Dawntrail Graphics Update - Eye Strain

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ishamaru

Even with the tweaks to Tower at Paradigm's Breach, it still caused me a seizure unfortunately. I have been extremely afraid of that raid ever since.

---

im sorry to hear this, same exact thing happened to me, its just unacceptable

The final Trial of the Dawntrail quest of the DT Msq is unplayable by me do to photosensitivity. The fast moving swishy floor and the particles in between quick transitions made it so I couldn't even look at the screen.

I have seizure issues with other areas of the game too, but this was beyond anything.

You know, I kind of thought my eyestrain might be coming from making the jump from PS4 to PS5, but now that its been a month or so, I definitely do think its increased with the graphics update. Nothing too severe for me, but its noticeable, and that's frustrating. My partner, meanwhile, who has photosensitive migraines and issues with vertigo, has really had a rough time with some of these most recent dungeons and trials.

Sad being like "what a cool mech!" and hearing him on the couch next to me say "I literally cannot even look at it."

Hello, I also have this problem on PS5. What's strange is that I've been playing for a while but hadn't really noticed it. But I changed my screen yesterday and I immediately saw this blur effect. It's very noticeable when I move and look at the trees. The tree becomes blurred and darkens when I move, when I stop it becomes normal and sharp again. It bothers me a lot and I can't play anymore. I'm sad to leave 10 years of gaming behind me. I hope the problem will be solved soon, otherwise I'll be saying goodbye to FFXIV.

I have been dealing with eye strain since release weekend, but I had previously chalked it up to playing two 16-hour days in a row during early access (not the smartest thing I've ever done...) coupled with running the AC all day and having an old glasses prescription. I saw a doctor after a week with no improvement, and ended up taking another week break from screens entirely to try to recover. I'm still not completely better and have to limit the time I spend on games (and screens generally).

I'm preeeetty sure my injury was mostly just from playing too long that first weekend, but if there's something about the new graphics that could be contributing, I wouldn't be surprised either. I spend a LOT of time at screens normally since I use a computer for most of my work & hobbies, and I've never had eyestrain this bad until now.

Even if mine wasn't directly caused by the graphics, I figured I'd add my voice to the thread anyway. I remember getting eye strain from Tower at Paradigm's breach when that first launched too (though I was playing on a much larger and brighter screen at the time; it was much more manageable after I swapped to a laptop)

I just downloaded the new Nvidia driver but it didn't change anything, I can still see the blur when I move. AMD FSR still makes the textures grainy and the screen vibrate when I move. Changing antialiasing doesn't help. Add the forced bloom/glare and the forced wet surface effects with constantly rainy weather and it's a disaster. Everything is a glowing blurry mess. How long will SE ignore this issue?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Erinellza

Everything is a glowing blurry mess. How long will SE ignore this issue?

---

My personal (perhaps overly optimistic) guess is that they're working on a solution, but have yet to reach a point where they want to talk about its details.

Sadly, the years have made Yoshi-P ever-increasingly careful with his words. He says it's due to him not wanting to build up false expectations, but ehh...

And here we bump again

The graphics update is also causing me major eye strain and motion sickness. like others, i have tried all the settings i could get my hands on, fiddled with Nvidia overlay settings, tried different monitors as well as fussing with their settings. and I still cannot play for very long, and need days to a week + to recover. trying to play is painful, and I really hope SE will work on this and give us options to turn things off (bloom, mount tilt, etc) and to give us more sliders for graphics settings. I also hope they make the AA options better too -.-

oh, and even panning in cutscenes sends me reeling. there is definitely something wonky with the graphics update that I don't have the knowledge to pinpoint down. My partner is fortunately unaffected, but I would love to be able to play. oh and I have already sent in a support ticket and emailed the accessibility team. thanks to this thread for sharing their email :)

1.) One of the big issues with the blurriness when moving the camera is Square Enix's poor implementation of TAA upscaling. They had the same issue in FF7 Rebirth and in FFXVI. What we're seeing in the foliage, grass and around our characters is image ghosting, and it only became an issue after the graphics update and impacts both console and PC.

