Dawntrail Graphics Update - Eye Strain

i must have been lucky with my rain/showers encounters during msq lol

Near the bottom of page 3? How did that happen, it won't do

Got through the alliance raid and spent most of the final fight wishing they'd leave me on the floor so I didn't have to look at the screen. The brightness of some of those attacks is INSANE, particularly the one with the red circles all over the place. The

Ark Angel

fight was the only one where the lighting was mild enough that I could play normally, but by that point I was already queasy from the earlier fights. I'd been really looking forward to Echoes of Vana'diel and I'm pretty sure that's the only time I'm going to run it. It removed any doubt I had that I need to drop this game.

Just doing a bump, and still very disappointed that there's no news or even acknowledgement that this is an issue.

Bumping for people affected.

So, lemme lay it all out. I have diabetes, and it's affected my eyesight. On top of that, I've been legally blind my whole life due to astigmatism. Diabetes has also caused nerve damage in my hands. I have persistent brain fog issues.

Dawntrail has been horrible for this. I have always used NPCs, because don't want to inflict my issues on others. Every single DT dungeon left me practically in tears, because I literally could not see mechanics. I restarted over and over, getting more and more frustrated. The final MSQ dungeon did leave me in tears; I had to restart a grand total of ten times. The one post-DT dungeon with the first boss that does the heads? Pure pain. I brought people who were in good health and even they were saying they would never set foot in the dungeon again except to help someone else.

I haven't touched Expert roulettes since DT dropped. Don't plan to touch the Arcadion series (partly because I don't really care for the story). Have unlocked the FFXI raid and the new dungeon, but am hesitant to try them. Because I know my disabilities will make it impossible for me, and I feel like it's unfair for others to have to suffer the presence of a party member that can't keep up.

All of this has started to make me reconsider my subscription. I am a very old fan of the series; been playing since the SNES era. But the visual clutter and the increase in difficulty has made even the act of going through the story a slog. I used to sit down at my computer and happily boot up the FFXIV launcher, and lose myself in the world of Eorzea for a little while. Now I don't think I've booted the game up for a couple days. I sit down at my computer, look at the icon on my desktop and go, "...Not right now." And play something else. Every day I think about logging in, then go, "...Nah." I play SWtOR. Or Palworld. Or Stardew Valley. Something, anything, that isn't FFXIV. When I boot those games up, I don't get the sense of dread that I have to slog through a visual crap-slurry to advance my character and see more of the story.

Don't get me wrong: I am not against having hard content in the game at all. I realize a lot of people find it fun and challenging. But now the hard content is no longer optional. Now it's required to progress the story. And the fact that Square Enix refuses to acknowledge that people like me even exist is both sad and disappointing. But also not surprising in the slightest.

Just remember, you can't "GIT GUD" yourself out of an actual, legitimate physical disability. And it feels crappy when the game you've played for three years has decided you no longer deserve consideration, and/or that your disability means you should "get off our game".

This might be a little bit of good news
The intrinsic saturation, which remained too high even if the illuminance within the in-game darkened, has darkened since 7.1.
Not all the comments in this thread, but I think some of them have been reflected.
Finally I can walk around the dawntrail field for more than 20 minutes!

https://imgur.com/vesriy2https://imgur.com/YJKj08q

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Originally Posted by MayMelon

The intrinsic saturation, which remained too high even if the illuminance within the in-game darkened, has darkened since 7.1.

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If that's true, that's really good news!

But the player and enemies's effects are still too flashy and bright. I've even had to set my own effects to Limited, which makes playing any magic classes really sad. I had no problems whatsoever with most of the effects in the game pre-DT, but the graphical update somehow messed things up.

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Originally Posted by Ainariel

If that's true, that's really good news!

But the player and enemies's effects are still too flashy and bright. I've even had to set my own effects to Limited, which makes playing any magic classes really sad. I had no problems whatsoever with most of the effects in the game pre-DT, but the graphical update somehow messed things up.

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Yes, There's a possibility that the light effect of combat skills has become excessive as the glossy texture has been strengthened since the DT..
I feel it all the time, but the glare effect of this game is so stimulating.
Certain users will find it really hard to play...

I have noticed a few changes for effects when playing WHM. I have all my effects turned off for everyone and myself on my main and the alts I have taken through DT, because everything was blinding. It's annoying because I couldn't see when people placed stuff like Doton, but I leveled WHM on the alts I got through and it was just possible for me to play with the blinding boss abilities and myself.

