Luckybancho census shows criterion savage was a complete and utter failure

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

It's similar to DRS imo, dying in there is 50/50 you'll get kicked out of the dungeon due to limited raises if a bunch of other people die at the same time as you.

Maybe in a prog run without many veteran helpers. And chances are if that many people are dying at the same time, it wasn't going to be a clear anyway so not having enough arises is irrelevant.

I've been reclearing DRS on the weekly with a friend group for months now that runs a ton of DRS through discords, and the healers carry arises out the absolute wazoo because they have lots of free bag space. We haven't had a single person not reach the end of the instance since I started doing it across like, 20 clears, even with runs that had a bunch of memery and 20+ deaths across the instance. Long as you're in a clear run hosted by one of the big DRS discords, death is basically a nothing burger in DRS.

[ForteNightshade]

So, the consensus is that Criterion is a failure because they took players at their word about "wanting something harder", when they actually meant "wanting something a little bit harder while expecting awards commensurate with the difficulty that will totally not draw players away from other Savage instances".

The telling bit about the luckybancho analysis is that it is based on "having the achievement and having it public". The current default on Lodestone is to make all of that information private.

And, of course, luckybancho ignores all players who have yet to reach level 70 in their analysis.

I love how this comically ignores what the playerbase actually asked for because god forbid to blame the dev team for missing the mark.

When they initially announced Criterion, they specifically said the "Normal" would be on par with Extreme level difficulty. Instead, they made it essentially Savage light and made the actual Savage closer to a mini-Ultimate, all without any rewards or new mechanics in the latter's case. What's funny is raiders themselves have been begging them to put Savage gear or upgrade materials in there. It wouldn't "draw them away" but potentially help speed up the process of alt gearing which a lot of raiders have been asking for as it allows them more flexibility to play other jobs. The only ones still holding Savage up on a ridiculous pedestal are the devs themselves.

Put bluntly, the dev team only heard "harder four man content" and ignored basically everything else that went along with that request. What many players have actually been clamouring for is something closer to Mythic+, i.e., content with genuine threat and challenge but can still be tackled without a premade. In other words, the literal bread and butter that has kept WoW alive for so many years. Criterion isn't even remotely close to that. Don't get me wrong. It's a good concept but one that was horrendously executed. The Savage variant is just... terrible. It's the exact same content but just "don't die." The general sentiment is had Criterion Savage allowed for mistakes but introduced new mechanics and actually gave rewards, people would be far more interested in doing it. As it stand, there's no real reason to touch it.

And what does Lucky ignoring 70 players matter? They can't even unlock the content until they've finished Endwalker, much less attempt it. Anyone below 90 is quite literally irrelevant in this analysis.

[DPZ2]

And what does Lucky ignoring 70 players matter? They can't even unlock the content until they've finished Endwalker, much less attempt it. Anyone below 90 is quite literally irrelevant in this analysis.

The population of "active players" ignores anyone leveling through 70. That could be 1/10 or 1/3 or 1/2 of current players, for all we'll know. That's why it is not irrelevant in any analysis.

And I've been reading that ask for "harder four man content" for nearly a decade now ... not "Mythic+ dungeons please". Well, except over the last 4 years when the WoW players decided to migrate from the abominations that were Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands.

Be thankful, or you'd be running some variant of Mythic+ Sastasha over and over and over and over and ...

[Maltothoris]

Plenty of fools in the forums then, because the issue of rewards was never broached.

Can't really say that since we have threads like this https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...therwise/page3 That being said, the threads really never gained any traction.

[Oizen]

Nothing said on these forums matters anyway. I don't think the devs even look at them.

[Stormpeaks]

The population of "active players" ignores anyone leveling through 70. That could be 1/10 or 1/3 or 1/2 of current players, for all we'll know. That's why it is not irrelevant in any analysis.

And I've been reading that ask for "harder four man content" for nearly a decade now ... not "Mythic+ dungeons please". Well, except over the last 4 years when the WoW players decided to migrate from the abominations that were Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands.

Be thankful, or you'd be running some variant of Mythic+ Sastasha over and over and over and over and ...

I can safely say m+ is a gigantic success in WoW while criterion is... well... a gigantic failure.

Idk why you're out here trying to tell people they should be grateful they aren't getting fun and rewarding content (aka m+) and that they should be happy with the unrewarding soulless bore that is criterion.

Please make it make sense lol, and last thing, stop pretending they read these forums, the only thing they might be reading are the JP ones if even that.

Before you speak nonsense, stick to the reality and don't blame the issues with that piece of content on the playerbase.

[Mosha]

The population of "active players" ignores anyone levelling through 70. That could be 1/10 or 1/3 or 1/2 of current players, for all we'll know. That's why it is not irrelevant in any analysis

They are irrelevant because this thread is about the bullet points concerning V&C dungeons, which any player under 90 can't unlock.

[DPZ2]

Can't really say that since we have threads like this

The problem with threads like this is that they were produced "after the fact" (aka 2023), rather than back in 2019, when WoW players started to emigrate to this game.

[dspguy]

It's a 10 year old game (not counting the false start in 2010). It isn't going to last forever.

[Saraide]

The problem with threads like this is that they were produced "after the fact" (aka 2023), rather than back in 2019, when WoW players started to emigrate to this game.

Posts like the ones this person has made in this thread assume a supreme incompetence on the side of the devs. Neither reward structures nor content design are something that has never been done before. Criterion savage very clearly tries to emulate ultimate raids' reward structure, it simply fails in the content design. As is typical for many MMO players the first thing they point towards is the reward structure and it's very obvious that SE is aware of that. We know this because duty roulettes come with substantial rewards for participation, you are being bribed to fill groups essentially. This bribery exists in a lesser form for variant and criterion, they're just more comparable to the rewards given by an ex trial. There are mounts and glam pieces, as any ex trial's relevance to gearing is very short lived.

Ultimately I dont think the reward structure is the core issue. Variant isnt interesting because the lost actions it tries to emulate for convenience's sake are too condensed to open up the possibility of creating builds. Criterion suffered from a mismatch in expectation where SE initially made it seem like it was on the level of an ex trial when it is very clearly above that. Additionally it suffers from rez restrictions the current combat design just isnt used to and the job balance in 4 player content being very rough.
Criterion savage suffers from being the same fight but again. It is difficult but not in a way that seems interesting to many people. Slapping on higher damage, a no-death challenge run and messing up your cooldown alignment do infact make the content harder but not every kind of difficulty is fun.

The diamond in the rough is ultimately regular criterion and it is what imo SE should focus at.