MSQ Difficulty and Exclusion

[Jojoya]

Look at at the reworked dungeons to be able to work with Trusts. Most of those bosses were extremely dumbed down. Copperbell mines is the big one that was changed almost completely in terms of boss mechanics for each fight.

I can't agree that they've all been dumbed down (maybe the second boss in Stone Vigil since you no longer have the cannons to worry about). Most are more difficult now you can't just stand still and tunnel a boss down even if they lack some of the creativity of the original encounters. I see people die or come close on the Copperbell boss fights where I had never seen that happen in the past.

If you're referring to the lack of creativity in the encounter design and not difficulty, that I have no problem agreeing with.

[Deveryn]

Gaius sure as hell wasn't dumbed down

[redheadturk]

Well, congratulations, you've just encountered one such person (me) and I know of others who are like me (not surprising since most of my other friends are also elderly). We are not as uncommon as you might think. Unless that is, you are going to start claiming that I am a liar. Do you need my damned medical records to prove my existence to you?

^this. I am 52, legally blind, and have severe coordination issues. I raid savage, but it takes me a while to learn the fights in such a way that I can react to the mechanics a few milliseconds before they go out. I have to react before they go out or I will get hit by them. Making MSQ content too much more difficult would frustrate me to the point that I would not want to keep trying.

[Supersnow845]

^this. I am 52, legally blind, and have severe coordination issues. I raid savage, but it takes me a while to learn the fights in such a way that I can react to the mechanics a few milliseconds before they go out. I have to react before they go out or I will get hit by them. Making MSQ content too much more difficult would frustrate me to the point that I would not want to keep trying.

Wait I’m confused I understand your condition but how can you both raid savage and almost be at limit with the MSQ difficulty, mechanics go out way slower in normal content than savage content, if you aren’t dodging with 2-3 seconds to spare in normal then you’d be getting hit by every mechanic in savage

[weebtext]

Wait I’m confused I understand your condition but how can you both raid savage and almost be at limit with the MSQ difficulty, mechanics go out way slower in normal content than savage content, if you aren’t dodging with 2-3 seconds to spare in normal then you’d be getting hit by every mechanic in savage

Not to mention that in savage a good chunk of aoes aren't telegraphed.

[redheadturk]

For instance, the 'starburst' telegraph that shows where her thorns will go; I can't offhand think of anywhere prior to Titania that those get used in normal content. (I may be forgetting one, though, I grant.) Similarly, things like sealing the puddles and then stacking in one of those puddles for the fire punch... while it's not unheard-of for normal content to have follow-on mechanics like that, I would say it is uncommon.

The Burn is the only other place I have ever seen that mechanic, and I hated it in that too.

[redheadturk]

Wait I’m confused I understand your condition but how can you both raid savage and almost be at limit with the MSQ difficulty, mechanics go out way slower in normal content than savage content, if you aren’t dodging with 2-3 seconds to spare in normal then you’d be getting hit by every mechanic in savage

A damn good shot caller, primarily. By the time I have been hit by the same mechanic a dozen or so times I learn the pattern so I can predict it going off in time to avoid it. That is also why I struggle with mechanics like Channeling where it's random though [especially when I'm in a crowd of people so reading the marker is rough for me.]

Also, it isn't so much that I am at the limit as that I don't want to deal with that level of frustration and the time it takes to learn and overcome that challenge in casual main story content and I shouldn't have to.

One more edit to add: The reason I will tolerate the frustration of dying to/wiping to mechanics time and time again in Savage is because Savage is supposed to be hard. It's supposed to be frustrating and you are supposed to fail again and again and again until it finally clicks. There is no feeling more satisfying than clearing a savage after your thirtieth wipe. But I don't want to go through that in MSQ.

[Midareyukki]

Yes yes, the mythical blind quadriplegic 150-year-old Maasai grandmother with a 5kbps internet connection for whom all MSQ content must be designed around.

I've never met a disabled person who plays this. Only people with "small" issues. But I can tell you I have colourblindness, and am unable to associate nouns to directions due to a type of motor-based dyslexia under any form of pressure (left\right, larboard\starboard, port\star, izquierda\derecha, rechts\links, 左\右). I'm not elderly, I just struggle with these things, to the point where I'm downright terrified of trying to get a driver's license. Because I know that the moment the instructor says "turn left", I'm going to either freeze or go the completely wrong way.

I know someone with actual dyscalculia. Her brain just refuses to work when maths of any kind is involved, including counting or recognizing numbers.

So when you give me an arena that's completely purple (E9S) or orange (P3S), I will struggle. And this game's colourblind shaders rarely ever help. In fact, the shader supposedly meant for me actually makes it worse. I can't tell shades apart either, so often I run to Marker C fully believing it to be Marker D until I take a closer look at the really, really ugly font the dev team chose.
Give me something with nouns as directions for incoming attacks (O11S), I will struggle. And no, changing the terms won't matter, because my brain just refuses to acknowledge directions have names.
Hell, simply giving me something that's direction-based or messes with spatial awareness and I WILL struggle (Zodiark EX, E10S's shadows).

But I managed to find ways around it. For colourblindness, either I do the fight and wing it if I can't anchor myself to any "tell". Or I rely on patterns if there are any.
I pre-emptively spend minutes on end memorizing directions beforehand so I don't screw up when the mechanic happens. O11 is exhausting because I feel like I need to memorize four directions and not just two, because the boss turns around and it flips... but I do it.
I also had to memorize and do a lot of mental gymnastics just to figure out the rotation part of Zodiark. And my static had to use clock positions to help me resolve the shadows in E10S.

The girl I mentioned? She can't handle numbers, but she does recognize shapes, so I made this for her. It's not glamorous, but you know what? It worked, and she cleared TEA with it. It actually helped her with Limit Cut.

The point is... yeah, people with disabilities, or just issues in general, exist. And it's not often that the game is helpful. Some fights are easier if you find a trick around them, others aren't. Even on easier content like MSQ instances, people may feel disoriented until they learn their personal trick. From the outside it looks no different than learning the fight, but from the inside, it feels like it's one extra step people have to take over everyone else to do what everyone else says is normal.

I'm not asking for content to be designed around me and me alone, but it does get in the way a lot when content specifically happens to hit that one part that I can't handle without some form of a crutch.

And the people who ask for there to be a bit more awareness would definitely appreciate it, and likely aren't the sort of players to be lazy and not try to clear content. They work harder, even on "easier" content because stuff messes with them, be it perception, logic, awareness... More so than it would a normal person. I've seen people who actually are lazy and refuse to adjust and waste 7 peoples' time. I had such a person on an old static, and let me tell you, it did not last long. No one was happy. And knowing that I worked hard to deal with this and make sure the fights could go as smoothly as they could, even if I needed to be told where to go by someone else, to then see someone not even bothering really stung. It's not an experience I take lightly anymore.

[redheadturk]

snip

Oh God, nothing worse than the more common form of colorblindness where if it's two shades of the same color you can't tell them apart. [P3 is utter hell for me because of the arena design, and Peacekeeper isn't much better because translucent burgundy markers on a gray floor. >>] So yeah, I get ya.

[VelKallor]

The point is... yeah, people with disabilities, or just issues in general, exist.

Ablegamers.

One of their people, and Ive seen footage, is a kid using a controller who had NO HANDS AT ALL.