New Variant Dungeon: Reward structure is a downgrade from previous ones.

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Originally Posted by GraceHorizon

Okay, Lollerblades, not the language I would have used but I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment!

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I'm done with people that like to bring out their bellows and try and stoke the flames, for their own sick twisted enjoyment.
It has to hide behind an alt on the forums, like the sad little keyboard troll they are.

Let's not give them any more attention and stick to the topic of the discussion so SE sees our feedback and not our bickering :)

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Originally Posted by Ankhira

The past three Variant Dungeons all rewarded a mount for completing all 13 paths, with an additional mount tied to the harder versions. This new Variant, however, gives a face mask instead.

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I'm not dealing with hard modes in this game, therefore I liked how the old Variants gave me something to work for, on normal difficulty. But a frigging facemask? lol

So more DT content I will happily ignore. What a surprise.

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Originally Posted by SkankyRoe

You don't need a group for Advanced as there is a matchmaking option to queue with random players like with normal Variant. And having cleared a few times myself, I can honestly say that it really isn't very difficult, I went in blind with three other random people and we cleared two bosses on the first try and the third after one wipe. The boss mechanics are a bit souped up, but there are no enrages and you have full access to variant actions such as Raise and can even use Phoenix Downs. Much like Pilgrim's Traverse, the bosses feel like that good spot between normal and Extreme(occupied already by some normal fights like SoS)

I do agree tho that it's bullshit they removed the significant, unique reward for completing all routes, at the very least they coulda given us a thematically appropriate face veil or even Pari of Plenty's mask/headdress thing

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Ok I get what you're saying, but considering how awful the groups I've had have been for NORMAL mode, I'm kinda reluctant to try match making for advanced :D

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Originally Posted by ReynTime

OK... Come at me but I don't disagree with the person who talks about rewards proportional to the challenge it takes. That's how literally 99% of video games do it. Whether you think most players care or don't care that someone achieved something in the game is irrelevant. But that's besides the point...

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I don't think anyone is saying hardcore players/content can't have their own nice rewards, people are just saying they want casual players/content to also get nice rewards.

I'm sure there's at least 6 mounts that came out in the last few months that could have been the harder mount reward while the 12 paths got the current Variant mount. (Or vice versa if people want the genie to be the harder content reward and one of the cash shop mounts for the 12 paths reward.)

Square-Enix has the time and money to make it happen, but they don't respect our time and they want more of our money.
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Originally Posted by Mouthbone

This is wrong, you aren't actually able to use your esters unless you have beaten Aloalo Savage
So for the casuals to get access to the glow they need to do a completely separate and much harder duty, which is even more stupid

Also complaining about raiders losing exclusivity is kind of ridiculous, do you also lose sleep once last expac savage fights can be unsynced by the casuals?
This is their way (however nonsensical it may be) to introduce a way for casuals to "unsync" Aloalo without being able to get the exclusive title, it should not even be a talking point

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And that's assuming casuals even care about these Alo weapons in the first place (I don't) regardless of how supposedly easy they are to get now.
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Originally Posted by Xieldras

No no, see casuals are meant to be satisfied just running their content for the fun of it to fund 'proper' content.

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We're also expected to fund the hardcore players themselves by forking over millions of gil for the rewards we're not allowed to touch otherwise.

Apparently the developers and most of the hardcore playerbase just sees casuals as their personal piggy banks and they're expected to be grateful for it.

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

We're also expected to fund the hardcore players themselves by forking over millions of gil for the rewards we're not allowed to touch otherwise.

Apparently the developers and most of the hardcore playerbase just sees casuals as their personal piggy banks and they're expected to be grateful for it.

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Who let you out of the gil mines? /s

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

We're also expected to fund the hardcore players themselves by forking over millions of gil for the rewards we're not allowed to touch otherwise.

Apparently the developers and most of the hardcore playerbase just sees casuals as their personal piggy banks and they're expected to be grateful for it.

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To be fair, I have fun rinsing raiders 'routinely' through new crafted gear, potions and consumables, which on day 1 of a raid patch is massive, and across a full patch cycle bigger still.

So I don't really think casual players are the "good little piggy banks"

For a lot of raiders they will simply be living content-to-content to fund their next raiding escapade.