2.) My biggest issue is the overly bright areas and the vividness that has been amplified x100. This is only exacerbated by the fact I play on a QD OLED TV which enhances it even more. Normally, I love things vivid and bright but FF14 seems to have taken it to a whole other level. This became for the first time a detriment to me in the new raid series. The first two arenas are so bright and busy with the flashing neon I could barely look at my screen my eyes hurt so much and I couldn't make out what was happening 90% of the time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DynnDiablos

1.) One of the big issues with the blurriness when moving the camera is Square Enix's poor implementation of TAA upscaling. They had the same issue in FF7 Rebirth and in FFXVI. What we're seeing in the foliage, grass and around our characters is image ghosting, and it only became an issue after the graphics update and impacts both console and PC.

2.) My biggest issue is the overly bright areas and the vividness that has been amplified x100. This is only exacerbated by the fact I play on a QD OLED TV which enhances it even more. Normally, I love things vivid and bright but FF14 seems to have taken it to a whole other level. This became for the first time a detriment to me in the new raid series. The first two arenas are so bright and busy with the flashing neon I could barely look at my screen my eyes hurt so much and I couldn't make out what was happening 90% of the time.

---

1: Yes I stopped playing FF7 Rebirth because of it, it was so distracting in the grass area i haven't gone back to the game (hoping for patches)

2: I've only gone as far as when a certain person gets kidnapped, but to me the whole game looks really bland. Like raw video footage that hasn't been properly graded yet

Has anyone gotten a response from the accessibility team email?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vesplume

Has anyone gotten a response from the accessibility team email?

---

Nope, I only got a reply from support telling me to e-mail the accessibility team.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DynnDiablos

One of the big issues with the blurriness when moving the camera is Square Enix's poor implementation of TAA upscaling. They had the same issue in FF7 Rebirth and in FFXVI. What we're seeing in the foliage, grass and around our characters is image ghosting, and it only became an issue after the graphics update and impacts both console and PC.

---

Jeez, this is horrible. :|

The 4th Arcadion raid was great but some animations were hard on the eyes. Especially if you're sensitive to flashing it can be challenging to pay attention while also making sure you're okay.

For Shadows's Sabbath, I can barely make out the positioning due to the bright lights cutting down my reaction time in half. Not due to the ability but due to the bright animations. The timing overall is fine as is just the animation could use some tweaking to improve visibility and lessen the flashing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Klauth

For some weird reason at first glance the "glare: off" option its not a glich because its stated in the patch notes that it was removed.

Now my question is, what the hell made them think it was a good idea w/o asking for feedback first, or even mentioning it during the graphic changes liveletters.

Anyway here goes another picture with the mentioned removal.:

https://i.imgur.com/JrMftk9.png

---

Yeah, that's annoying. I used the wet wall effect for my rooms, and I really liked how it looked. I wish they had left that alone.

Well, wanted to do Khloe's book, went Sigma 1 and urgh...I don't even want to imagine how bad the DT raids will be to my eyes X_X I can barely stay 10 mins in S9 so yea...

Also I never had any issues with any of the raids before DT but now....well...
Wish there was finally an official statement that they're aware of it and working on it or whatever....

Whoa, we're getting a lot of new likes and replies. Just a while ago we were at less than 90!

Please remember to send a support ticket to the Square Enix Support Center detailing your eye strain issues with the game. If you want to be as thorough as possible, you can also send a copy of that support request to the accessibility team:
contact-accessibility@eu.square-enix.com

Bump, just sent them an email (forgot to earlier). Hopefully something will get done soon, or at least a public acknowledgment.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mayochup

Hopefully something will get done soon, or at least a public acknowledgment.

---

For what it's worth, this is something Yoshi-P said a while ago:

It has been a joy to watch you all play, each in your own unique way, but we’ve become aware of several issues that may have proven a hinderance to your overall experience. For that, I sincerely apologize. We’ve already announced on the Lodestone that a number of these issues are presently under investigation, but rest assured we will be doing everything in our power to address them as quickly as possible. You can expect a follow-up announcement as soon as fixes are ready for implementation.

At this point, I'm not gonna say it's even 25% likely that he was talking about the eye strain stuff here, but it's still something that could potentially explain their silence on the issue.

For ease of reference: so far, they've only addressed one of these "several issues." All hope is not yet lost.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Wind-Krysvein

For ease of reference: so far, they've only addressed one of these "several issues." All hope is not yet lost.

