Criterion normal should drop Savage-equivalent gear.

[Amh_Wilzuun]

I’ve discussed this previously but now is a really good time to revisit the idea since we know have seen the devs implement some feedback into criterion (savage) rewards.

So basically the idea is that criterion normal should drop gear chests that have the exact same stats as the last savage tier. You can have a similar lockout system and all of that. Although it has the same stats it will have UNIQUE GLAM. You can also keep the 100 tokens mount reward. This turns criterion from a niche piece of content into something with a lot more appeal instantly. It accomplishes all of the following:

- Allows alternate forms of gearing for savage raiders who maybe want to gear an alt or just gear faster late into the tier.

- Cements criterion as a viable high-end alternative for people who don’t want to do 8-man raids/can’t commit for a whole savage tier but still want to raid or have BiS.

- Gives the content good rewards with cool looking gear sets people will want for their glams

What about criterion savage though? Honestly I’d be fine if they removed it altogether. Unlike criterion normal, I see a huge amount of negativity for the savage versions. I don’t think people would miss it if it was removed and the weapon reward was folded into normal mode (but just give the weapon outright next time). However if they must keep it, then maybe savage gives a cool glow version to the criterion normal weapons or is just the only way to get the weapons (I would just prefer cool weapons through normal mode).

[Amh_Wilzuun]

Also it’s FINE if this drops BiS gear so long after the savage tier is released. This would only help the game

[Jeeqbit]

It would be fine given how late it usually releases and the difficulty of the content, but it does depend on the timing. But the timing has sort of varied, with 2 of them coming after the last savage tier suddenly. So it's not consistent that every tier even follows with a criterion currently.

I think the reason Criterion Savage exists is because they were trying to replicate Mythic+ where "content gets harder as you progress" but it's still the same content. It just seems that people who play this game don't really care for that concept after all.

[Ishe-P]

Here's my copium huff that with Dawntrail they'll have the release schedule ironed out so they can time releases as consistently as everything else. That would then allow them to decide how to implement changes to gear. Seems like they're still feeling this out.

[Amh_Wilzuun]

It would be fine given how late it usually releases and the difficulty of the content, but it does depend on the timing. But the timing has sort of varied, with 2 of them coming after the last savage tier suddenly. So it's not consistent that every tier even follows with a criterion currently.

I think the reason Criterion Savage exists is because they were trying to replicate Mythic+ where "content gets harder as you progress" but it's still the same content. It just seems that people who play this game don't really care for that concept after all.

Yeah I feel like they just added a savage version just because 8-man raids also have a savage version. High end raiders don’t do content just end side it has has (Savage) in the name, they prog that content because they enjoy learning new mechanics. Criterion savage doesn’t provide that because it is just a more punishing version of the same mechanics, so it ends up actually being tedious for people who already did normal

[angienessyo]

It would be fine given how late it usually releases and the difficulty of the content, but it does depend on the timing. But the timing has sort of varied, with 2 of them coming after the last savage tier suddenly. So it's not consistent that every tier even follows with a criterion currently.

I think the reason Criterion Savage exists is because they were trying to replicate Mythic+ where "content gets harder as you progress" but it's still the same content. It just seems that people who play this game don't really care for that concept after all.

The thing about Mythic dungeons is you get progressively better rewards based on difficulty. During season 2 a level 2 keystone gave you ilevel 402 gear whereas a level 20 keystone gave you 431. There's reason to go to higher levels because you get better stuff. If you weren't getting better gear by doing Mythic+, people would just be doing the raids instead of dungeons.

[Jeeqbit]

Yeah I feel like they just added a savage version just because 8-man raids also have a savage version.

I don't think they added it for that reason. There were requests for 4-person content "like mythic+ from WoW" for a few years. The requests were sustained and very common, both on these forums and throughout the game. What people would say about the Mythic system in WoW is that content would scale up health and damage to make it progressively more challenging.

So what I believe is that Criterion Savage is SE's version of "scaling up health and damage" like in WoW. It's just that, once again, this concept confuses players in this game because they aren't used to it.

I haven't played WoW, but this is what everybody used to say about it when they were requesting it and it seems like this is SE's version of that.

[Atelier-Bagur]

YES. Like I thought the whole point of Criterion/Variant is supposed to coincide with our Normal/Savage Raids (hard content for 8-Man boss + hard content for 4-Man dungeons). And be a way to have more ways to upgrade characters for BiS

[Marxam]

the variants should just have the option to buy roborants for 100 of the currency with no weekly cap and the criterion version should offer the upgrade for it. I'm unsure why this requires savage clearing when in the odd patch you can already buy the twine and shine from the 24 mans and hunts with the latter having no cap.

For a game that promotes multiple jobs on one character, it is very strict on how to upgrade them to the max ilvl.

[Iselion]

I agree it's puzzling. I don't have a static for this expac and I do not have enough time to join one, but I have a friend group of three other people. When we heard that there'd be ilvl stuff from the criterion my friends and I were excited to prog it.

However then I heard that you still need to clear P11? Why? If you can clear P11 then you can already get a savage weapon, so what's the point? My friends and I gave up on progging this now. I'm massively disappointed in the dev team. I don't understand why they are so stingy with gear.. It'd be nice to be able to get a good weapon to do EX mount farms with that is not tied to weeks of 8 man prog.