Arachnophobia mode

spartaxoxo

No. Arachnophobia modes should work to accommodate people with arachnophobia. If some enables it and then forgets, they can just turn it off.

spartaxoxo

SkaiFaith wrote: »

I just joked but talking seriously: I'm not against more accessibility features. But as someone stated well before if you work to solve this particular issue which doesn't seem to be "huge", there would be a neverending cascade of requests for snakes and whatsoever, each one requiring time and money to achieve, resources that could be spent elsewhere.

Slippery slope fallacy. Other games have arachnophobia accomodations and this did not happen.

SkaiFaith wrote: »

There's no intended offense or disrespect in this. [snip]

I have never gotten mad at players for having requests, even ones I deemed "unworthy" because of an issue with the devs. I blame the devs for those issues. Players aren't the ones making the game. In addition, I disagree that accessibility for medical conditions is unworthy.

[edited to remove quote]

Jaimeh

Even though I really don't like spiders (and in the game I don't enjoy they screeching sound they sometimes make) I wouldn't like something like this implemented unless it was an optional toggle (and unless it didn't mess up the game's coding), because otherwise it would be immersion breaking. Also, there's a lot of things objectionable in the game and there's even more established phobias, given all that, it would be difficult to draw the line somewhere.

JemadarofCaerSalis

Erickson9610 wrote: »

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

ArkadiaReaper wrote: »

This seems like a really nice quality of life thing, and I for one would use it. Even if it was just turning them all into clockwork versions, that's somehow way less ick! A client side toggle or even addon just to make my "chill" game a little more relaxing.

If the spiders were replaced with clockwork versions, eventually there'd be people wondering why the fake clockwork spiders don't count towards the "Defeat x Clockwork Foes" endeavor.

Which could easily be explained by 'you have arachnophobia mode on, many of those spiders weren't actually clockwork', since this would, again, be optional for people and something they would have to turn on. It wouldn't be on by default.

What happens when someone enables the setting, leaves the game for a year or two, then comes back, confused as to why the spiders look different, because they forgot that they had enabled the feature that long ago? For all they know, this could just be how the game looks now. It is very easy to dismiss in-game prompts that would explain what's happening without reading or understanding them.

If there's going to be a model swap or the like, it should still be obvious what they are meant to be (for the purposes of Endeavors, quests, world building, and so on) while not causing any confusion for new or returning players. As it is right now, there's no room for confusion (those spiders are indeed spiders, not Clockwork creatures or otherwise) so any arachnophobia features should also leave no room for confusion.

Then people ask if they have 'arachnophobia mode' on if they ask on the forums, or they just roll with it if they don't want to ask on the forums.

I play another game with settings, and we see people returning every so often and they will ask 'its been so long, how do I do X?'.

what do the other people do that play that game? They simply answer the questions.

As an example, there is a feature to 'hunt' and you need to have fed your pets to a certain degree to get them to show up, if you have that setting enabled. It is quite easy to simply ask 'have you checked to see if you have 'do not hunt if under 34 hunger' enabled?'.

We don't even need in game prompts. If someone is bothered by their spiders being clockwork, or whatever model is chosen, then they can ask in chat, or on the forums, or go searching google to find the answer.

Also, an arachnophobia feature is not going to cause confusion with new players. Because they will have to enable it, which means they will have been digging around in the settings in order to do so. If causing a momentary confusion is too great of a risk for returning players, just have it so after X months of inactivity, the setting is reset, so that when they return, arachnophobia mode is off.

As for the thing about endeavors, I can understand that, but, once again, this is something that people will choose to enable themselves. It isn't going to be forced on them, so hopefully they will be smart enough to realize that 'hey I changed all the spiders to wolves, so all those endeavors to 'kill spider enemies' isn't going up because I am killing actual wolves, not spiders. Maybe I should go to a place where spiders are known to hang out and just start killing wolves?' The opposite is true as well, if it is about killing whatever they chose to change the model to and they aren't getting credit, hopefully they will be able to realize (or be told after asking) that they aren't getting credit because they aren't killing the right enemy, and they should try someplace where that enemy is known to appear (and whatever they didn't want to see doesn't).

Or, as a solution, they could be told to swap the model for a different model until the endeavor is done, then swap back. IE, if I swap spiders for wolves, and there is an endeavor to kill wolves, I can swap the spiders for rats, or mudcrabs or some other type of enemy that *isn't* covered by the endeavor. ONce the endeavor is done, I just simply swap them back so I am now seeing wolves in place of spiders again.

SkaiFaith

spartaxoxo wrote: »

SkaiFaith wrote: »

My experience while playing ESO would be exactly the same if an arachnophobic player would see a crab wherever I'd see a spider, while that player would be able to enjoy the game more. So that would be a win in my book..?

Slippery slope fallacy. Other games have arachnophobia accomodations and this did not happen.

SkaiFaith wrote: »

There's no intended offense or disrespect in this. [snip]

I have never gotten mad at players for having requests, even ones I deemed "unworthy" because of an issue with the devs. I blame the devs for those issues. Players aren't the ones making the game. In addition, I disagree that accessibility for medical conditions is unworthy.

Sorry @spartaxoxo the first part you quoted me actually were not my words - I got my answer double posted and the second time it was a mess. I deleted and left the first, right one.

[edited to remove quote]

spartaxoxo

Jaimeh wrote: »

Even though I really don't like spiders (and in the game I don't enjoy they screeching sound they sometimes make) I wouldn't like something like this implemented unless it was an optional toggle (and unless it didn't mess up the game's coding), because otherwise it would be immersion breaking. Also, there's a lot of things objectionable in the game and there's even more established phobias, given all that, it would be difficult to draw the line somewhere.

The request is for an optional toggle.

