Variant & Criterion Dungeons

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Originally Posted by dspguy

Personally, I'd rather see Criterion also have the scaling factor that Variant dungeons have. Even if it meant that certain party combinations were better than others - the fact that they still pigeonhole us into Tank/Healer/DPS/DPS when the Variant version does not - just seems like they can't think outside of the box.

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I disagree. After progging a fresh run, there's value in the variety of jobs.

This whole set of dungeons is them thinking outside the box. There's finally 4 man content that's legit challenging and no one is excluded.

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Originally Posted by dspguy

Personally, I'd rather see Criterion also have the scaling factor that Variant dungeons have. Even if it meant that certain party combinations were better than others - the fact that they still pigeonhole us into Tank/Healer/DPS/DPS when the Variant version does not - just seems like they can't think outside of the box.

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The trinity is literally the core of MMO's like this. If you don't like that find a different game. The worst thing swtor ever did was remove roles from their flashpoints making them boring as hell. They gave you some room in variants which is why they called it that. Leave the harder content to what makes these kind of games tick.

Guessing there criterion versions dont have one or just no1s found it yet be theres apparently a secret in the Variant dungeon.

Holy crap getting no-DPS healers is such a detriment. Never going to do a variant dungeon in a group again.

Rewards aside (I wasn't expecting anything ground-breaking tbh), I really liked the Variant Dungeon a lot. It's like they took what was good about CLL, Dalriada and Delubrum Reginae and made something interesting. The bosses are long but aren't -too- long, the mechanics have a bit of variation to them between choices and just exploration-wise it's so well-made.

Of course, there are a few things I didn't really like.
- The middle boss needs a bit more to him if that's what we're meant to grind. Otherwise he gets repetitive and tedious fast.
- It's quite obvious which skills to use between roles. Bozja and Eureka had some really good skills to use. They could honestly have explored that avenue a bit more.
- LOTS OF MOBS. The mob pulls themselves aren't too bad, what I'm referring to is how there's nothing but mobs and a couple of bosses, at least in the Variant version, with one of them being
- In the end, this too will be repetitive. I understand Square likely isn't one for "true"* randomness, but this structure still lends well to some randomization. The "randomization" we have is reliant on our choices, but it becomes rather obvious after a while which path we should take.
I'm not saying to throw away the patterns, but do add one or two random elements to keep the variety going.

*"true" randomization is almost impossible in videogames. Stuff is calculated from a seed. So it too can be predictable, though it requires exceptional know-how or just plain hacking into the game to know.

They kind of addressed my main complaint with the game, which was not understanding why dungeons should be the same thing every run. The variant dungeons do have some variations but are still quite limited in that you just pick an option and each one has static content within. I still think there should be some RNG in enemy patterns, not just the same formation of enemies waiting for you every time. Also not a big deal but it's weird behavior for them to just sit there waiting to engage me because Nanamo is still talking. The multiple difficulties of V&C is another positive, gives static groups something else to run together. Rewards still need work because it's mostly stuff you only need one time for your collection then you're done with the content.

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Originally Posted by Midareyukki

Rewards aside (I wasn't expecting anything ground-breaking tbh), I really liked the Variant Dungeon a lot. It's like they took what was good about CLL, Dalriada and Delubrum Reginae and made something interesting. The bosses are long but aren't -too- long, the mechanics have a bit of variation to them between choices and just exploration-wise it's so well-made.

Of course, there are a few things I didn't really like.
- The middle boss needs a bit more to him if that's what we're meant to grind. Otherwise he gets repetitive and tedious fast.
- It's quite obvious which skills to use between roles. Bozja and Eureka had some really good skills to use. They could honestly have explored that avenue a bit more.
- LOTS OF MOBS. The mob pulls themselves aren't too bad, what I'm referring to is how there's nothing but mobs and a couple of bosses, at least in the Variant version, with one of them being
- In the end, this too will be repetitive. I understand Square likely isn't one for "true"* randomness, but this structure still lends well to some randomization. The "randomization" we have is reliant on our choices, but it becomes rather obvious after a while which path we should take.
I'm not saying to throw away the patterns, but do add one or two random elements to keep the variety going.

