Really sorry to be a bother, but could we get a maggot toggle similiar to the blood and dismemberment toggle, my friend has a severe phobia of maggots (so much so she doesn’t like even saying the word) and I’d really like to play with her.
Just a simple toggle to remove them or use effects only that don’t have them would be fine.
I would love to see the addition of settings for things like this!
My friend has a very severe phobia of throwing up, and the Beast of Nurgle is getting to her so much that she is considering returning the game because the boss is almost guaranteed to spawn twice every mission
If they are going to prevent modding support, they need to support these kinds of things, probably which they didnt consider. Which is the reason they need to support mods
People don’t come to videogames to treat trauma, they come to have fun. Accessibility menu should definitely expand to cover this. Same with the maggots being beaten out of poxers when you hit them.
I’m also not fond of dogs in combat, or the dog dying sound. Would be nice to have options to disable those, as just the panting and the spawn sound are enough to notify and keep track of it.
While we’re on the note of accessibility, subtitles for closed captions would be nice, but understandably difficult to add.
People go to doctors to treat illnesses, not video games. Though agreed exposure is considered the most effective way of treating phobias
You’re right. I also mentioned in another thread about low visibility missions being so impactful for friends with visusal impairments that quick play should have a filter system to allow you to toggle certain conditions or missions. Like in PAYDAY 2, it could replace those missions with other kinds of missions and modifiers to keep the pool fresh.
I get you’re trying to riff on people with needs for accessibility in games, but it’s not proper etiquette. People live different lives, suffer different things mentally or physically, and there’s nothing wrong with trying to account for their fun as well. Don’t sneer accessibility please.
Nothing offends the hardcore gamerTM like the idea that other people might enjoy the game differently than them.
There is a toggle that removes blood and dismemberment, does this remove the maggots too? Worth testing.
But you know what, there already is a toggle that can filter out (block) all Redmeat sneering on the forum! That’s a starter.
To everyone being serious here, I feel you and I’m lucky to have control over my reaction when seeing dog eating out my chars throat, I’m thankful for the 3rd person view (it helps a lot coping with this).
I hope that we’ll be able to edit out maggot effect, as it’s not related to any mechanics (in contrast to Beast of Nurgle throwing up attack, unfortunately).
I also agree that a maggot toggle is a good idea. I personally don’t mind the maggots - I grew up on a farm, so bugs were unavoidable. But that also means I’ve seen a lot of friends swing by once and then just … never come back again. The bugs were specifically mentioned as reasons why on several occasions. I’m a little afraid something similar might happen here.
Blood & Gore toggles are starting to be rather common in games, because people want to be able to have the visceral satisfaction of wailing on baddies to let out some frustration after a long day, but too visceral can ruin the fun (hard to have fun if you’re nauseous). The maggots seem, essentially, to be another type of gore. They certainly function the same way: you hit a baddie with your melee weapon and icky stuff flies out, just different icky stuff.
It seems like it’d take effort to put in (what doesn’t, in video games?) But I’d rather that than drive off people who otherwise would enjoy having a hack-and-slash 40k game to play around in. The life-blood of the game is going to depend on having a robust community of players, after all, so I’d definitely advocate accommodation, if it doesn’t stray into the realm of unreasonable.
The question is how many individual phobias developers should cater to? Let’s say they add this maggot toggle for your friend, then the next one comes along to say they are afraid of something else. How many phobias should be considered before it starts to take away from the development? How many phobia and sensitivity toggles is enough, and what will ultimately remain after every single potential customer is truly satisfied? What if your friend gets the maggot toggle but someone else does not get the toggle for their phobia? Does that mean that your friends phobia is more valid than whatever phobia did not get a toggle?
The thing is, it says right on the marketing material we are fighting Nurgle corruption. Maybe a game like that is simply not a right fit for your friend if the maggot phobia is indeed so severe that the only solution is a bespoke toggle to remove them entirely? Instead of the world catering to your friend to make them comfortable, maybe it’s the friend who should be active in this matter and choose some other entertainment product. There are plenty of co-op games that do not feature any maggots.
It doesn’t unfortunately, that was actually the reason I requested the toggle. The existing code is already there so the extra work would be absolutely minuscule to add this in.
Unless you have insider information of how Darktide code works you really cant say if it is truly such a miniscule work effort. And even if the work effort is indeed “miniscule” it doesn’t remove the fact that after your friend gets their phobia catered to the next one comes along demanding their phobia to get the same treatment as well, ultimately resulting in a constant stream of “miniscule” work effort just to make sure every single phobic individual is comfortable to play a grimdark scifi shooter.
Easiest solution is that you and your friend find some other game to play, and Fatshark focuses on getting this game and their vision out of the door as it is.
The question is how many individual phobias developers should cater to?
This is a valid question. However, I believe a maggot phobia is probably a lot more widespread than people may think. I’ve definitely seen a LOT of people get squeamish over bugs - more so than over blood, to be honest.
The problem is, many of them will not be posting here. If the phobia is severe enough to make them stop playing the game, most of them are simply going to quit the game, full stop, rather than going to the forums. But there are also going to be those who have a mild phobia - enough to make them uncomfortable (and probably decrease the amount of time they play overall), but not enough that they’re willing to risk the toxicity of the forums. Adding in a toggle would help basically anyone who doesn’t like creepy-crawlies have a better play experience.
