Dawntrail Graphics Update - Eye Strain

[Rueby]

I was doing EW maps with friends few days ago and the bonus? golems that spawn are so painful to look at due to how bright yellow, neon pink, white they are...I don't even remember them being painful to look at. (I forgot to take a screenshot, maybe if I go again I will)

Also bump.

[MiaBlaze-Cari]

And bump I guess.

The level 97 dungeon is still hard to look at, especially the tunnel after the 2nd boss and still makes me dizzy. As for the Bloom: At least my christmas tree is no longer a mess, same with other furniture which is why I looked around a bit on other maps. Also some DT maps are easier to look at now (for me that is, ymmv). For EW Portals I can't say. I will need to get some maps first but given that the 97 dungeon is still an offender with bloom (especially after the 2nd boss) I can imagine that the golems are as "shiny" as before :c Also the ghosting from the heat effects in Tul..tu...thingy...uhm..the first DT city (I can't spell it q-q) as well as Amh Araeng is still there, tho it seems it's a little bit toned down (southern Thanalan could also have that problem).
I think they're at least somewhat working on it, despite keeping it secret for whatever reason. I'm afraid that it is only being worked on because of feedback from the japanese playerbase, given how long this topic here got ignored by Square. Only an assumption tho.
Overall I've been online for a longer period of time yesterday without much issues. I did however avoid most content but checked some dungeons with Explorer mode. I noticed that they toned down a lot of the flashbangery in the 2nd to last EW dungeon, no more eye-blinding snow but still some way to go to get these issues fully fixed. I have no clue about the "new" dungeon in DT, still haven't done any 7.1x content tbh.

[lunartears]

I've not been playing much of DT due to other reasons but today I experienced the worst migraine playing through Euphrosyne for the first time since EW. The start of the raid was fine, but when I got to the ice area and final arena my eyes began to hurt.



Fortunately I have some photos pre graphics update (just the last arena) as I absolutely loved the scenery in this alliance raid and have been able to make some comparisons. They're not exact, I found it difficult to replicate the camera angle but they will do.

Before on top, after on bottom:




More below, didn't want to clutter post:

I haven't had any trouble with eye strain in the graphics update until this point, all I've noticed is that long distance scenery, objects and metals have looked a lot more (for lack of a better term) "crispy" on my game than they did before.

[Anarnee]

Bump /10char

[Anarnee]

Oop, another bump and this time with a quote from the JP side of the forums cause I was reading through to see what they had to say about stuff in the graphics update thread and this comment stood out to me amongst the MANY complaints about character models. I've seen more than a handful folks on the JP forum also complaining about eye strain but this one stood out to me because so much of it is exactly stuff that I feel like we've had to parrot since 7.0.

これを見ていて思ったんですが虹彩の色が薄い方にとってはテレビドラマやゲームの明るいシーンが虹彩のメラニン色素の量が少ない関係で眩しく感じる(※アジア系等の虹彩の色が濃い方にとっては普通の明るさ)為に洋画や海外製ゲーム(特にホラーゲーム)では画面がやたら暗い事が多いですが、なんだか今のグラフィックって"それ"を目指した結果調整が雑すぎて大惨事になってませんか……？Mrieさんの上げているスクショを例に挙げるとキャラはある程度光量調整してますが調整が甘いせいで背景から思いっきり浮いてるし、背景の方は全く弄ってないんかってレベルで背景にあるものの輪郭すら見えないぐらい真っ黒で流石に虹彩の色が薄くてもこれでは見えませんよ。
かといって明るい(演出で眩しいシーンではなく至って普通の快晴のシーン等)ところはちょうどいいかって言われたら虹彩の色が濃い方にとっても「眩しい」て言われるぐらい眩しいし。(虹彩の色が濃くても眩しいって感じるなら薄い人は目潰しレベルなのでは？)
今のグラは暗いところは暗すぎて見えないし明るいところは眩しいし常に鮮やか3フィルターがかかってるような(+で不透明度20％～30％ぐらいで色ペン1フィルターもかかってる感じ？の)目に痛くて早いと3～4時間で眼精疲労による画面酔いで体調を崩すようなライティングで正直ゲームプレイに支障をきたしてますしライティングの光量・彩度は旧グラフィックと同等レベルに戻してほしいですね……

Messy google translate;

While watching this, I thought about it, for people with light-colored irises, bright scenes in TV dramas and games feel dazzling due to the low amount of melanin in the iris (normal brightness for people with darker irises such as Asians), so Western movies and games (especially horror games) often have extremely dark screens, but it seems like the graphics of today are aiming for "that" but the adjustments are too rough and the result is a disaster...? For example, in the screenshot Mrie posted, the brightness of the character has been adjusted to a certain extent, but the adjustments are so sloppy that they stand out from the background, and the background is so black that you can't even see the outlines of things in the background, as if they weren't touched at all, and even if you have a light-colored iris, you wouldn't be able to see them.
But that said, in bright places (not scenes that are designed to be dazzling, but just normal sunny scenes, etc.), even people with darker irises would say it's "dazzling." (If even dark iris colors are too bright, then aren't lighter colors too blinding?)
The current graphics make it hard to see in dark places, too bright to see, and like a Vivid 3 filter is always applied (plus about 20%-30% opacity and a Color Pen 1 filter?), which hurts the eyes and can make you sick after 3-4 hours due to eye strain. To be honest, it's interfering with gameplay, so I'd like the lighting intensity and saturation to be returned to the same level as the old graphics...

Them saying that it's like Vivid 3 filter and a bunch of editing has been applied is so spot on I had a good chuckle, as a dark eyed westerner.

[UNDEAD10000]

Moment ago i was doing daily roulette alliance raid and i found a really bad visual problem with lighting where if two or more astrologians uses Collective Unconscious skill and their domes coincides with each other, it cause the domes become extremely bright and area inside the dome becomes extremeley bright dark blue and this caused my eyes feel extremely uncomfortable instantly.

I really wish FFXIV devs stops making content updates and focus fully on fixing graphical problems when now i only able to play FFXIV around 45 minutes a day before my eyes start to feel very uncomfortable while before Dawntrail graphics update i did able to play FFXIV easily +6 hours a day without any problems.

[Commander_Justitia]

toggle for flight animation particles
or
ground mounts same speed as flying mounts

or no sub.

[MiaBlaze-Cari]

After playing a bit more again hoping it's finally playable for me, I noticed that some content is still unbearable. Finally went through 7.1 MSQ and did the dungeon and I somewhat wish I didn't. Still haven't touched the alliance raid nor chaotic and I am very hesitant to do so, especially when the dungeon bosses were hard to look at during some mechanics. Originally I was planning to do savage, chaotic and also give FRU a shot and probs other ultimates as well but when I already struggle looking at "basic" content there is no point in doing so. Overworld feels a bit more bearable than before but content? Meh...If I wouldn't need the sub to continue posting here (and hopefully see the issue resolved) I'd probs just unsub like many others already did. It's baffling that it's still an issue after around half a year...

[Nabril]

Yeah, I've had eye strain, motion sickness, hallucinations, and all my characters look like zombies. I sleep and have nightmares and I had to get a full-time therapist because of this graphics update! I wish they'd revert this game to low resolution graphics!

[Anarnee]

Lmao, you may not care about this issue, but thanks for helping us bump the thread.