Dawntrail Graphics Update - Eye Strain

Lots of flashing lights and big bright assets in the new Arcadion raid, so more of the things we've been complaining about this entire time.

Really not expecting any comments regarding additional settings at any point.

Now that another Live Letter is over and we've gone yet again without any acknowledgment of this issue or possible adjustments, I wanted to offer a bit of a timeline and some background on the closest we've gotten to a dev response.

This thread was started on 6/28, during the early access period of DT. The official launch was on 7/2, but nothing was said on graphics until 7/5, where this post was made about issues with lighting with regards to housing settings. It goes into some detail about the changes made to how lighting is processed and specifies that the old lighting can't be recreated but they will make adjustments to it in the future. Though it's specific to lighting in housing, there's some insight here into some of the new graphical changes. There's a lot more of it than there was before.

The next related dev post was this one from 9/6 regarding the feedback on playable character models. There's plenty of fan pushback on that here and elsewhere. Rather than go into that, I'm going to talk about the what little info we have to go on as to whether the devs even consider this problem an issue.

The first point of note is that this post describes this as the first phase of the graphical update. I don't know what phase we're on now, as dev transparency has been extremely limited since the release of DT. This isn't like EW where we got live letters roadmapping the future of the game. Early into EW's release the players were told of the intent to update the graphics and how significant dev focus was going into that, well before any of that would be implemented in 7.0. This post is the closest we get to that level of transparency, as YoshiP goes into significant detail about certain issues that were raised. He even notes that some of these fixes involve programming updates and won't be implemented until 7.2 at the earliest.

What are those fixes? Are they coming in 7.2? Tune in on 3/25 to find out!

The new lighting and the issues raised by it aren't mentioned in the post beyond how the models are highlighted in a certain way. It's part of what's considered spec - as in the new graphics working as intended. The devs will not change those things. There's a vague handwavy comment about additional issues that weren't be addressed in the post while asking for patience and understanding from the players. They might even look at things considered spec and reevaluate them in the future.

So what does that have to do with the eye strain/migraines/etc? Either it tells us absolutely nothing or worse - that the issues reported in this thread are the game working as intended and will not be addressed at this time. Given the devs' silence and the patches implemented since then, it's most likely the latter.

Though some players have stuck around and are still trying to keep this thread fresh in people's minds, reports have mostly dried up. Most of the players affected have dropped the game because their money clearly isn't welcome here. When this issue came up with the last Nier raid in SHB, some adjustments were made to that raid in the patches immediately following its release, but it wasn't enough. DT has done even less than that.

I watched some of the live letter this morning and had to stop after seeing some of the Arcadion demo. It was through a completely different device than what I play FFXIV on, but I still got a migraine from specifically looking at FFXIV gameplay. In the absence of an official dev response, the game speaks for itself. The effects look neat, I guess.

So many people in this thread just want a way to mitigate the effects that are causing them problems. That could be solved by adding back the settings that were removed or adding new ones so players can adjust as needed. It doesn't have to be a complete graphics overhaul. We don't know how big of an ask this might be for the devs because again, they won't even clearly acknowledge the issues we've reported. They ask for our patience and understanding but offer next to nothing in return.

The thread is still going because not everyone has given up on the game, and some still sub for reasons other than MSQ. It's a lot quieter in here these days because so many have dropped their subs for a game they cannot play. This thread may not be as active as it used to be but don't be mistaken.

There is a huge problem here and nothing is being done about it. Make of that as you will.

Dawntrail, especially Raid, is messing with my eyes. Playing for more than an hour is already quite uncomfortable.

Because of all the problems that this game has been presenting and this one, I have stopped playing for months, and even when I come back I play very little, obviously stopping with my sub. But I am almost at the point of stopping completely.

Sorry for any english mistakes

That the primary place to give feedback regarding issues REQUIRES a subscription feels crummy when the feedback is 'the game is now injuring us so we can't play' and it's been MONTHS of this :/

Not even an honorary mention either, again. Welp. My resub ends soon, but for now... back to the front page I guess.

Reminder, since it's off the latest page again, that in addition to 'forum feedback', we've been advised to contact the Accessibility team at contact-accessibility@eu.square-enix.com in regards to this issue. If you're having similar issues and have the energy for it, please consider sending an additional message their way. Most folks haven't gotten any reply, but it's what we were told to do sooooooo...

