Disruption needs to be made more accessible.

[Flannoit]

This is not a difficulty feedback, as the general difficulty of Disruption is relatively good and is currently placed well across the star chart.

So what's this about, you wonder? Disruption is not accessible to neurodivergent or hard of hearing/deaf players.

As it stands, the cue is entirely audio for locating Demolitionists. For someone with good hearing, this isn't a problem, but for people who don't this is an immediate problem.

Currently, Disruption can be equated, more or less, to a sensory deprivation chamber. I had to stop playing for almost two days because I can't play literally anything alongside the Disruption alongside the game-provided sounds with the one exception of turning Transmission audio off.

There is a lot of noise saturation for a level that heavily relies on hearing, which I understand is meant to add to the difficulty but it better serves to make Disruption inaccessible to people like me who are both hard of hearing and neurodivergent.

The way I normally keep my brain from hitting a critical mass meltdown is by watching videos or listening to music, but neither of them are an option when I need to be able to hear the Demolitionist beeps, as my brain will quite literally lose the ability to keep track of the beeping. The reason I have to turn Transmission audio completely off is because Little Duck's dialogue overlaps so heavily with the Demolitionist beeps (to the degree that she has literally monologued for 80% of a Demo's lifespan from spawn to Conduit many times before) that I'm unable to even identify the beeps in the first place even when I have eyes on the Demolitionist enough for it to be automatically marked as the target.

I understand that balancing it with accessibility can be hard, but my suggestion is adding functionality to the Codex Scanner that is clear and identifiable (such as a red version of the Synthesis Target particles or a vague color throb that points in a mostly ambiguous direction) as that gives players an already in-game tool to ease the suffering of Demolitionists without having to colossally rebalance how Disruptions work.

_{i'm already prepared to get an insane amount flak for this post and i'm just gonna tune out any bad actors}

[GHILLIEMAN]

I played without sound for a while because I didn't have a working headset on xbox one.

Yeah it is an issue.

The best solution I had was to go Titania and check spawns after I started the node, or just wait and hope you can kill it in time.

[(NSW)warfare3376]

There actually already is a visual cue tho its not exactly the most accurate thing in the world and could maybe use a couple tweaks, the sound cue could also use a few tweaks because from what Ive noticed sometimes the sound bugs out on certain tiles. I also do find it kinda dumb that the transmissions go on as long and happen as frequently as they do considering how you have to track down the demos by listening for the beeps. 

Oh and if it helps the demos are affected by enemy radar, with enough of it u should be able to see them on the map before u can even hear them.

[Hikuro-93]

Yeah, as much as I love Disruption, my favorite game mode, I'd say it's a negative thing when I can't even properly listen to music while playing it - at least on higher levels/when levelling stuff, or when there's a noob starting conduits they can't finish far away, because there's a risk of not killing the demolyst fast enough to prevent conduit blow up.

Better visual cues, or something else that helps us play better without being so hearing-dependent, would be very much appreciated.

Edited January 22 by Hikuro-93

[Flannoit]

4 hours ago, (NSW)warfare3376 said:

There actually already is a visual cue tho its not exactly the most accurate thing in the world and could maybe use a couple tweaks, the sound cue could also use a few tweaks because from what Ive noticed sometimes the sound bugs out on certain tiles. I also do find it kinda dumb that the transmissions go on as long and happen as frequently as they do considering how you have to track down the demos by listening for the beeps. 

Oh and if it helps the demos are affected by enemy radar, with enough of it u should be able to see them on the map before u can even hear them.

Unfortunately, Enemy Radar is still not a perfect solution for it, I have pretty high enemy radar and I still have issues finding it.

[K4RN4]

There is a little red arrow that appears on your screen. You don't need the sound.

[(PSN)Sentiel]

There's three issues with visual location of the Demolisher in Disruption.

1. The red arrow is too small and nearly impossible to notice with everything happening on the screen in Warframe, even if you tone down visual effects as much as possible.

2. One of the Conduits using red colour makes it easy to mistake it for the Demolisher or the red arrow, especially if it's highlighted when it's in use or it's key is available.

3. Even once the Demolisher is found, the icon showing its location is confusing if the Demolisher is off screen and often points to silly angles, like the ceiling, instead of leading you to the side of the screen the Demolisher is the closest to.

 

This is coming from someone who has impaired hearing and would like to love Disruption but can't.

Edited January 23 by (PSN)Sentiel

[Flannoit]

12 hours ago, K4RN4 said:

There is a little red arrow that appears on your screen. You don't need the sound.

I have literally never seen any little red arrows appear, so either they're bugged for some players or they're getting completely lost in the visual noise

[TummyLover]

I have made so many posts about this over the years and it has still never improved. It really is such a nuisance, and the further you get into the mission the worse it gets (especially once there’s a sea of eximus all with their own visual effects and noises)

I don’t even really think balancing issues are a particularly valid argument either because finding them isn’t supposed to be the hard part; the challenge in disruption is that they are very hard to kill and that is more than enough difficulty by itself.

i’ve always thought the conduits should have an arrow/marker around them to point roughly towards the target - even just knowing what side of the map it’s on would help tremendously 

[CrownOfShadows]

On 2024-01-23 at 2:19 AM, (PSN)Sentiel said:

There's three issues with visual location of the Demolisher in Disruption.