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Originally Posted by Doki

When they said "more rewards" what they really meant was "we moved the same amount of rewards away from casual players and moved them to advanced for people to sell on the AH for 20+ mil." GOOD JOB SE

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Yeah because they figure all those guys eRP for 20 mil gil a session obviously. The circle of Eorzean life continues.~ /s

Really I dunno though, it is pretty funny that of all the times to break away from a pattern they did it like this teehee. Next merch collab will be with some hair regrowth serum for all the malding ye? Maybe that's the roadplan. Big play.

ED: inserted needed syntax just in case the playfulness was taken as a jab...

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Originally Posted by tank2fish

This thread: explaining with nuance why the reward structure is lacking and how to improve it / why people are upset
you: I can't read, I don't know

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I read no nuanced discussion about "how to improve it" beyond "Demand Moar Stufz! for meeeee!" in this thread.

No examples of Appropriate Rewards vs. Expected Level of Effort. No discussion about what players expect Suitable Rewards should be. No comparisons of Rewards for other battle content available in game vs. this content.

Oh. And complaints about mounts.

I don't think the reward has to be a mount, even though they did establish precedent for it in the past.. But I definitely think it needs to be more substantive than a slightly higher-quality re-skin pf Pyjama glamour which is like 9K Gil.

An achievement reward should be unique, and shouldn't be a re-skin... I think that's a pretty good start.. If you want to do re-skinned stuff then relegate it to the token system versus an actual achievement reward (regardless of whether entirely substantive.. Even if it's replacing the fashion accessory with the framer kit -- So that the framer kit is a reward for completing all 12 routes...

I think that would be a step in the right direction...

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

I read no nuanced discussion about "how to improve it" beyond "Demand Moar Stufz! for meeeee!" in this thread.

No examples of Appropriate Rewards vs. Expected Level of Effort. No discussion about what players expect Suitable Rewards should be. No comparisons of Rewards for other battle content available in game vs. this content.

Oh. And complaints about mounts.

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Ah yes, it's only been talked about every single variant release for the past three.

Criterion would be an easy extra avenue for gearing, people have asked for it every single time. People have asked for more gearing options in general.
It comes out 3 months after the raid tier so it should have little impact on the playerpool and in terms of difficulty it is easily comparable to it as well.
Different substats on the Criterion gear would also make it interesting for the people already in BiS, especially when there is an Ultimate yet to be released. Just look at the Chaotic pieces still being BiS for FRU.

I'd even go a step further and add something like that to advanced, maybe not savage ilvl but better than crafted as a sort of in-between option. But extra twines/glazes would be an option too because let's be honest, this far into the raid tier we really don't need to keep heavily gating gear upgrades behind a single weekly lockout.

This also means that you could put some of those cosmetic rewards currently in advanced back into the variant version.

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

To be fair, I have fun rinsing raiders 'routinely' through new crafted gear, potions and consumables, which on day 1 of a raid patch is massive, and across a full patch cycle bigger still.

So I don't really think casual players are the "good little piggy banks"

For a lot of raiders they will simply be living content-to-content to fund their next raiding escapade.

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That only applies if one is a committed crafter though of which a lot of players are not (and if they were, crafted prices would crater as the supply outweighed the demand), so its not like every casual player is made of gil, or maybe they do have the funds but don't WANT to give it to certain kinds of players.

I have over 57 million to my name, and that's not counting the 30+ million that got wasted on 2 medium houses back in the day and any other millions I've spend on repair costs, teleports, and vendors in over 3 years. But I also don't find most prices on the MB worth it, and would rather just sit on the gil then give it to some hardcore player who hates my guts and wishes I wasn't subbed anyway... which then begs the question of where they expect to get their crafted goods and millions of gil if every casual player did indeed disappear tomorrow. (To say nothing of who they're going to flex all their "accomplishments" on if every city was truly devoid of other players just AFKing around.)

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

That only applies if one is a committed crafter though of which a lot of players are not (and if they were, crafted prices would crater as the supply outweighed the demand), so its not like every casual player is made of gil, or maybe they do have the funds but don't WANT to give it to certain kinds of players.

I have over 57 million to my name, and that's not counting the 30+ million that got wasted on 2 medium houses back in the day and any other millions I've spend on repair costs, teleports, and vendors in over 3 years. But I also don't find most prices on the MB worth it, and would rather just sit on the gil then give it to some hardcore player who hates my guts and wishes I wasn't subbed anyway... which then begs the question of where they expect to get their crafted goods and millions of gil if every casual player did indeed disappear tomorrow. (To say nothing of who they're going to flex all their "accomplishments" on if every city was truly devoid of other players just AFKing around.)