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Originally Posted by zipkin

That the primary place to give feedback regarding issues REQUIRES a subscription feels crummy when the feedback is 'the game is now injuring us so we can't play' and it's been MONTHS of this :/

Not even an honorary mention either, again. Welp. My resub ends soon, but for now... back to the front page I guess.

Reminder, since it's off the latest page again, that in addition to 'forum feedback', we've been advised to contact the Accessibility team at contact-accessibility@eu.square-enix.com in regards to this issue. If you're having similar issues and have the energy for it, please consider sending an additional message their way. Most folks haven't gotten any reply, but it's what we were told to do sooooooo...

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Bumping and quoting this for emphasis. If anyone manages to get a response, please let the thread know!

Back up to the front page again while I still can.

Up we go, back to the front page for more visibility.

Back up to the front page again.

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Originally Posted by Vesplume

This thread was started on 6/28, during the early access period of DT. The official launch was on 7/2, but nothing was said on graphics until 7/5, where this post was made about issues with lighting with regards to housing settings. It goes into some detail about the changes made to how lighting is processed and specifies that the old lighting can't be recreated but they will make adjustments to it in the future. Though it's specific to lighting in housing, there's some insight here into some of the new graphical changes. There's a lot more of it than there was before.

The next related dev post was this one from 9/6 regarding the feedback on playable character models. There's plenty of fan pushback on that here and elsewhere. Rather than go into that, I'm going to talk about the what little info we have to go on as to whether the devs even consider this problem an issue.

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Quoting a previous post of mine that contains links to the two dev posts on the Lodestone, since the patch 7.2 notes confirm that the issues brought up in those dev posts have been addressed. Only one new setting has been added based on the preliminary patch notes, but it's for the previously described housing issue.

Tuesday is a make it or break it day for this thread. It's noted several times that adjustments have been made to how shadows are rendered, which means changes have been made to the lighting. It seems like the current philosophy is more lighting = better graphics, and if that's the case we're SOL. I'd like to believe some of the changes made will be for the better but my optimism is at an all time low right now.

I don't typically suffer from eye strain issues, but Bloomberg the Bloombird has been giving me a run for my money these past months.

Wondrous Lanner one second after mounting up:

https://i.imgur.com/5fz68gE.png

After the glow effect applies:

https://i.imgur.com/YCM9Qwp.png

Intentionally large screenshots to get the full Wondrous experience

A pic of how the glow looked pre-update (thank you, Lalafell youtuber). It's not the same location/lighting situation, but I find the glow is noticeably less intense.

https://i.imgur.com/yeNt33o.png

Trying to hold out hope that these kinds of graphical "quirks" will be cleaned up and fixed sometime... eventually? Even if people weren't experiencing eye strain issues, this degree of bloom is still plain ugly.

There is nothing wrong with the lighting in this game. If you have a headache/eye-strain, then it's a you problem. This is a 1st world problem that whining about this is a waste of developers time & resources. Go see an eye doctor if you have any eye issue.

any complaint about this game would be a "1st world problem" but it is not a waste of dev time and resources, especially since they still are working on the graphical update so these oh so scarce resources have already been put into working on stuff like this lmao

and regardless the people in this thread very much have the right to "whine" about it when a product they bought and is actively paying a subscription for goes from little to no problems to nearly/completely unplayable after whats supposed to be an upgrade, not that the devs can't alienate these customers and piss all over their goodwill...

anyway, leave obvious troll to starve and instead keep making your problems heard about the game you're quite literally funding the resources for

This the only thing that comes to my mind about SE, when reading the issues.

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

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Originally Posted by Birdbrain

I don't typically suffer from eye strain issues, but Bloomberg the Bloombird has been giving me a run for my money these past months.

Wondrous Lanner one second after mounting up:

https://i.imgur.com/5fz68gE.png

.

After the glow effect applies:

https://i.imgur.com/YCM9Qwp.png

Intentionally large screenshots to get the full Wondrous experience

A pic of how the glow looked pre-update (thank you, Lalafell youtuber). It's not the same location/lighting situation, but I find the glow is noticeably less intense.

https://i.imgur.com/yeNt33o.png

Trying to hold out hope that these kinds of graphical "quirks" will be cleaned up and fixed sometime... eventually? Even if people weren't experiencing eye strain issues, this degree of bloom is still plain ugly.

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Ty for posting those pictures. I mentioned the quite unbearable glow on mounts a few weeks ago on this thread but I didn’t took screenshots as proof.
The lanners are the most affected mounts imo

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Originally Posted by USAFJerrySo

Go see an eye doctor if you have any eye issue.

