Man it is so frustrating that mashing buttons over and over keeps being a thing. It's been complained about for much longer than even FFXIV. And that sucks that they've kind of refused to address it. I kind of find it a really lazy way of accentuating that challenge. Cuz like yeah like you said you get why it's added, to add that tension, but yeah I find it kind of cheap.
Yuuuuup. See I definitely struggle with that pacing because ADHD makes it impossible to do, but I think I would struggle with it anyway because like, your mind, no matter what state it's in was never meant to like, interface with a broken body in that way. So it just, doesn't want to understand. But I mean, hey, even if you don't always pace yourself you have to give yourself some grace, because with shit like this it isn't always consistent what you can do. So your subconscious is probably gonna try and like, get an intuitional sense of what you can and can't do on some level, but it's never going to quite be able to find a solid answer. You're gonna have better and worse days. So it's just. Fuck man people who don't experience it have no idea.
Well shit. Of course. A stylus. Duh, why didn't I think of that. I definitely don't need a stylus, but that's a good thing to keep in mind. I can use a phone just fine, but lately I've been trying to look at finishing some mobile games on windows phone before that goes away in a month, and I am really, really struggling. The moment what I have to do with my fingers on a touch screen becomes stressful, my hand starts to ache and spasm, and these games are all either super easy or super hard. No in between. A stylus would actually help. I'd just need to get a larger one because the DS one also hurts my hand.
God I hate this shit. People just don't understand others can be different from them, and so when one of them at least TRIES to work with you even if they don't understand, others just lump them in as well. My parents didn't "disown" me but they have taken the route of just kind of like, half letting it be real but half deciding they actually know who I am, and are constantly interacting with THAT version of me, which is the most lonely feeling.
Yeah and I have been fighting so hard to GET the diagnosis. It was probably tough for you too because I know girls with autism get so often ignored. For me idk I've just gotten so good at masking it's tough to know how to get a diagnosis. It's one of those things that professionals have looked at brain scans (from head injuries) and been like, oh is he autistic/ADHD? I remember a doctor doing that once and being like, "oh, Chettlar is probably very smart. And this we see this is classic ADHD." And kind of explaining that typically what they were seeing was typical of autism and she could tell from never having met me. And I'm just sitting there, finding it literally impossible to think about anything due to exhaustion, like wtf do you mean lady. I'm a big dumb idiot. Also how am I autistic. But it took a lot of research and interaction with other professionals to finally realize that I absolutely am on the spectrum, and it made everything else make so much sense. The problem was I was interacting with these professionals in an out-of-pocket sense due to chronic issues that insurance refused to cover, and any time a diagnosis came up, my parents wouldn't really pursue it because they thought well he can't be that autistic (insert whatever various reasons like I don't hit myself in the head constantly; I don't make weird noises; all that stereotypical stuff), and they believed a diagnosis would just hurt me getting a job. So I've recieved no support till now I'm 26 and working on saving up money and trying to get an eval specifically for that. It's been a struggle.
Oh man I hear that last part especially. It sucks.
It also just sucks that as this community gets bigger, it's going to invite more people who are toxic, or who have only been involved with these games for as long as the "discourse" has been going, and are even attracted to or at least influenced by the toxicity of it. It's one of those things where had you been like, in the early days of demon's souls, you'd probably have not even really run into it. But it's only going to grow. My hope, and the influence I try in my little way to have is to build up the side of the community that is welcoming and encouraging and open to making shit work as much as is possible for someone with your needs and limitations. Because I think so many of us do have limitations of our own.
I think you also contribute to helping that when you express like in your first post, specifically what it is you interact with and what might help you overcome that within what you believe the game is trying to do, also not being afraid to admit the areas in which you don't know about the game, which is fuckin so rare. Because when you approach it like that, you aren't just dismissing something that is important to people; you are just expressing where you are coming from. Being willing to admit the limits of your knowledge but also express in certain terms where your limits lie is absolutely the best way to lead to a constructive conversation I think. It's not this bullshit I've seen in some of these threads where the very idea that someone who is complaining might possibly need to be corrected about something is insulting, which I've just seen time and time again. So I really appreciate your perspective.
Yuuuup. Definitely. And trying to have that empathy for other people having perspectives I just don't understand has done a lot for helping me with my own blindness for sure. In fact I think it's one of those things where since I was naturally worse at it than normal, I had to work way harder for it and it's consciously something I discipline myself to do. Meanwhile the you run into neurotypical people who just cannot be arsed to see outside of their own perspectives on an actual fundamental way. Because for me, growing up and learning to do it at all, meant learning how to understand it with fundamental differences because it's all the same to me, small or big.
And yeah, sorry for the later response. Getting overwhelmed with, well exhaustion. I slept all day today. But yeah I've seriously appreciated reading your perspective and background. This has been one of the more valuable interactions I've had on this site.
I also apologise for my late response! Between work and uni I have been super under the pump this week.
Yeah, I didn't realise really how much button mashing sucked until the neuropathy, like...it sucked before the with dyspraxia but, I just figured it sucked for everyone and that was normal (Not getting diagnosed with the dyspraxia until after the autism diagnosis didn't help with a lot of perceptions of things growing up haha). FFXIV is the game I play the most, usually putting some time in every day, so it's usually my first go to when I think of things that don't help, or do help for gaming because it's more action orientated than my gaming elsewhere, where I mostly play turn based, puzzle, strategy, VNs or 'walking simulators', and it's a game I'm able to do well at (even if I play the most simple class in the game, ahahaaa)
Yeah, I am glad I'm getting better at sort of, learning my limits and not burning myself out, I've been able to set a few boundaries with stuff like, work to be like "Hey work, if I do this many shifts and this much uni, I'm going to do too much. So I'd like to just say I'm unavailable for this shift, so I can be sure that if I've had a big week, I've got the time to recover". But it's super hard to set those boundaries, cause I'm also a people pleaser type personality :') I'm far more likely to burn myself out for someone else than myself knowingly. Most of the time it's just me just having absolutely no sense of what will fuck me up until it hits me. And yeah, a lot of people don't quite get that sometimes, I'm looking fine and Ilike I'm managing well, and then I absolutely crash later. Just bbecause I can do it for a short time, doesn't mean I should, and sometimes that concept just goes over peoples' head.
