The Graphics update was unnecessary

[Gyson]

Are your settings in the launcher the same as your in-game settings, especially the gamma? It looks like the gamma is way off in the second screenshot (look at the background for obvious differences).

The settings are the same. However, the character illumination setting for Dawntrail's Benchmark can't be altered and (I believe) it has the character lighting maxed at 100. In the real game I leave this at 0 because my character is not radioactive, so why would he need to self-illuminate.

But I raised the character lighting to 100 temporarily to take another photo for a more accurate comparison, and to me the new Dawntrail version (right) does not look the same/better than the old version (left).

Edit: You were correct about the gamma, it was set to 50 in the Dawntrail Benchmark. I lowered it down to the same value I use in Endwalker and updated the image.

Are people actually trying to argue that this looks good?

The image you posted clearly looks bad, but I think the more important question is "how does it look after the update?", because if the answer is "different, but still bad", then I can understand people questioning whether the update was worth it or not.

[CidHeiral]

The image you posted clearly looks bad, but I think the more important question is "how does it look after the update?", because if the answer is "different, but still bad", then I can understand people questioning whether the update was worth it or not.

I think the only way to go from there is up, my friend. lol

[Larirawiel]

FF14 was not an ugly game,

Of course ...

Cheers

[Derio]

I think it would of had more of an impact if they updated with more face options and more character customization. Moreso what this update will do is show how old FFXIV is and unlike WOW that uses a cartoonish style can get away with poor graphics for years on end, while FFXIV is leaning more to realism which really hurts when you see how dated some things look.

[DiaDeem]

It wasn't needed

Sorry, complete disagree.

FF14 was not an ugly game

I understand that people are attached to their characters.
I don't understand wanting to keep PS3 grade models, textures, lighting and physics for the sake of arbitrary personal standards.

Going from 1.0 to 2.0 the game suffered actual downgrades to the graphics, but everyone was fine in the end.

I hope improvements can be made based on feedback, but overall, this is gonna hugely benefit the game in the long run.

[OgruMogru]

That reminds me... wasn't 1.0's lighting some weird fake trick?
I heard they had no way to do night correctly so night time is just reduced gamma (or was it brightness??) with a dark blue tint filter above everything.

I used to do this on my TV when I was a kid playing The Lion King on Mega Drive so I could pretend like it was night time on Pride Rock