*"true" randomization is almost impossible in videogames. Stuff is calculated from a seed. So it too can be predictable, though it requires exceptional know-how or just plain hacking into the game to know.

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Too many skills make it too complicated. You really don't need much more beyond what's presented. Remember variant is supposed to be soloable and people already have enough of a kit at 90.

One of the worst parts of bozja was actually when people didn't have what was needed. Odds are more in your favor for a smooth run, especially with an all DPS group. At least one person will probabl have raise and one should have heal.

The lack of mobs is actually a refreshing change. Everything doesn't have to be wall to wall and the criterion pulls (so far) are a nice throwback for me, with roamers and small packs to deal with. It's the right kind of spicy. I feel like I could tolerate doing this via PF and progging through to the savage mode.

Overall, it feels very chill, but still retaining a level of challenge.

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Originally Posted by SassyAssassin

I like it because I can do it alone, enjoying the small story, some new furnishings but that’s not useful for those that can’t get a house:(… I was hoping for some royal weapons but expected too much…
As for the rat boss? So adorable. I need him. I want to lay on his belly.

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No lifed it, fluffy belly is mine.

https://i.postimg.cc/0j7ZFV0P/C3-AA8...00085-B510.jpg

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Originally Posted by Deveryn

Too many skills make it too complicated. You really don't need much more beyond what's presented. Remember variant is supposed to be soloable and people already have enough of a kit at 90.

One of the worst parts of bozja was actually when people didn't have what was needed. Odds are more in your favor for a smooth run, especially with an all DPS group. At least one person will probabl have raise and one should have heal.

The lack of mobs is actually a refreshing change. Everything doesn't have to be wall to wall and the criterion pulls (so far) are a nice throwback for me, with roamers and small packs to deal with. It's the right kind of spicy. I feel like I could tolerate doing this via PF and progging through to the savage mode.

Overall, it feels very chill, but still retaining a level of challenge.

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True. For the sake of keeping it simple and reduce clutter, I understand. It just feels like the options given were too "obvious"? Like, what do we give for more damage? A DoT. And not a damage boost. Not Chainspell which worked for some kits. They went for the bare essentials. But if in the end it was just sacrificing "fun and variety" for security, then I can respect that.

As for the mobs, it's just that I personally feel like it could do with one pack less x( It just feels a bit uneven with the bosses.

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Originally Posted by SassyAssassin

No lifed it, fluffy belly is mine.

https://i.postimg.cc/0j7ZFV0P/C3-AA8...00085-B510.jpg

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lol, SAME! It was too adorable to NOT no-life it. >>;;

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Originally Posted by hydralus

Holy crap getting no-DPS healers is such a detriment. Never going to do a variant dungeon in a group again.

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And a bit curious with the grouping up for this. How quick are runs when you have all 4 people?

I did all of my runs solo, most of them as a SGE, and each run was pretty much 20 minutes on the dot (minus a few where I derped on bosses). I had tried my RPR and DNC on a couple of runs too, but honestly they didn't feel that much quicker, and I hated the healing skill. With SGE you can just Kardia yourself and then use your oGCD skills if/when you need. Was pretty easy. :X

Also, do the random groups normally just follow whichever door Nanamo chooses, or do you find they are trying to work towards specific routes? I feel like this could be really annoying to coordinate with randoms unless no one cares which version they get.

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

lol, SAME! It was too adorable to NOT no-life it. >>;;



And a bit curious with the grouping up for this. How quick are runs when you have all 4 people?

I did all of my runs solo, most of them as a SGE, and each run was pretty much 20 on the dot (minus a few where I derped on bosses). I had tried my RPR and DNC on a couple of runs too, but honestly they didn't feel that much quicker, and I hated the healing skill. With SGE you can just Kardia yourself and then use your oGCD skills if/when you need. Was pretty easy. :X

Also, do the random groups normally just follow whichever door Nanamo chooses, or do you find they are trying to work towards specific routes?

