Dawntrail Graphics Update - Eye Strain

[Ashenfall]

At first I thought the graphics were actually extremely crisp - but I use the original PS4 and noticed that everything looks very pixelated and grainy compared to everyone else's screenshots, like they turned off some sort of anti-aliasing. I can sometimes literally see tiny pixels move around when I see hair strands or finer details. This with high contrast, constant movement, and blurry shadows is really just too much.

You can see the background, hair, and finer details being jagged or straight up pixelated here.



There's no settings on the console to reduce this (I don't see a difference with dynamic resolution) and I feel kind of bummed about it since I love Gposing and the tiny pixel artifacts make it difficult to screenshot or even play the game.

[Merton9999]

Currently always on bloom is by far worst thing in FFXIV 7.0 graphics that many areas look very ugly and being in certain areas with extremely strong bloom effect makes me feel quite uncomfortable.

Agreed. Personally, I haven't had any negative physical reactions since 7.0. However, I do feel bad for everyone that is experiencing these problems and can't play at all because of them.

My problem is that the graphical update just makes old areas look ugly. FFXIV is no longer a beautiful game to look at for me, as it had been for 10 years. Il Mheg, Thavnair, even Limsa and Old Sharlayan, all look like someone dumped tar all over them. They feel weighted and oppressive. Housing interiors feel flat and dirty.

I do see spec improvements in texture quality and detail. This works well in new zones but the changes have destroyed all the old ones. I might be able to appreciate the attention to detail, but it goes back to the argument of whether obsession over graphic quality is good for games. When it comes at the expense of aesthetics and artistry, it ruins them.

I enjoyed DT content for a while, but won't go to old zones. They look so unpleasant they make me sad now. I'll pay a sub to keep my house for a while, to see if anything is likely to get better. But I can't continue to pay for something I ultimately can't use.

[gllt]

I had to log in to use the forums. I genuinely didn't realize I didn't play for two whole weeks. Oof.

[gllt]

I'd like to playyyy without the paaain

[MiaBlaze-Cari]

Back to page 1 we go, simply because there is still no public announcement. And back to playing other games I go. Take care <3

[Rueby]

Why are the aetherytes in DT so damn BRIGHT???

My eyes. It hurts.

[arstoka]

I'm glad I'm not the only one with issues with the Bloom effect. while it doesn't cause eyestrain or trigger any kind of motion sickness in me, it looks really blurry and down right ugly. It really ruins some of the atmosphere, especially in older areas. The Crystal Tower raid series also suffers a lot from the new graphics updates. The crystals walls look hideous, the gold an ugly refractive green which does not contrast well at all. The lava zones in Lab make me feel like I'm not wearing my glasses.

It sucks.

I dont mind how my characters transferred to the new updates (except my poor cat girl) but it still makes me sad.

Not to mention there are weird lighting glitches all over the place. The worst yet I saw was flying around in Il Mheg at night and one of the walls near the Amaros had this patch of sunlight on it. I'll see if I can grab a picture later.

[gllt]

Bloom really is my number two enemy (number one is a tie between motion blur and screen shake)

[Rueby]

I just came out of Labyrinth of the Ancients with a headache...I don't even think the neon aoes were this bad either but everything feels like it wants to burn my eyes out especially the lava room which forces me to look away from my screen lmao

[Merton9999]

In this week i have found that spending few minutes in Ultima Thule area will make my eyes hurt when the whole area have both extremely bright and extremely dark lighting at the same time and i use brightness level at 2 (max brightness level is 100) on my gaming monitor.

Before Dawntrail expansion i never had problems spending lots of time in Ultima Thule when darker areas where more brighter and bright lighting was less brighter and now in Dawntrail expansion in Ultima Thule the dark lighting is now extremely dark that makes every ground areas losing all of their graphical details completely and the bright lighting is so bright that it make my eyes feel uncomfortable immediately and after spending few minutes in the area it make my eyes hurt.

.

Ultima Thule looks the same for me as you describe. Areas that should be very dark but still display discernible detail are completely flat black with no visible details at all.

I play on PS5 with an OLED 4K TV. When I first got the console, a followed the recommendations I read most places that recommended setting Black Level on the tv to limited and the RGB Range on the PS5 to limited to match it. This always looked fine to me in every game, including FFXIV and looks perfect in DT zones. For completeness sake, setting both to automatic produces the exact same results as setting both to limited. Setting both to Full washes out everything that should be black, turning them an unpleasant and obviously wrong grey and overall every other games looks flat and overly bright.

Since DT, new zones look excellent with the limited/limited I've always used. However, old zones look like they are dripping with solid black ink in every place where there should just be shadows but still visible detail. It makes these zones look like they are covered in tar and extremely unpleasant to look at.

If I change the TV and PS5 to Full, the solid black shadow areas in old zones that should display detail get "fixed" to my eyes, displaying the detail I would expect to see in a shadowy area. This setting actually makes these areas look better overall for the most part. But it makes elements that should be completely black turn washed out grey, and it ruins the look of new zones (and all my other games) in the same way.

When I tried the full/full setting in Ultima Thule, details instantly appeared in areas I didn't see them at all with limited/limited (but had no problem seeing before 7.0) but everything that should be black was an ugly sheet of solid grey.

So sadly I'm left with no setting that works for everything. I either get gorgeous DT zones with dripping tar, no detail shadows in old zones, or I can fix the shadows in old zones but make everything that should be solid black bright and washed out. This is only a problem in FFXIV, no other games, and only since the DT graphic changes.