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

[Absurdity]

It seriously can't be that hard.. and this is their 4th go at it.

It very much seems like the complaints from the previous 3 went into one ear and out of the other.
What makes this even funnier is that advanced has accessories you can buy, with unique models, but they made them level 1 with no stats.

Criterion is quite literally the same rewards as before. A mount, an orchestrion roll, a framer's kit and materia.
All they really did is shuffle some rewards from variant into the new advanced boss rush.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

I haven't even played the new patch & I'm already cringing at their decision from reading this thread.

At the very least, they could've ADD rewards to the higher difficulties. But noooo, let's starve the lower difficulty reward and put it behind criterion equivalent advanced+ difficulty. Hey, at the very least they're tradeable? lmao.

They REALLY do be pushing people into the high ends this expac, eh?

[…]Rewarding higher difficulty is just basic game design.[…]

I agree in spirit. However in this case, it would’ve echoed better if that is how they’ve been doing from the get go since Sil’dihn implementation. They made it even better in Aloalo savages, but now they take 2 steps backward.

[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...

I don't even know what could possibly explain this new blunder. This has got to be the most tone deaf response to player feedback I've seen in this game since the beginning of ARR...

[Absurdity]

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...

I don't even know what could possibly explain this new blunder. This has got to be the most tone deaf response to player feedback I've seen in this game since the beginning of ARR...

I don't necessarily disagree with that stance either, the rewards are what garners initial interest in content since you can't know right away whether it's actually enjoyable or not and the more challenging content usually needs more enticing rewards due to the assumed investment required to complete it. But where I disagree with the poster is that it's simply not the case here.

Discovering all 12 different routes is a reasonable time investment for the mount, and precedent has been set with all previous iterations of variant, devaluing that time investment is not the way to go about it. While the actual challenging content didn't get any of the changes people asked for, so you're not even rewarded "proportional to the challenge".

[Evvss55]

Yeah, removing the mount from the all paths achievement is really, really disappointing. I probably will still try Advanced if I can gather some friends for it, but I really enjoyed working towards those old Variant mounts, both with friends and alone. I always thought doing a solo run of Variant here and there was a fun way to spend some time if I didn't have anything else to do.
I'll probably still end up doing it, I guess, but I'm not gonna be excited for the final reward. Whereas before, completing all Variant routes had value both in its journey and destination, now it's only the former which offers any value. Really tragic.

[TaleraRistain]

Why in the world would they make the reward for all paths a glamour item instead of a mount? They already had established the reward for all paths was a mount. This is just dumb.

[Kirutsuki]

Why in the world would they make the reward for all paths a glamour item instead of a mount? They already had established the reward for all paths was a mount. This is just dumb.

Speak nothing of the fact that facewear is HIGHLY individual preference.

[Mouthbone]

Rewards like this are usually relegated to sub loot
I cant imagine that too much effort is used to add facewear for an existing model (not even a new one, or relevant to the duty), so you cant even excuse it as development time
Why is the expansion with "50% more rewards" giving us rewards like that?

[TaleraRistain]

Speak nothing of the fact that facewear is HIGHLY individual preference.

They could easily offer that where they offered glam before, purchasable with the potsherd currency. Or could even have made it drop out of the spoils boxes. Going through three other Variants and making the path reward a mount and then going to not a mount for the new Variant is as dumb as that glam item they offered for getting 90 in all classes when Shadowbringers gave the amaro. And they went back to a mount for all 100 in Dawntrail.

[Pricia]

Even worse than I thought too, as they also removed the hairstyle and the framer's kit from prizes formerly buyable with potsherds.

It really sucks to be a casual player in this game.