New House Mission Finishers Trigger Epilepsy

Apricot Princess · 2019-05-13T11:21:41.302Z

Hey everyone, I have photosensitive epilepsy and play League of Legends. Only a few things in the game are actually an issue for me and most can be avoided, like banning Lucian or Lux, so I can have a safe game. However, the new kill/death animations for the house missions–those big strobey house logos that pop up over a champion you kill– are a huge issue for photosensitive epilepsy and cannot be turned off nor the effects turned down. I understand that epileptics are in the minority for those who play the game, but League has brought me a lot of joy these past few years and it's heartbreaking that Riot doesn't take epilepsy seriously when developing and designing new game mechanics. Riot, please, create a toggle off function for house animation finishers so epileptics can stay safe. Thanks for your time —————————————————————— EDIT: Hey everyone, before I get started. Wow. This post kind of blew up during my day of medical appointments. Thanks for everyone who responded, Rioters included. I just want to say that I understand Riot's reasoning for launching this new animation w/o a toggle vs not launching it at all. I studied multimedia design and basic game design in college before I got sick and understand the basics. Timelines get crunched and some things fall off importance wise. I'm not asking for the animation to be removed. It's a cool effect and honestly, if it didn't cause photosensitive issues, I'd be super stoked for them. It is a shame that the game has an option for colorblind mode but not photosensitivity. But that likely comes not from malice, but from not knowing what exactly triggers epilepsy or how to go about creating that feature vs colorblind really being open and shut as to its effects. I only became epileptic a year after I started playing this game, and that's when I realized only roughly 10 things in this game messed with me. My doctor is aware I play and he's also aware of how much joy this game brings me, especially as my health has gotten worse (outside of epilepsy), and has just told me to be as safe as possible. Ultimately, anyone with photosensitive epilepsy plays video games at their own risk. I have submitted support tickets about how to go about addressing the specific graphic parts of the game that could be adjusted in order to be safer for photosensitive people (like for a photosensitive mode or toggle). Ultimately, I was told that it has been brought up to devs before and that they unfortunately don't care or see it as a priority. Hopefully they forwarded my ticket to the right people, but it's super easy for something like this to just be forgotten about or swept under the rug in lieu of more content that promotes the game, skins, events, etc. I would love to see photosensitivity thought of more in the future for people like me who love and support this game and I'm willing to help if there are any questions regarding how Riot could possibly do that. If needed, I can share my support ticket where I go in depth about opacity of spell effects and color variations or quick adjustments. Thanks for everyone's time.

TotalJerkMay 13, 201937 votes

At this point I feel like your game/client should just have an "photosensitive mode" the same way there's a colorblind mode.

Kai GuyMay 13, 201910 votes

Yea. Its not super common but Epilepsy is a thing. Honestly I would never recommend League to any one I know with it. To many ability animations are flashy. There's a good reason old Arcade games had a warning.

5050BSMay 13, 20194 votes

I find it amazing that Riot will spend a lot of time putting in Colorblind mode stuff (something that does NOT threaten the safety of the player) but cant find the time to put in safety measures for Epilepsy (something that DOES threaten the safety of the player)

Kai GuyMay 13, 201911 votes

Epilepsy is something that has pretty well known triggers and risks. Videogames on the whole are a risk, for years. Arcade games had disclaimers for a good reason. So this issue is not just riot. Look man, I consistently support making a QOL changes for the game, I have empathy for the folks who have to live with Epilepsy just like I support Color blind as a good qol system. I embrace making the experience better or possible for players. But throwing shade on Riot for this is fucking stupid my man... really? What a massive amount of salt you have in your system to go at them like that.

Want to make a correction to my first comment, to much ambiguity. Epilepsy is fairly "common" as far as things go. What some 50 million+ folks having it. So A low Trigger risk mode is a cool thing to invest into, even if its a very small minority of players that would suffer from it. I hope Riot does it. The idea has my Full support

LadyAlbaKurosakiMay 14, 20192 votes

Spot on.

HammermancerMay 14, 20197 votes

{quoted}

Spot on.

nope.it's literally the only possible way their product can be dangerous, they should pay attention to it.

especially if they know there's a risk and talk about it, and then release it to sell event passes

they've actually put members of the community at physical risk of injury or death in a convulsive fit, knowingly, for profit

no warning, no nothing.

that's really bad

LadyAlbaKurosakiMay 14, 20199 votes

Videogames are dangerous for epileptics, period. if they still want to play them is not Riot's fault. it's irresponsponsible of the players. This is as if a diabetic wanted to sue a baker because their cakes gave them a diabetic coma, it's the diabetic responsability to take care of their heath, not the baker's.

LewdensMay 14, 201911 votes

Along with your analogy's logic, this post is not blaming Riot for the seizures but more akin to asking the baker to bake a sugar free cake. OP is asking for a setting to help epileptics. Not blaming.

