Lackluster Graphics in FFXIV

[Eekiki]

Bad things about FFXIV's graphics:
Texture resolution at far distances

With my system (i7 with a GTX590 graphics card, kinda high end for most people), I can run it with Depth of Field turned on, and I increased oversampling on distant objects to "High" from "Standard". Distant textures look pretty good now.

The thing that bugs me the most is the "no shadows" thing. We cast shadows. The big easter egg balloon that was floating around during the egg hunt cast a shadow. But terrain does not cast a shadow! There's no shade under the trees! That irks me greatly (probably more than it should).