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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
The "worst" is demanding the world conform to your own triggers and sensibilities. Those are YOUR responsibility, not everyone else's.
Nothing is ever as easy as just "a simple graphical change". There's a thousand cascading effects something like that has, multiplied by every person's phobia who now wants to be catered to once IS begins catering to one.
Yeah yeah, the predictable response.
Except that the whole point here was 'people should deal with their own problems' which they have been doing in other games up until now by modding.
Console games add Arachnophobia because they can't be modded.
Ashes shouldn't be able to be modded.
I'm fine with the 'no, deal with your own problems don't push them on someone else' narrative when there's a proper path to that.
But I don't really expect much else, I'm just surprised at the lack of understanding of this topic among posters who then have this response type.
But y'all keep going like this, I only care what IS does.
Seriously applying the slippery slope fallacy to arachnophobia of all possible choices though... slow clap for sure.
You can mod other mmorpgs? That would be news to me if you can mod ESO, rift, WoW, ff, etc.
There is. If you can't handle seeing digital spiders in a computer game then the game is not for you. There are over 500 named phobias, settings for one means settings for all, unless you are going to appoint yourself the supreme arbiter of who gets the special mollycoddling nonsense and who does not. As I initially said, I'm generally a pretty accepting and accommodating chap. This is nonsense and should be treated as such.
This is an ignorant take.
I expect it's almost exactly the same as Mag7's response though. Just ignorance.
If the community response is 'if you have Arachnophobia don't play' that is what it is.
If I thought y'all could generally be swayed by discourse, I'd have said more.
But to be clear it's y'all that are being 'triggered' by someone else's request, so I hope you can keep that out of the Dev Discussion when Intrepid makes it.
Don't be like me, don't attack the character of other posters because of their difficulty with coping mechanisms.
https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy14/mods/
What do other games do in those cases? Iirc the Grounded game has spiders as literally 2 blobs hanging in the air. How would that work with animations or if the spiders had some special mechanics (like that thread suggesting spider's kids hanging on the mother and jumping off in combat or smth like that)?
Also, we've seen that "raise front legs" animation already. Would that have to go away? Or can arachnophobic people be ok with blobs that have 8 legs and can activate that animation? And as was brought up before, what about snake phobias? How can you change a snake into smth that doesn't look like a snake? A snake is literally a moving noodle. And if you don't give the ability to change snakes - why the unequal treatment?
I have unreasonable fear of insects. My heart rate goes up when I see one, and I move away from the insect by instinct. This applies for both crawling and flying ones. Should Intrepid change any and all wasps in the game? All centi-/milli-pedes? Literally any insect? How the game would look like at that point?
I'm all for support of people, but there's gotta be some kind of line somewhere. I could definitely agree if that line is just "it's a greyscale model with no intricate details". That seems like a somewhat easy solution to the problem from the dev pov, but I'm not sure if the phobic people would be fine with that approach.
No. The response is "If you have Arachnophobia that is so severe that the sight of a spider in a computer game is so overwhelmingly debilitating that you literally cannot function. Then you need some serious professional help and asking a small computer game developer to accommodate your personal trigger is not only unfair, it comes across as entitled and arrogant."
I don't even know where to start but bear with me.
1. Modding textures, sometimes even animations (as long as you don't mind things looking jank) is easy. Arachnophobia mode is among the easiest things to implement.
2. Arachnophobia itself, as well as your fear of insects, are partially based in an outright physiological response that relies on the thing actually looking like a spider. So in short, yes. Blobs. That's what they asked for. Note, again, for every other phobia they generally fall into two categories where you could avoid it because you know where to avoid, or you can't, and the entire problem with arachnophobia is that spiders can be everywhere.
3. The game does just blob it. See above. Super easy. If it can't do it for a specific boss spider sometimes it makes that skippable. This is common. Because idk, game devs are nicer than players? Maybe. Maybe not.
4. Some companies just take the sensible approach and don't make giant spider bosses. But I'll point out that most spiders work as blobs, this has been a thing communities nicer than this one have been 'working on' for years. I wonder why.
Arachnophobia for most people/companies is the line. Some games just avoid adding the snakes to begin with or put them in only specific areas.
So if we have to choose between 'some people get a crappy alt model for spiders' and 'Intrepid spending time deciding how precisely to place their spiders to give people ways to avoid seeing them', I for one am taking the crappy alt model.
Any chance at all that I can 'wear you guys out on this topic' by keeping this argument up? It works well for my data parsing anyway.
Even you are going the whole 'slippery slope' route, huh. For once, I'm surprised. Model updated.
Sure. The problem is that you're in the ignorant camp.
Because you don't understand what people are acting 'entitled' to, or you're just the sort of person that goes 'you should try to find a therapist for a sometimes highly physiological response instead of asking a developer to provide an alt skin for something for you' as a generality.
Perchance do you live in a country where this therapist would be 'affordable'?
