Why does ESO look like this?

CalamityCat

Anyone working on game graphics tends to have a good monitor that is properly calibrated. So you can blame devs if you want, but I think the most likely explanation is simply a difference in your personal taste for how you like colours to display in games.

I've seen ESO on several monitors my partner's and mine, on Windows and Linux. I've never felt it needed more involved tweaking than any other game. Those Reshade screenshots look dark, even on my overly-bright spare monitor. That may be your personal taste, but they're still dark IMO.

If the issue is present in several games, that would make me even more suspicious that your monitor needs calibrated or the graphics card settings need to be changed. If you want things to look their best, you need to do that fine tuning. No manufacturer can magically set the defaults to suit your hardware, environment lighting and personal taste. On the plus side there are often presets on hardware now to save a bit of time.

Northwold

When I worked as a commercial photographer some clients would come to me because they loved that I hated everything being sharp and I hated colours being garish and wanted me to do my thing to extreme levels (eg add even more blur into stuff). Others wanted everything unnaturally pin sharp and colours that'd make Vegas blush.

People have different tastes. For example, like in my photography work, I loathe games looking razor sharp edge to edge with hyperaccentuated textures, because they make me feel like I'm in a completely artificial, sterile world that exists only on my computer screen, and I love motion blur. I strongly dislike hyper accentuated contrast except in cut scenes because it feels too unnatural for a world I'm actually wandering around, except in games that do a really excellent job at adaptive exposure as you move around so that shaded areas become brighter the more you focus / move into them. Other people like the exact opposite.

Some people like the way the Hobbit looked. Others thought it was a crime against cinematic visual presentation.

Horses for courses. But I think it pretty clear from this thread that many, many people aren't perceiving any problem that needs to be fixed.

Nemesis7884

One thing you have to realize is that different cultures growing up with different standards have different preferences or perceptions - for example in the US you notice that all the tv shows, movies even the colorization of the food have waaay higher saturation to be more popping and attention grabby so you get used to it; esp. When you compare it for example to eastern European games that ususally have a much more bleak and muted color palette.

Gabriel_H

disky wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

disky wrote: »

I'm not talking about the merits and demerits of Reshade, I'm trying to discuss the default settings for the game, and why they look foggy and muddy, and why other games do as well.

Realism: Old banners are weather worn and faded, wooden sidings are old and tired losing texture, focal points (a sense of sense of blurred distance when focussed on something close).

In addition to that - render distance due to cpu/graphic card limitations. Loading a partial blur at a distance still gives the appearance of distance without the need to fully render in the texture.

Edit: Typos

The real world doesn't look like this. It doesn't look like there's a grey fog over everything, with the notable exception of times when there is actually grey fog over everything, but that's not what this is. There's no reason for ESO and other games to look like this. Disapprove of my examples all you want, that's not realism, it's just bad default settings.

There are no reasons you will accept would be more accurate.

Gabriel_H

Medium Settings:


Maximum Settings:


Maximum Settings with Highest Gamma:


Maximum Settings with Lowest Gamma:


Maximum Settings with Lowest Gamma and Colour Temperature Adjusted on Graphics Card:


Maximum Settings with Lowest Gamma and Colour Temperature, Brightness and Saturation Adjusted on Graphics Card:


All without ReShade.

Edit: Just to add I've gone for extreme tweaking on the Gamma, Color Temp, Saturation than is possible. They can all be adjusted to a much finer degree.

francesinhalover

From what i see it looks awfull with reshade and worse vision of things.

SummersetCitizen

I don’t like the way the re-shade looks.

Elvenheart

I’m not someone who doesn’t like change. I use lots of addons to change things in ESO for the better (more accurately, for MY better, because what I consider better for me may not be better for someone else). When it comes to how ESO looks, i’ve tried a few things, but always keep going back to the default style because I personally like it better. Nothing is wrong with me or my appreciation of one artistic style over another, just like nothing is wrong with anyone who would prefer a re-shaded version of ESO to the original.

SkaiFaith

OP, I am on console and there is no such thing as reshader... Every time I look at PC gameplay on YouTube, first thing I notice is the absence of fog. I HATE FOG. Luckily, recently consoles got their view distance improved, but still... Getting rid of the fog completely would do wonders.
That "opaqueness" is annoying. Often I find reshaders exaggerate in contrast, but your point stands - that "grayness" ruins the visuals of the game otherwise nice, and blacks feel almost inexistent. If I want to have true black in game I need to make everything super dark (and it ends up like in the screenshots where people pointed out details get lost) - it feels unbalanced.
Definitely visuals as a whole have huge margins of improvement, especially in base game zones.

Estin

I prefer how ESO looks without any filters. Its all natural tones to make it more realistic in terms of color palette. The reshade filters crush the blacks too much which makes all shadows lose any detail. If I want more vibrancy, I just swap to my vibrant preset on my monitor. It achieves the same goal without crushing blacks or making any one color too vibrant to look at.

L_Nici

Actually I prefer the default look, your reshading looks to unrealistic, wrong contrast and coarse for a lack of a better word.

katanagirl1

SkaiFaith wrote: »

OP, I am on console and there is no such thing as reshader... Every time I look at PC gameplay on YouTube, first thing I notice is the absence of fog. I HATE FOG. Luckily, recently consoles got their view distance improved, but still... Getting rid of the fog completely would do wonders.
That "opaqueness" is annoying. Often I find reshaders exaggerate in contrast, but your point stands - that "grayness" ruins the visuals of the game otherwise nice, and blacks feel almost inexistent. If I want to have true black in game I need to make everything super dark (and it ends up like in the screenshots where people pointed out details get lost) - it feels unbalanced.
Definitely visuals as a whole have huge margins of improvement, especially in base game zones.

The fog is horrible, it needs to be pushed way back. It probably helps hide the low res textures in the distance. I can be in front of the crafting hall in Riften and look across the lake and just barely see the trees there for the fog. It seems to get thicker as the updates come and go.

It might be okay if it showed up only in rainy weather, but it is there all the time.