I went from a 12 Pro Max to a 14 Pro and even though it’s hard to quantify something so subjective I would say it’s definitely and improvement. I won’t say major as the 12PM was a great camera. Last year I tried the 13 Pro and to me the 3X took worse photos than the 2.5x on the 12PM And there was too big of a difference between 1x and 3X.
Not the case for the 14 Pro. The 3X has been really good and I love the intermediate 2x. low light photos are definitely better too. Here’s a picture of my son pitching using the 3X in burst mode.