@ZOS_GinaBruno

Disclaimer: No, I'm not quitting the game or even cancelling my subscription. I enjoy the game. The new dungeons are super fun. I run a small guild of people I like to play with. I'm the one on these forums defending ZOS a majority of the time because I've worked in game development and I know the challenges, and I can't even imagine the challenges faced when making an online game for several platforms with as many regular content updates as are found here.

That being said - I feel like a fool. A little over a year ago i was having such a fun time with this game that, after seeing it on a friend's 4K HDR TV on a PS4 Pro I picked up a 4K TV and a PS4 Pro. I loved how the game looked; so much depth in the dark colors and the colors intended to be brightest were just that.

Fast forward to the latest update and a ninja-stealth removal of the HDR system that looked so great. Make no mistake, whatever ZOS says - this was not a "fix". THE HDR SLIDER DOES NOT DO ANYTHING. The explanation that things were adjusted because of a few oversaturated assets is misleading and disingenuous. Everything is washed out. Dark colors no longer go all the way from midtones to black; they are all just a muddy grey. Light sources that are supposed to be the brightest things on the screen now had a dirty tone to them that does not make them appear as light sources anymore. You removed proper HDR functionality from the game because you don't employ anyone able to make it work properly, and expect us to just 'get over it'.

To say that this is just how it is now and that it's working as intended is completely bogus and a gross insult to your most loyal customers who pay for this game and have paid to maximize the visuals that were FINE before - so good before that some of us have spent upwards of $1500-2000 to get the most out of it. The explanation that it was to fix "a few assets" makes no sense as to why you completely broke the HDR system.

(It should be noted that this game is still technically using HDR; it should be noted that the way HDR was working before the patch was not true 100% HDR, but that is the case for many older games that came out at a time when HDR was still newer tech. This does not change the fact that it looked better before)

Now I've been told to just "Turn up the saturation on your TV."

This is not a solution because the elements of the game that are 2D assets overlayed over the 3D engine look fine currently, the same as before - if I pump up tv saturation they look terrible, as does everything else on my PS4 ; all the HDR games that actually WORK and haven't had ninja-'fixes' remove their HDR functionality. And I reiterate - the HDR slider does nothing, so it is obviously BROKEN, not FIXED.

I should note that I'm a photo and video editor with a background in game art. I know explicitly by job title what a good image and proper color levels should look like. I have to know these things. I've had to know them for game art, I've had to know them for print, I've had to know them for video, and this game, despite the assertions by some that it's 'better now', looks *BAD*. Fact.

So, Thanks for making total fools of your most loyal cusomers. I would demand a better explanation from someone on your dev team who made this call, but I know what I'll get instead is a warning to have my form account suspended because that's sadly, how it works.

I'll continue to pay for this game and run my guild, all the while looking at an uglier game knowing I'm out a bunch of cash for no reason. Thanks.