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I experienced some A++ karma for the last person that tried to act like this towards me. I told a friend about the issues I've had since 7.0 and they brushed me off very callously, then a month later tried to come to me for sympathy when their doctor prescribed glasses to them. I cut them off for other reasons, but the lack of empathy while also wanting it from other was very funny.

Anywho, I actually HAVE gone to the doctor after I started having the issues.

The problem is XIV. I've never needed glasses, still don't need them, and I've never had issues with my eyes in my life until 7.0. and I do not have issues playing any other game.

But anyways thanks for bumping our thread.

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Originally Posted by Anarnee

I experienced some A++ karma for the last person that tried to act like this towards me. I told a friend about the issues I've had since 7.0 and they brushed me off very callously, then a month later tried to come to me for sympathy when their doctor prescribed glasses to them. I cut them off for other reasons, but the lack of empathy while also wanting it from other was very funny.

Anywho, I actually HAVE gone to the doctor after I started having the issues.

The problem is XIV. I've never needed glasses, still don't need them, and I've never had issues with my eyes in my life until 7.0. and I do not have issues playing any other game.

But anyways thanks for bumping our thread.

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Did you ever try Guild Wars 1? Guild Wars 1 had/has the worst bloom usage in history.

I am disappointed that we cannot turn it off still in this.

Patch 7.disappointmentandsilence dropped today

We're still waiting here SE

Gonna give this a bump of solidarity - I don't have any of these issues but it should be addressed for those that do.

Hope this gets resolved in the future. Eye strain and headaches is no good.

Sooooo, those depth of field changes-- and not just in Gpose, either, though that's certainly the most noticeable and worst of it.

Certain textures on the ground being blurry/looking almost like they have a chromakey effect until your camera zooms in close enough for them to straighten out and sharpen up, and the god awful transition between focal points in cutscenes (a character in the foreground to a character in the background and vice versa) have been particularly bad for me this patch.

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Originally Posted by Merunari

Sooooo, those depth of field changes-- and not just in Gpose, either, though that's certainly the most noticeable and worst of it.

Certain textures on the ground being blurry/looking almost like they have a chromakey effect until your camera zooms in close enough for them to straighten out and sharpen up, and the god awful transition between focal points in cutscenes (a character in the foreground to a character in the background and vice versa) have been particularly bad for me this patch.

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I've noticed this as well with some textures. And I just posted in the character update thread but will mention in here too, shadows feel REALLY weird and flickery/crunchy. I've noticed it the most around hairlines or on necks with shadows cast from hair, but it's not just the ones from hair cuz it was also just happening on my character's cheek/cheekbone area just standing outside in Goblet.

I think with this alongside the incredibly disappointing offerings in 7.2 I'm at a point where I just don't want to play anymore. They clearly don't care about anything we have to say whether it's about accessibility, job design, timegates, whichever else you could stand to want. It's getting old. People keep saying to let them try things and figure things out but it's been almost 12 years since ARR. If they won't figure it out now I assume they never will.

Walking into the Purple Place is rough on the eyes and while I do not suffer the same severe eye strain as my friends do I do not think that they should be barred from playing just because SQEX refuses to do anything. I'm just fed up with it. There shouldn't be any excuse for this negligence. This game isn't worth our money!

Is it just me or do overall colors seem even more eye-piercingly vibrant after this patch? I have an OLED, so the game is already vibrant, but someone was wearing a red outfit next to me in Solution 9 last night and the red almost burned my retinas out it was so bright.

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Originally Posted by DynnDiablos

Is it just me or do overall colors seem even more eye-piercingly vibrant after this patch? I have an OLED, so the game is already vibrant, but someone was wearing a red outfit next to me in Solution 9 last night and the red almost burned my retinas out it was so bright.

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Definitely not just you!! I noticed the same thing. It feels like they bumped up the contrast/saturation just enough to make the bright and glowing things eye-seeringly bright while also somehow being subtle enough to question if they bumped up the contrast/saturation a bit or if you're just seeing things. I didn't touch my settings before/after the patch either for it to be something different on my end.

I will say, none of the Arcadion fights made me motion sick this time around, however the trial was particularly awful on the eyes and I spent thirty mins last night trying to go to sleep with the light effect from animations in fights glaring behind my eyelids like they'd been burning into my retinas or something

For the love of GOD, please balance this awful lighting system, there is no reason folks should need sun glasses to enjoy your game. It's like when someone turns on a light in a dark room suddenly, or like looking at the sun. It should not take this long to fix something like this. Playing this game is staying to feel like a job where I'm not getting paid. We're all just QA testing your BS and it's really frustrating, from the god awful lighting to having to tell them how they ruining our characters.