That is one of the frustrating things about the stylus, unfortunately, is that not every game supports the native stylus input. It would probably work with a 'low tech' capacitive stylus solution but those aren't as precise as the native S Pen stylus tip. Like, Pokemon Go doesn't support the stylus at all, which, sucks cause it'd be real nice to catch Pokemon with. The more frustrating games are ones that the stylus works for menus but not for the gameplay. Like...come on! You're already partway there, I know you can do it, just enable it for the whole thing!
It was honestly kind of a serendipidous finding that I was diagnosed tbh. My mother was able to get psych care for the family through her work, and when I started going off the rails in high school, she got me in with a psych, who, from what I hear, approached my mother after a few sessions and was like "Uhh. Did you know your daughter was autistic? Because I'm pretty sure she is, and I'd like to get her tested." I'd always thought when we learnt about Aspergers in school and the like that it sounded like me, but, I always figured 'Well, if I was, I'm sure someone would have picked it up by now, right?". We did the testing, got the official diagnosis, but as we found out much later...he was shit at keeping records, and didn't actually keep that documentation so despite having the 'official' diagnosis, and the government recognising it and providing support, and all of that, because of that missing documentation, my university can't put it on my paperwork unless I go out and spend and get diagnosed -again-, which is thousands of dollars. I'm a uni student, I can't afford that. I hate to think what it would be in the US with that health care system.
I definitely agree on the part of a community getting bigger inevitably means that in comes more of the worst of us, and it can be hard to find those good voices, so I definitely appreciate those being encouraged to lift up and above. And it's especially hard on the internet, like, when I've discussed some of my issues in person, I mean, I've never had the 'GIT GOOD' thrown back at me because, well, people in real life generally know me and have seen things that I do to mitigate my issues or know of my health problems. It's also why I try to give very specific examples too for when I'm trying to describe things on the internet, on positions I sit in or control schemes I use or the way I interact with control schemes, because it makes it easier to visualise for the person reading, and they might know of something that might help, or it can be a way to quantify exactly how bad things are for me for some of the more difficult concepts to understand, like the left/right processing issues. And I'm always careful to say that my experience is only with one Souls game, and that I didn't get far, and that it was about 10hrs of game time all up, because that gives people a frame of what I've experienced, and they might be able to say "Oh yeah, no, that thing? They changed that.". Same with being clear about how I don't think the game is for me in terms of storytelling presentation which is why I'm unlikely to go back (usually I'm drawn into game by strong and upfront character or story work, so it's definitely not the Souls vibe haha). It's all kind of a ball of trying to vibe "Hello yes, I am a disabled person. I'm not here to try and ruin your game, I don't really have a horse in the race because I'm still unlikely to buy the titles for myself if changes are implemented for other reasons, but here in my experience is the things that would have helped me when I tried to play, with some examples." with the hope I might get people thinking about how solutions might be implemented, or I might hear that things have changed in intervening years. Being wrong is a chance to learn, it's just....not many people see it that way.
I was diagnosed with Asperger's at about 30. To say I've gotten a late start on counseling and understanding what I've been trying to tell those around me has been "wrong" with the way my brain works my entire life... it's been a struggle and simultaneously an immense release to have an answer. My parents literally don't know how to process it, can't blame them honestly. I could write a thesis on the first 30 years of my life, at least the 25 I was cognitive. So much "if you can say there is something wrong with you, you're fine" when I would say, "no there is legit something wrong with my perception of reality, I think I'm going insane."
It's so silly. It's not like we don't hear how other people perceive things and act and compare it to our own way, we still have self-awareness, haha. I agree though, it's truly a relief to actually hear that there's a reason, so to speak, that your brain works the way it does. But yeah, I've been running into those struggles with trying to interact with people around thought processes lately, people asking me "But what's the reasoning behind doing this this way?" and then getting really frustrated when I respond "Look, honestly, I don't know the reason why. I just do it because it's the rules set by the boss, and I assume the rule is in place for a good reason.". It always sends you into that introspection of "Is this me fucking up a normal interaction, or is this just us having some bad communication" haha. People always sort of stare at me when I tell them I spend most of my night while try to get to sleep contemplating conversations and situations I might run into the next day, and preparing responses and reactions to different scenarios. Like, even as a little kid, I got that other people didn't do that, I just figured I was a weirdo.
If you're willing to play offline, on PC, I've been playing with an FOV mod today, and the difference in view is pretty staggering:
Default:
+50%:
The ease it's added in seeing my environment and the enemies around me has been just wonderful so far, truly an advantage. Far less blind panic rolling because I've lost track of a wildly attacking foe.
Again, you have to give up online though, which is why From should be providing FOV adjustment in the software.
Also, wow, the difference the FOV makes, this would be a huge improvement. FOV adjustments definitely need to be more universal, I have an ultrawide and have to do so much dumb lil hacky shit to make an appropriate FOV for it half the time.
And then you get games like Sea of Thieves that the FOV made me seasick...
