Criterion normal should drop Savage-equivalent gear.

I’ve discussed this previously but now is a really good time to revisit the idea since we know have seen the devs implement some feedback into criterion (savage) rewards.

So basically the idea is that criterion normal should drop gear chests that have the exact same stats as the last savage tier. You can have a similar lockout system and all of that. Although it has the same stats it will have UNIQUE GLAM. You can also keep the 100 tokens mount reward. This turns criterion from a niche piece of content into something with a lot more appeal instantly. It accomplishes all of the following:

- Allows alternate forms of gearing for savage raiders who maybe want to gear an alt or just gear faster late into the tier.

- Cements criterion as a viable high-end alternative for people who don’t want to do 8-man raids/can’t commit for a whole savage tier but still want to raid or have BiS.

- Gives the content good rewards with cool looking gear sets people will want for their glams

What about criterion savage though? Honestly I’d be fine if they removed it altogether. Unlike criterion normal, I see a huge amount of negativity for the savage versions. I don’t think people would miss it if it was removed and the weapon reward was folded into normal mode (but just give the weapon outright next time). However if they must keep it, then maybe savage gives a cool glow version to the criterion normal weapons or is just the only way to get the weapons (I would just prefer cool weapons through normal mode).

Also it’s FINE if this drops BiS gear so long after the savage tier is released. This would only help the game

It would be fine given how late it usually releases and the difficulty of the content, but it does depend on the timing. But the timing has sort of varied, with 2 of them coming after the last savage tier suddenly. So it's not consistent that every tier even follows with a criterion currently.

I think the reason Criterion Savage exists is because they were trying to replicate Mythic+ where "content gets harder as you progress" but it's still the same content. It just seems that people who play this game don't really care for that concept after all.

Here's my copium huff that with Dawntrail they'll have the release schedule ironed out so they can time releases as consistently as everything else. That would then allow them to decide how to implement changes to gear. Seems like they're still feeling this out.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

It would be fine given how late it usually releases and the difficulty of the content, but it does depend on the timing. But the timing has sort of varied, with 2 of them coming after the last savage tier suddenly. So it's not consistent that every tier even follows with a criterion currently.

I think the reason Criterion Savage exists is because they were trying to replicate Mythic+ where "content gets harder as you progress" but it's still the same content. It just seems that people who play this game don't really care for that concept after all.

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Yeah I feel like they just added a savage version just because 8-man raids also have a savage version. High end raiders don’t do content just end side it has has (Savage) in the name, they prog that content because they enjoy learning new mechanics. Criterion savage doesn’t provide that because it is just a more punishing version of the same mechanics, so it ends up actually being tedious for people who already did normal

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

It would be fine given how late it usually releases and the difficulty of the content, but it does depend on the timing. But the timing has sort of varied, with 2 of them coming after the last savage tier suddenly. So it's not consistent that every tier even follows with a criterion currently.

I think the reason Criterion Savage exists is because they were trying to replicate Mythic+ where "content gets harder as you progress" but it's still the same content. It just seems that people who play this game don't really care for that concept after all.

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The thing about Mythic dungeons is you get progressively better rewards based on difficulty. During season 2 a level 2 keystone gave you ilevel 402 gear whereas a level 20 keystone gave you 431. There's reason to go to higher levels because you get better stuff. If you weren't getting better gear by doing Mythic+, people would just be doing the raids instead of dungeons.

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Originally Posted by Amh_Wilzuun

Yeah I feel like they just added a savage version just because 8-man raids also have a savage version.

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I don't think they added it for that reason. There were requests for 4-person content "like mythic+ from WoW" for a few years. The requests were sustained and very common, both on these forums and throughout the game. What people would say about the Mythic system in WoW is that content would scale up health and damage to make it progressively more challenging.

So what I believe is that Criterion Savage is SE's version of "scaling up health and damage" like in WoW. It's just that, once again, this concept confuses players in this game because they aren't used to it.

I haven't played WoW, but this is what everybody used to say about it when they were requesting it and it seems like this is SE's version of that.

YES. Like I thought the whole point of Criterion/Variant is supposed to coincide with our Normal/Savage Raids (hard content for 8-Man boss + hard content for 4-Man dungeons). And be a way to have more ways to upgrade characters for BiS

the variants should just have the option to buy roborants for 100 of the currency with no weekly cap and the criterion version should offer the upgrade for it. I'm unsure why this requires savage clearing when in the odd patch you can already buy the twine and shine from the 24 mans and hunts with the latter having no cap.

