Autism Awareness Month: anyone else having difficulties with raids?

Community General Discussion
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Simply a general question. I’m on the spectrum; I’ve also been playing WoW on and off since release.

One thing I always struggled with, are raids, simply because they contain such a massive sensory overload. Normal Dungeon runs are ok, because they are over fairly quickly, but raids mean going through a barrage of sound and visual effects over a long time, which is extremely challenging for an autistic brain like mine. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, google “sensory overload”. It’s not fun.)

I can do this, but it is extremely draining, not much fun and usually leaves me completely exhausted after half an hour or so.

Usually that wasn’t such a problem; raids were just the bit at the end, which you could easily avoid, if you were not into it. But now, the war campaign continues on the other side and the Zandalar raid sits like a big roadblock in front of it.

I wish there was some way you could just opt out of this. I don’t care about loot, I can live with the fact I’m not going to see these epic fights, I would just like to be able to enjoy the lore without having to go through the gaming equivalent of a dentist appointment to get there. I’d be happy to press a button that says ‘skip’ and then go on with the war campaign.

Just me? Or can anyone relate?

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I think turning the sound off can go a long way in helping your case friend, there is also turning down partial density which reduces the effects visuals a lot, which helps too.

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I have more of a difficulty speaking up and communicating in voice chat with 19 other people… It’s hampered me a bit in mythic progression where communication has always been a slight issue for me.

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Turning down the sound and brightness helped a bit for me.

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Voice chat is literally The Worst, even if it’s with good mates, it does my head in and I avoid it where ever I can. :smile:

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that quest can be done in lfr, basically you can mute your game, avoid any kind of communication with the rest of the raid, sit your cat on your keyboard, go get an ice cream at your favourite ice cream store down the corner, get back home and hand in the quest.

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I remember I’ve seen a blind color modus once. I’m not sure what it does and if it’s still there but you could give it a try.

I’ve also seen some commercials about gaming glasses. They might do the trick for you too.

Hope you’ll figure something out

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I need a cat… :cat:
But that’s basically what my friends said too. I does feel like cheating to me though… I mean, if I play with others, I want to be good (or at least adequate) and not just present.
I will try that at some point.

I’m sure, I’ll be alright and get through this - if not, I’ll do the thing I did with a couple of other raids that actually interested me… wait a few years, come back when you can solo them. I mean, I did need to see the Lich King die for example.

I was mostly wondering, if other gamers feel the same way; there are a lot of people with sensory issues. It might be interesting from a developer point of view too - do they want to make games more accessible?

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The quest doesn’t take a long time to complete in LFR, but I’d also suggest just afking to avoid any stress.

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I guess they rather make games like Hearthstone where your ability to focus on one process and not be distracted is much more rewarded.

This overly flashingness and other player spell effects must have an option to be turned off imho.
It would be a quality of life for everyone.

Also I can’t spot where Jaina is thanks to 4 Tauren melees. Which is also hilariously untouched obvious minus.

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IDK to be honest - WoW is aimed at such a broad spectrum of players and some mechanic like “opt out of raid quest, wake up on the other side in a healer tent, where they tell you you got knocked out in the first few minutes and then they tell you how the battle went (= show any relevant cutscenes)” … I don’t think that would be too hard to implement.
If players and developers were actually interested in it.

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Some concepts and ideas are needed to circulate if we want devs to see and consider their implementation.

I am all for making wow more accessible for all people and I am sure all adequate players are.

Just how to balance accessibility and challenging is a tricky part…

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Raids don’t need to be made more accessible than they already are. They simply need to not be mandatory to continue a main story. Stop forcing people into content they don’t want to do, it only causes friction.
Some people like to simply escape rl and find what they’re looking for in wow, others might find it in gardening. Why can’t people just do what they like and leave others be?
There is a big difference between ‘I am not interested in/capable of this content but I would like to be able to play other aspects’ and ‘I have a dozen kids and a gazillion pets and a 400 hour job so give me tf loot because I have no time to raid’ (exaggerated to get point across)

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On the spectrum too. I personally don’t get sensory overload by raiding but I do avoid voice communication when I can since I’m very uncomfy with it. I do get a little exhausted if a raid lasts very long since I tend to focus very hard to do my best.

The thing that can annoy me a lot in raids is the fact that most of WoW’s “raiders” seem to be very young and ignorant. They often have a very angry attitude and show a huge lack of interest in raiding despite spending their time doing just that. Can’t even count the times I’ve been insulted for no logic reason by those kids. Most of the times I don’t care, but sometimes it does get exhausting. And those times a raid group has the description “no autists please” or someone says “just do the tactics and don’t be autistic”… I usually tell them they wouldn’t even have a computer to play games on if it wasn’t for autism. :stuck_out_tongue:

Anyway, even though some can raid and enjoy it like I do most of the time, I fully understand that some can’t and want alternatives.

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Totally agree with this

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Hi Arnathon, I have severe autism according to dsm-iv scale but I can handle the massive sensory input, though it is somewhat hurtful but my biggest problems in raids and dungeons is the lack of coordination, by all means that I can not move my hands as I want,

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same here, it’s the reason i avoid them for the most part. just isn’t fun for me. like you it leaves me drained after a short period

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^^This lol. Then people like you complain about Lfr being bad. Epic advice…probably not so for the other people actually trying.

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I don’t do raid, so I can’t relate completely.

But I sometimes watch vids about raids to see what the fuzz is all about :wink:

Hínáta wrote that turning off sound could be a little helper, and I agree that the little things can help you - when I was in a dungeon group I turned of the sound as well, it was very distracting and takes the concentration away from other things you want to focus on.

I don’t play with addons. I don’t feel like I need them, and I find then distracting in a way I don’t like.
And I am of course aware that almost every other players use them, specially those that raid, I can see that when I watch videos.
When I watch those videos I find that a lot of the addons that is used annoys my experince of watching the raid - there is too much going on in the screen.

Out of curiosity, could it be, that the addons you use are contributing to the exhaustion you feel?

Other forum dwellers has asked for a change in light and colour settings, maybe you should take some time to rearrange your computer settings when you go to raid (?)

Other than that, I wish I could say I can relate and I have a solution for you, but I’m afraid I can’t - but I hope for a near solution for you, so you can continue :slight_smile:

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I can so relate to this. I personally detest this and hate that these days, most people will only do this raids etc. while using Discord etc.

Don’t get me wrong, I do understand why they do and it does make sense but I have a really bad memory and can literally forget something I was just told two seconds ago. Not to mention I have social problems I won’t bore you with which makes communicating with people in this way a huge issue for me anyway so I have never gone on a group raid and wait until I’m a high enough level so I can solo dungeons and old raids.

I know there are a few players out there who will take their time, stop and type instructions in chat (which is perfect for me - if I can see instructions written down I can keep referring to them) but this takes time and so many players are in a huge rush to get things done.

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