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

[Gwenkatsu]

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.

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.

[Pricia]

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

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

[Aidorouge]

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 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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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

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

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.

[HammAndCheese]

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.

Who let you out of the gil mines? /s

[Kaurhz]

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.

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.

[ThreeBeastSmile]

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

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...

[DPZ2]

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

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.

[Kaurhz]

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...

[Absurdity]

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.

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.

[Aidorouge]

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.

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.)