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I actually disagree, crafting is massively saturated and easily accessible, even to the most casual of players to be honest... There's nothing that really serves as a hurdle, unless you're for whatever reason insistent that you need the best of the best melds.

At entry level you can simply grab scrip gear, and then plop on entry melds, then run your stats through Raphael, it will do the heavy lifting, and all you need to do is press a button every 30-45 seconds, and this applies even on day 1 of a patch.

Personally, I don't really look at or care who specifically purchases my stuff on the market... The only time I care is when I go through commission for a fixed price, which since the delay to savage hasn't really been a thing for me.

Either way, you must've had some really bad experiences to have this outlook on things... From my personal experience outside of the select few on here that make raiding their entire personality.. I've never had much bad experience in-game... At least to warrant this outlook.

(Edit: this is going off too much of a tangent now anyway)

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

I actually disagree, crafting is massively saturated and easily accessible, even to the most casual of players to be honest... There's nothing that really serves as a hurdle, unless you're for whatever reason insistent that you need the best of the best melds.

At entry level you can simply grab scrip gear, and then plop on entry melds, then run your stats through Raphael, it will do the heavy lifting, and all you need to do is press a button every 30-45 seconds, and this applies even on day 1 of a patch.

Personally, I don't really look at or care who specifically purchases my stuff on the market... The only time I care is when I go through commission for a fixed price, which since the delay to savage hasn't really been a thing for me.

Either way, you must've had some really bad experiences to have this outlook on things... From my personal experience outside of the select few on here that make raiding their entire personality.. I've never had much bad experience in-game... At least to warrant this outlook.

(Edit: this is going off too much of a tangent now anyway)

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The furthest I got with crafting is society quests/levequests/custom deliveries, and that's mostly just to level the jobs for the sake of leveling them, or sitting around crafting thousands of a thing for an achievement. I'm under no delusion that I'm ever going to be making anything that actually sells so I don't invest in them beyond whatever scrip gear I can access (which is Shadowbringers right now) and I don't bother with materia at all. My gatherers are even worse off because I don't like dealing with its type of collectibles so I don't have gathering scrips at all, it's all vendor gear for them. Hell, I haven't even done gathering/crafting quests since ARR (so I'm still missing a bunch of skills despite every Dol/DoH being 90+) because these jobs just never seemed like something I would ever get any value out of outside of weekly quests.

And yeah, I don't really have the best opinion of the playerbase overall, only finding some individuals actually being nice (you included of course). So there is a bit of vindictiveness in there in wanting to avoid interacting with others even when it comes to buying things on the MB. All of those rewards from hardcore content, knowing it was probably farmed by a player who would probably call be entitled scum to my face but still expects me to pay out to them? I'm fine keeping my wallet closed and doing without.

Wait wait wait wait... so you're telling me, that the reward for clearing all the paths is not a mount or a minion or even an appropriate title, but a facewear accessory that has absolutely no connection to the content and more pressingly is just a old glamour headpiece you can get on the MB?

I don't need it to be a mount personally, but it should be something completely unique and thematically appropriate, like they could have given the Pari's mask if they really wanted to give us facewear... this has to be the laziest reward they've added to this game! it's hilarious and sad!

I'll still do all the paths just because I enjoy the process, but maybe I'll leave that mask to rot in the achievements, just as a reminder you know?

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

I read no nuanced discussion about "how to improve it" beyond "Demand Moar Stufz! for meeeee!" in this thread.

No examples of Appropriate Rewards vs. Expected Level of Effort. No discussion about what players expect Suitable Rewards should be. No comparisons of Rewards for other battle content available in game vs. this content.

Oh. And complaints about mounts.

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There's been plenty of suggestions made and plenty of points they can take as feedback. You're just trolling.

Late to the party, but just found out what the reward for completing all 12 paths is tonight.

Something is wrong at CB3... This makes no sense otherwise. Leadership and oversight is MIA. As soon as rewards were proposed someone should have stepped in and said, "Guys, no, we've already been through this." Just like someone should have stepped in when OC/Fork Tower was being designed.

With as much bad press as Dawntrail has gotten, this is the dumbest and easiest mistake to have avoided. It's concerning.

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Originally Posted by Ankhira

There's been plenty of suggestions made and plenty of points they can take as feedback. You're just trolling.

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Just to clarify: the poster I was responding to specifically said “This thread:”, not the multiple threads that have appeared since V&C was first released.