The way arachnophobia modes work in most games is there's a toggle you can use and then, for your screen only, the model of the spider is replaced by something else. A good example is the fuzzy ball used in the game Webbed. World of Warcraft replaced the spiders with crabs.

spartaxoxo

SkaiFaith wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

SkaiFaith wrote: »

My experience while playing ESO would be exactly the same if an arachnophobic player would see a crab wherever I'd see a spider, while that player would be able to enjoy the game more. So that would be a win in my book..?

Slippery slope fallacy. Other games have arachnophobia accomodations and this did not happen.

SkaiFaith wrote: »

There's no intended offense or disrespect in this. [snip]

I have never gotten mad at players for having requests, even ones I deemed "unworthy" because of an issue with the devs. I blame the devs for those issues. Players aren't the ones making the game. In addition, I disagree that accessibility for medical conditions is unworthy.

Sorry @spartaxoxo the first part you quoted me actually were not my words - I got my answer double posted and the second time it was a mess. I deleted and left the first, right one.

Ah okay, I'll fix that. Sorry about that.
[edited to remove quote]

Jaimeh

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Jaimeh wrote: »

Even though I really don't like spiders (and in the game I don't enjoy they screeching sound they sometimes make) I wouldn't like something like this implemented unless it was an optional toggle (and unless it didn't mess up the game's coding), because otherwise it would be immersion breaking. Also, there's a lot of things objectionable in the game and there's even more established phobias, given all that, it would be difficult to draw the line somewhere.

The request is for an optional toggle.

The way arachnophobia modes work in most games is there's a toggle you can use and then, for your screen only, the model of the spider is replaced by something else. A good example is the fuzzy ball used in the game Webbed. World of Warcraft replaced the spiders with crabs.

A toggle would be fine in that case, they can even make it active with an in game tool, that you use like a spell, to sort of bypass lore issues (Mepaha's Bane for instance).

SkaiFaith

spartaxoxo wrote: »

SkaiFaith wrote: »

My experience while playing ESO would be exactly the same if an arachnophobic player would see a crab wherever I'd see a spider, while that player would be able to enjoy the game more. So that would be a win in my book..?

Slippery slope fallacy. Other games have arachnophobia accomodations and this did not happen.

SkaiFaith wrote: »

There's no intended offense or disrespect in this. [snip]

I have never gotten mad at players for having requests, even ones I deemed "unworthy" because of an issue with the devs. I blame the devs for those issues. Players aren't the ones making the game. In addition, I disagree that accessibility for medical conditions is unworthy.

About your last phrase: I agree that in general accessibility for medical conditions is worthy, but "it's unworthy" compared to make the game properly work first, which now for many is not.
Also I guess priority depends by the kind and extent of accessibility issue: I know people who can't stare at an argonian face because they have the phobia of reptiles... That would be kinda huge to address, if we go in that direction.

[edited to remove quote]

spartaxoxo

Jaimeh wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Jaimeh wrote: »

Even though I really don't like spiders (and in the game I don't enjoy they screeching sound they sometimes make) I wouldn't like something like this implemented unless it was an optional toggle (and unless it didn't mess up the game's coding), because otherwise it would be immersion breaking. Also, there's a lot of things objectionable in the game and there's even more established phobias, given all that, it would be difficult to draw the line somewhere.

The request is for an optional toggle.

The way arachnophobia modes work in most games is there's a toggle you can use and then, for your screen only, the model of the spider is replaced by something else. A good example is the fuzzy ball used in the game Webbed. World of Warcraft replaced the spiders with crabs.

A toggle would be fine in that case, they can even make it active with an in game tool, that you use like a spell, to sort of bypass lore issues (Mepaha's Bane for instance).

That would be a fun way to do it.

spartaxoxo

SkaiFaith wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

SkaiFaith wrote: »

My experience while playing ESO would be exactly the same if an arachnophobic player would see a crab wherever I'd see a spider, while that player would be able to enjoy the game more. So that would be a win in my book..?

Slippery slope fallacy. Other games have arachnophobia accomodations and this did not happen.

SkaiFaith wrote: »

There's no intended offense or disrespect in this. [snip]

I have never gotten mad at players for having requests, even ones I deemed "unworthy" because of an issue with the devs. I blame the devs for those issues. Players aren't the ones making the game. In addition, I disagree that accessibility for medical conditions is unworthy.

About your last phrase: I agree that in general accessibility for medical conditions is worthy, but "it's unworthy" compared to make the game properly work first, which now for many is not.
Also I guess priority depends by the kind and extent of accessibility issue: I know people who can't stare at an argonian face because they have the phobia of reptiles... That would be kinda huge to address, if we go in that direction.

Ideally, they'd be working on bug fixing, accessibility options, and new features. Typically different teams. Most other games on the market can do all those things. I want the game to do well like other games. I think we as players should want them to do all of those things, personally. If some indie devs with one guy can do it, Zenimax can. It's just if they want to or not.

[edited to remove quote]

whitecrow

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Exposure therapy does not work by just randomly seeing the phobia in uncontrolled environments. That's not exposure therapy.

Actually, it does. My arachnophobia has gotten much weaker over the years simply due to having them pop up in my house and having to deal with them. They certainly aren't scripted.

JemadarofCaerSalis

whitecrow wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Exposure therapy does not work by just randomly seeing the phobia in uncontrolled environments. That's not exposure therapy.

Actually, it does. My arachnophobia has gotten much weaker over the years simply due to having them pop up in my house and having to deal with them. They certainly aren't scripted.

Mine has too, but it has taken over 40 years. It still isn't gone, nor am I okay with spiders. I can just remove them if needed. I still jump, I still hate seeing them, I still would far prefer someone else deal with it.

However, that still isn't 'exposure therapy' that is just exposure. It can happen for people that way. However, that doesn't mean it works for everyone, and that everyone should be forced to deal with it (or just not play) games they want to play for fun and to relax.

Not everything has to be 'for a person's betterment', sometimes people can just want to forget about real world issues (which can include phobias) and have fun.

Syldras

I'm wondering how much of the dispute is based on cultural differences, as different cultures (and I'd even say subcultures, generations, maybe even genders) tackle fear (and individual problems in general) differently.