Even this is just me messing around with you because you don't know how arachnophobia works so you can ignore it. Or you can keep responding from the same position, I'm sure it won't matter anyway right? This community has already shown that they are the type to support your stance. Always good to find like-minded individuals, right?
Yes, be sure to add that in the Dev Discussion on the matter when its made, preferably after every arachnophobe's post so they really get the message.
Or at the other side of the spectrum, could that be a disadvantage to the phobic people? If they can't properly fight a spider mob - they'll be avoiding it. So they'd be doing exactly the same thing as when there is no phobia option.
And I do find it interesting that arachnophobia is the line for a lot of companies. Is it just due to numbers of people with it? What about all other popular phobias like heights, tight spaces, crowds? Dungeons will have tight spaces so some people might not be able to farm them. The game will most definitely have huge crowds, especially around huge events. And gliding mounts (and scientific blimps) imply semi-frequent movement at big heights. All of those would impact a phobic person's gameplay. And all of it can be avoided in just the same way as spiders can be.
I understand that slippery slope argument is a weak one, but I feel like it's silly to address the issues of one minority while also ignoring the other similarly-sized minorities.
If anything, I'd love for there to be way of knowing where exactly those spiders (and ideally any other mobs) are. Add it to in-game maps, npc dialogues or, hell, have a "spiders nearby" system message if you have a phobia setting turned on. This would help all the other players as well and would just be a good QoL thing for the game. Let's people avoid their phobias, while also letting others find what they want.
As for wearing us out on the topic. For me, I don't think I can understand the point enough to agree with it. I understand that it makes me ignorant and I wish I could see it, but I simply cannot. My brain sees the difference between reality and a game, so in-game insects don't trigger a physical response in me. And if somehow, unconsciously, in-game insects have helped me deal with irl encounters better - than I'm even more biased against phobia-based changes. And you know how I approach issues - I bash my head against them. So even with irl insects, with time I learned to better control my response to them, because I'd just overpower the fear and either ignore the insect (cause I've heard that some of them are useful) or kill it asap. Maybe my fear is not a phobia, which is why I was able to get better at it, but I've heard that exposure therapy works and there's no safer place to do it than through a video game.
On this note I'm going to bed, but I also don't really have anything to add on the topic. As you said, it's up to Intrepid, so it's not like my opinion matters here. I won't be protesting the game if they add phobia features. I'd say that I'd feel bad for anyone who has a non-spider phobia who won't get a feature of their own, but I'm too selfish and ignorant to truly feel bad for them either.
Well, in the hopes that I can 'educate' at least one person so that the Dev Discussion sucks a little less:
Of the top 10 or 15 phobias, I think Arachnophobia is the only true 'interactive visual stimulus' one of its kind, affecting somewhere between 4 and 15% of people (statistics are never accurate) with 5% or slightly more having the severe psychological reaction.
The people who post on forums for games to ask in advance if the spiders are avoidable because their literal bodies won't let them handle it.
Is it an advantage to them? Why even care? I love spiders. Love 'em to death. Hopefully not literally someday by playing with one I'm not supposed to. Do I have an advantage because most people have a mild fear of them that would make them ever so slightly less effective in a spider bossfight?
Some arachnophobes can use ingame spiders to get exposure therapy, and some can't. And the number of those who either can't, or who those terrible greedy game companies want to get money from, is significant.
And again, spiders are specifically 'more common'. Games often don't add snakes (they're not great design fun anyway), but they explicitly make giant spiders. This topic is about having the mode, though, so it's even more important. Some days one has the energy to push through it and go for the 'exposure' and some days you don't and you want to just turn the mode on and play with your friends like normal.
On this same note, IS, if you actually care about 'common phobias that are more work for you to avoid than to add a mode for' that people might be 'jumpscared' by... careful with the tryptophobia triggers too. I'm sure you can manage to build a cool game without that problem. I can see how it's harder to do that without the awesome spiders.
So again, this is really 'people thinking this is hard when it isn't' and/or using that as an excuse to target the supposed 'weaknesses' of others. Not that a primarily PvP-loving community has that tendency or anything, just coincidence.
That being said if your immense fears don't like you play games I'd say just don't play the game. If we are thinking business wise that .00001% won't affect the game at all. If players are so deadly scared from a non horror game lacking jump scares. Refuse to explore a world that has spiders in it, refuse to attempt to avoid them if they know they are there.
That is their own problem to refuse to find a balance and expecting the game to do it all for them and doesn't effect pretty much all players playing the game. 0 loss there.
Sooo you're gonna literally just make up numbers to support your supposed point as usual.
Cool, cool. At least you're consistent.
You are free to try to prove me wrong, extreme phobia players that refuse to touch a game rather than avoid the content is a subset, of a subset of a tiny portion. Won't effect the game sales at all.
If your playing a fantasy game, where a large aspect is, fighting MONSTERS, then you are guaranteed to come across a monster that can trigger you in any way shape or form, in addition to that there are hundreds of different types of phobias. If your phobia is so severe, that you can't even see an virtualized game object of it, then you shouldn't play a game where that can happen. If its mildly unsettling, You can learn where the regions with spiders are, and avoid those.
