanent inability you shouldnt be there and should absolutely not be asking to have the encounter's mechanics' trivialized because you feel you should be part of something you are not capable of doing.

I think you are misunderstanding something here. If a game relies on telegraphs for the player to know what to do, that telegraph should be communicated clearly and probably also in multiple ways. Leviathon uses water spouts that have directional sounds alongside them. The contrast between the water spout and the background could be a little better but the point still stands that a visual and audio tell is present for said mechanic. Stack markers have used various indicators for quite some time and are now being homogenized into one consistent indicator with a visual and audible tell. I actually hear tells before I see them 90% of the time. A mechanic that relies entirely on sight I have a hard time knowing even exists. Even if it's big and obvious, it would be nice to have a sound to inform me to look in that direction, regardless of how subtle. Text displays is another factor that is a big problem for me personally. So mechanics that heavily rely on knowing what the boss is casting I find very annoying. The game has the information present, It would just be nice to also have it communicated in more ways more often. The change to make all tank busters use the red target arrow with attached sound effect is a very welcome change.

If the game relies on the player noticing all the tells then those tells need to be clear and unclear tells gives the impression of fake difficulty. Most mechanics I've encountered are not hard to understand, they are just hard to perceive. That's fake challenge imo.

[Liam_Harper]

Yeah I am sure people love working harder just so a few can play on easymode with training wheels. The people without such addons need to be more aware, more capable and more efficient compared to the person that relies on such addons and never truly learns because they depend on them like training wheels that never go off, so we got a person who works harder and a person who has their hand held permanently in the same group, this is extremely unbalanced.

If you are not capable of being aware of the encounter's mechanics why are you in that encounter? If you really want the reward you can always buy it from a boost or through an FC but dont pretend you are able to beat it on equal ground like everyone else.

Wait ...surely you aren't complaining that a slower or less dexterous person (due to disability) would be any sort of problem? You should relish the chance to carry the disabled player, as challenge would be your true desire. You should assist the disabled player, for your self worth does not depend on solving basic puzzles created to be beaten, aka as a video game.

Starting to sound a bit tryhard, possibly even toxic or Elitist there Ralph. It's only a game and all that.

[JanVanding]

yes, and I am sure that people with disabilities and visual impairments that are outside of the realm of their control just enjoy working twice as hard as other people because the development team just isn't adhering to the most trivial of accessibility issues. It is beyond insulting, and more so than those developing the encounter don't even create the equal footing ground that you just seem to love preaching.

Don't be deliberately ignorant and tone-deaf to the blatant issue that plague design in this game from even the most basic of accessibility standpoints. If they don't want people utilizing third-party software in this regard, or in any capacity then they ought to reflect on their own design surrounding these encounters.

The saddest part of all this is in SEs other titles, all these options exist already

It's like they have done an absolutely amazing job with their accessibility in VII remake, Stranger of Paradise, Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy, yet are just doing bare minimum "that'll do" here.

I love the game, love the dev team, but their accessibility stuff feels like they didn't even try.

[Doragan]

The saddest part of all this is in SEs other titles, all these options exist already

It's like they have done an absolutely amazing job with their accessibility in VII remake, Stranger of Paradise, Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy, yet are just doing bare minimum "that'll do" here.

I love the game, love the dev team, but their accessibility stuff feels like they didn't even try.

This. The industry have moved towards accessibility options for quite a few years now, and if Ubisoft can do it.. well, you know.

I thought about it, but they introduced small talk in the MSQ cutscenes, and these aren't subtitled at all. I wish they would do something about it.

[Lihtleita]

I think you are misunderstanding something here. If a game relies on telegraphs for the player to know what to do, that telegraph should be communicated clearly and probably also in multiple ways. Leviathon uses water spouts that have directional sounds alongside them.

throwback to when i had my earphones on the wrong way around and wiped the party on levi unreal
but seriously more audio cues would be fantastic in fights that require you to swing your camera around a lot

[Fiel_Tana]

Well I am not the one who made them disadvantaged nor the people around them caused them to be disadvantaged therefore we dont owe them anything, you cant expect others to put themselves in a disadvantage just so they feel on equal ground.

So basic things like buff bars that benefit everyone are absolutely fine but nobody should be getting advantages like addons announcing mechanics because you "cant focus on everything important"

If you cant be aware of what is happening during the encounter and need your hand held then you shouldnt be doing such content to begin with, you are just not built for such type of game.