ElipoMay 13, 20195 votes

Ikr. It's like having a peanut allergy and they go to a restarant that they know has peanuts in all of their dishes, then complainig and blaming them after you get the allergic shock*[slayer-jinx-unamused]*

Kai GuyMay 13, 201913 votes

Its a risk. Its one you make on your own. I find the false outrage in this thread blatent. The game is already a risk for Players like this, even 1 skin with new animations can be an issue.

But, As some one who genuinely enjoys games, league being one of my favorites. I do want to see QOL for folks who might otherwise be unable to enjoy the game. Creating a Visual Filter is going to be work, its going to cost $. I think its worthwhile. Yea... you expect players like the OP to be a minority as a dev.

I might be projecting but "lot of joy these past few years" It feels like the OP is some one who truly enjoys games as well. That's relatable to me. Its a hassle and likely unviable to consider every animation and every skin. Its a lot of work.. but building a ground up Filter to reduce animation effects to a safer level sounds like a really good thing. Once you have groundwork in place it reduces the work load massively.

So like I said. Why don't we all take it as a moment we can as a community come together to support a QOL change. We got red attention on the topic. What if instead of meangless tilt and outrage and flame we sit down address the topic.

First up, Better understanding of the issue would be a good place to start. It looks like a lot of folks don't have the best understanding of Epilepsy. I certainly don't. Can a few folks step up to explain the issue better then Wikipedia? Is it fair to treat it as an "allergy" to flashing lights?

Second up. What would be needed to make a Photosensitive mode. Muted animation effects or colors? What would actually reduce the trigger risks.

This is information I personally don't have adequate knowledge on. Id like to see the conversation shift to making a better experience. I hope other share that desire. If you care, Educate me on the issue, please.

ChaosReynMay 14, 20198 votes

I've at least studied health related topics...I'm not gonna call myself an expert, but I can at least give you a little info.

Epileptic seizures can technically happen at any point in time. However, the three biggest recorded risk factors for triggering a seizure (and what would need to be addressed in order to make a Photosensitive mode) are:

"Strobing" effects (flashing between colors at a high rate of speed) [The "lost episode" of Pokémon was taken off air from this]
Sudden changes from darker or cooler colors to brighter and hotter colors (not to be confused with strobing, which can take place with almost any color combination, these changes are simply from say black to white or vice versa, and don't necessarily have to be done several times at once, but just done very suddenly with no gradient)
High amounts of motion (not necessarily Strobing, but just too much motion at one time over a large enough area)

Basically, Epilepsy is most commonly triggered by an "overload" of sensory (usually visual) input. It's not necessarily comparable to an allergy, and more comparable to what happens when someone or something surmounts a critical level of stress. But since it's a more specialized form of stress on a notably vulnerable area, it's far more acute than simple stress factors.

In order to make a Photosensitive mode, you've actually got a decent start - muting the colors and toning back some of the more hyperactive animation effects is a decent start.

Apricot PrincessMay 14, 20195 votes

The points ChaosReyn made are all correct speaking from my experience with photosensitive epilepsy. In League specifically, it also deals with the opacity of–or lack of– certain spell effect animations. Love your name btw

Kai GuyMay 14, 20191 votes

Quickest Fix Idea I have on this is to have a Photosensitive mode that replaces all ingame assests with safer ones. The Dev end needs to have 1 "photosafe" Skin for every champion as well as lower risk Map Assets as well.

The down side is Photosensitive players lose skins forever. Not a big deal from a gameplay side but some folks get attached. This does make a system with 100% reliability thou, its worst triggers would represent its highest risk. Reliability as It removes all the animation and coloration variables from skins and chromas or game mode.

Is that safer thou? I don't know how bad the variance is for folks who have to deal with this. Is this even a remotely realistic solution? What are the issues that really need to be solved to make things safer for ya?

Give that there are minors who play, what kind of verification is needed to enable this?

I got a large gap in my knowledge on the topic here. What is actually needed?

Apricot PrincessMay 14, 20196 votes

I appreciate the attempt at trying to troubleshoot this issue, but this solution is not only impractical but likely inefficient and more time consuming for Riot than it probably needs to be. Epilepsy differs from person to person, but overall the main triggers involve opaque, bright, quick flashing spell effects (usually with a contrast difference between flashing– whether against the map color or against it's own color base).

I do not think a mode or setting that removes a huge part of the game (all skins?) is viable. Not for the player or for Riot. Also, there is unfortunately no 100% reliability with epilepsy but there are things that help and things that absolutely do not help– or worse– trigger. Chromas usually do not affect spell effect colors.