There are some societies that focus very much on consideration and catering to individual problems, leaving no one out, even if it's at the cost of others sometimes.

And there are other cultures where one doesn't highlight one's weaknesses because it's considered a private problem, and expecting from other people to take care of that is considered rude, as if you're bothering and restricting them with something they're not responsible for.

Children are also raised differently:

In some families it might be normal that a kid screams for their father to remove a spider from their room and he immediately obliges.

Others would say no as a matter of principle, no matter how much the child complains, because the child is supposed to learn to take care of it themselves - and realize that there's nothing dangerous or scary about spiders.

(And then, there's of course families who use every short trip into nature, or even just walk in the park, as an opportunity to show their kids all kinds of animals, including spiders and insects - that's how I grew up. If one's mother lifts a spider up with her hand to show it, or one's father calls one to look at a harmless snake in the grass, one perceives it as normal, just some part of nature, nothing to be afraid of).

And then, there are individual differences.

I've already written that I had a problem with seeing (bigger amounts of) blood (or fluids that looked close to blood) after a severe accident. A red puddle of mushed cherries that someone dropped on a supermarket floor would make me jump because at first glance my brain would perceive it as a pool of blood. I confronted myself with it, first I read about blood-related things, then I looked at pictures of other red fluids, then at fictive depictions of blood (in art, in games), then at pictures of real blood (there's enough medical pictures online). It took me some shivering, sweating and nausea, but after about half a year I was fine.

I also was getting dizzy and queasy from heights once. I had no clue where it came from, but I found it silly, so I decided to do something against it. And as I'm a bit of a "all or nothing" person, I went climbing. It was horribly uncomfortable the first times, every day I did it meant overcoming the feeling of fear. Maybe it's comparable to a bungee jump, one might be horribly afraid, but then just does it anyway - and after a few times it's routine, there's no fear anymore, only enjoyment. That's how it was for me with climbing, at least, it became a regular hobby I enjoyed very much.

I'm like that. If I was, say, afraid of dogs, I'd rather have someone put me into a small room with a big non-aggressive dog, even if I would be dizzy from fear and shivering like crazy, after a while I'd realize that nothing bad happens, and I'd calm down. Then again, I'm generally a calm person, generally rather resilient, and it is easy for me to rationalize situations.

I don't at all say that this works for everyone. Maybe it even works for almost no one, I have no clue. I'm just saying that people very are different when it comes to these things and that it might be difficult for some to understand how things might be much harder (or, the opposite, much easier) for other people. That might be the reason for posts here that say "Get a grip, it's just a spider, it's nothing serious!", etc.

That said, I still have nothing against an arachnophobia mode. Yes, it takes development time. But ESO caters to many different people, and ZOS works on things I don't care for all the time (like the card game, for example). If something helps people, I'm fine with it, even if I personally don't need it.

spartaxoxo

whitecrow wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Exposure therapy does not work by just randomly seeing the phobia in uncontrolled environments. That's not exposure therapy.

Actually, it does. My arachnophobia has gotten much weaker over the years simply due to having them pop up in my house and having to deal with them. They certainly aren't scripted.

That's great for you. That's not what exposure therapy is though. Exposure therapy is controlled environments with trained professionals. It's consent-based. And it's gradual. Random exposure is not exposure therapy.

Like other illnesses, there are also different degrees. Some people get better from the flu without doing anything different. Some get better with bed rest or other forms of self-care. Some require hospitalization. Every year, some die from it. We can all easily understand that the flu will vary in severity. But, for some reason, society hasn't reached the point where the same is true of phobias and other mental health conditions.

That some people can treat themselves at home or get better on its own, in no way invalidates that others require help from a medical professional. And nobody chooses which camp they fall in.

ZOS_Hadeostry

Greetings,

After removing some unnecessary back and forth from this thread, we would like everyone to keep posts on the subject at hand, civil, and constructive.

If there may be any questions in regards to the rules, please feel free to review them here.

Erickson9610

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

ArkadiaReaper wrote: »

This seems like a really nice quality of life thing, and I for one would use it. Even if it was just turning them all into clockwork versions, that's somehow way less ick! A client side toggle or even addon just to make my "chill" game a little more relaxing.

If the spiders were replaced with clockwork versions, eventually there'd be people wondering why the fake clockwork spiders don't count towards the "Defeat x Clockwork Foes" endeavor.

Which could easily be explained by 'you have arachnophobia mode on, many of those spiders weren't actually clockwork', since this would, again, be optional for people and something they would have to turn on. It wouldn't be on by default.

What happens when someone enables the setting, leaves the game for a year or two, then comes back, confused as to why the spiders look different, because they forgot that they had enabled the feature that long ago? For all they know, this could just be how the game looks now. It is very easy to dismiss in-game prompts that would explain what's happening without reading or understanding them.

If there's going to be a model swap or the like, it should still be obvious what they are meant to be (for the purposes of Endeavors, quests, world building, and so on) while not causing any confusion for new or returning players. As it is right now, there's no room for confusion (those spiders are indeed spiders, not Clockwork creatures or otherwise) so any arachnophobia features should also leave no room for confusion.

Then people ask if they have 'arachnophobia mode' on if they ask on the forums, or they just roll with it if they don't want to ask on the forums.

I play another game with settings, and we see people returning every so often and they will ask 'its been so long, how do I do X?'.

what do the other people do that play that game? They simply answer the questions.

As an example, there is a feature to 'hunt' and you need to have fed your pets to a certain degree to get them to show up, if you have that setting enabled. It is quite easy to simply ask 'have you checked to see if you have 'do not hunt if under 34 hunger' enabled?'.

We don't even need in game prompts. If someone is bothered by their spiders being clockwork, or whatever model is chosen, then they can ask in chat, or on the forums, or go searching google to find the answer.