And, the thing is? You don’t necessarily know, going in, that fighting Nurgle-themed enemies is going to involve bugs. Lots of people are probably expecting sores, pus, and other sickness-themed horror. But disease does not necessarily equal bugs. While I think it’s cool that some enemies spurt maggots instead of blood or puss, I can easily see it coming as a nasty shock because B does not necessarily follow from A.
So what exactly are the options here?
-People who suffer from such severe phobias that they simply cannot play Darktide do not play Darktide. They do their due diligence from the available marketing material and gameplay footage to determine that this entertainment product is not a fit to their personal phobia.
-Fatshark go out of their way to make sure that no one feels like their 40k game is triggering any specific phobias, since many of these people do not post on these forums they allocate resources to track down these people, find out what they are afraid of and change Darktide to cater to them, three days before the release date. Fatshark does the due diligence for the people suffering from these phobias for them.
World does not revolve around our individual phobias or feelings. I was severely attacked by a dog when I was 6 years old and still have scars from that encounter. Those hound pounces in the game have scared me a couple of times very badly, especially in the beginning since there was no indication of any dogs in the marketing materials. Even if the hounds make me feel some level of discomfort I am not going to demand that developers should make me able to remove them from game, because my problems are not everyone’s problems. I understand that the world does not cater to my individual mental scars and I have the responsibility to determine if I can use this entertainment product or not. For whatever reason people seem to suffer from a bad case of main character syndrome these days, thinking that their personal comfort is the number one priority for entertainment businesses, instead of catering to the majority of customer base.
This may be how it seems, but there is actually a third option: Fatshark takes into account the most common phobias and sensory issues, caters to them, and the more uncommon ones get triaged out because of time needs.
This already seems to be their philosophy. This is why features exist like removing blood & gore (to cater to a common phobia) and removing motion blur (because it’s relatively common for some people to become nauseous when using this feature).
This is why my arguments have mainly been geared around the question: “How common is this issue?” Because it’s not a binary state: cater to issues that may make people uncomfortable, or not. They already ARE doing that. It’s just a matter of, “Is this issue common enough/a big enough deal that it’s worth dedicating man-hours to it?”
Now, this is something where we can have a legitimate debate, because the line IS fuzzy. Personally, I tend to fall down on the side of: “Since you’re going to get maggots spewing in your face every time you swing a sword - there is no way of avoiding looking at them or pretending they are something else - if a blood & gore toggle exists, then a maggot toggle should exist - or toggling maggots on and off should be rolled into the functionality of the blood & gore toggle.”
I am actually ready to bet money that the existing blood and gore toggle exists more because they want to be able to sell this game in countries like Germany, Australia and Japan instead of there being a sizable portion of Warhammer 40 000 fans who have a phobia of blood and guts whose feelings need to be protected.
Man, these toxic af replies to this person asking quite nicely and sincerely for a feature that would let their friend play their videogame with them, because of something they can’t control…
Do you know how easy it is to add a tickbox in the game options that just turns off rendering the maggots effects? I’ll give you a clue. It’s very easy.
Yes, you can, eventually, arduously, over a long time, sometimes only partially mitigate phobias with repeated exposure. Do you think that’s what someone wants to do when playing video games to have fun? No.
Some people need to get off their emotionally dead high horses and acknowledge this very polite and reasonable request for the easily implemented and sensible feature that it is.
Just because we can’t cater to every phobia or disability within budgetary/development constraints doesn’t mean we don’t reach a sensible compromise where possible.
Also from a pure business perspective, it’s good sense to do small (read: inexpensive) bits of work which let more people play (read: buy) the game and improve your reputation as a developer.
While it’s possible those features only exist for money reasons, I’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt about actually caring about their fanbase. ^^
Otherwise, what’s the point of posting on the forums?
In all seriousness, there are many reasons people like 40k. Some like the grim-dark aesthetic, but don’t like specifically seeing blood & gore in their face. So, it seems like a reasonable add, even if it wasn’t required.
Thats not actually correct.
[https://youtu.be/2MNYZK0Sw9s] (01:29)
Im sure if maggots could be rolled into the gore effects they would its not a massive issue but weare starting to veer of course a bit here. Sensitivity filters in certain genres don’t really make sense. Every little change can become death by committee. Should horror elements like the daemonhost be removed because people might be scared and it wasn’t advertised? I see it being no different from film if it’s not for you it’s not for you. I really detest violent horror films but I choose simply not to watch them.
You can kind of concern post about loss of revenue but in reality it is miniscule and the game isnt a profit-maxxing endeavour. If it was itd be microtransactions free to play with a soft visual aesthetic. Theres deep love for the settkng and creative vision in the development. It’ll be successful. Fatshark have seen a massive audience flock to this title already. We have not had a 40k shooter of this quality ever before.
The 40k setting is (grim)dark. The game is dark. You murder traitors, heretics and daemons with chainsaws. A lobotomised man tends your wounds and begs for help after. People lose their souls to monsters that stalk the void. There are clear caste systems and hierachies. If you start pulling the trigger warning thread with 40k and this game you’ll end up with a Star Trek away mission rather than an Inquisitorial Kill Team. While I also enjoy Star Trek I’d like 40k to be distinct. 40k is a disturbing Universe.