We don't need Savage tire in Criterion Dungeons

Greetings, I cleared the Another Sil'dihn Subterrane (Savage) and Another Mount Rokkon (Savage) in patch 6.28 and 6.48 respectively, taking 11 and 13 hours to progress.


To get straight to the point, I believe the Savage tire difficulty in Criterion Dungeons should be removed. Players should just clear it in Criterion Dungeons difficulty without anyone dying.


From the perspective of an average player like me, the endgame of the Savage difficulty is rather painful and does not offer adequate rewards. This nearly sapped my motivation to continue the guide. The second phase of Mount Rokkon is better designed than the first phase in the Sil'dihn Subterrane but there are still issues I'd like to bring up.


Weird Design Choices
In Savage and normal difficult modes in Criterion Dungeons, the only changes are in numerical values. Speaking from a player's perspective and not as a game design expert, I find this quite peculiar. Within the game's 8-player raids, we already have both normal and Savage versions, and even in the Bozjan, there is a Savage difficulty. The mechanics between these modes are night and day, helping us understand what Savage means in the context of the game.


So why does the Savage in the Criterion Dungeons only involve numerical changes? In interviews, developers have responded with comments like:
"Nakagawa: Even though the mechanics are exactly the same, the tension while playing in Savage is already quite high, so I don't think there's a need to add anything else" and "Yokozawa: It would be sickening to finally get to the third boss and then be wiped out by an unfamiliar skill. We don't want players to feel this way."


However, I think this is comparing apples to oranges. The difficulty in games can be expressed in many ways; simply adjusting the numbers is a lazy approach. Take, for example, the patch 6.45 update in The Masked Carnivale, where achieving a perfect score on Level 32 requires not breaking the crystal. Players must use physical attacks to defeat the boss, and because of these constraints, the difficulty increases naturally. This is in contrast to just adding a Level 32 (Savage ) that only increases the boss's attack power and health.


Similarly, in Eureka Orthos, whether you clear it in a 4-player group or solo, the attributes of the monsters don't change. The number of team members can significantly alter the difficulty of the dungeon, which is a good design for varying difficulty. It doesn't simply pump up the boss's attack power and health in the new deep dungeon Eureka Orthos(Savage).


So, I believe this could be modified into a single achievement. If you complete it without dying in the Criterion Dungeons, you can directly get the achievement. There's absolutely no need for a separate Savage mode.

The benefit of this approach is that I don't have to keep two sets of waymarks. When initially playing in Savage I have to mark and record each boss anew, which is unnecessary if the mechanics remain the same. Additionally, it can effectively reduce frustration. When players aim for achievement titles, even if they fail, they can still complete the battle by downgrading to Criterion Dungeons difficulty to get the rewards, mitigating some of the disappointment.


Excessive Focus Required
Although you can repeatedly practice in the Criterion Dungeons difficulty, in Savage, players almost need to bring the same level of focus required for "ultimate" raids—sometimes even more. Even in the current hardest "ultimate" raid, Omega, there are moments where you can afford to have players die and still complete the raid in content. However, the tolerance for mistakes in Savage is much lower, and the duration is even longer (22-23 minutes). This results in a very strong sense of frustration if a mistake is made.


Insufficient Rewards
In a previous interview, Ishikawa Natsuko mentioned the reward system: "The rewards are modeled after those of Deep Dungeon. Although they're not powerful weapons, they are precious souvenirs for clearing the content." However, there's a clear distinction: Solo Deep Dungeon is tackled alone, allowing you to adjust your pace and timing as you like. In this situation, even if the reward is just a title, it's acceptable.


On the other hand, the Savage seriously lacks appropriate rewards, making the recruitment of three other teammates a challenging task in itself. Due to its high difficulty, it necessitates that your teammates also have a relatively high skill level in the game. Additionally, once the content becomes outdated, recruitment will become exceedingly difficult. I found a few communities focused on this mode in the Japanese data center, and while there was interest in organizing runs for the Criterion Dungeons difficulty, there were hardly any recruitments for Savage. Given the presence of gear-level restrictions, it's foreseeable that recruiting for older challenges will become increasingly difficult.

Regarding the Criterion Dungeons Difficulty
I'm quite satisfied with the current Criterion Dungeons difficulty. The level of challenge is reasonable, the progression process is relatively relaxed and enjoyable, and there isn't excessive pressure to grind. Plus, you can even get a mount as a 10M reward. Previous interviews mentioned the design philosophy of "casual play with friends," allowing for conversation while progressing, and "replayability," which indeed meets expectations. Overall, it's content that I'm very pleased with.


More Interesting Design
In Bozja, we've seen a lot of interesting and unique skill designs. Why can't these be applied to the Criterion Dungeons as well? If each class had 10-20 skill choices (unlocked through story mode) and players could select any 2-3 from them, it would make combat much more interesting. Additionally, Savage could easily be modified to: "Clear without using any variable skills (including resurrection)," which would also indirectly increase the DPS pressure, requiring players to engage with mechanics more intensively.

Criterion (Savage) should be the difficulty that Criterion (Normal) is right now. Criterion (Normal) is too unforgiving for new players and too boring in terms of loot for endgame players.
I'm not asking to drop it to slightly-more-difficult-than-normal-raids, but something around the EX level, or difficulty closer to DR, is better than what it is right now.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Astrahime

Criterion (Savage) should be the difficulty that Criterion (Normal) is right now. Criterion (Normal) is too unforgiving for new players and too boring in terms of loot for endgame players.
I'm not asking to drop it to slightly-more-difficult-than-normal-raids, but something around the EX level, or difficulty closer to DR, is better than what it is right now.

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I agree or keep it for those who really like that but to me what this game really lacks is some more Ex level type of content. Something that requires some thinking and understanding the fight but not a prog group. Between Variant which I did solo and died only about 4-5 times total clearing the 12 paths (only need to see a mechanic once if unsure and the adds were just damage sponges meant to slow you down with zero mechanics) and Criterion, there is a huge gap and void.

Atm there is only 1 Ex trial per patch. The rest is either braindead dungeons or savage mode that require 8 people which normally requires you to join a static or a PF for countless hours. Ex is good as it can be cleared in a reasonable amount of time for those of us that have limited time. An Ex version of Mount Rokkon and Sil'dihn would have been nice as you can go with 3 friends when people are available (and not finding 7 people and wait in PF) and figure mechanics (without a request to look for specific vids in advance for mechanics) for those of us who like to do that but have limited time.

Clearing Critereon normal is hard enough yes, I got no idea why this Savage exists or who it's for.