Also, an arachnophobia feature is not going to cause confusion with new players. Because they will have to enable it, which means they will have been digging around in the settings in order to do so. If causing a momentary confusion is too great of a risk for returning players, just have it so after X months of inactivity, the setting is reset, so that when they return, arachnophobia mode is off.

As for the thing about endeavors, I can understand that, but, once again, this is something that people will choose to enable themselves. It isn't going to be forced on them, so hopefully they will be smart enough to realize that 'hey I changed all the spiders to wolves, so all those endeavors to 'kill spider enemies' isn't going up because I am killing actual wolves, not spiders. Maybe I should go to a place where spiders are known to hang out and just start killing wolves?' The opposite is true as well, if it is about killing whatever they chose to change the model to and they aren't getting credit, hopefully they will be able to realize (or be told after asking) that they aren't getting credit because they aren't killing the right enemy, and they should try someplace where that enemy is known to appear (and whatever they didn't want to see doesn't).

Or, as a solution, they could be told to swap the model for a different model until the endeavor is done, then swap back. IE, if I swap spiders for wolves, and there is an endeavor to kill wolves, I can swap the spiders for rats, or mudcrabs or some other type of enemy that *isn't* covered by the endeavor. ONce the endeavor is done, I just simply swap them back so I am now seeing wolves in place of spiders again.

Swapping models for other models that don't utilize the same animations won't work. There are certain attacks which are unique to specific enemies that don't translate well to other enemy types. For example, dire wolves and death hounds utilize the same animations, and thus could be swapped with one another using such a feature. However, spiders can't be replaced with wolves because they use entirely different animations (and have completely different armatures), so either their attacks wouldn't be telegraphed at all (they'd attack without any animations) or they'd be using the wrong animations for the action (it doesn't make sense that a wolf biting attack is able to snare a player with a spider's web).


Completely swapping the enemies (not just their models) in the world will never happen. ESO has shared instances, so there's no way to accommodate players who want to actually replace spider enemies with wolf enemies as well as the players who don't want to replace one enemy type for another. It's one thing to change the model of the enemies you see on your screen, but you can't completely change the actual enemy type.

For instance, you couldn't replace all the spider enemies in Scrivener's Hall because that would completely change the gameplay — if the final boss was a wolf instead of a spider, the attacks used would be completely different and would require the content to be redesigned around the feature. Plus, other players wouldn't know from the group queue whether they're getting the original Scrivener's Hall or the version which removes all of the spider enemies.

SilverBride

BasP wrote: »

I must say that I'm surprised to see that so many people that have reacted to this post seem to be against the idea.

I am against it because players know that virtually every MMO has spiders. It's not like they bought the game then were shocked to see a spider enemy. I don't want to see time and resources put it into something like this when players knew what they were getting into.

If they do something like this then what is next? Where will it end?

JemadarofCaerSalis

Erickson9610 wrote: »

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

ArkadiaReaper wrote: »

This seems like a really nice quality of life thing, and I for one would use it. Even if it was just turning them all into clockwork versions, that's somehow way less ick! A client side toggle or even addon just to make my "chill" game a little more relaxing.

If the spiders were replaced with clockwork versions, eventually there'd be people wondering why the fake clockwork spiders don't count towards the "Defeat x Clockwork Foes" endeavor.

Which could easily be explained by 'you have arachnophobia mode on, many of those spiders weren't actually clockwork', since this would, again, be optional for people and something they would have to turn on. It wouldn't be on by default.

What happens when someone enables the setting, leaves the game for a year or two, then comes back, confused as to why the spiders look different, because they forgot that they had enabled the feature that long ago? For all they know, this could just be how the game looks now. It is very easy to dismiss in-game prompts that would explain what's happening without reading or understanding them.

If there's going to be a model swap or the like, it should still be obvious what they are meant to be (for the purposes of Endeavors, quests, world building, and so on) while not causing any confusion for new or returning players. As it is right now, there's no room for confusion (those spiders are indeed spiders, not Clockwork creatures or otherwise) so any arachnophobia features should also leave no room for confusion.

Then people ask if they have 'arachnophobia mode' on if they ask on the forums, or they just roll with it if they don't want to ask on the forums.

I play another game with settings, and we see people returning every so often and they will ask 'its been so long, how do I do X?'.

what do the other people do that play that game? They simply answer the questions.

As an example, there is a feature to 'hunt' and you need to have fed your pets to a certain degree to get them to show up, if you have that setting enabled. It is quite easy to simply ask 'have you checked to see if you have 'do not hunt if under 34 hunger' enabled?'.

We don't even need in game prompts. If someone is bothered by their spiders being clockwork, or whatever model is chosen, then they can ask in chat, or on the forums, or go searching google to find the answer.

Also, an arachnophobia feature is not going to cause confusion with new players. Because they will have to enable it, which means they will have been digging around in the settings in order to do so. If causing a momentary confusion is too great of a risk for returning players, just have it so after X months of inactivity, the setting is reset, so that when they return, arachnophobia mode is off.

As for the thing about endeavors, I can understand that, but, once again, this is something that people will choose to enable themselves. It isn't going to be forced on them, so hopefully they will be smart enough to realize that 'hey I changed all the spiders to wolves, so all those endeavors to 'kill spider enemies' isn't going up because I am killing actual wolves, not spiders. Maybe I should go to a place where spiders are known to hang out and just start killing wolves?' The opposite is true as well, if it is about killing whatever they chose to change the model to and they aren't getting credit, hopefully they will be able to realize (or be told after asking) that they aren't getting credit because they aren't killing the right enemy, and they should try someplace where that enemy is known to appear (and whatever they didn't want to see doesn't).

Or, as a solution, they could be told to swap the model for a different model until the endeavor is done, then swap back. IE, if I swap spiders for wolves, and there is an endeavor to kill wolves, I can swap the spiders for rats, or mudcrabs or some other type of enemy that *isn't* covered by the endeavor. ONce the endeavor is done, I just simply swap them back so I am now seeing wolves in place of spiders again.