Here are the kinds of discussion topics that would naturally fit within this thread:

Given the current high‑level gearing model, which deliberately includes lockouts for the current raid tier, what kinds of V&C rewards make sense, assuming V&C isn’t meant to bypass those lockouts?

How do Japanese expectations around rewards differ from NA/EU expectations?
Is this a case of “lazy developers,” or is the design philosophy simply aligned more closely with their Japanese audience? Should Japanese developers be expected to deliver everything NA/EU players ask for, even when it contradicts the company’s core design principles?

Those two paragraphs are examples of questions that invite a more nuanced discussion of the issues.

From an NA/EU perspective, the reward structure this time does feel pretty silly; so, point taken.

That said, feedback tends to land better when it focuses on the design choices rather than the developers themselves. Once the tone shifts toward criticizing SE as a whole, the actual request can get lost.

1.5x rewards bro

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

Just to clarify: the poster I was responding to specifically said “This thread:”, not the multiple threads that have appeared since V&C was first released.

Here are the kinds of discussion topics that would naturally fit within this thread:

Given the current high‑level gearing model, which deliberately includes lockouts for the current raid tier, what kinds of V&C rewards make sense, assuming V&C isn’t meant to bypass those lockouts?

How do Japanese expectations around rewards differ from NA/EU expectations?
Is this a case of “lazy developers,” or is the design philosophy simply aligned more closely with their Japanese audience? Should Japanese developers be expected to deliver everything NA/EU players ask for, even when it contradicts the company’s core design principles?

Those two paragraphs are examples of questions that invite a more nuanced discussion of the issues.

From an NA/EU perspective, the reward structure this time does feel pretty silly; so, point taken.

That said, feedback tends to land better when it focuses on the design choices rather than the developers themselves. Once the tone shifts toward criticizing SE as a whole, the actual request can get lost.

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Just a simple question, setting aside the tone policing going on here...

Given that people have been complaining about reward structure since the inception of the content, and given that the most recent release of the content has only made it worse for, what hope do people really have that "Feedback will land better if it focuses on the design choices rather than the developers" will the feedback actually land better -- Given the fact people were doing this, and the only thing it accomplished was the complete opposite of what people were asking for..? -- Let me phrase this another way... If people for years in the past have been using the 'right' language, and nothing has changed -- Only arguably got worse, then at what point does it shift from being a writer (us) issue, to being a reader issue?

I don't agree with berating developers by any stretch of the imagination -- But beyond a certain point you do have to question the decisions and so on.. as much as you question the content. Like, they insist on people putting feedback here, they utterly insist on it... But in the same vein, outwardly the perception is that the feedback is ignored, because the communication is practically non-existent.

Just ran it. Still disappointed that we don't get mounts for doing all routes. SE PLEASE Force CB3 to put it back.

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Originally Posted by AstreMcClain

Just ran it. Still disappointed that we don't get mounts for doing all routes. SE PLEASE Force CB3 to put it back.

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I doubt they can retroactively change an achievement's reward, sadly. All we can do is show our disappointment in hopes they'll learn from it.

A sleep mask? what

After hearing it repeated several times that Advanced is a good "middle ground" approaching Extreme difficulties, I was considering trying it out in Duty Finder to maybe farm the 100 Brass for the mount (nothing else from Advanced vendor appeals to me), but... If I'm understanding the loot system correctly for the Advanced Variant dungeon, the Brass tokens are to be rolled on, not personal loot... Which instantly makes Duty Finder'ing it sound unappealing for needing to put your faith in 3 randos you'll probably never see again to distribute it fairly each time and not try and free-for-all the loot when they're not under any obligation to do so. And even then, it's sounding like each chest is RNG for amounts of Brass, but it sounds far more likely to be the lowest tier and only contain 4 coins per chest (1 per person)...

Even Advanced's reward structure sounds like a 'hard pass' if I'm not tolerating PF for it.

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Originally Posted by Daudream

...or even an appropriate title...

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Ok so thinking on it with a more awake mind there probably is a title linked to the final quest, does not make the mask less garbage, but now I'm also thinking about how we didn't even get a unique prism bag.... it's just the ribbons from OC, mix this with the alo savage mess (something tradable idk never done that one) and this has to be the messiest and laziest reward system they could have done! Complete slop on their part, at least I enjoy the variant itself well enough.