For a game that promotes multiple jobs on one character, it is very strict on how to upgrade them to the max ilvl.

I agree it's puzzling. I don't have a static for this expac and I do not have enough time to join one, but I have a friend group of three other people. When we heard that there'd be ilvl stuff from the criterion my friends and I were excited to prog it.

However then I heard that you still need to clear P11? Why? If you can clear P11 then you can already get a savage weapon, so what's the point? My friends and I gave up on progging this now. I'm massively disappointed in the dev team. I don't understand why they are so stingy with gear.. It'd be nice to be able to get a good weapon to do EX mount farms with that is not tied to weeks of 8 man prog.

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Originally Posted by Iselion

However then I heard that you still need to clear P11?

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One of the patches will allow us to get the tomestone weapon upgrade from alliance raid coins, which will make P11S unnecessary. However, by then the relic weapon will also be able to achieve the same item level as the one from criterion (665).

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

One of the patches will allow us to get the tomestone weapon upgrade from alliance raid coins, which will make P11S unnecessary. However, by then the relic weapon will also be able to achieve the same item level as the one from criterion (665).

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Exactly, so it's a savage-clone weapon for savage raiders who cleared savage and it will be outclassed by the final tome relic step come January. What the hell, SE?

Depending on which V and C and timing it should be
Varient drops ilvl= to crafted set<- The timing of this set should be in the .x5 patch after the crafting set is released.
Varient drops ilvl equal to current HIGH LVL tomeset. <- the timing of this set should be in the .x5 patch after the final savage raid is released
Criterion drops upgrade mat for HIGHLVL tomeset to equal savage raid ilvl. < this should be in the .x patch after the final savage raid is released
Criterion SAVAGE drops Ultimate type weapon glam equal to savage raid weapon in ilvl for the class you did the Criterion savage on.

I'm prepared to accept that the savage should perhaps drop savage tomes, as a way to get them unlimited before savage goes unlimited.... specially given that it seems to be on the even patch, after, what 2 months of savage?

Not sure about it being something you can do from anything even vaugely "normal".

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Originally Posted by Iselion

Exactly, so it's a savage-clone weapon for savage raiders who cleared savage and it will be outclassed by the final tome relic step come January. What the hell, SE?

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The only purpose seems to be for glams. The way it is implemented makes it obvious that SE didnt intend to to be part of the gearing process. Criterion savage tries to take aspects of ultimate content and it seems the weapon is no exception. Not well thought out imo.

I feel the weapon is a good reward for Criterion Savage (mode 3), but we still needed something interesting for Criterion (mode 2), and it would be exactly the ability to buy tome armor augmentation items with a certain amount of currency.

Normal Criterion is very good content and highly accessible for the mid core and they absolutely should get over this absurd hesitation to add alternative gearing options into the game.

Savage Criterion, despite having a more desirable reward now, is still content that is highly inaccessible to even the hard core and appeals to the smallest percentage of players in the game. It is the only content in the entire game which restricts all forms of resurrection, requiring players to play perfectly for over 20 minutes with little to no downtime, something that not many people will ever be able to do. Combining that with the fact that the only change to the dungeon is higher tuning on the trash damage and boss HP, what you’re left with is an embarrassing effort from the devs in comparison to the dedication given to high-end contents like Ultimates and the 48-man raids.

That being said, Savage Criterion could be easily fixed. 1) Keep the exact same resurrection restrictions as Normal Criterion. 1 raise per player, per boss is not only fair, but it’s FUN. 2) Tune the bosses even more than in current Savage. With resurrections restored, the Savage bosses can be made more punishing and have even higher dps checks. 3) Add a unique boss. All of the Variant dungeons have a secret 4th boss that is completely neglected in the Criterion. This boss should be added into the Savage mode to offer a unique fight for players which is something that almost all savage difficulty contents have. To do this you must also… 4) Remove the instance enrage timer. While the idea of having a timer pushing you to move quickly from fight to fight has been used effectively before (A6 Savage), all it is doing here is making a unique restriction on already existing content that players could just self-impose; and it is preventing anything new and interesting from being added to the mode because you can’t ever expect players to progress through something new when they have to play perfectly to even see it.

I feel like these changes would offer a solid mid and hard core option for alternative gearing that is also fun and accessible. These devs have the perfect opportunity here to add more variety to this cycle we’ve been on for 10 years now. Please don’t just push it to the side like everything else that isn’t 8-man raids.

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Originally Posted by ShadowNyx3

they absolutely should get over this absurd hesitation to add alternative gearing options into the game.

