Migraine/motion sickness from animations
While greatly improved, we still have players unable to function with Prime and are effectively retired because they cannot risk a day or more lost to triggered migraines from the game. Im not an expert art describing game animations or color ratios or anything of that nature, but I can list items in game that make me motion sick or have altered the way I interact with the app to avoid health issues. I'd like to invite others to speak to their experience as well and hopefully niantic can continue to make improvements and we can reclaim these players.
1. Xmp and close-map animations like the portal flashes. I zoom my map out all the way that I can and avoid heavy xmp areas like first Saturdays. I will play the edges of where other players are so I don't have a reaction.
2. Inventory shimmer/shake. I stay out of my inventory as much as possible. The item rotations, while cool, and better than they were, are still nausea inducing for me. I need my items stationary please.
3. Portal flames. Insta vomit guys. If that could just go, please.
4. Depleted XM bar. Whatever it is about running out that makes the red dashes and bars go across the screen, this I also have to look away from my screen. I can usually walk a bit enough to recover xm such that the animation is gone but again, that was an adjustment to my play rather than popping a cube immediately.
These are just my experiences as a mildly affected person. I know some players have a much worse time and waiting doesn't make their symptoms pass. They can't afford to possibly miss a day of work because they tried to play again. They can't function predominantly on dramamine for an anomaly or other event. If you're another player experiencing these things, please speak up. We miss you. We need a voice or things won't get better.
Comments
The depleted xm bar triggers me. My teenager can only play a few minutes at a time because of all of the above. He has very severe migraines.
It's just impossible to look at this. And this was after the update where I thought it said flames were going away. All the flashing, moving images just hurt.
I gave away all my keys and other gear that was replicating because I can't look at the inventory for more than a minute at a time.
There's probably more that I can't think of right now because I just pretty much quit playing because of these issues.
I’m not nearly as affected by these visual effects as some of my friends have described, but they do make me dizzy and I find it hard to focus on whatever I’m actually trying to do. Rotating inventory items and portal flames would be the worst offenders.
I'm still bothered by the "scanning" flash. Turning down the lighting dynamics makes it less annoying, but then it's hard to see the screen in the daylight.
I’m fortunate that I don’t get migraines. My brother does. I find all the things OP is complaining about to be super annoying, but they don’t cause me to get sick, thank goodness.
These animations add literally nothing to the game.
When I first had a friend download Prime during the opening animation it does that “split screen bad CCTV feed thing” where it looks like your video processor is failing, he actually said “oh looks like my phone can’t run this game,” then closed the game I had to convince him it was just an animation.
They should simply have a “disable animations”. Lots of games have a setting like that.
My wife is in exactly the same situation. That flash, and the accompanying in-field effects, causes her all sorts of problems (headaches, dizziness, nausea) unless the the dynamics are turned down to the point where the screen's just a muddy mess. Why on earth that's not optional I will simply never understand given that it's barely a one banana problem.
You all should go to a doctor too.
This is not helpful. Many of us do regularly see physicians. Medications for migraines are expensive, mostly retroactive rather than preventative, and have side effects.
Please do not make ableist comments. We did not have these problems with [redacted] animations and are trying to make the game better.
My partner has pretty much given up Ingress until it doesn't give her headaches. We discussed it with one of the Devs at the Los Angeles IFS in December, but until there's a change in how bright the contrast is, she's just not interested in playing at night or in anything but full sunlight.
@NianticBrian Can you make the Art Department do their work out on the pier in SF at 1 Ferry Building, during the day, so that they get a good appreciation of the differences, and then make them work nights for a while outside with no overhead lighting to see how their brains feel too?
The Art Department seems to be disconnected from the fact that this game isn't played indoor in offices...
They should definitely try unlit paths by moonlight (or general light reflected of clouds).
The screen ends up so bright it kills your night vision.
PoGo is even worse - far too many bright flashes and near-white backgrounds.
PoGo is great during the day though, and in well lit night areas, which is where it's primary group of players hang out.
The contrasts are still not helpful at all. Violet, blue, purple, and a little more violet.
The designers of Prime should really be forced into a full playing session in unfamiliar city from morning to next morning😈 so that they see what they did and how usable that is. I'm talking about you, UX designer, too! (If you even exist for Prime of course)
The people you need to target are the Art department. At least some of the developers disagree with the art direction too.
Android and iOS have system-wide settings for “Remove animations” (Android) and “Reduce motion” (iOS):
It would be an interesting and useful exercise to carefully identify the animations whose absence would lead to a loss of information that negatively affects gameplay, and then to make all the other animations subject to these settings.