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Originally Posted by Cidel

After hearing it repeated several times that Advanced is a good "middle ground" approaching Extreme difficulties, I was considering trying it out in Duty Finder to maybe farm the 100 Brass for the mount (nothing else from Advanced vendor appeals to me), but... If I'm understanding the loot system correctly for the Advanced Variant dungeon, the Brass tokens are to be rolled on, not personal loot... Which instantly makes Duty Finder'ing it sound unappealing for needing to put your faith in 3 randos you'll probably never see again to distribute it fairly each time and not try and free-for-all the loot when they're not under any obligation to do so. And even then, it's sounding like each chest is RNG for amounts of Brass, but it sounds far more likely to be the lowest tier and only contain 4 coins per chest (1 per person)...

Even Advanced's reward structure sounds like a 'hard pass' if I'm not tolerating PF for it.

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That's not the case. After every boss, you get one chest of Personal Spoils. If the party clears all three bosses, you get an additional fourth chest of Personal Spoils, and a shared Treasure Chest, which everyone can roll on. If you go in with a duty finder group and beat even one boss, you won't leave empty handed.

The mermaid boss is easy enough that I think a reasonably capable duty finder group could go in completely blind and kill it with plenty of time to try another one. The other two are harder, but even then a good group can go in blind and kill at least one of them within the time limit.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

Given the current high‑level gearing model, which deliberately includes lockouts for the current raid tier, what kinds of V&C rewards make sense, assuming V&C isn’t meant to bypass those lockouts?

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The model itself is inherently the problem. As long this scope of progression remains as narrow as it is there are only so many things you can use as rewards. Another alternative is to make a new type of cosmetic reward but it's simpler to work within what's already in the game.

Square has a massive problem with rewards in this game. It’s absurd to see rewards like Materia, Materia, and more Materia. No player is ever going to trade their Variant currency for Materia, so why even put it there? It’s fine to include cute glams made specifically for Gpose, but you need to add proper rewards on top of everything else. If I play new content, it’s because I enjoy the new setting, but above all, because I know that upon completion I’ll get a new weapon, mount, or gear piece

It just seems like less and less is being given to players for this game, and the time it's taking to get content is getting longer and longer

On the 13th Yoshida will express how surprised he is of the playerbase reaction and he will vow to improve this in the future.

Please look forward to it.

and the fix will always come after 24 months, when the content will be dead and buried

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Originally Posted by Garruss

It just seems like less and less is being given to players for this game, and the time it's taking to get content is getting longer and longer

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It’s the slow pace of content release that really galls me, combined with the seeming inability to address continuing problems like their network issues they’ve been labeling “DDoS”. It feels like we’re getting less and less each patch, or at least less and less enjoyment. Life is probably different for hardcore players who are expected to be chewing on higher difficulty content for extended periods, but for a player who just wants to log in and have some casual fun, things have gotten old pretty fast and new content hasn’t come in quickly enough to keep me interested.

I can point to exactly the thing that caused my disenchantment to reach critical levels: the long delay for patch 7.41. 7.4 was an underwhelming patch for me — the Arcadion was cool, but the patch MSQ was totally uninteresting to me, I found the dungeon ugly and a little boring, the Trial was gimmicky and felt like it only existed because the game formula said there had to be a Trial, and I didn’t try Pilgrim’s Traverse because I’m not very into deep dungeons and the ongoing network problems made that kind of content feel like a bad idea. But I was looking forward to the next relic step and Cosmic Exploration planet, so I ground the Arcadion for orchestrion rolls and figured I would get 7.41 any day now. Any day now. Any day now … until finally it came out weeks later than I expected, with no explanation for the delay, giving me plenty of time to consider why I was even playing FFXIV any more.

And that’s how I decided to cancel my sub.

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Originally Posted by Daudream

I don't need it to be a mount personally, but it should be something completely unique and thematically appropriate, like they could have given the Pari's mask if they really wanted to give us facewear... this has to be the laziest reward they've added to this game! it's hilarious and sad!

I'll still do all the paths just because I enjoy the process, but maybe I'll leave that mask to rot in the achievements, just as a reminder you know?