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I wish we could know what happens. Do they think that adding an alternative geraring option for the mode 2 would invalidate the Savage Raiding?

Because you can purchase augmentation items already just doing the Alliance Raids or spamming Hunts, which are light years more casual that the V&C mode 2. If they add a sensible amount of Criterion coins required for a Shine or Twine, they can gauge the pacing that those items come by.

Plus, doesn't Criterion and Criterion Savage require you to be Savage bis or near bis to be ran without issues? This whole thing wouldn't even work to gear up your main job.

Edit: I honestly hope this is more a 'testing the waters' situation and we can expect a much better reward system in Dawntrail's V&Cs.

My feeling is they do not want the game to turn into world of warcraft where everyone and everything exists just to increase item level. Yet the problem is that by even having a method to increase item level through more difficult content, they already opened that door. That and Shadowbringers kind of introduced a lot more people to savage due to the easier fights. Overall even though savage was hard in Shadowbringers, it wasn't built quite like the current tier is where its super sensitive to server latency. Blunderville illustrates the exact problem that p12s and p10s sort of has with designing so many mechanics to instantly kill people if one guy messes up.

I'd rather have everyone just have access to the max iLvL possible without doing the savage and have the savage just be like the ultimates, where it's more about completing the fight than getting something like a more powerful weapon.

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Originally Posted by Colt47

My feeling is they do not want the game to turn into world of warcraft where everyone and everything exists just to increase item level. Yet the problem is that by even having a method to increase item level through more difficult content, they already opened that door. That and Shadowbringers kind of introduced a lot more people to savage due to the easier fights. Overall even though savage was hard in Shadowbringers, it wasn't built quite like the current tier is where its super sensitive to server latency. Blunderville illustrates the exact problem that p12s and p10s sort of has with designing so many mechanics to instantly kill people if one guy messes up.

I'd rather have everyone just have access to the max iLvL possible without doing the savage and have the savage just be like the ultimates, where it's more about completing the fight than getting something like a more powerful weapon.

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A lot of these gearing discussions IMO are a result of the choice to trim nearly every RPG aspect out of the game. As a result they've been stuck with this issue because they removed just about every possible opportunity for horizontal progression which what kept FFXI going for numerous years because there were so many different types of options available on gear.

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Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

A lot of these gearing discussions IMO are a result of the choice to trim nearly every RPG aspect out of the game. As a result they've been stuck with this issue because they removed just about every possible opportunity for horizontal progression which what kept FFXI going for numerous years because there were so many different types of options available on gear.

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I'm not asking them to strip it. If everyone can get max iLvL at the same patch via some method then it works out better than shoehorning everyone into savage.

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Originally Posted by Colt47

I'm not asking them to strip it. If everyone can get max iLvL at the same patch via some method then it works out better than shoehorning everyone into savage.

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No, What i'm saying is the reason they're essentially shoehorning people into savage is because of all the trimming they did already. The only character progression they have is job level to access skills, and item level to inflate stat numbers. FFXI offered gear with various types of options outside of just a base/sub stat boost which allowed them to continually add new endgame content without increasing the level cap or powercreeping the challenge out of old content due to stat bloat and still have players actively doing it for the rewards.

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Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

No, What i'm saying is the reason they're essentially shoehorning people into savage is because of all the trimming they did already. The only character progression they have is job level to access skills, and item level to inflate stat numbers. FFXI offered gear with various types of options outside of just a base/sub stat boost which allowed them to continually add new endgame content without increasing the level cap or powercreeping the challenge out of old content due to stat bloat and still have players actively doing it for the rewards.

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Ah okay. Yeah I misread what you were trying to say there. I'm not even sure I'd call it trimming as much as what they have always been doing to begin with. Even in shadowbringers people couldn't get gear on the level of savage until the very final patch, but thankfully because the stat system was completely broken back then, the savage was doable even on 6 hours a night thanks to huge mana pools, really high HP, and other factors. When they did the stat adjustment they universally nerfed players quite heavily for the sake of streamlining and making balancing easier. In the process, it showed that they have a much more difficult time managing the difficulty then they let on. It seems like ages ago but p3s was a rather big show stopper for a lot of people due to the birds and color of arena, the entirety of the second tier was not properly scaled so it came down to RNG to clear it with the crafted gear. Even post nerf it was still harder to meet dps checks than even the current tier. And this current tier has so many party KO tactics that server related issues can prevent a group from clearing p12s p1. Limit cut is just really fickle depending on the pattern and where people are standing.