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I knooooow so cute!!!!! And the flying animation????
As for soloing, I did dancer and smn, smn felt great if you want to kill stuff fast also because you can add the shield AND the pet shield on yourself, you barely need any healing unless you run into all the aoes haha.

Criterion? Yeah you need heals. You need heals BAD. Did not finish that.

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

lol, SAME! It was too adorable to NOT no-life it. >>;;



And a bit curious with the grouping up for this. How quick are runs when you have all 4 people?

I did all of my runs solo, most of them as a SGE, and each run was pretty much 20 minutes on the dot (minus a few where I derped on bosses). I had tried my RPR and DNC on a couple of runs too, but honestly they didn't feel that much quicker, and I hated the healing skill. With SGE you can just Kardia yourself and then use your oGCD skills if/when you need. Was pretty easy. :X

Also, do the random groups normally just follow whichever door Nanamo chooses, or do you find they are trying to work towards specific routes? I feel like this could be really annoying to coordinate with randoms unless no one cares which version they get.

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I've done a few groups and a solo. I feel like groups can be slightly faster, but with people still learning mechs, it can get slowed down by trying to pick them up. It's random who does what. I wouldn't be surprised to run into people that want to do a puzzle the wrong way to get all the notes.

I'm happy but also disappointed, the content ive played was great, I love dungeons with pathways, just keep in mind if you group up you might get a route that's undesirable, mind you ive only played the casual dugeons.

The good:
>No role requirements has a good side effect that you can't tank privilege through things, I actually kind of like how hard it hit on my first few runs when I messed up a mech, I generally took a heal/raise as PLD mostly but depending if you got a healer you may wanna free up space for that strong "dot", Generally take a Dot, heal or raise as tank, I love how you can switch classes mid dungeon as well.
>Bosses are actually very fun for a normal fight, I've always liked certain new EW dungeons that have heavy movement and punishing mechs, I'm glad they're willing to be less hand holdy, it's not perfect but I think it's pretty fun
>Replayable, I've had serval runs now and its way more replayable then any old dungeon, its not perfect but it's really good for what it is

The Bad
>Rewards, I'm sorry but the glam rewards I can't say I'm a fan of, mind you if they had some really nice looking sets maybe this would be a positive, I also think savage dungeons should reward something like 625 gear, I mean it's 6.25, at this point I don't think it's a bad idea (maybe it is?) to reward players who might wanna just do harder dungeons, as raids and getting a group that isn't PF can be a bit more annoying, I hope they actually want to push for more of a hardcore dungeon crowd as well... I'm pretty disappointed to say the least with the rewards, I feel like even if they just wanted it to be cosmetic rewards, a few other things they need more variety in rewards If the content is meant to be way harder then ext I really dont see why you can't get some high leveled gear (doesn't and shouldn't have to be bis or on par with savage).
>AOE (In normal) is a joke and a complete waste of time, let it hit harder if you're going to scale dps and healer hp higher it really doesn't matter if you got a tank or not (esp if you can bring var rampart), hopefully next dungeons allow you to pull more or mobs hit harder.

Overall I'm happy they're making some dungeons more fun from even a casual perspective, honestly I feel like having different routes and stuff just makes dungeons so much better, I hope they keep mech heavy combat and fast paced combat, a big problem with a lot of dungeons is they're not just "ez" but they're very boring and don't teach players to avoid mechs well, they should generally actually scale gear better in a lot of dungeons I find because you got such good gear when you normally replay them it becomes a joke compared to min item level where it might be at least a bit engaging to the average player, I just really hope we get some better glam rewards and possibly just better rewards for the savage version I would say a lot of players would be more compelled to play.

From my experience, criterion (normal) seems to be in between a savage and an ultimate. Is this correct? You have savage-level difficulty with the bosses, but with multiple in succession and you can't take a break like a raid tier. Savage is similar to normal but with no resurrection.