I'm paying $15 a month to do a job at this point, I feel like I have very little goodwill left for SE at this point.

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Originally Posted by Merunari

Sooooo, those depth of field changes-- and not just in Gpose, either, though that's certainly the most noticeable and worst of it.

Certain textures on the ground being blurry/looking almost like they have a chromakey effect until your camera zooms in close enough for them to straighten out and sharpen up, and the god awful transition between focal points in cutscenes (a character in the foreground to a character in the background and vice versa) have been particularly bad for me this patch.

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Did find the blurry/sharpen in the CS so be particularly annoying too.

kind of unfortunate that I enjoyed the patch BUT had pretty bad tension headaches from eyestrain after playing both msq and arcadion :( that never used to happen to me before the graphics update. they really do need to consider adding more accessibility options that let us independently tone down certain elements. I know MH Wilds and WoW both have plenty of adjustable components for that reason, so it would be inline with other popular games...

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Originally Posted by Anarnee

I will say, none of the Arcadion fights made me motion sick this time around, however the trial was particularly awful on the eyes and I spent thirty mins last night trying to go to sleep with the light effect from animations in fights glaring behind my eyelids like they'd been burning into my retinas or something

For the love of GOD, please balance this awful lighting system, there is no reason folks should need sun glasses to enjoy your game. It's like when someone turns on a light in a dark room suddenly, or like looking at the sun. It should not take this long to fix something like this. Playing this game is staying to feel like a job where I'm not getting paid. We're all just QA testing your BS and it's really frustrating, from the god awful lighting to having to tell them how they ruining our characters.

I'm paying $15 a month to do a job at this point, I feel like I have very little goodwill left for SE at this point.




Did find the blurry/sharpen in the CS so be particularly annoying too.

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The second arena with the Pictomancer painting about burned my retinas out in the beginning with the extreme bright pastels everywhere. When she changes the arena it isn't so bad, but the default paint splattered everywhere one was not fun.

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Originally Posted by DynnDiablos

The second arena with the Pictomancer painting about burned my retinas out in the beginning with the extreme bright pastels everywhere. When she changes the arena it isn't so bad, but the default paint splattered everywhere one was not fun.

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I was quite surprised that M6 didn't bother me much because M1 and M4 both hurt my eyes and M1, M2, M3 and M4 all make me motion sick/dizzy. It's pretty much on par with how bright M2 was though, but still I didn't find that M6 made me dizzy or nauseous. I think that it is because everything is so bright all the time I don't get flash banged as much because it's already bright, where as the fights in the first tier have so many shadows and sudden bright flashes. (I'm very surprised M5 didn't get to me cause it does have lots of shadows and bright lights. The wave floor mech does bother my eyes if I stare at it, but it didn't make me dizzy.)

But yeah, the lighting is still royally effed, but I only got dizzy/motion sick from the trial fight. So... Another EX tier I have to skip...

This is my last *BUMP* to the thread for now (have unsubbed because this is ridiculous; will only be back if my husband requires me to house sit, water plants, or do a treasure dungeon).

The only way I found relief from some eye strain was to create a nVidia profile where I can shift the hues slightly and also desaturate the colors.

Didn't totally realize I could still post here since my sub ended a bit ago but WHILE I can... up we go I guess. Still no real fixes OR acknowledgement. Quoting prior post to remind where we were told (aside from the pay-to-feedback forums) to contact re accessibility issues. It'd be great if anyone miraculously manages to GET a reply re accessibility could let us know that the email goes somewhere besides a trash bin at this point... I am so tired.

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Originally Posted by zipkin

That the primary place to give feedback regarding issues REQUIRES a subscription feels crummy when the feedback is 'the game is now injuring us so we can't play' and it's been MONTHS of this :/

Not even an honorary mention either, again. Welp. My resub ends soon, but for now... back to the front page I guess.

Reminder, since it's off the latest page again, that in addition to 'forum feedback', we've been advised to contact the Accessibility team at contact-accessibility@eu.square-enix.com in regards to this issue. If you're having similar issues and have the energy for it, please consider sending an additional message their way. Most folks haven't gotten any reply, but it's what we were told to do sooooooo...

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Finally came across the flicking/banding shadows that presented bad enough that I could take screenshots of it and not need to figure out how to record my screen. Hopefully this helps some people feel even more validated, and I did make a bug report.