1. The red arrow is too small and nearly impossible to notice with everything happening on the screen in Warframe, even if you tone down visual effects as much as possible.

2. One of the Conduits using red colour makes it easy to mistake it for the Demolisher or the red arrow, especially if it's highlighted when it's in use or it's key is available.

3. Even once the Demolisher is found, the icon showing its location is confusing if the Demolisher is off screen and often points to silly angles, like the ceiling, instead of leading you to the side of the screen the Demolisher is the closest to.

 

This is coming from someone who has impaired hearing and would like to love Disruption but can't.

And don't forget the joy of having an acolyte spawn during a red conduit. Three nearly identical red icons for you to try to figure out.

[Enigmatic_LFC]

I came to the forum to start a post about this and found this thread via search.

I absolutely love Disruption and would like to play more but having to rely on sound to find the target makes the game mode draining physically/mentally.

I've played around with volume sliders to try to try and help my situation but sadly this does not. I can turn down Little Duck and music and other volumes but the game sounds all get controlled by one volume slider. If I turn this up to better hear the demolyst I get overloaded by the sound effects from every other enemy too.

I'm not asking for the game to be dumbed down but would agree the game mode could be made more accessible. My desired solution would be to introduce an isolated volume slider for the Disruption game mode where the demolyst volume can be turned up independant of other game sound volumes.

I realise this will not help everyone with issues but I feel this would at least be one solution and could also be paired with a visual indicator that can help other people. Each could be individual solutions that can be implemented iteratively.

I really feel something needs to be done given that it's now been announced there will be Disruption nodes on Deimos in the next updates. I'm assuming the new enemy that steals keys will probably also have an audio sound which ideally should be isolated from general game sound effects too.

I'm really looking forward to the next update but wary of how much game sound there will be unless accessibility improvements are made in game.

[Flannoit]

Really, really, REALLY hoping DE sees this thread and doesn't opt to ignore it. Disruption has been a long standing problem and I'd really like for it to be accessible to people like me.

[Xylia]

Uh.

What?

When I did Disruption, a BIG RED CROSSHAIR icon (the same one used for Extermination missions) appears on the minimap, and in your field of vision when the demolitionist comes. Pretty sure nothing else uses this icon, and I had no trouble seeing it because it's square, looks like a crosshair and has a black outline around it.

In fact, I found that when the NPC warns you one is coming, it's a false alarm (kinda-sorta, they warn you WAY too early in advance, it takes 10-15 seconds for the thing to arrive in your area) and I learned to IGNORE the stupid NPC and wait until I saw the red crosshair icon on my minimap and then turn towards it and find it in my viewing area.

Edited February 15 by Xylia

[MrGrimm150]

1 hour ago, Xylia said:

Uh.

What?

When I did Disruption, a BIG RED CROSSHAIR icon (the same one used for Extermination missions) appears on the minimap, and in your field of vision when the demolitionist comes. Pretty sure nothing else uses this icon, and I had no trouble seeing it because it's square, looks like a crosshair and has a black outline around it.

In fact, I found that when the NPC warns you one is coming, it's a false alarm (kinda-sorta, they warn you WAY too early in advance, it takes 10-15 seconds for the thing to arrive in your area) and I learned to IGNORE the stupid NPC and wait until I saw the red crosshair icon on my minimap and then turn towards it and find it in my viewing area.

That only appears when line of sight has been made with the Demo. Depending on the node, difficulty, competence of team mates, weaponry, frame selection etc etc. This will either be fine or it will be too late and that conduit is good as dead.

[BR31]

Yes it needs tweaking for a while.

I have a hearing impaired friends and clanmates. They are sitting ducks in this mission pretty much.

Quite often i'm not any better- because i rarely play with a sound on- podcasts, music, voice calls, etc.
And that's literally the only relevant content which forces you to do it.

Not to mention post-beep syndrome after playing it. Went to groceries after playing it and
constantly checked is where a beep lol.

[Xylia]

6 hours ago, MrGrimm150 said:

That only appears when line of sight has been made with the Demo. Depending on the node, difficulty, competence of team mates, weaponry, frame selection etc etc. This will either be fine or it will be too late and that conduit is good as dead.

If that's the case, then personally what I would do in a public game, is stand next to the conduit and keep looking around and actively defend the conduit and let everybody else run around. Bring a high damage weapon that can take it down quickly, like my Nataruk in non-Steel Path kills them in 1-2 shots period.

I've never done a public game of Disruption, and I always used the crosshair graphic to identify and locate them and I have a 90% success rate, while solo.

[(PSN)Sentiel]

I found a little tip that can help.

Banshee's Sonic Boom can push the Demo units away. Strongly! So, what I do is I wait by the Conduit and as soon as the Demo unit appears I blast it dozens of meters away from the Conduit.

I also subsumed Harrow's Condemn, which can then hold the Demo Unit in place until it Nullifies it but you can blast it and root it again repeatedly until it dies.

I know it's not a real solution but it makes Disruption actually playable for me and much less annoying.