Dawntrail Graphics Update - Aesthetical Environment Concerns

[lunartears]

Hello, I am starting this thread because I want to bring attention to an aspect of the incoming update that I haven't seen anyone really discuss. At first it was supposed to relate to the recent PLL and the changes to Il Mheg and The Lost City of Ampadaor, but as I wrote more I found the post turn more into a general criticism.

Regarding PLL: while I for the most part agree that the changes in Elpis were good and I understand that the development team's vision is first and foremost, the changes in these other instances seem questionable in some places. This is only my personal opinion on the matter, so please do not assume I am saying this is only the right opinion to have. Please also feel free to share your opinions regarding these changes below.

Lighting changes

I have always considered The Lost City of Ampadaor to be very atmospheric and beautiful accompanied with its music, but the new version lacks the blue hue that went well with the foggy spore-filled setting. A similar thing was shown in the initial graphics upgrade showcase video, where the lighting in the areas was made too vibrant or the colour was altered and lost its original feel.



I am probably overthinking this one, but I also have a similar dislike with the boss arenas potentially being made overly vibrant like in this much older testing preview:



I don't think everything needs to be made extremely bright and saturated like the new Il Mheg appears, I know the game's current lighting system has a sort of gloomy feeling to it but I feel like it works and doesn't need to be altered this heavily. And I am aware many people disagree with this, but I feel like especially in some cases like Titania's arena it needs to be a bit more gloomy.

Another thing I noticed about the changes here was the removal of the rainbow rings in Il Mheg:



I feel like this is a very weird thing to remove, the vibrant rainbows rings are a part of Il Mheg's identity as it is supposed to be home to the fae.

[KageTokage]

I'm not really a fan of how it's changing the vibe of certain places either.

If the increased brightness is a side effect of them adding more light sources, then they ought to dim them slightly so the overall brightness is the same as it was before.

[CStrife912]

So to respond to aspects here, I believe the Ampador screen is merely a filter they can add in. There is still checks and changes being made just like the benchmark site even says this will be happening but to what extent we don’t know. Your boss example from the original preview you hadn’t watched the video that came from that’s not going to be that vibrant because they said the devs merely used red colour lights to express the fact they can now add more light sources and Yoshi P said he wouldn’t notice it unless they made it intentionally jarring. It won’t look like that on release.

Now to the floor photo in tail feather I much prefer the new one… it’s clearly a much larger texture now allowing for way more detail and the stones in the original are way too big and the new one is way more accurate to how it would be in real life lol I know this ain’t real life but when it’s a place made by people who the hell id carrying those giant stones to make the pathway lol.

[GreenLeafy]

Honestly I'm surprised but also glad that someone made a thread about this!
Keeping up with the previews for these graphical updates and running the benchmark several times has given me a lot of thoughts on the approach of this as whole.

Just to put it out of the way first - definitely there's going to be a hard split between players on this topic. Some people will like the overall change in brightness,saturation and shiny look as a whole compared to what the current lighting in the game can offer which can be somewhat dull.It absolutely is an upgrade in some areas but not all.Which is totally okay! And absolutely valid!
Where the concern really lies is the preservation of individual location ambience and aesthetic like you've brought up. The fear really is that they might end up in the pitfall of doing a general broad stroke of lighting adjustment across every single map even if it doesn't necessarily have the need for it. Its very akin to what a lot of movies suffer from nowadays due to the move to digital camerawork and instead of concious lighting and colour grading put into crucial scenes they just put a filter on the entire length of the film and call it a day - both because not every director is invested but also its just much cheaper and takes less time. I'd like to believe they care more though! And FFXIV now is a HUGE game and with the release cycle I imagine they might not have the hands on deck or time to really give every place the attention it deserves. I honestly kind of like your Titania example - those two lighting scenarios carry such a different story haha. The original darker tone kind of conveys an idea of sadness of how long Titania has stuck there its lost is colour and seeing it pop back during the transition of the fight it gives an extra kick. Now its just always colourful.
Really don't get the removal of the Il Mheg rainbows either. Not sure how that "improved" the zone. Am glad that a lot of the new textures though at least look relatively good overall. But I can see how that stone path is a bit jarring. x)

Its definitely interesting when taking into consideration how individual care , akin to the one taken for the dungeon upgrades for Tam-Tara / Toto-Rak , etc. can really elevate the feel and ambience of the place even in the current engine of the game.

And honestly ,at the end of the day, the lighting for a place is as much storytelling as the location itself. I don't really know what portion of the community really cares or takes into account things like that but its nice seeing I'm not alone in these thoughts!
And ultimately it can all be a subjective view - maybe the devs just like it better like this who knows.

[Iscah]

I wasn't fond of the previous changes they made to early dungeons' lighting either. Copperbell felt more claustrophobic as a result of the lighting changes, and I think Haukke got dimmer looking as well.

[CidHeiral]

Copperbell felt more claustrophobic as a result of the lighting changes, and I think Haukke got dimmer looking as well.

A copper mine and a haunted mansion shouldn't feel claustrophobic and dim?

[Lieri]

Yup. I think if they just upscaled everything itd be much better. But I guess thats annoying to do, digging through old assets and fixing them one by one so they just create new ones. Which also explains why some of the faces look off.

[Iscah]

A copper mine and a haunted mansion shouldn't feel claustrophobic and dim?

To a degree, no, not if it makes the level feel disconcerting to play. Copperbell does actually use a lot of open spaces in the design.

Haukke was more of a "this feels off now", particularly regarding the ground-floor ballroom. I haven't seen a comparison but I recall feeling like it was newly very dim.