While it's admirable that Square Enix is putting in more hard content, it seems like this will divide the player base further between raiders and non-raiders. There's already a steep learning curve between normal and endgame content. The difference between variant and criterion dungeons are extremely steep. Many people will like this, and that's fine, but I don't see this content retaining popularity since there's not a lot of reward for clearing. At least Square Enix gave it a shot, and that's something. There's not much else they can do before 6.3.

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Originally Posted by Deveryn

Not surprised or disappointed. If you thought there would be gear in this with dungeons, crafted, tome and savage already out there, you played yourself.

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Makes me wonder if anything makes you happy or brings joy and smile to your face. Or if you just smile and nod as the tenders bring you your soup with no solids in it and sedating music as you sit in your calming lawn chair.

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Originally Posted by Ransu

These are not a replacement for bozja/eureka...This is explicitly new content and we are getting a new deep dungeon later on which does take the place of bozja content.

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Since when was Bozja/Eureka in any way comparable to Deep Dungeons? One was always significantly larger in scope and had more lore to uncover, the other was barebones as all hells and had practically no story at all. Face it, and admit it. We got a downgrade.

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Originally Posted by Deveryn

I disagree. After progging a fresh run, there's value in the variety of jobs.

This whole set of dungeons is them thinking outside the box. There's finally 4 man content that's legit challenging and no one is excluded.

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If so, then they have a lot of work to do yet.

If this is "thinking outside the box" to them, the best they can do then they're not gonna make it. This is not innovation, this is toeing the line.

Besides, so many people mentioned it being FFXIV's Mythic + content that it's not even that. It's just a lesser version of what WoW has already done. Innovation is defined by the invention of something not done before, a road never before tread. This is not that road.

I had a thought on what glamour they could have included, which is in the game but not accessible. Have you noticed that there are a few different variations of the Oasis/Riviera/Glade sets? I think there's at least two other versions of each gendered Oasis top – from memory, a fancy red version of each, a sleeveless version of the men's top and yellow-sash version of the women's top, and I've seen that last one on a male NPC so they went to the effort of adjusting those versions when they got gender-unlocked. So it seems likely that they're also adjusted for all races as well, or they can draw on the models of the accessible versions.

The Glade gear goes even beyond this and there seem to be entire designs we don't have access to – I suspect that peasant dress we see on a number of NPCs is meant to be the female counterpart to the Glade Tunic that we get, and there are multiple versions of the tunic, including a shirt version that cuts off at waist length, and two versions of boots: the mender at the Gridania inn is wearing knee-length boots, and characters wearing the peasant dress have a thigh-length version. (I accidentally got the camera wedged inside the skirt of an NPC when attempting to look at her shoes...)

I also thought of a missed opportunity on the Noir set, because it would have been a good chance to give us "rolled-up sleeves", built as elbow-length gloves with mostly bare arms and just the cuff around the upper edge of the piece.

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Originally Posted by SentioftheHoukai

Makes me wonder if anything makes you happy or brings joy and smile to your face. Or if you just smile and nod as the tenders bring you your soup with no solids in it and sedating music as you sit in your calming lawn chair.

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You should stop trying to read from what's not presented there. I said what I said and that's all that needed to be said. I don't express much joy here because I already know what the response will be and it's rather dull. :)

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I had a thought on what glamour they could have included, which is in the game but not accessible. Have you noticed that there are a few different variations of the Oasis/Riviera/Glade sets? I think there's at least two other versions of each gendered Oasis top – from memory, a fancy red version of each, a sleeveless version of the men's top and yellow-sash version of the women's top, and I've seen that last one on a male NPC so they went to the effort of adjusting those versions when they got gender-unlocked. So it seems likely that they're also adjusted for all races as well, or they can draw on the models of the accessible versions.

The Glade gear goes even beyond this and there seem to be entire designs we don't have access to – I suspect that peasant dress we see on a number of NPCs is meant to be the female counterpart to the Glade Tunic that we get, and there are multiple versions of the tunic, including a shirt version that cuts off at waist length, and two versions of boots: the mender at the Gridania inn is wearing knee-length boots, and characters wearing the peasant dress have a thigh-length version. (I accidentally got the camera wedged inside the skirt of an NPC when attempting to look at her shoes...)