The best bet for a photosensitive mode would be a toggle function/setting much like colorblind mode that swaps out the spell effects mentioned above (opaque, bright, etc...) for more muted, transparent effects/effects with more overall opacity (so the contrast between the dark map color and the white/bright light blue/etc isn't as dramatic). This does mean that riot would need to look at each champion's spell effects to see if they meet that criteria, but once they're known they wouldn't need to revisit them again unless a rework or a complete VU that modifies those effects was made.

I have an entire support ticket written out in detail with more information about the possibilities of making these modifications. If needed, I can post that here but I don't know if this post is the place to do that at this time. Thank you for your comment and concern. I appreciate it.

BDuhManaMay 14, 20194 votes

{quoted}

At this point I feel like your game/client should just have an "photosensitive mode" the same way there's a colorblind mode.

Agreed. Apologies don't stop a seizure.

nm1010May 13, 201942 votes

It would be nice if framework for disabling certain features was made, then you wouldn't have to design a toggle for each event individually. I have no idea what kind of workload that would entail, but the pay off seems worth it if it saves you resources on every event/content release.

RagnaveilMay 13, 201910 votes

Ya know, thats not a bad idea at all.

Apricot PrincessMay 14, 201911 votes

It would be great tbh

SpiritOfOdysseusMay 13, 201929 votes

I don't mean to harp on you, but the way you're saying it is basically "we're sorry, we didn't think about it and that it makes league less enjoyable for you."

When it should be, "Safety is our Number 1 priority when it comes to our players and this will be brought up immediately." I mean you're kidding right? These people know the risk of playing your game and do it anyway because it makes them happy. The sad thing is, I don't even think you know what these seizures can really do.

They play your game and they have FAITH that someone looks out for them while doing so. So when they run into something "flashy" do you think they can say "Oh, no more league for me." or do you think they topple over and potentially give themselves brain damage?

This is what I don't like about Riot. People like us, we GIVE you this information for free. Infact we basically PAY YOU to receive our feedback and yet where does it go? In one ear, out the other. Hire me man, I know what to do.

Just something to think about. Peace

Pika FoxMay 13, 201914 votes

Its already recommended if you are susceptible to certain seizures not to play videogames. Youre actively taking that risk yourself in doing so, and its not like riot is intentionally trying to cause them.

Options are either ship the neat thing that most people will love or dont. It would have been stupid of them not to release them.

Apricot PrincessMay 14, 20199 votes

I do not believe Riot is specifically trying to cause seizures and I don't believe I've said anything along those lines. I am aware I am taking a risk in playing as is my doctor. I am not asking for them to be removed for all players, just a toggle function in the (hopefully near) future.

RiotXenogenicMay 13, 201927 votes

I'm not sure how you arrive at me saying "I'm sorry, we didn't think about it" when I articulated how we had multiple conversations about the toggle. Just to repeat: we had many conversations about it and multiple meetings about it, and we decided in the end that even though we did not have the time/resources to ship with a toggle, we wanted to get finishers and spawn ceremonies into the competition. It was either ship without a toggle or don't ship it at all, and we felt that bringing them to the competition was better despite not having a toggle than not shipping them at all.

LudovicoMay 13, 201919 votes

and we decided in the end that even though we did not have the time/resources to ship with a toggle, we wanted to get finishers and spawn ceremonies into the competition.

I will never understand how multi-million companies don´t have the "time/resources" for stuff like this. Just be honest and say, it wasn´t worth to Riot NOT getting the money by releasing them without the toggle feature.

Like, I´m not mad for capitalism, and please do continue earning money and sustaining League - but for the love of [...] please do not say it was limited by "time/resources". The time aspect is just simple planing, and the resources one is just about money (and I do know how expensive engineers are).

Akali is SO HOTMay 14, 20196 votes

It's actually not uncommon for software projects to fall behind schedule even with good planning. Testing, writing the code, designing, fixing bugs, etc all can make the project take significantly more time. This happens across all companies not just Riot. Throwing more money at it doesn't guarantee these problems won't happen.

P0IS0N IVYMay 14, 20197 votes

I'm sorry but it really sounds like you're saying that you guys had many discussions about this topic, knew the potential dangers, and then decided to ship it anyway without a toggle knowing the potential dangers. For what? Aesthetic reasons?

Honestly, your first reply just made it seem like flashy shit for the majority of the population > safety for those select few.

This is not as simple as people being colorblind and coming to the board to complain that they can't see something.

You should not have shipped them at all if you did not have a toggle.

I've been more or less disappointed at some of the things Rioters have said throughout the years, but this chain of Rioter replies takes the cake.

DeathBurstMay 14, 20195 votes

OK, but bottom line here, will the feature be disabled entirely for this event? If what OP says is true, it seems like a serious health issue, and leaving it as is seems dangerous.

