Criterion Dungeons are great, but the entire system misses the mark.

After playing through the variant and criterion dungeons, I found the content to be very refreshing. Yes, I enjoyed the clue system and how everything leads to all the different endings in Variant. I liked the Criterion dungeon even more. I liked how I have to plan mitigation on fights, and dungeon bosses actually feel great and it was a fresh breath of air.

However, one thing I felt I had to say is this: I raid Savage. I have the luxury of being able to clear this content in a reasonable time, with extra gear that players who do not raid Savage may not have the opportunity to. These dungeons have the potential of teaching would-be end-game content players of how to approach raiding in general. However, the difficulty of the normal mode is set to basically be what it would be in Savage, and Savage is just the original but with a global enrage timer and harsher death penalties. This means that the people that would definitely benefit from having a 4-man endgame content the most (aka players who are trying to learn their role better and only having normal trials/raids). Moreover, I do also have a gear advantage because I cleared Savage, a fresh player would only have some pieces of tome gear, and new players to the system? Just fresh crafted!

In case I did not actually make myself clear, Criterion dungeons (normal that is, Savage is at the perfectly correct spot) are designed for the completely wrong reason. It should very firstly help players who are not comfortable with 8 man high-end content get into these high-end content (because a smaller group is just easier to manage), not a second piece of endgame content that high-end content players already can enjoy very well in. It also gives players who are hestitant on going into savage raiding (especially because fresh players today get shunned as they have no gear) a secondary way of progression, while also allowing players in general to also gear up alt classes to have fun and more importantly, help the newer/weaker players progress into high-end content.

Of course, I give YoshiP the benefit of the doubt. I don't think they had prepared an armor set for Criterion dungeons and it may not be in their first intention to do so, but it is very clear that the first iteration is VERY good. Just tone the normal difficulty down just a bit closer to EX since it is currently harder than EX, keep the Savage the same and give it replayable value by rewarding gear/glam on top of what is already provided.

Unfortunately, I believe they gave up on the idea of attempting to make midcore content years ago and just defaulted to savage-styled 4m for Criterion. They have never been able to successfully bridge the gap between extreme and savage and criterion just proves that fact even further.

This will likely persist for all other criterion dungeons as well, so I don't expect it to change. I genuinely believe they are comfortable with the skill gap as it is and prefer the "jump into savage and fake it till you make it" approach that everyone is so accustomed to.

Don't forget the Variant version. I've only done it solo but it's an excellent solo challenge. It took me some wipes to learn the mechanics in some routes and it's a way to build some confidence before progressing to the Criterion ones.

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Originally Posted by TheSankaku

After playing through the variant and criterion dungeons, I found the content to be very refreshing. Yes, I enjoyed the clue system and how everything leads to all the different endings in Variant. I liked the Criterion dungeon even more. I liked how I have to plan mitigation on fights, and dungeon bosses actually feel great and it was a fresh breath of air.

However, one thing I felt I had to say is this: I raid Savage. I have the luxury of being able to clear this content in a reasonable time, with extra gear that players who do not raid Savage may not have the opportunity to. These dungeons have the potential of teaching would-be end-game content players of how to approach raiding in general. However, the difficulty of the normal mode is set to basically be what it would be in Savage, and Savage is just the original but with a global enrage timer and harsher death penalties. This means that the people that would definitely benefit from having a 4-man endgame content the most (aka players who are trying to learn their role better and only having normal trials/raids). Moreover, I do also have a gear advantage because I cleared Savage, a fresh player would only have some pieces of tome gear, and new players to the system? Just fresh crafted!

In case I did not actually make myself clear, Criterion dungeons (normal that is, Savage is at the perfectly correct spot) are designed for the completely wrong reason. It should very firstly help players who are not comfortable with 8 man high-end content get into these high-end content (because a smaller group is just easier to manage), not a second piece of endgame content that high-end content players already can enjoy very well in. It also gives players who are hestitant on going into savage raiding (especially because fresh players today get shunned as they have no gear) a secondary way of progression, while also allowing players in general to also gear up alt classes to have fun and more importantly, help the newer/weaker players progress into high-end content.

Of course, I give YoshiP the benefit of the doubt. I don't think they had prepared an armor set for Criterion dungeons and it may not be in their first intention to do so, but it is very clear that the first iteration is VERY good. Just tone the normal difficulty down just a bit closer to EX since it is currently harder than EX, keep the Savage the same and give it replayable value by rewarding gear/glam on top of what is already provided.

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I think new players to savage being shunned is a bit of a stretch considering casual & midcore fresh prog groups are still being formed. That really only matters in hardcore groups from my experience while the others are willing to take on fresh faces (midcore tending to want their members to at least have their rotation down well). Just saying as someone who's bounced between different levels of statics across different periods of when tiers were relevant.

I will give it to you though that I wish they switched it up more for the Savage version, like with different mechs than normal Criterion.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Don't forget the Variant version. I've only done it solo but it's an excellent solo challenge. It took me some wipes to learn the mechanics in some routes and it's a way to build some confidence before progressing to the Criterion ones.

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The difficulty gap between Variant and Criterion is too big, Variant is your generic normal mode face-roll dungeon (and as a result solo is a joke for tanks like WAR) while Criterion is harder than first savage floors. Everybody expected that Criterion will be more akin to Extreme but seems its not, like OP said its effectively something else for savage raiders to.

Everybody thought it would be like Extreme because Savage was above it. I think they would've actually used the term if they meant it to be that kind of jump in difficulty.

I think they left armor out for a couple of reasons. This is something new they're trying and they didn't want to accidentally pull people out of the savage tier to farm this instead. If they let you trade tokens for something like savage books, they would most likely lock down the content for weekly clears.

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Originally Posted by Somnolence

The difficulty gap between Variant and Criterion is too big, Variant is your generic normal mode face-roll dungeon (and as a result solo is a joke for tanks like WAR) while Criterion is harder than first savage floors. Everybody expected that Criterion will be more akin to Extreme but seems its not, like OP said its effectively something else for savage raiders to.

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To add to a response to the post you quoted:
Don't forget variant being "a good challenging content solo" is a pointless argument. Most of the difficulty in savage isn't your ability to avoid mechanics. It's coordination with your team. No solo run is going to help you learn that.

Pugging with three randoms in bits of Tome gear vs going in with friends in Savage gear and raid markers is like playing a totally different game.

Criterion dungeons are not fit for purpose in the Group Finder.

Which is a shame but as other posters have said, this is not mid-core content... there is no 'hard' dungeon content, nor will there ever be... just a frustrating boss gauntlet that needs preparation.

I admit that I had hoped the first Criterion dungeon was more mid-core level than what it is right now.

Something along the lines of OG unnerfed Diabolos Hollow, Shinryu, Thunder God Cid or Ultima; The High Seraph.

I think the system hits the mark perfectly, just not the mark you personally wished it would hit. They've said from the beginning that Criterion dungeons are meant precisely for people who want more challenging 4-man content. The intention behind it was never to be a stepping-stone to 8-man raiding. It's designed for exactly the people who don't want to do 8-man raids, but want something more difficult than what was currently offered.