I also thought of a missed opportunity on the Noir set, because it would have been a good chance to give us "rolled-up sleeves", built as elbow-length gloves with mostly bare arms and just the cuff around the upper edge of the piece.

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Oh my god I would have loved this! I glam both the oasis tops quite often and would loooove more variations!

anyone figure out the Malachite Portico puzzle?

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Originally Posted by Iskander

anyone figure out the Malachite Portico puzzle?

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This is the guide that I used for my run-through: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...iant_dungeons/

For the sack part specifically (these are the 4 variants):

#1 Room with Green + Yellow Sacks, take the GREEN SACK in the NE corner on top of the rubble, and the YELLOW SACK in the SE corner on the very small hill of dirt, after clearing the enemies after teleporting, there is a door to the west behind the rubble that you can open before moving ahead. This door won't have a name or be interactable until Nanamo walks up to the gate to leave, do not walk up to Nanamo immediately if you want to open this door first.

#2 Same as #1, but do not open the door

#3 Primary Path, use two of the wrong sacks (don't activate the teleporter) and trigger the puff circles after the door opens

#4 Primary Path, use two of the wrong sacks (don't activate the teleporter) and don't trigger the puff circles after the door opens

I really enjoyed the Variant Dungeon, each route has one different mechanic for the final boss, and it's so comfy to go alone. Only 4 routes left and got my beloved Sewer Skink :D

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...BqJIT3740p.png

As for Criterion Dungeon, oh my god it's so hard, like savage tier hard. My friend who is a tank tried to pull the 2 of the big trash mob and it hits so hard that they had to use invuln early :O

And the 1st boss mechanic is also really hard to do... Had to give up early because need to go bed... :(

I like the challenge and lore in the dungeons, but I think I'd only want them to remain a persistent content type if it's not coming at expense of a larger-scale form of content like Eureka/Bozja.

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Originally Posted by SassyAssassin

No lifed it, fluffy belly is mine.

https://i.postimg.cc/0j7ZFV0P/C3-AA8...00085-B510.jpg

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Does the mount drop in the variant or criterion dungeon?

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Originally Posted by Krokov

Does the mount drop in the variant or criterion dungeon?

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It's an achievement reward for collecting all 12 notes from the variant dungeon.

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

It's an achievement reward for collecting all 12 notes from the variant dungeon.

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Is there a strat or anything for collecting all 12 note/entries?

I know i am probably the only one requesting this but.. can we have these flowers as a garden item which do this massive screen effect on our housing area, please? ^_^

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Originally Posted by Krokov

Is there a strat or anything for collecting all 12 note/entries?

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There are a few guides circulating around, but this is the one I used myself - https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...iant_dungeons/

I personally did all mine solo, but running with friends if you've got em would probably be more fun/a wee bit quicker (maybe). Just have to make sure they know what steps need to be done as some of them are pretty easy to mess up.

I finally got around to testing out the party matching option since I'm in farm-mode now, and honestly I would avoid that if you're trying to get all 12 notes in a somewhat-timely manner. My handful of sample runs were all pretty much free-for-alls with people running ahead and clicking all the things. lol.

variant dungeon makes sense to me.
It's not really my thing but can tell it's really well done and works as intended with appropriate rewards

criterion on the other hand just left me wondering "who is this even for?"
to me personally it almost feels like every aspect of it is out of balance

I did the variant one several times, and then gave the criterion one a shot. The former was some lighthearted low-stakes fun that I could do after work without any issues. The latter was absolutely brutal; I genuinely thought it was the savage version until someone told me it was the "extreme" tier, lmao. I'll have to try it again over the weekend when I'm not so tired.
I had fun with it. I also feel like I might have completed it already, since I've been through the whole map and seen a ton of different endings. I'm not super stoked to go back in for the rewards, since their price is rapidly deteriorating and none of it appeals to me personally. We'll see, I guess.