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Yes, something that would’ve matched the new glam sets at least! Although you can’t dye facewear and are just stuck with a few color variations… (remember way back when we thought it was just going to be an extra glam-only head gear slot? lol)

Looking at the full list of the Advance shop now and seeing not only the weird assortment but the prices… so you’re telling me you moved the normal Variant completionist mount to Advance AND it takes 100 tokens?! Seriously? Totally not an Extreme-esque grind… and another hairstyle that will probably stay at multi-million gil prices on the mb…

I don’t want complaints about the rewards and how they were moved to overshadow the actual content here though. Variants are still one of my favorite things they’ve added, this one is good, and I want to see a lot more of them, preferably one per patch, or at least every other patch (3 per expac). But they really need to look at what kind of rewards they’re giving out for what level of content, because no one at any level is really getting what they want.

Variants were my favorite form of content since Sil'dih so it's really sad how shortsighted development has been in making it evergreen considering how many options they had. It feels especially insulting since they seemed to have hit the mark with Chaotic.

The silver lining is that I thought I could do Advanced to get a glowing BLU weapon without having to do an essentially dead Criterion (though I do feel for the people who took the time to earn it back when it was relevant) only to clear it and see that even though I could buy the Elevated Ester once I had the coins, the option to exchange it was not available on the Radz-at-Han NPC.

Does anyone know if that is intended? If yes then it's gotta be my last straw.

Edit: I just checked the Known Issues post and they acknowledged it on the 4th. Odd that the hotfix from yesterday didn't address it though

They couldn't create a third mount to give each difficulty a decent reward? The sleeping mask is treasure map consolation-prize tier.

Just did the dungeon, I enjoyed it. But I fear this content will be dead next patch, once players have their rewards, what reason is there for them to return?

This content needs Trusts aswell, otherwise it will die and players that want to clear them next year, will not be able to do it (unless they solo it)

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Originally Posted by Laerune

Just did the dungeon, I enjoyed it. But I fear this content will be dead next patch, once players have their rewards, what reason is there for them to return?

This content needs Trusts aswell, otherwise it will die and players that want to clear them next year, will not be able to do it (unless they solo it)

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I would love to go in with the trusts it would be a really nice addition. I also feel they could have added mounts to all of the new variant it seems they are really lacking in taking note of what the majority of the players are asking for.

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Originally Posted by Luluna

I would love to go in with the trusts it would be a really nice addition. I also feel they could have added mounts to all of the new variant it seems they are really lacking in taking note of what the majority of the players are asking for.

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After completing all the paths, I think Variant should have gotten the rug for completing all paths, the Advance Mount should have been the Genie and the Criterion should have been the secret boss (scaled down a bit of course! lol).

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Originally Posted by Laerune

Just did the dungeon, I enjoyed it. But I fear this content will be dead next patch, once players have their rewards, what reason is there for them to return?

This content needs Trusts aswell, otherwise it will die and players that want to clear them next year, will not be able to do it (unless they solo it)

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Amusingly, Final Fantasy 11 is going to be adding new updates to their Trust system soon, including the ability to strengthen and gear up the NPCs to expand the amount of content you can bring them along for. It's also my understanding that Trusts aren't just there to slam through all content for you (though they do make certain parts easier), and you still need to actually play your own character right or the NPCs will falter/take way longer to finish something than if you had actually helped them instead of expecting to be carried.

It might make some people hiss with contempt at the idea of an MMO having NPC options for content, but realistically most of FF14's content dies out within a month and then needs Discord to prop it up afterwards. And while an argument could be made that FF14's NPCs aren't advanced enough to deal with harder mechanics (thus causing content to be made easier to compensate for them), the alternative is content being left behind in a grave for years, or how surely it can't be that difficult to re-tune FF14 NPCs to be smarter? Most of the hardest content is just rote memorization and knowing when to move, even MS-DOS AI for Chess games had that figured out decades ago, what's Square-Enix's excuse?

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Originally Posted by Khryseis_Astra

I don’t want complaints about the rewards and how they were moved to overshadow the actual content here though. Variants are still one of my favorite things they’ve added, this one is good, and I want to see a lot more of them, preferably one per patch, or at least every other patch (3 per expac). But they really need to look at what kind of rewards they’re giving out for what level of content, because no one at any level is really getting what they want.

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Exactly. And this is what I fear the most about this backlash to the terrible reward structure. A lot of players really do like or even love the Variants and Criterions. We don't want these to go away and, yeah, I'd have nothing against getting even more of them. Or even just more content like them that allows the developers to flex their muscles and create different content types than the norm. They are a good thing, but they have a bad reward structure and basically no incentive to encourage play beyond the first clear.

I don't want this to be another case where the devs hear one loud (but honestly easily addressable) complaint about something they do and then throw the entire idea out "because players didn't like it!"