Swapping models for other models that don't utilize the same animations won't work. There are certain attacks which are unique to specific enemies that don't translate well to other enemy types. For example, dire wolves and death hounds utilize the same animations, and thus could be swapped with one another using such a feature. However, spiders can't be replaced with wolves because they use entirely different animations (and have completely different armatures), so either their attacks wouldn't be telegraphed at all (they'd attack without any animations) or they'd be using the wrong animations for the action (it doesn't make sense that a wolf biting attack is able to snare a player with a spider's web).


Completely swapping the enemies (not just their models) in the world will never happen. ESO has shared instances, so there's no way to accommodate players who want to actually replace spider enemies with wolf enemies as well as the players who don't want to replace one enemy type for another. It's one thing to change the model of the enemies you see on your screen, but you can't completely change the actual enemy type.

For instance, you couldn't replace all the spider enemies in Scrivener's Hall because that would completely change the gameplay — if the final boss was a wolf instead of a spider, the attacks used would be completely different and would require the content to be redesigned around the feature. Plus, other players wouldn't know from the group queue whether they're getting the original Scrivener's Hall or the version which removes all of the spider enemies.

I mean, if the only person affected is the person who has arachnophobia mode on, then I see no reason why 'it wouldn't make sense to have a wolf use a web attack' even matters here. THey could keep the animations of the model (so using wolf animtations) and use the original attacks (so wolf would still be able to web people), because, again, the only people being affected by this are the people who are using arachnophobia mode and voluntarily chose to use wolves to replace spiders.

If it has to make sense, then honestly, the discussion can't go any further, because no other enemy, except maybe a chaurus, uses a web attack, and thus no other enemy would make sense if they swapped it out, whether the player could choose the model or not, with something else.

But, again, it doesn't have to make sense.

Beyond that, why would other players have to know that I have a wolf attacking me and not a spider, if it can use the same mechanics as a spider? Nothing has to be redesigned because the same mechanics could still be in place no matter what model someone uses.

Beyond even that, if they wanted to make sure that things wouldn't get too out of hand, they could always cherry pick the models that can be swapped. Want to swap a flying model out? You have to choose a model that can already fly. Want to swap out daedra? You must swap it out for a different daedra.

Same thing could be done for spiders, it can just limit it to enemies that have similar (though it doesn't necessarily have to be a webbed attack, but something that *acts* like the webbed attack) attack mechanics.

Again, this is something that is done client side, and not server side, so the only person affected would be the one with arachnophobia mode. It wouldn't affect anyone else. Not even other people in shared instances (after all, we have tons of addons that add various functionalities to the game that are also all client side and other people don't see them, so I don't see a reason why there couldn't be something where the model can be switched out client side as well. Sure, it might take a bit of brainpower and thinking to do it, but as others have said, other games, including WOW are doing this as well, so it should be possible)

Edit: completely unrelated, but ...is anyone else seeing the forums with a different font? the font is bigger and seems to be thinner than normal, and I haven't changed any settings at all on my end, nor updated anything

spartaxoxo

SilverBride wrote: »

BasP wrote: »

I must say that I'm surprised to see that so many people that have reacted to this post seem to be against the idea.

I am against it because players know that virtually every MMO has spiders. It's not like they bought the game then were shocked to see a spider enemy. I don't want to see time and resources put it into something like this when players knew what they were getting into.

If they do something like this then what is next? Where will it end?

World of Warcraft has an arachnophobia mode. And it worked out quite well.

SilverBride

spartaxoxo wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

BasP wrote: »

I must say that I'm surprised to see that so many people that have reacted to this post seem to be against the idea.

I am against it because players know that virtually every MMO has spiders. It's not like they bought the game then were shocked to see a spider enemy. I don't want to see time and resources put it into something like this when players knew what they were getting into.

If they do something like this then what is next? Where will it end?

World of Warcraft has an arachnophobia mode. And it worked out quite well.

This isn't World of Warcraft.

Elsonso

spartaxoxo wrote: »

SkaiFaith wrote: »

I just joked but talking seriously: I'm not against more accessibility features. But as someone stated well before if you work to solve this particular issue which doesn't seem to be "huge", there would be a neverending cascade of requests for snakes and whatsoever, each one requiring time and money to achieve, resources that could be spent elsewhere.

Slippery slope fallacy. Other games have arachnophobia accomodations and this did not happen.

Has not happened yet.

As someone pointed out, this can be considered a medical accommodation. This is why I referred to phobias as worthy of optioning, but also brought up zoophobia and asked where does the line get drawn. The answer is that it never does get drawn. There is always going to be another phobia. Maybe not today, or this year, but it will come.

spartaxoxo

SilverBride wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

BasP wrote: »

I must say that I'm surprised to see that so many people that have reacted to this post seem to be against the idea.

I am against it because players know that virtually every MMO has spiders. It's not like they bought the game then were shocked to see a spider enemy. I don't want to see time and resources put it into something like this when players knew what they were getting into.

If they do something like this then what is next? Where will it end?

World of Warcraft has an arachnophobia mode. And it worked out quite well.

This isn't World of Warcraft.

World of Warcraft is one of the biggest MMOs on the planet, if not the biggest. It is also the game that had the greatest impact on the genre. If World of Warcraft can do something while still maintaining MMO gameplay, then other MMOs can do it too.

spartaxoxo

Elsonso wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

SkaiFaith wrote: »

I just joked but talking seriously: I'm not against more accessibility features. But as someone stated well before if you work to solve this particular issue which doesn't seem to be "huge", there would be a neverending cascade of requests for snakes and whatsoever, each one requiring time and money to achieve, resources that could be spent elsewhere.

Slippery slope fallacy. Other games have arachnophobia accomodations and this did not happen.

Has not happened yet.

As someone pointed out, this can be considered a medical accommodation. This is why I referred to phobias as worthy of optioning, but also brought up zoophobia and asked where does the line get drawn. The answer is that it never does get drawn. There is always going to be another phobia. Maybe not today, or this year, but it will come.