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

https://i.imgur.com/0eQwDWR.png

(very subtle along the top edge)
https://i.imgur.com/iiZjavJ.png

https://i.imgur.com/r80VYmn.png

Hard not to have eye strain issues when lighting is strobing like that all over the game. =/

I'm going to bump this myself! I made a reddit post in order to see if we can really start screaming and shouting about this as a community and finally get square's attention, this is the post I put:

Can we all band together and create a loud enough noise to finally get square enix to pay attention and help out our photosensitive friends?

I have a friend who has non-epileptic attack disorder and it is highly photosensitive, she's been unable to play this expansion at all because of the lightning effects and it's making her really upset because she can't play with us. All square has to do is just add one little button that will turn off visual effects for zones, boss abilities, etc etc

I know we as the FF community can be loud enough to get square to finally do something about this, I just need your help in doing so because I know my friend will not be alone in this!

Help out our photosensitive friends!

For the love of god sqaure please do something! Our photosensitive friends cannot play your game because of the clear ignorance you guys have regarding photosensitivity.

Accessibility should be mandatory!

I have sent them an email, I will let you know if I get a reply!

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Originally Posted by Nyaesa

I'm going to bump this myself! I made a reddit post in order to see if we can really start screaming and shouting about this as a community and finally get square's attention, this is the post I put:

Can we all band together and create a loud enough noise to finally get square enix to pay attention and help out our photosensitive friends?

I have a friend who has non-epileptic attack disorder and it is highly photosensitive, she's been unable to play this expansion at all because of the lightning effects and it's making her really upset because she can't play with us. All square has to do is just add one little button that will turn off visual effects for zones, boss abilities, etc etc

I know we as the FF community can be loud enough to get square to finally do something about this, I just need your help in doing so because I know my friend will not be alone in this!

Help out our photosensitive friends!

For the love of god sqaure please do something! Our photosensitive friends cannot play your game because of the clear ignorance you guys have regarding photosensitivity.

Accessibility should be mandatory!

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Thank you for this! I don't have a reddit account but I saw your post. All the additional visibility is much appreciated.

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Originally Posted by Vesplume

Thank you for this! I don't have a reddit account but I saw your post. All the additional visibility is much appreciated.

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I have also spoken to some content creators, posted in a couple of discords as well to just get people to either post here, get more traction on the reddit thread or email the accessibility team directly. I will be loud and I won't stop until change is made :)

BUMP!

While I don't have any issues myself, I have friends who do and it does prevent them from enjoying the game!

I pored through this thread quite a bit to see if anyone mentioned people suffering from issues calibrating their monitors properly using a dedicated resource like: http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/ or the like?
I don't doubt people are having eye strain issues, I've had some with the game myself over the years; even before the update, and the first line of defense, for me at least, is always making sure my displays are properly calibrated.

I actually played all of Heavensward through the middle of Shadowbringers with excessively bright, overly saturated colors via Nvidia Control Panel and Reshade as my monitor calibration was terrible.
So in the hopes that others may find some relief through ways other than the developers assisting; at least as far as saturation is concerned, I'd suggest going in depth on properly calibrating your displays.

Not the solution people want, but it can help.

I am happy with my display settings for everything I do BESIDES the post-DT graphics in FFXIV. Actually wound up wasting a lot of time trying to set everything back to the way it was after my initial attempts to make FFXIV playable again in the first month following the graphics change. I make digital art, and play a lot of games, all of which look as they should and don't bother my eyes even though I probably exceed the average recommended screen-time when I get caught up ^^;

Folks have said they've tried adjusting their displays, or tested out using different screens/devices. Perhaps the link you shared might help someone who hasn't already checked for that issue to have an additional thing to try, but, unfortunately, it doesn't seem likely as the solution for a bunch of us. Especially the folks on consoles who have fewer options to attempt adjustments, though my TV-tech knowledge is admittedly limited.

The eyestrain issues for the majority in this thread appear to be only caused by FFXIV and only since the DT graphics change. That's why we're asking for the developers to do something about it, if it could be fixed with another tool I'm sure most of us would happily have fixed it after... what is it now, nine months? x.x

(though, reminder just in case, mods are officially not allowed, and are inaccessible for console-users regardless)

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Originally Posted by zipkin

Reminder, since it's off the latest page again, that in addition to 'forum feedback', we've been advised to contact the Accessibility team at contact-accessibility@eu.square-enix.com in regards to this issue. If you're having similar issues and have the energy for it, please consider sending an additional message their way.

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