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

[MiyumTano]

and the fix will always come after 24 months, when the content will be dead and buried

[GraceHorizon]

It just seems like less and less is being given to players for this game, and the time it's taking to get content is getting longer and longer

It’s the slow pace of content release that really galls me, combined with the seeming inability to address continuing problems like their network issues they’ve been labeling “DDoS”. It feels like we’re getting less and less each patch, or at least less and less enjoyment. Life is probably different for hardcore players who are expected to be chewing on higher difficulty content for extended periods, but for a player who just wants to log in and have some casual fun, things have gotten old pretty fast and new content hasn’t come in quickly enough to keep me interested.

I can point to exactly the thing that caused my disenchantment to reach critical levels: the long delay for patch 7.41. 7.4 was an underwhelming patch for me — the Arcadion was cool, but the patch MSQ was totally uninteresting to me, I found the dungeon ugly and a little boring, the Trial was gimmicky and felt like it only existed because the game formula said there had to be a Trial, and I didn’t try Pilgrim’s Traverse because I’m not very into deep dungeons and the ongoing network problems made that kind of content feel like a bad idea. But I was looking forward to the next relic step and Cosmic Exploration planet, so I ground the Arcadion for orchestrion rolls and figured I would get 7.41 any day now. Any day now. Any day now … until finally it came out weeks later than I expected, with no explanation for the delay, giving me plenty of time to consider why I was even playing FFXIV any more.

And that’s how I decided to cancel my sub.

[Khryseis_Astra]

I don't need it to be a mount personally, but it should be something completely unique and thematically appropriate, like they could have given the Pari's mask if they really wanted to give us facewear... this has to be the laziest reward they've added to this game! it's hilarious and sad!

I'll still do all the paths just because I enjoy the process, but maybe I'll leave that mask to rot in the achievements, just as a reminder you know?

Yes, something that would’ve matched the new glam sets at least! Although you can’t dye facewear and are just stuck with a few color variations… (remember way back when we thought it was just going to be an extra glam-only head gear slot? lol)

Looking at the full list of the Advance shop now and seeing not only the weird assortment but the prices… so you’re telling me you moved the normal Variant completionist mount to Advance AND it takes 100 tokens?! Seriously? Totally not an Extreme-esque grind… and another hairstyle that will probably stay at multi-million gil prices on the mb…

I don’t want complaints about the rewards and how they were moved to overshadow the actual content here though. Variants are still one of my favorite things they’ve added, this one is good, and I want to see a lot more of them, preferably one per patch, or at least every other patch (3 per expac). But they really need to look at what kind of rewards they’re giving out for what level of content, because no one at any level is really getting what they want.

[Tatsuru]

Variants were my favorite form of content since Sil'dih so it's really sad how shortsighted development has been in making it evergreen considering how many options they had. It feels especially insulting since they seemed to have hit the mark with Chaotic.

The silver lining is that I thought I could do Advanced to get a glowing BLU weapon without having to do an essentially dead Criterion (though I do feel for the people who took the time to earn it back when it was relevant) only to clear it and see that even though I could buy the Elevated Ester once I had the coins, the option to exchange it was not available on the Radz-at-Han NPC.

Does anyone know if that is intended? If yes then it's gotta be my last straw.

Edit: I just checked the Known Issues post and they acknowledged it on the 4th. Odd that the hotfix from yesterday didn't address it though

[FuturePastNow]

They couldn't create a third mount to give each difficulty a decent reward? The sleeping mask is treasure map consolation-prize tier.

[Laerune]

Just did the dungeon, I enjoyed it. But I fear this content will be dead next patch, once players have their rewards, what reason is there for them to return?

This content needs Trusts aswell, otherwise it will die and players that want to clear them next year, will not be able to do it (unless they solo it)

[Luluna]

Just did the dungeon, I enjoyed it. But I fear this content will be dead next patch, once players have their rewards, what reason is there for them to return?

This content needs Trusts aswell, otherwise it will die and players that want to clear them next year, will not be able to do it (unless they solo it)

I would love to go in with the trusts it would be a really nice addition. I also feel they could have added mounts to all of the new variant it seems they are really lacking in taking note of what the majority of the players are asking for.

[Khryseis_Astra]

I would love to go in with the trusts it would be a really nice addition. I also feel they could have added mounts to all of the new variant it seems they are really lacking in taking note of what the majority of the players are asking for.

After completing all the paths, I think Variant should have gotten the rug for completing all paths, the Advance Mount should have been the Genie and the Criterion should have been the secret boss (scaled down a bit of course! lol).

[Aidorouge]

Just did the dungeon, I enjoyed it. But I fear this content will be dead next patch, once players have their rewards, what reason is there for them to return?

This content needs Trusts aswell, otherwise it will die and players that want to clear them next year, will not be able to do it (unless they solo it)

Amusingly, Final Fantasy 11 is going to be adding new updates to their Trust system soon, including the ability to strengthen and gear up the NPCs to expand the amount of content you can bring them along for. It's also my understanding that Trusts aren't just there to slam through all content for you (though they do make certain parts easier), and you still need to actually play your own character right or the NPCs will falter/take way longer to finish something than if you had actually helped them instead of expecting to be carried.

It might make some people hiss with contempt at the idea of an MMO having NPC options for content, but realistically most of FF14's content dies out within a month and then needs Discord to prop it up afterwards. And while an argument could be made that FF14's NPCs aren't advanced enough to deal with harder mechanics (thus causing content to be made easier to compensate for them), the alternative is content being left behind in a grave for years, or how surely it can't be that difficult to re-tune FF14 NPCs to be smarter? Most of the hardest content is just rote memorization and knowing when to move, even MS-DOS AI for Chess games had that figured out decades ago, what's Square-Enix's excuse?

[StriderShinryu]

I don’t want complaints about the rewards and how they were moved to overshadow the actual content here though. Variants are still one of my favorite things they’ve added, this one is good, and I want to see a lot more of them, preferably one per patch, or at least every other patch (3 per expac). But they really need to look at what kind of rewards they’re giving out for what level of content, because no one at any level is really getting what they want.

Exactly. And this is what I fear the most about this backlash to the terrible reward structure. A lot of players really do like or even love the Variants and Criterions. We don't want these to go away and, yeah, I'd have nothing against getting even more of them. Or even just more content like them that allows the developers to flex their muscles and create different content types than the norm. They are a good thing, but they have a bad reward structure and basically no incentive to encourage play beyond the first clear.

I don't want this to be another case where the devs hear one loud (but honestly easily addressable) complaint about something they do and then throw the entire idea out "because players didn't like it!"