Less particle effects and more gameplay

[angienessyo]

Funny how all the WoWfugees praised FF14's "clean mechanical language". In normal content where a tankbuster is highlighted, sure. But the moment they try to obfuscate it, things become a problem. It's just gotten worse and worse.

To be fair, compared to WoW, FF14 is significantly clearer. Dragonflight was significantly better about visual clarity compared to previous expansions, but it still had issues with mechanics that are similar colors as the floor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzrBdEJtSsU
You'd think those light blue lines would be pretty easy to see but in the moment when you're dodging other things, it could be easy to accidentally run into one because everything else would blend together with them.

[Rehayem]

During the first run in Skydeep Cenote at last boss, at one point I became extremely lightheaded, dizzy and thought I would pass out. My friend mentioned how the boss has a lot of flashy particle effects.

I wish I could turn that stuff down. It's fine to see fancy effects first time but I don't need to see it all the time. I'm pretty sure Aion had an option to tone down enemy vfx (including bosses) but that game (which is from 2008 btw) wasn't that heavily reliant on vfx like FFXIV is.

[ACE135]

It's sad that sometimes you have to turn down the effects to be able to see the boss better. That can't be the goal, that you create so many graphic effects, but in the end you have to disable them in order to be able to play the content properly. Then why develop those effects in the first place.

[Fiel_Tana]

This has been causing severe eye strain and headaches whenever I go into dungeons and raids. It was bad before the graphics update but now it's so severe I haven't even finished the MSQ. I'm right near the end facing a dungeon and trial that I know will be painful and impossible for me to play decently since I won't be able to see anything and will end up being a burden to other players. Not fun at all.

Yeah, I have turned off other player effects and limited my own, but if we had a setting to reduce opacity / intensity of the boss and arena effects it could go a long way for accessibility. As it is now it's simply unplayable for a lot of us.

[Sekundessounet]

This has been causing severe eye strain and headaches whenever I go into dungeons and raids. It was bad before the graphics update but now it's so severe I haven't even finished the MSQ. I'm right near the end facing a dungeon and trial that I know will be painful and impossible for me to play decently since I won't be able to see anything and will end up being a burden to other players. Not fun at all.

Yeah, I have turned off other player effects and limited my own, but if we had a setting to reduce opacity / intensity of the boss and arena effects it could go a long way for accessibility. As it is now it's simply unplayable for a lot of us.

Did you try reducing gamma and the luminosity of your screen ?

[Fiel_Tana]

Did you try reducing gamma and the luminosity of your screen ?

Yes tried that, both with in-game graphics settings and computer settings, still causes pain sadly.

[UkcsAlias]

Yes tried that, both with in-game graphics settings and computer settings, still causes pain sadly.

Most of the time its not the brightness itself being the issue, its the relative brightness. Yes eyes can increase/reduce the amount of light they receive (thats why at night you can still see). Some people have a lower acceptable range between these upper and lower limit. And there is nothing you can do against it without facing problems elsewhere.

Reducing brightness is 1 thing, but that is just the same as increasing brightness of the area around you. It will make it harder to spot diffirences in darker colors, this can equaly disrupt. However, the monitor often still only covers a portion of your vision (im guessing 30%), so increasing room brightness might help, especialy if you also reduced ingame brightness. And all you might need is have some light behind your monitors to brighten up your wall.

But in the end, there are limits you cant get around. If these things dont help, its very likely nothing will, and any game dev should be aware of this. Flashing effects do normaly give a warning for a reason, its not just epilepsy.

[Fiel_Tana]

Most of the time its not the brightness itself being the issue, its the relative brightness. Yes eyes can increase/reduce the amount of light they receive (thats why at night you can still see). Some people have a lower acceptable range between these upper and lower limit. And there is nothing you can do against it without facing problems elsewhere.

Yes, that is definitely part of the problem here. That and adjusting too slowly towards the brighter end of the scale. They are great in the dark and adjust to that rather quickly. (Friends joke that I have cat night vision.)

I have tried increasing the ambient light in my room and having light behind the monitor as well but it didn't help. Tried wearing sunglasses instead of the usual blue light glasses I wear at a computer but then I had some difficulty seeing the darker regions and the flashes still burnt my eyes anyway since the pupils were just adjusted to a slightly darker ambient light so I was still blinded by the light imprint for a few seconds, same as without. Not sure "light imprint" is the right term, what I mean is the ghost like burn-in of the bright object hanging in front of the vision for a bit. Lots of people get that if they look directly at a light bulb then look away. My eyes are rather sensitive so all it takes is a flash effect on the screen and it feels like daggers jabbed through my eyeballs into my brain along with seeing ghostly tracers for a bit. It truly is the least fun mechanic lol.

What I don't know though is why this game, which is now worse after the graphics update, causes this when most others don't. WoW, and to a lesser degree, BG3 had some bright flashes and it didn't cause pain. Do they have lower intensity? Slower flash? Different colours used? Less contrast? Not a clue.

This thread covers other eye strain problems since the update, hopefully the devs will be working on it soon and will add in options for combat and arena graphics:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ate-Eye-Strain

Like you say, the devs really should be aware that flashes of bright lights can cause many different issues for people, and test for that. That's why there's usually warnings on films, theatres and night clubs that have flashing or strobe effects. I count myself lucky that for me it's 'only' headaches and eye strain, as terrible as that is, it could be far worse. I worry about how it could effect others with more serious sensitivities.

[Kanehon]

This has been causing severe eye strain and headaches whenever I go into dungeons and raids. It was bad before the graphics update but now it's so severe I haven't even finished the MSQ. I'm right near the end facing a dungeon and trial that I know will be painful and impossible for me to play decently since I won't be able to see anything and will end up being a burden to other players. Not fun at all.

Yeah, I have turned off other player effects and limited my own, but if we had a setting to reduce opacity / intensity of the boss and arena effects it could go a long way for accessibility. As it is now it's simply unplayable for a lot of us.

The last Dungeon and Trial in DT are so bad with visual noise that I had to warn two friends of mine to be careful before doing it, and carried one dead for half of it because they couldn't look at the screen.

Knowing they patched Nier for similar issues, I'm surprised and disappointed they haven't addressed those issues yet (Along with the motion sickness caused by the mount tilt, which is another thread entirely)

[Fiel_Tana]

The last Dungeon and Trial in DT are so bad with visual noise that I had to warn two friends of mine to be careful before doing it, and carried one dead for half of it because they couldn't look at the screen.

Knowing they patched Nier for similar issues, I'm surprised and disappointed they haven't addressed those issues yet (Along with the motion sickness caused by the mount tilt, which is another thread entirely)

I still haven't finished the MSQ, finally realised that no game is worth physical pain so I've cancelled my sub. The silence from the devs on the issue says a lot. Thankfully there's lots of other great games out there.

Thank you for helping your friend through it. While that surely was not how they'd have wanted to experience it, it's heart-warming to see that people do care that this is affecting others and doing what they can to help.