You might get a couple more common ones. But you won't get a neverending revolving door because many are extremely rare, and many others don't apply to video games. There's simply no evidence or reason why that would happen, which is why it has not happened in other games.

Drammanoth

ZOS has a policy of not adopting ideas from other MMOs.

Which is why - I wish I was wrong - we'll never see pet battles, flying mounts (hope not!) and many more solutions that could attract, and more importantly, RETAIN veteran players.

Erickson9610

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

ArkadiaReaper wrote: »

This seems like a really nice quality of life thing, and I for one would use it. Even if it was just turning them all into clockwork versions, that's somehow way less ick! A client side toggle or even addon just to make my "chill" game a little more relaxing.

If the spiders were replaced with clockwork versions, eventually there'd be people wondering why the fake clockwork spiders don't count towards the "Defeat x Clockwork Foes" endeavor.

Which could easily be explained by 'you have arachnophobia mode on, many of those spiders weren't actually clockwork', since this would, again, be optional for people and something they would have to turn on. It wouldn't be on by default.

What happens when someone enables the setting, leaves the game for a year or two, then comes back, confused as to why the spiders look different, because they forgot that they had enabled the feature that long ago? For all they know, this could just be how the game looks now. It is very easy to dismiss in-game prompts that would explain what's happening without reading or understanding them.

If there's going to be a model swap or the like, it should still be obvious what they are meant to be (for the purposes of Endeavors, quests, world building, and so on) while not causing any confusion for new or returning players. As it is right now, there's no room for confusion (those spiders are indeed spiders, not Clockwork creatures or otherwise) so any arachnophobia features should also leave no room for confusion.

Then people ask if they have 'arachnophobia mode' on if they ask on the forums, or they just roll with it if they don't want to ask on the forums.

I play another game with settings, and we see people returning every so often and they will ask 'its been so long, how do I do X?'.

what do the other people do that play that game? They simply answer the questions.

As an example, there is a feature to 'hunt' and you need to have fed your pets to a certain degree to get them to show up, if you have that setting enabled. It is quite easy to simply ask 'have you checked to see if you have 'do not hunt if under 34 hunger' enabled?'.

We don't even need in game prompts. If someone is bothered by their spiders being clockwork, or whatever model is chosen, then they can ask in chat, or on the forums, or go searching google to find the answer.

Also, an arachnophobia feature is not going to cause confusion with new players. Because they will have to enable it, which means they will have been digging around in the settings in order to do so. If causing a momentary confusion is too great of a risk for returning players, just have it so after X months of inactivity, the setting is reset, so that when they return, arachnophobia mode is off.

As for the thing about endeavors, I can understand that, but, once again, this is something that people will choose to enable themselves. It isn't going to be forced on them, so hopefully they will be smart enough to realize that 'hey I changed all the spiders to wolves, so all those endeavors to 'kill spider enemies' isn't going up because I am killing actual wolves, not spiders. Maybe I should go to a place where spiders are known to hang out and just start killing wolves?' The opposite is true as well, if it is about killing whatever they chose to change the model to and they aren't getting credit, hopefully they will be able to realize (or be told after asking) that they aren't getting credit because they aren't killing the right enemy, and they should try someplace where that enemy is known to appear (and whatever they didn't want to see doesn't).

Or, as a solution, they could be told to swap the model for a different model until the endeavor is done, then swap back. IE, if I swap spiders for wolves, and there is an endeavor to kill wolves, I can swap the spiders for rats, or mudcrabs or some other type of enemy that *isn't* covered by the endeavor. ONce the endeavor is done, I just simply swap them back so I am now seeing wolves in place of spiders again.

Swapping models for other models that don't utilize the same animations won't work. There are certain attacks which are unique to specific enemies that don't translate well to other enemy types. For example, dire wolves and death hounds utilize the same animations, and thus could be swapped with one another using such a feature. However, spiders can't be replaced with wolves because they use entirely different animations (and have completely different armatures), so either their attacks wouldn't be telegraphed at all (they'd attack without any animations) or they'd be using the wrong animations for the action (it doesn't make sense that a wolf biting attack is able to snare a player with a spider's web).


Completely swapping the enemies (not just their models) in the world will never happen. ESO has shared instances, so there's no way to accommodate players who want to actually replace spider enemies with wolf enemies as well as the players who don't want to replace one enemy type for another. It's one thing to change the model of the enemies you see on your screen, but you can't completely change the actual enemy type.

For instance, you couldn't replace all the spider enemies in Scrivener's Hall because that would completely change the gameplay — if the final boss was a wolf instead of a spider, the attacks used would be completely different and would require the content to be redesigned around the feature. Plus, other players wouldn't know from the group queue whether they're getting the original Scrivener's Hall or the version which removes all of the spider enemies.

I mean, if the only person affected is the person who has arachnophobia mode on, then I see no reason why 'it wouldn't make sense to have a wolf use a web attack' even matters here. THey could keep the animations of the model (so using wolf animtations) and use the original attacks (so wolf would still be able to web people), because, again, the only people being affected by this are the people who are using arachnophobia mode and voluntarily chose to use wolves to replace spiders.

If it has to make sense, then honestly, the discussion can't go any further, because no other enemy, except maybe a chaurus, uses a web attack, and thus no other enemy would make sense if they swapped it out, whether the player could choose the model or not, with something else.

But, again, it doesn't have to make sense.

Beyond that, why would other players have to know that I have a wolf attacking me and not a spider, if it can use the same mechanics as a spider? Nothing has to be redesigned because the same mechanics could still be in place no matter what model someone uses.

Beyond even that, if they wanted to make sure that things wouldn't get too out of hand, they could always cherry pick the models that can be swapped. Want to swap a flying model out? You have to choose a model that can already fly. Want to swap out daedra? You must swap it out for a different daedra.