Erk !
The rewards really sucks and I'm not dreaming cross-dress/cosplay my Aura in a mafia.

Only tried one run of variant and didn't kill the first boss of criterion but so far I've enjoyed both dungeons a lot. Can't wait to finish all 12 routes! Figuring out mechanics with strangers whom I will never meet again is not my cup of tea so I'm looking forward to the guides coming out. I really enjoy having a difficult dungeon at last.

I would love it if we got a criterion dungeon every patch and got more tomes from it. Two 40 minute runs of this every week would be preferrable to 4 expert roulettes.

Variant dungeon was neat but blind progging the Criterion dungeon was the most fun I've had in the game in a long time. Looking forward to trying the Savage mode and future dungeons like this.

The first two bosses of variant are a delight.
Fast paced mechanics, interesting mechanics and thematic.
But the last boss is pain. It might not be later on with the strategies.

Clearing the trash isn't interesting at all. As Yoshida said, multi pull is too dangerous.

The rewards are really disappointing, the extreme feels a bit... Not extreme but far closer to savage, it's harder than P5S, P6S and P7S combined.

Do the criterion dungeons drop potsherds as well?

Third run, took the left path. Very ICO/Shadow of the Colossus vibes from the later area. I may need to get my Wander cosplay glamour out again.

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

The first two bosses of variant are a delight.
Fast paced mechanics, interesting mechanics and thematic.
But the last boss is pain. It might not be later on with the strategies.

Clearing the trash isn't interesting at all. As Yoshida said, multi pull is too dangerous.

The rewards are really disappointing, the extreme feels a bit... Not extreme but far closer to savage, it's harder than P5S, P6S and P7S combined.

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Difficulty is subjective imo. Personally I found what I've seen so far in Criterion to be really deadbrain though I know for people just dipping their toe into harder content it probably is a bit jarring. Was really cute watching new people on fresh progs be like o.o this is way harder than I expected.

Variant was something I could just autopilot because most of the mechanics are things seen before in other trials/dungeons. Already have all 12 notes and the mount, will say the secret boss was the biggest pain of them all.

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Originally Posted by SentioftheHoukai

Since when was Bozja/Eureka in any way comparable to Deep Dungeons? One was always significantly larger in scope and had more lore to uncover, the other was barebones as all hells and had practically no story at all. Face it, and admit it. We got a downgrade..

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Downgrade to who? Personally I hated Bozja and Eureka and find deep dungeons much more fun so I'm not going to "face" or "admit" anything. People like different content. Sucks for people that liked bozja style content, but you can't make everyone happy.

And who said anything about them being comparable? The dev team is just mixing content styles. Bozja/Eureka took the place of deep dungeons when they were new to switch things up. They are now going back to deep dungeons. Next expansion we'll get something else. This is how they have been handling that type of content in their post expansion schedules for years now.

Getting hit by a penalty for leaving variant dungeons is weird when they can be completed with any number of players and compositions.

I absolutely love it. Can't wait for it to be a fixed part in every expac.

Finished All secrets on Variant mode now, took about 6h in total if you use your head, there was one i had to get a hint for however. After these 6 hours there's nothing left to be done except farm the currency and trade it for items that will cost peanuts in a week or 2. So this will once again be dead content in about 2-3 weeks.

SE has still not learned how to make content that lasts, the idea is good and some of the bosses are fun specially left path. But when you've seen the 15th barrel boss you just groan.
Excellent design and i loved using my head on the puzzles and clearing one path to get a hint for another but now i have 0 reason to go back ... ill wait 3 weeks and buy the glam items for 100k each.

The extreme version looks real fun and since I'm into savage and extreme its good for me, but for the casual player replacing Bozja or eureka with this ... is a massive L in content.

Also if you want the mount it will require a prebuild or solo since you need to do everything once and the chance for that to happen in df is going to be slim, you will redo the same things you already had over and over before a group will actually do a rarer one.

This will defiantly steer conflict in groups. So its both really great and really shite at the same time.