Flashing Lights and UI Options (Partially Solved)

Support Technical Support
1

I’m experiencing migraines as a result of the bright flashes as part of the Guardian of the First Ones encounter in the Sanctum of Domination raid. Since the problem is flashing, adjusting the settings of my monitor is insufficient to resolve the problem without making it impossible to see important parts of the encounter.

Similarly, the bright flash at the end of the Torment mechanic in the Soulrender Dormazain encounter is problematic. I can mitigate this particular issue by moving my camera to a horizontal angle at floor level, but that means I cannot see the visuals for other mechanics in the encounter. (Standing in 2 overlapping Rendered Soul pools is enough to kill you and fairly common when you cannot see them.)

Is there anything I can do within the client or addons to eliminate or reduce these bright flashes? Please advise; I don’t want to have to wait until 9.2 to be able to raid again.

EDIT – won’t let me reply, so editing first post

DISCLAIMER: After reading a response to my in-game ticket, I should clarify that my particular situation is related moreso to sudden shifts of brightness rather than total brightness. For example, if the visual of the Reorigination Blast mechanic of the G’huun encounter in Uldir bothers you past the initial onset of the light effect, the following may actually worsen the issue for you. Your mileage may vary.

A series of changes have helped me with the Guardian of the First Ones encounter. Given the nature of this encounter, some of these changes may not be wisely applied to other encounters.

(1) Projected Textures --> Disabled
(2) Particle Density --> Disabled
(3) Spell Density --> NOT ON Essential
(4) Colorblind Mode --> Tritanopia at 100% strength

These changes eliminated some flashes and helped blend some of the remaining ones, making the encounter doable.

The above changes made only mild mitigating effects to Soulrender Dormazain on Normal difficulty, as the flash at the conclusion of the Torment mechanic remains pretty harsh. I have not been able to test yet if the Rendered Soul mechanic (Heroic/Mythic Difficulty) is undisplayed with these settings.

Here’s hoping this helps with someone else on Guardian, and if anyone has suggestions about Soulrender, please chime in!

2

This sounds awful, so I hope they can find a resolution for you. I think you’re best suited reporting this here:

3

Yes, I have sent an e-mail there. I am hoping there’s something that can be done other than wait and hope for a change in game design vision, however. As that page says:

This email is to report accessibility issues or suggest improvements for improving accessibility for Blizzard products and services. Customer Support does not monitor the Accessibility inbox.

I put a ticket in asking if there was anything in-game that already exists regarding this issue and was directed to ask here. I haven’t found an option with graphical settings yet that mitigates the bright flashes while still allowing me to see the visual indicators of mechanics I need to be able to raid effectively. However, I haven’t received confirmation yet that such a solution does not exist, so maybe it does!

4

I hate to be that person, as someone who also gets photosensitivity induced migraines as well, but they aren’t likely to accomodate people like us in this case. Almost every single video game on the market will give the warning about flashing lights and such and how they can trigger epilepsy and migraines. Maybe some day we’ll have a good/reliable program to run that will do the visual verson of volume normalization, but that’s not today and it would likely be against the ToS for WoW anyways.

My best advice is to turn your contrast all the way down on your monitor and/or do the same in your nvidia/amd control panels as well. And also report it as Elocin said, which might help them when designing future content.

5

I agree, and I understand that I may have to accept that Patch 9.1 has a design vision that excludes me in a way Patch 9.0 and Patch 9.0.5 did not.

It would be self-defeating, however, not to try to find a resolution to the problem with the tools that exist now. The fact that there is an Accessibility submenu with an option that is related to photosensitivity (but not this issue specifically) suggests that there may be a solution either in-game or within a game file that could be edited directly.

I haven’t been told “there is no current solution”, either, so I’m not ready to stop looking/asking yet!

1 Like