---

I'm still hopeful because of the Sage icon issue. Remember when it was changed because some people were afraid of dots/patterns or something like that? That thing probably affects less than 0,5% of the playerbase. But this eye strain issue is a significantly bigger problem.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Erinellza

I'm still hopeful because of the Sage icon issue. Remember when it was changed because some people were afraid of dots/patterns or something like that? That thing probably affects less than 0,5% of the playerbase. But this eye strain issue is a significantly bigger problem.

---

I completely forgot about that. A few people complained that the original SGE icon triggered their trypophobia, so it got changed. That was obviously easier than fixing the number of issues with the graphics update, but I'd like to think they could at least bring back the bloom toggle in 7.05.

https://i.imgur.com/1QAmdXN.jpeg

For me it's the combat graphics, it was painful from ShB on but DT has been giving me migraines and making me feel like I'm going to throw up mid fight often. That's with the combat settings set to limited, I tried it on none but then I can't see where healing circles and things are. I've adjusted gamma and tried playing around with every setting in there, it's just too bright and flashy for my eyes no matter what I do.

Having to NOT look at the screen should never be a combat mechanic.

Edited to add:
The boss mechanics have no way to adjust brightness either, a setting to reduce lower flashing and brightness as well as an option for a further reduced player combat graphics setting where we see only what is required (and not at full flashbang!) would help immensely. Perhaps sliders for each setting as well?

Does anyone actually think this looks good? My eyes are melting out of my head, lol.

https://i.imgur.com/pacPt52.png

My foremost hope is that they allow us to reduce the sharpness of the textures.

Bump

Another bump on the road. And they don't stop coming...

Can't stop, won't stop, never stop

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Wind-Krysvein

Another bump on the road. And they don't stop coming...

---

and they don't stop coming

Still no word from SE on the eye strain problem.

xiv really needs multiple versions/options so that you can install the one with the updated graphics/bloom, etc and a version that's more like the original game without the new sharpness/bloom.

But also give people the power to change the opacity of magic/lights in fights. It's such a simple thing to add to the game, opacity is literally the easiest thing that can be added to a game. One reason I can see them not adding opacity option is because of savage/ultimate fights where for "competitive reasons" or whatever nonsense related to hardcore raiding they come up with.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rekh

xiv really needs multiple versions/options so that you can install the one with the updated graphics/bloom, etc and a version that's more like the original game without the new sharpness/bloom.

But also give people the power to change the opacity of magic/lights in fights. It's such a simple thing to add to the game, opacity is literally the easiest thing that can be added to a game. One reason I can see them not adding opacity option is because of savage/ultimate fights where for "competitive reasons" or whatever nonsense related to hardcore raiding they come up with.

---

White Mage
Holy

Bump.

Has there been any sort of official acknowlegement from SE about this at all?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jeuno

Has there been any sort of official acknowlegement from SE about this at all?

---

Practically nothing, apart from the support center giving me a very vague "trust me we're working on this" while simultaneously being very sorry for not having the okay to give any info on when the issue will be officially acknowledged.

The closest we've gotten to anything besides some support responses and an email address is a vague comment in notice about the issue with lighting in housing. It's not even listed as a known issue in any of the patch notes.

Tried the first Arcadion raid last night and paid for it with a massive headache. Good to know DT content is working as intended I guess.

Went ahead with the unsub/uninstall. Learning Squenix never fully addressed previous raids that were giving people literal seizures has utterly demolished my hope of this being looked at.

Upshot, freeing 100gb is a huge boon for my aging ssd.

Daily dose of eye damage from Praetorium. SUCH DEVASTATION! I hope this was not your intention, SE.

https://i.imgur.com/Q1uVT4B.png

Bump for support. This needs to addressed.

Eyes still getting tired from the game. Bump.

This was my first time in Laby since DT's launch, ouch... I had to log out after this because I felt so dizzy. We need that TURN OFF button for glare/bloom BACK as soon as possible, SE! Also add a turn off button to graphics upscaling while you're at it.

https://i.imgur.com/HRgRmV8.png

Bump, still getting eye strain, still no official word on this?

I just did Syrcus tower and my eyes HURT...What's with the intense contrast....the stairs are almost pitch black and same awful spotlight effect on boss arenas...I'm getting flashbanged by blue crystals and the last boss' stack mechanics.