Ironic comment considering your signature text:

"The tryhard elitist is the person who is going to finish their 5 pieces on this created to be beaten """"challenge"""" and then complaint that the baby, slower or less dexterous person are a problem which not only is toxic but indirectly implies that doing this basic created to be beaten task faster is an """achievement""" of """great skill""" which helps to falsely boost the elitist's self worth as that is their true motive, if challenge was truly their desire they would relish in the chance to do more than the rest.
The healthy person on the other hand will either let people finish their part or assist them for their self worth does not depend on solving basic puzzles created to be beaten, aka as a video game."

[SevenFisher]

Hello, I've been reading through the thread and I wanted to add my two pennies, I myself am deaf gamer, I can't hear at all so any audio cues and/or voice chat is not possible with me.

I'm progging through P4S, got to second phase and I don't use any addons nor mods but I wish I did for P3S -- I'm not colourblind but the colour scheme there wasn't very good. It messed my eyesight up a bit and I can't imagine how someone who has colourblindness or low sight manage to do that without additional help. I've tried the audio assistance thing in accessibility, it doesn't really work at all for me as it distracts me more than it should so I can't give proper opinion on that.

I actually was afraid to do savage content in the game and never did it until this expansion (I started back in 2.2, I think -- when Levi was added to the game, pre-Rogue/Ninja) and I was lucky to join two different static groups who had no issues with me being deaf - especially having seen so many "VC needed!" in pf/fc/recuitments.

Not many fights use audio cues exclusively so with patience and trial&error I was able to do most of fights, but there's so much I feel could help with accessibility. The buffs/debuffs was hard to check in middle of combat (more so with controller), some AoE markers are hard to see with the colour scheme and all that just makes it very frustrating to me and I think it could benefit the game as well the players if we have more accessibility options.

Sorry for poor English, not my native language (British Sign Language is) so hopefully that was readable enough.

[ManaEterna]

First of all, I would like to thank everyone who participated in this discussion so far!
I really appreciate that for the most part we have managed to keep this thread relevant and interesting!

There is however a few things that have been said that I would like to address:
I am not advocating for automatic audio callouts of mechanics like "Tank buster is next. Will happen in 5 seconds but boss starts casting in 3" or "Stack on A for stack marker than spread" or "go left for this colored beam." I would like to have more audio cues yes, but not in a way tells you what to do. For example, in innocence when the boss does the tank buster, he will also shout 天罰だ！ (tenbatsu da!) which means "devine judgement" (sorry I don't know the English for this). There are many instances where boss will write something in the chat and in some situation it is actually relevent to the mechanics (I'm thinking of UCoB for example) and I wonder why it cannot also be voice acted at the same time?

I would love to have more voice acting in savage fight, I think that it could help not only for accessibility but also for making the atmosphere of a boss fight more dynamic.

Incidentally, I am also not advocating that people with disabilities should have a special treatment that other peoples don't. I recognize that everyone in the game should be on equal footing. That is what I am advocating for: Equal footing. And because thst is what I am asking for, I am asking for better contrasts of mechanics or the ability to choose markers coloring for example. I've seen and heard so many people talk about Phoinix, and I think that is an amazing example of how beneficial it could be to change the color of aoe markers.

Also, I am not saying that I cannot pay attention to the mechanics, what I am saying is that it is difficult for me to pay attention to mechanics when I have look through useless information in my party frame to get the information that I actually need. For example, I don't need to see buffs in the party frame that don't concern me. I don't care whether a DPS has their single target dps buff if I'm playing a job that provides very little to party utility. But I need to see that debuff that needs to be removed in the next 2 seconds though.
Likewise I don't need to see that monk's MP bar, what I really need to see as a healer is their HP.

Finally, for anyone who is wondering, I am currently challenging TEA and I have seen up to limit cuts so far.
I don't need to use addons to clear content. That is not the purpose of this thread. Thank you for remembering this.

As a side note, I would love for people with disability to describe challenges that they have faced in the game and how they managed to overcome them. I think that not just people with disabilities but the community as a whole could benefit from this sharing of knowledge!
Together we can overcome anything! That is my belief.

Again thank you.

Mana

[Arua]

99% of the player base don't even have to worry about this and peoples will be able to continue to use their favorite plugin.
Seriously peoples making it's like a big deal but that concerns only streamer who were playing with fire and now start to realize it can burn them, even after Yoshi.P reminder the other day...