But I went to play another alt and she still had partial effects on and it seems like Asyllum, and Temperance are less blinding. I turned full effects on for myself and Holy/Holy III are not as bad either, but I am keeping partial on for now cause it's still causes strain. I could not see through asylum in 7.0. It was awful, I can see through it now.

I have a friend that gets violently ill when walking around the overworld, so it's nice to hear that more has been adjusted. My friend quit subbing because of how bad stuff is, but she has a trial account as well... I'm nervous to ask her to try it out because it was so bad she had a headache in minutes and if she tried to power through it she ended up vomiting. No game is worth that and I think I'd like to see them make some bigger changes before I suggest she try again.

First boss of the 7.1 dungeon left me with massive eye strain and an instant headache because there were so many flashy effects going on. If my friend hadn't been playing the Warrior tank of the party, that run would have not been completed, I think. Luckily, we were able to finish after several wipes. It was really awful, and now I'm kinda afraid to run anything else in the patch knowing that enemy effects are just this bad and there's nothing I can do about them.

I'm sick of this grass blur/sharp flicker? They 'upgraded' old areas and now the trees and anything grassy? flickers when I move/stop. I can't be anywhere grassy without getting a headache when I'm running around and taking a vid of it only to have it butchered by compression is genuinely driving me up a wall.

I tried turning grass quality to off but it happens with bushes and trees too...

I tried it with FSR 100, FSR 50-60-70-80-90-99, anti-aliasing with all options, DLSS and it still happens....

Game still has the awful blur filter on it. I would rather go back to the old graphics if it meant everything wasn't a mess.

Someone wrote the current Chrysalis being an eye-searing experience earlier in this thread, and they weren't wrong. The trial roulette threw me there today: the arena was almost pitch-black, and Nabriales's battle effects were really blinding in that darkness. Not fun or healthy at all.

Have we been forsaken? My Starlight Celebration tree sears my eyes with the blinding lights of 10,000 suns; obscuring the moon adorning my tree.

Second page? Not on my watch.

As some people wrote earlier, the patch 7.1 dungeon's first boss has lots of strobing purple effects that are really bad for the eyes.

Back to the top please.

Back up this goes

I missed this when it was posted but I immediately noticed the blur filter when moving as well. I can't for the life of me understand why there isn't a toggle for this. It sucks and my eyes absolutely hate it.

Another day, another instance of eye-searing effects. Was in the Susano trial yesterday, and the impact effect from the giant sword was so bright and flashy that I had to turn my camera away from the boss to protect my eyes.

Was also trying to level SAM yesterday, but even at "Battle Effects -> Player's own -> None", the flashiness of Midare Setsugekka was too much.

Had none of these problems pre-DT.

I generally don't post twice in threads like this, but I think I'm just kind of at the end of my rope with this stuff. I just want to be able to play the effing game again. Still haven't touched any of the new stuff, still not done the first new MSQ dungeon or the FF11 raid. And I was looking forward to that last thing. And now I'm sad that I won't be able to enjoy it. And part of me wonders if I'm ever going to be able to enjoy FF14 again at all.

Up this goes

+1 from me, especially with the new red toast popups in duty instances that are like "Watch out for this mechanic!" It's incredibly distracting. The fact that you can't disable glare too is a big L from the team.

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Originally Posted by glitteringcosmos

+1 from me, especially with the new red toast popups in duty instances that are like "Watch out for this mechanic!" It's incredibly distracting. The fact that you can't disable glare too is a big L from the team.

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I actually hate the red text pop up. I don't want the cousin in my game, just show me the mechanic once and let me learn and stop nagging me about 'WOW THERE'S A MECHANIC- you want to read? too bad, text is gone, now you're distracted with the text that you couldn't read in time and didn't pay attention to the mechanic! Gotcha!'

I know the problems are much bigger than that, I know that SE should be paying attention to this thread, I know this won't help PS4/5 players, but:

If you are on PC and you have difficulties with all the flashing lights etc, would it help if you used Reshade to add a transparent black layer on top of the game?
Everytime I do the new alliance raid (or even the 4th floor of 8 ppl raid, you know which part I mean...) I think about this problem and how in anime it's pretty common to darken the screen when similar bright visual effects are happening.