LewdensMay 14, 20195 votes

Xenogenic already said they're not doing anything about it for this event. I think their apathy outright sucks. I agree with p0is0n ivy in that it's much more serious than not being able to see something because of colorblindness and yet it and op's frustrations are not being taken seriously. Sounds like they're sweeping op's concerns under the rug just like op said in their edit.

DeathBurstMay 14, 20191 votes

What I understood is that they would not implement a toggle, but did he actually confirm they would not disable the feature either? I couldn't find anything about that.

LewdensMay 14, 20195 votes

Unless I misunderstood it, they have no plans on doing anything for it in this event. He said hopefully in the future but that's super vague and leaves no accountability for when the toggle will actually be implemented. They will not be disabling it for this event unless something changes. I think outright disabling it for everyone will cause outrage with the playerbase but at the same time they released this content without an ability to disable it and it hurts people like op. Pretty despicable. They knew it would cause issues for some people and they released it anyway. Shameful. What happens when the event is over? The winning house gets a finisher after the event. And that finisher hurts people like op.

Kai GuyMay 13, 20198 votes

Video games are inherently unsafe for folks like the OP. BUT! This is a good time for players to band together for some QOL support. Like Total mentioned It might be helpful to have a "photosensitive mode" to reduce the trigger risk for the entire game.

The OP apparently has issue with Lux Lucian . Toggle only helps with a current issue. Its not going to make the game less of a ticking timebomb for them to trigger an episode. Skins can change animations pretty dramatically.

QOL changes for players are always something I try to support, we have good opportunity to look into a long term fix for the minority of players who suffer from it. If Riot adopts it I think it might become a bit more mainstream for online games. Its worth looking into.

Apricot PrincessMay 14, 20195 votes

I agree with this comment. I would love to see QOL for people like me. I've met some odd 20 epileptics during my last 2 years playing this game and most end up quitting bc they feel like Riot doesn't see epilepsy as important. Most don't want to draw attention to themselves by making a boards post, which is also why I didn't for so long. Most people in the league community make not so great comments about epileptics playing from my experience and that's not even on such a public platform like this.

GuzergusMay 13, 20197 votes

So essentially your response is 'deal with it, we won't change shit for now'? Also, the fact you didn't even bother to think about people such as OP is pretty bad as well. The decision to ship them without toggling was incorrect.

Doge2020May 13, 20196 votes

They thought about it, they had multiple discussions, they just didn’t have time while everybody was preparing to ship the event. Essentially they are saying “deal with it” but they are saying “deal with it for this one time and the next time we have this feature in the game we will accomidate for your condition”.

The other option to shipping without the toggle would be to ship the event late which is likely worse than not having the toggle.

Madjack01May 13, 20195 votes

{quoted}

Hey folks! First, let me apologize for these effects causing issues, and for not having a toggle for them in this event.

The tl;dr is: the way we are rewarding and utilizing the finishers is new for Summoner's Rift/ARAM, and as such, we didn't have the time or bandwidth to have engineers rework this so that a toggle could ship with the finishers. We chatted about it at-length and ultimately decided we would rather ship them with no toggle than not ship them because we couldn't do a toggle, but we knew there would be some level of frustration and risk with that. So again, my apologies for making League less enjoyable for you in the meantime.

When and if we release them again for ARAM/SR, we should have had the time by then to build a toggle for the content type so anyone that doesn't want them on can disable them.

Just out of innocent curiosity: how much work goes into implementing a toggle like this?

In my layman's mind such a thing looks like a simple line of code (please forgive the ignorance).

RiotXenogenicMay 13, 201913 votes

It depends on the content type, but for this one, it's not easy. Some of the toggles are easier and a designer like me can make them, actually, but this one would've taken engineers (programmers) and given the size and complexity of the rest of the event, we couldn't have them work on this over the other things they absolutely had to do to ship the whole Trials event.

That's always the frustrating/sad part about making games. We have a million great ideas but time and people are limited, so the Grand Idea always gets chiseled down into something we can actually make - and it's often nowhere near as good/epic as the original idea, but that's reality. :)

Malix FarwinMay 14, 20194 votes

{quoted}

It depends on the content type, but for this one, it's not easy. Some of the toggles are easier and a designer like me can make them, actually, but this one would've taken engineers (programmers) and given the size and complexity of the rest of the event, we couldn't have them work on this over the other things they absolutely had to do to ship the whole Trials event.

That's always the frustrating/sad part about making games. We have a million great ideas but time and people are limited, so the Grand Idea always gets chiseled down into something we can actually make - and it's often nowhere near as good/epic as the original idea, but that's reality. :)

At the very least i think you should at least put a epilepsy warning simply because of the health hazard that it is and that should be something you guys are more than capable of doing.

New House Mission Finishers Trigger Epilepsy

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