Same thing could be done for spiders, it can just limit it to enemies that have similar (though it doesn't necessarily have to be a webbed attack, but something that *acts* like the webbed attack) attack mechanics.

Again, this is something that is done client side, and not server side, so the only person affected would be the one with arachnophobia mode. It wouldn't affect anyone else. Not even other people in shared instances (after all, we have tons of addons that add various functionalities to the game that are also all client side and other people don't see them, so I don't see a reason why there couldn't be something where the model can be switched out client side as well. Sure, it might take a bit of brainpower and thinking to do it, but as others have said, other games, including WOW are doing this as well, so it should be possible)

Edit: completely unrelated, but ...is anyone else seeing the forums with a different font? the font is bigger and seems to be thinner than normal, and I haven't changed any settings at all on my end, nor updated anything

If it doesn't have to make sense, then what would footage of said mode say about the public image of ESO to potential new players? If a new player wants to watch a walkthrough for a dungeon, but all of the spiders are replaced with wolves, wouldn't they be confused to see spiders in the actual dungeon?

Further, if players are given the freedom to swap models of their choice, then wouldn't that have implications for competitive PvP play? What about the spiders which come from abilities and sets which need to be telegraphed, such as the Trapping Webs ability or its morphs, or the Spawn of Mephala monster set? If a player could make those spiders look like something else, they could more easily see at a glance what ability is being used — or perhaps they might not know which morph of Trapping Webs is being used if the appearance of the spiders change with the morph.

SilverBride

spartaxoxo wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

BasP wrote: »

I must say that I'm surprised to see that so many people that have reacted to this post seem to be against the idea.

I am against it because players know that virtually every MMO has spiders. It's not like they bought the game then were shocked to see a spider enemy. I don't want to see time and resources put it into something like this when players knew what they were getting into.

If they do something like this then what is next? Where will it end?

World of Warcraft has an arachnophobia mode. And it worked out quite well.

This isn't World of Warcraft.

World of Warcraft is one of the biggest MMOs on the planet, if not the biggest. It is also the game that had the greatest impact on the genre. If World of Warcraft can do something while still maintaining MMO gameplay, then other MMOs can do it too.

World of Warcraft is was one of the biggest MMOs on the planet, if not the biggest. But it is on the decline. They had to allow Horde and Alliance to be in the same guilds now to make up for a sinking population. So I'm not surprised they did something like that to try to keep more players.

But that has no relevance to ESO.

JemadarofCaerSalis

One of the arguments that I have seen that doesn't make sense to me is the whole 'well we can't accommodate every phobia that ever existed, so no accommodating one of the largest phobias out there.'

Me, personally, if someone were saying 'I have a phobia of cats and I want the ability to never see a cat in my game again, so can I get a toggle to turn all my cats to spiders, that won't affect anyone else' I would be all for it. Sure, I would want a way to turn spiders to something else, but I would happy to support someone else being able to play a game comfortably, especially since with the groundwork in place, there is always the hope that they can extend that groundwork to work with other phobias.

Also, no feature is going to be able to account for 100% of the population (even if we are only talking about the player population), which going by some of the logic I have seen (not necessarily in this thread), games shouldn't put out any new features, because there are always going to be people who don't want them, won't use them, and consider them a waste of resources to do.

JemadarofCaerSalis

Erickson9610 wrote: »

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

ArkadiaReaper wrote: »

This seems like a really nice quality of life thing, and I for one would use it. Even if it was just turning them all into clockwork versions, that's somehow way less ick! A client side toggle or even addon just to make my "chill" game a little more relaxing.

If the spiders were replaced with clockwork versions, eventually there'd be people wondering why the fake clockwork spiders don't count towards the "Defeat x Clockwork Foes" endeavor.

Which could easily be explained by 'you have arachnophobia mode on, many of those spiders weren't actually clockwork', since this would, again, be optional for people and something they would have to turn on. It wouldn't be on by default.

What happens when someone enables the setting, leaves the game for a year or two, then comes back, confused as to why the spiders look different, because they forgot that they had enabled the feature that long ago? For all they know, this could just be how the game looks now. It is very easy to dismiss in-game prompts that would explain what's happening without reading or understanding them.

If there's going to be a model swap or the like, it should still be obvious what they are meant to be (for the purposes of Endeavors, quests, world building, and so on) while not causing any confusion for new or returning players. As it is right now, there's no room for confusion (those spiders are indeed spiders, not Clockwork creatures or otherwise) so any arachnophobia features should also leave no room for confusion.

Then people ask if they have 'arachnophobia mode' on if they ask on the forums, or they just roll with it if they don't want to ask on the forums.

I play another game with settings, and we see people returning every so often and they will ask 'its been so long, how do I do X?'.

what do the other people do that play that game? They simply answer the questions.

As an example, there is a feature to 'hunt' and you need to have fed your pets to a certain degree to get them to show up, if you have that setting enabled. It is quite easy to simply ask 'have you checked to see if you have 'do not hunt if under 34 hunger' enabled?'.

We don't even need in game prompts. If someone is bothered by their spiders being clockwork, or whatever model is chosen, then they can ask in chat, or on the forums, or go searching google to find the answer.

Also, an arachnophobia feature is not going to cause confusion with new players. Because they will have to enable it, which means they will have been digging around in the settings in order to do so. If causing a momentary confusion is too great of a risk for returning players, just have it so after X months of inactivity, the setting is reset, so that when they return, arachnophobia mode is off.

As for the thing about endeavors, I can understand that, but, once again, this is something that people will choose to enable themselves. It isn't going to be forced on them, so hopefully they will be smart enough to realize that 'hey I changed all the spiders to wolves, so all those endeavors to 'kill spider enemies' isn't going up because I am killing actual wolves, not spiders. Maybe I should go to a place where spiders are known to hang out and just start killing wolves?' The opposite is true as well, if it is about killing whatever they chose to change the model to and they aren't getting credit, hopefully they will be able to realize (or be told after asking) that they aren't getting credit because they aren't killing the right enemy, and they should try someplace where that enemy is known to appear (and whatever they didn't want to see doesn't).