(I was actually curious so I asked about it on the JP forums, and it's not mandatory by law to do that, but there are specific guidelines that detail what to watch out for. That kind of practice is much more common in the TV industry than in the game industry, though, unfortunately)

It's a very band-aid solution (and I'm not sure if it would help, that's why I'm asking) but if it can make things more comfortable for some people until this issue gets finally properly addressed...

I'm also curious to know if anyone else has tried (the demo of) FFXVI and ran into the same problem.
I found the demo pretty tiring on my eyes in terms of contrast and vivid colors (I don't play a lot of recent games, so that could be why, but on the other hand I had no problem during the Monster Hunter Wilds beta test...?). The ice part of Euphrosyne gave me the same eye strain post graphical update (zero problem before that, of course), so I'm wondering if it's just... an engine issue, somehow.

Last bump for at least 30 days, here's hoping there's major changes between then and now. (HA as if)

Given that the current patch notes don't state anything regarding eye strain AGAIN I feel ignored by SE. Either this entire issue goes public, forcing SE to do something or nothing will change at all I am afraid. I don't even have any motivation anymore to go online and do anything in this game. Haven't touched any 7.1 content either and don't really feel like doing any of it.

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Originally Posted by Rueby

I actually hate the red text pop up. I don't want the cousin in my game, just show me the mechanic once and let me learn and stop nagging me about 'WOW THERE'S A MECHANIC- you want to read? too bad, text is gone, now you're distracted with the text that you couldn't read in time and didn't pay attention to the mechanic! Gotcha!'

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I don't mind the pop up text but I am so perplexed that we can't change the color OR move the text? They've been really dropping the ball with stuff. Adding all this stuff that is automatically on only to not add options to turn it off feels like a terrible way to design.

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Originally Posted by Anarnee

I don't mind the pop up text but I am so perplexed that we can't change the color OR move the text? They've been really dropping the ball with stuff. Adding all this stuff that is automatically on only to not add options to turn it off feels like a terrible way to design.

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Yeahhhh....I personally would love for it to have a toggle.

That aside, I've been meaning to visit this thread since yesterday I got Dzemael Darkhold in leveling roulette, the purple crystals were genuinely painful to look at. I ran this dungeon HUNDREDS of times to level and never had issues. The lighting rework is so harsh and doesn't feel great, I complained alot about these 'spotlight' effects where one area is intensely well lit then suddenly right beside it it's dark.

I couldn't look anywhere aside from looking away from my screen.

Even if offtopic, @devs please add a toggle for the wind animation of flying mounts. It is bad for the eyes. It reduces clarity and makes it harder to focus, depth perception is worse.

Also it's just really damn annoying.

Hey, thread! Back to the front page, I still have a migraine.

And back to page 1. Still haven't been able to do ANY 7.1 content besides the new society quests. So no alliance raid and no new dungeon, MSQ is still sitting around in ghosting city (blur edition). I don't even want to cap my weekly tomes anymore either. If I am online then most of the time I am tabbed out of the game anyways because it is still unplayable to some degree.

Got Weeping City of Mhach for my Alliance raid today and my god. I have not been in there in a long time but I got really bad vertigo in Ozma. I think it's again an issue of the brights being too bright, and it's so perplexing, the skybox looks so much worst than it use to. Shame I thought it was so pretty.

Back to the front page.

Please add an on/off toggle for the new wind effects when flying! They're distracting and cause eye strain, especially during any other weather than clear skies.

Going to let my sub run out in a few days since I think it's not worth it to pay for a game where I can't play most of the content and classes without getting headaches and eye strain.

My mom gets ocular migraines from glare. She eventually went to an optometrist to get glasses to deal with it. She doesn’t play this game anymore but the glasses took care of outdoor and PC glare issues, which reduced her headaches.

Well I still can't play.
I have gone through every setting available in game, trying different things. But after about 15 minutes of play I can feel a migraine starting.

Please SE, at least give us the option to turn off things like bloom!

I thought I was going crazy or summed it up to the weather changing for my increase in minor headaches.
Maybe the graphics update is the reason why (came back recently after months of not playing). Interesting.

So, umm ...... Yeah. (bump)

Been playing Infinity Nikki for a week, forgot to even log in to do my weeklies. It doesn't give me motion sickness or eye strain and it's beautiful... And free. I don't much care for the F2P model but I am regretting reuping my sub at this point, even though a few things were fixed it's not enough.
Friend wants to come back and do the Starlight event but the game still makes her ill just walking around the cities (she has a free trial account.) Can't justify $15 to make her sick. Really wish we'd just get some acknowledgement or plan of action.