For me, this is more a matter of personal preference than medical necessity. Transition animations waste my time and interrupt my train of thought. They are like watching a typical scene in a television show or movie where instead of hard cuts between the various camera angles, there is one camera person running between all the angles like a crazed lunatic. That’s not artistic; that’s just dumb.
Do you ever turn your brightness on your screen down at night time when playing? This should fix your issue with it killing your night vision. It's what I do when I play when it's dark out (usually early morning before the sun has come up).
As for animations, they are there to look pretty, but to slow down the users actions. There was a post about it a long time ago on G+ about getting rid of animations and it was mentioned it they were there to look pretty but to slow down the users constant actions.
Manual brightness adjustments still don't fix it in an unlit area. I've taken to turning on my phone's flashlight so that I can see the path, because I can't do it with the constant flashes that Ingress has.
The pulse, the glowing movements of the portals, and the XM glow are all damaging to night vision.
When I regulate my phone brightness down to nearly 0, I can still clearly see the game in a dark environment without external lights or only street laterns but it doesn't dazzle me.
ALL games can trigger migraines or epileptic seizures.
Niantic have 3 games, all causing similar effects on a small portion of their player base.
There is unfortunately nothing much that can be done, imo
Even the old classic client caused migraines and seizures
I, myself am slightly photosensitive and cope with just turning down the screen brightness, often to very low levels.
On ALL games, PC and mobile.
The difference is the scale. Prime has been causing these issues to a number of people who never had the issue on the old game, and quite happily play PoGo without issue. It's more pronounced in Prime because of the bright white pulses on the transparent green/blue on black. And the soundscape's constant buzzing doesn't help either.
I actually reinstalled PoGO to try out the new stuff, after having uninstalled it. (I still play Ingress as my primary ARG, followed by TWD)
And immediately hit with intense eye strain for the over saturation and high brightness, more than Ingress.
So IMO, it is game dependant and dependant on the person playing Ingress, or any other game.
Back when Google+ was around there were quite a lot of people with similar sensitivities.
Granted there may be some things that can be improved, but having Niantic take away features already, I personally do not want any more effects, or features removed.
My suggestion of turning down screen brightness, for me, works, and requires no change from Niantic
@Grogyan
Granted there may be some things that can be improved, but having Niantic take away features already, I personally do not want any more effects, or features removed.
A lot of this comes down to a "dialled down animations and effects" mode which seems like there's enough call for it to justify the need. Then people can choose the level.
UI: Updated visuals for inventory items to increase contrast and vibrance on low and mid-tier devices.
Not sure if this is related.
A lot of my headaches would go away if the compass rose rotated to indicate north on the map, like it does in pokemon Go, and if I could long press anywhere to fire XMP like in classic.
The menu is too complex. I want a drop down menu of words like in classic.
The portal view looks bad. I want that to be like classic.
The flashing when a link is done sucks. I can't believe it hasn't caused epileptic seizures, and it's a huge waste of time.
Neutral portals are STILL TOO HARD TO SEE, for the love of God, Jesus. Buddah, the N'zeer, the almighty dollar, or whatever you worship, please, PLEASE fix the neutral portal issue. especially in max overhead, or min horizontal mode. Please block those extreme zooms. Please show the portal center dot on all devices. Please get rid of the "haze" layer in horizontal mode. Please make the minimum size of portals larger. Please fix angle of view to 60 degrees and allow a real zoom like in classic.
Being able to tell what is or isn't under a big field is hard. Please put a texture on the fields.
That XM looks like absolute garbage. Classic had moving sprites of XM which were much cooler. Flat stationary XM belongs nowhere except I. 40 meter rings around portals.
And I hate all the purple. I would play ingress 5x as much if I could get rid of the purple. All of it. Absolutely no purple allowed. Take it off the forum too.
Basically, Just... make a skin of classic, but with a working compass, and dont make me ever look at prime again.
Make google chrome glasses that converts prime on other people's devices to look like classic ingress as well. 1.134.5 please, and nothing else ever again.
First time I got headaches from Prime I thought it was mainly due to being iFS and seeing all the destruction animations all around me. However, recently I've realized I end up with headaches just from doing inventory management and recharging portals. This is inside, with normal lighting.
I don't really know what the answer is - I know redacted is gone, and I know that companies that spend this much time and presumably money on a UI rewrite are never going to be able to justify reverting it or even getting rid of it. I don't need redacted back though - I just need a UI that is less flash and more substance. Phase-shifting, rotating inventory screens are likely an area that could be improved for us. If performance was better, I'd just use an old phone to play so I got the downgraded graphics.
There are a lot of usability improvements in the Prime UI - the art side just gets in the way, instead of enhancing the UX. Let the artists work special effects in promo videos where they work quite nicely in small doses, and give players a chance to tone down the flashiness in game.