Or, as a solution, they could be told to swap the model for a different model until the endeavor is done, then swap back. IE, if I swap spiders for wolves, and there is an endeavor to kill wolves, I can swap the spiders for rats, or mudcrabs or some other type of enemy that *isn't* covered by the endeavor. ONce the endeavor is done, I just simply swap them back so I am now seeing wolves in place of spiders again.

Swapping models for other models that don't utilize the same animations won't work. There are certain attacks which are unique to specific enemies that don't translate well to other enemy types. For example, dire wolves and death hounds utilize the same animations, and thus could be swapped with one another using such a feature. However, spiders can't be replaced with wolves because they use entirely different animations (and have completely different armatures), so either their attacks wouldn't be telegraphed at all (they'd attack without any animations) or they'd be using the wrong animations for the action (it doesn't make sense that a wolf biting attack is able to snare a player with a spider's web).


Completely swapping the enemies (not just their models) in the world will never happen. ESO has shared instances, so there's no way to accommodate players who want to actually replace spider enemies with wolf enemies as well as the players who don't want to replace one enemy type for another. It's one thing to change the model of the enemies you see on your screen, but you can't completely change the actual enemy type.

For instance, you couldn't replace all the spider enemies in Scrivener's Hall because that would completely change the gameplay — if the final boss was a wolf instead of a spider, the attacks used would be completely different and would require the content to be redesigned around the feature. Plus, other players wouldn't know from the group queue whether they're getting the original Scrivener's Hall or the version which removes all of the spider enemies.

I mean, if the only person affected is the person who has arachnophobia mode on, then I see no reason why 'it wouldn't make sense to have a wolf use a web attack' even matters here. THey could keep the animations of the model (so using wolf animtations) and use the original attacks (so wolf would still be able to web people), because, again, the only people being affected by this are the people who are using arachnophobia mode and voluntarily chose to use wolves to replace spiders.

If it has to make sense, then honestly, the discussion can't go any further, because no other enemy, except maybe a chaurus, uses a web attack, and thus no other enemy would make sense if they swapped it out, whether the player could choose the model or not, with something else.

But, again, it doesn't have to make sense.

Beyond that, why would other players have to know that I have a wolf attacking me and not a spider, if it can use the same mechanics as a spider? Nothing has to be redesigned because the same mechanics could still be in place no matter what model someone uses.

Beyond even that, if they wanted to make sure that things wouldn't get too out of hand, they could always cherry pick the models that can be swapped. Want to swap a flying model out? You have to choose a model that can already fly. Want to swap out daedra? You must swap it out for a different daedra.

Same thing could be done for spiders, it can just limit it to enemies that have similar (though it doesn't necessarily have to be a webbed attack, but something that *acts* like the webbed attack) attack mechanics.

Again, this is something that is done client side, and not server side, so the only person affected would be the one with arachnophobia mode. It wouldn't affect anyone else. Not even other people in shared instances (after all, we have tons of addons that add various functionalities to the game that are also all client side and other people don't see them, so I don't see a reason why there couldn't be something where the model can be switched out client side as well. Sure, it might take a bit of brainpower and thinking to do it, but as others have said, other games, including WOW are doing this as well, so it should be possible)

Edit: completely unrelated, but ...is anyone else seeing the forums with a different font? the font is bigger and seems to be thinner than normal, and I haven't changed any settings at all on my end, nor updated anything

If it doesn't have to make sense, then what would footage of said mode say about the public image of ESO to potential new players? If a new player wants to watch a walkthrough for a dungeon, but all of the spiders are replaced with wolves, wouldn't they be confused to see spiders in the actual dungeon?

Further, if players are given the freedom to swap models of their choice, then wouldn't that have implications for competitive PvP play? What about the spiders which come from abilities and sets which need to be telegraphed, such as the Trapping Webs ability or its morphs, or the Spawn of Mephala monster set? If a player could make those spiders look like something else, they could more easily see at a glance what ability is being used — or perhaps they might not know which morph of Trapping Webs is being used if the appearance of the spiders change with the morph.

Genuine question. Are there *really* that many people out there creating videos of their gameplay? Especially new player friendly videos?

Beyond that, what about people who use addons? Wouldn't that potentially confuse new players who watched a video and find out that their brand new shiny copy of ESO doesn't have a mini-map, or any of the dozens of other addons players on PC use?

If a new player is confused, again, they can *ask* about 'why are wolves using spider abilities?' and get the answer 'because ESO has an arachnophobia mode where you can change out spiders for something else!' If it is about spiders in general being in ESO, they can ask and get the same answer.

I don't PvP, so I can't answer that, but it sounds like people probably already CAN see what ability is being used?

spartaxoxo

Elsonso wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

SkaiFaith wrote: »

I just joked but talking seriously: I'm not against more accessibility features. But as someone stated well before if you work to solve this particular issue which doesn't seem to be "huge", there would be a neverending cascade of requests for snakes and whatsoever, each one requiring time and money to achieve, resources that could be spent elsewhere.

Slippery slope fallacy. Other games have arachnophobia accomodations and this did not happen.

Has not happened yet.

As someone pointed out, this can be considered a medical accommodation. This is why I referred to phobias as worthy of optioning, but also brought up zoophobia and asked where does the line get drawn. The answer is that it never does get drawn. There is always going to be another phobia. Maybe not today, or this year, but it will come.

Also let's look at the features people are likely to request because they are already requesting them or changes they have made to the game for the better.

A way to disable flashing lights when scrying

A way to make skills, mounts and other cosmetics less flashy

Arcanist skills were toned down to combat motion sickness and headaches

Color blind options

Accessibility mode

A way to hide flappy bird sorc pets

Some of the changes combat things like headaches, motion sickness, nausea, etc.

Has the game been made worse because of colorblind options? Would the game be worse off if there was a way to hide flappy bird sorc pets from view?