Quote Originally Posted by DPZ2 View Post
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.