And if you really do get a physical reaction of seeing a spider in a video game then you should seriously consider getting therapy, phobia's after all are a mental disorder that is treatable. If your condition is so extreme that the mere chance of seeing one in a certain game doesn't allow you to play that game, the everyday scenarios are far worse, and instead of comming to the forums for getting a priveledged treatment, you should instead get real treatment.
As other people have said AoC is an ambitious game with a lot of systems being made and created to try to already cater to a lot of peoples to get them interested into the game. It isn't realistic to try to get them to cater to every wish and wimp of every persons concern over every system, look, etc. They have their prios and i don't realistically see a reason business wise this needs to be backed as more important as the other things they are trying to do to cater to players.
Where is this energy when it comes to other games, why not complain about the spider like creatures in Anthem or the many other games. Suddenly for AoC it is expected for them to cater to everything fear now over making the game and getting the systems for a wide type of players?
This would be so low on the totem pole it be silly, maybe after release it be something to look at if it is that big a deal based on the amount o content they have related to spiders.
Every phobia can be overcome.
The correct way to deal with a phobia is to overcome it, not to skirt around it.
I overcame a fairly severe case of Acrophobia (fear of heights) when I was young. I couldn't even look out of a third story window. The notion of getting on a swing when I was a kid just wasnt ever going to happen. It was really, really bad. After overcoming it, I picked up abseiling as a hobby and even became an instructor in it for a while.
Asking for a way to avoid a phobia isnt dealing with said phobia, it is literally going out of your way to NOT deal with it.
Aren't we all sinners?
I agree that this forum community is far from being the nicest. But implying this community is just outright mean or likes bullying the weak is also not helping.
There're 2 fundamental issues underlying the argument in this thread:
1. A good chunk of people (myself included) in this thread currently sees arachnophobia as a state-of-mind -> a form of "snowflake" -> not a sympathizable disability that merits special treatment.
2. This forum community is very harsh against those whom are seen as snowflakes and/or entitled -- given that this forum has seen a long history of folks demanding changes (sometimes in a fundamental way) or special treatments just to suit their own playstyle or circumstances, a few that I remember include:
- protection from pvp,
- removal of cosmetic cash shop,
- discounted fees for players in lower income regions without restricting their access to "regular fees" (i.e. NA & EU) servers,
- npcs use politically correct pronouns
And these demands were often made by self-righteous individuals, often in manners that can only be described as entitled, and often without regard to the potential broader impact & costs implied by their proposed changes. Over time this has likely bred a good amount of comtempt and bitterness in this community.
If you're really for arachnophobia mode, I'd suggest you address issue 1 and inform/enlighten the community about arachnophobia -- what is so special about it, why it is not a kind of snowflake, why it should be considered separately from other phobias (since you've been labellng comparisons with other phobias "slippery slope"), why should people sympathize with those who have it, and most importantly why it and it alone merits special treatment. (And yes I saw that you've brought up several points in your posts).
Condemning the community for issue 2 (by calling ppl ignorant and simply dismissing their concerns) however is only going to breed further contempt and bitterness. May be you can wear the ppl out on this thread if you're perseverant enough, but it's not gonna get any better when the dev discussion comes.
You kept saying ppl here don't understand arachnophobia, that may be true, but I hope you can also understand where this negativity stems from.
My group has been explicitly ignoring this thread because it's generally not worth anyone's time to argue with the 'bootstrapped personal responsibility' approach to mental health. The sort of person who thinks like that has a deeper personal 'reason' for their stance in most cases and all you end up doing is getting them to make exceptions.
I only said anything at all because we got to the point of 'Vaknar informing the OP that Intrepid is going to have a Discussion on it' and then people bothering to respond to Vaknar with their 'no, you can't choose to help these people, slippery slope!' and 'you can't do this, it isn't really help' and whatnot.
Which I saw as 'people literally wanting to tell a game company not to implement Arachnophobia mode because of their personal life philosophy being triggered'.
And on that premise specifically I stand by what I said and will gladly breed any contempt and bitterness toward me that I can manage, since that's the way I've learned works on those types of people.
The sort of person who has enough empathy to be convinced isn't often the type of person who 'stays mad at me for calling it out'. Just going from experience. I've learned to add things like 'seriously, you guys are the worst' because it's a good distraction for all the people who just want to be mad, who then don't really address the point or do stuff like Mag7 does.
Even this post isn't for anyone here except maybe you @Voidwalkers. As you will, so shall you be, and all that.
On this point, I agree.
If Intrepid look at it and decide it is worth it to add in something like this for some phobias and not others, that's their prerogative, gokd luck explaining to people with other phobias why theirs isnt worth it though.
My issue was with you suggesting that people asking for this mode was them "dealing with" arachnophobia. It quite literally isnt that. Dealing with a phobia is working to make it no longer a phobia.
its an RPG u can just roll play somone in game that has arachnophobia and leg it every time you see one screaming and watch other players be like wtf well thats a thing