Quote Originally Posted by Cetonis View Post
Yes they do. If they didn't, more people than virtually-nobody would be going back and trying to min-sync clear A4S and A8S, or do the former with Nisi since they probably didn't originally. Or heck, min syncing SCoB Savage. Challenge in and of itself doesn't drive people enough to put in dozens of hours of time on a fight.

Having a gear reward still matters, at the end of the day. An i280-equivalent weapon would be "vanity" for most intents and purposes, but would feel far bigger than that and would eventually have a real value of some time savings down the road. It wouldn't be any worse than i275 weapons are now, and nobody complains about those.

Also, the use of such a reward can increase the content's staying power, especially if it's locked to the class you cleared on as described before. Theoretically that could be done with level 1 weapons too, but you'd be relying a lot on people universally getting super hype over the looks of every piece, which is obviously impossible.
Every single player looking to get on the leader board for FFLogs speed kills would like a word with you.

There's no reward for trying to beat the hardest content in the fastest time possible yet people still do it - for the challenge, for the prestige, for the ego - it doesn't matter but they're literally doing it for zero in-game reward.

SCH and WAR videos who solo EX Primals - no (worthwhile) reward
Low man Sophia EX clear - no (worthwhile) reward
PotD Solo Ranking does exist - no (worthwhile) reward

The players do exist for these kinds of challenge.

And yes a reward may help incentivize players to partake on the content but I would still prefer that to be showoff pieces that do not contribute to a player's stat progression in any meaningful way.