Dawntrail Graphics Update - Eye Strain

[UNDEAD10000]

It's have being 1 year and 7 months since release of Dawntrail and horrendous graphics update still haven't being fixed.

There is still visual problems like broken shadows, glow effect is still too storng, certain textures have unnatural glow effect in them, certain areas like Syrcus Tower still have this very annoying blurry background visuals and many visuals have this grainy look in them.
And of course there is still way too much very bright visual effect clutter while having other players visual effects turned off that makes seeing very important things like visual cues of boss mechanics really hard.

Even now i still want ability to use 6.0 graphics that in my opinion looked way better then current horrendous Dawntrail graphics.

[Anarnee]

Just thought I'd pop in to say that even with the contrast turned all the way down on my TV, the new variant dungeon contrast is really awful and makes me dizzy, so if stuff has been bothering you definitely do not go into the new variant dungeon.

[faiarrow]

Also wanting to second that the new variant dungeon, while very pretty, is genuinely painful on the eyes after a few runs. Makes me yearn for them to bring back the 2009 era yellow filter games had because it would help diffuse some the over saturation.

I'd like to note that this is while playing with good distance between myself and the screen, with ample lighting to diffuse screen light and my TV settings already tweaked to handle my needs for games to not set off photosensitvity.

(No, I cannot use reshade, I am on PS5, I appreciate people trying to be helpful in the thread saying this but it is not an accessible option for a large chunk of the playerbase.)

If they had basic graphic functions like full brightness and contrast control instead of just a gamma slider then it, along with all general content, would likely be tolerable even with the extreme amount of chromatic aberration they're putting in everything now. FFXIV is the only game that is giving me this issue, and Yoshida's blanket off-hand mention in an interview that things like bloom toggle is going to (allegedly, because it's Yoshida, and I trust anything he says about as well as I can throw a horse) return sometime nebulously just feels like a total cop-out. Toggles like that have existed in most industry releases as standard for decades—they're not even technically considered an accessibility feature, it's just a normal goddamn feature to make sure a game-look functions and is playable for a person.

I shouldn't have to have a damn cheat-sheet written out for my TV settings whenever I have to adjust them ~Specially For FFXIV Because It's A Diva~ so I don't try to gouge my astigmatisms out, to then have to put them back to my own normal settings for everything else. That's just stupid. And beyond backwards. And even in doing that unless I basically have my screen so dark I can barely see it it still causes issues, including bursting blood vessels repeatedly.

Again, this is only an issue playing XIV.

[Reginald_Cain]

Despite my astigmatism not being triggered I hope square Enix and led headlight manufacturers pay more attention to us

[PaleYonder]

Again, this is only an issue playing XIV.

Yep, same for me, it's only FFXIV, and it has only turned this bad with Dawntrail. I aready use my monitor's eye-saving mode, everything is warmer mode, blue light reduction, I've set the game to as little flashing as I could, but it's just way way too much.
(Not sure if we can mention other games here so) I've also been playing another big MMO that got a big expansion recently, and I can roam around the light-themed regions, stand right next to the light-magic-themed sacred place and such that's basically a big lamp in the floor, and I'm just fine because the colours are a lot more muted and there's not the same insistence on flashbang and laser tag. Placing both games next to each other on the same monitor for a laugh only makes it clear just how brightly tuned FFXIV is, and the variant dungeon is one of the extreme cases.
I was actually looking forward to it and was going to run all the routes with my friend, but I just can't do it. I had to look away during the boss fights and focus on the few dark spots in the scenery that I could find, and had to give up after one run. This is really frustrating. I'd like something as simple as knowing I can play any content I want without a migraine, and enter any roulette I want without having to remember, "oh right, this has this in there now, and it's likely to come up these days, better not". That should not be too much to ask.

[AuroraBorealiz]

I unironically think old faces were better. I think texture quality was massively improved for the game world but some other things changed with it that I am not a fan of.

But yes +1 on some eye strain. Not sure why but I feel it most in ARR.