Variant/Criterion's direction is worrying

Variant and Criterion were missed opportunities, for a lot of different reasons (rewards, failing to address midcore difficulty, etc), I know, but that's not what I actually disliked the most in that specific content.

In fact, I did like that it was something new and fresh, and that SE went all the way to answer to the demand of getting harder light party content is commendable, I want to get this out of the way. The more they try new things, the less stale the game, even if it fails to meet expectations. I also did like that variants could be done solo so that I can just chill and enjoy it at my own pace (but more on this later). Even for Criterion, it was a change of pace and it was kind of chill to prog and I did like this.

However my big gripe with variants and criterion is something I also despised this with Delubrum, which is ironically often considered a great piece of content (I did like the Delubrum encounters though): the further demolition of the role trinity and identity.

In fact, if you take Variant, it's designed for it to be role agnostic, which fundamentally rubs me the wrong way already because it removes most of the role and identity of healers, tanks etc. Everybody essentially becomes a glorified DPS, and anybody can take defensive mitigation or healing as a duty action. It completely reduces whatever is left of specific roles and duties to fill when you queue up as any job, and makes everybody an interchangeable piece on the board, where everybody can raise, heal or tank. This is literally what pushed me away from playing Variant in any group, and I thank providence that they provided a solo option with the duty actions, which is the only place where they made any sense. Before anybody says that it's like deep dungeons, I'd retort that no, it's not. Role agnosticism in deep dungeons make a lot more sense because deep dungeons aren't about the standard battle content.

And then, if you take criterion, unless it's the savage edition, everybody can raise, and since the fights are essentially designed a bit ala delubrum, it's 110% focused on mechanical execution rather than true party damage, busters and whatnot. Those fights have never felt closer to me than to arbitrary job colours where you only get support and dps roles because partner and spread mechanics are everywhere and require something to base themselves on. Even if more squishy than a tank, I can perfectly tank the bosses for extended amounts of time as a dps or a healer. Now, I understand why they gave raises to everybody, because unlike for 8 man parties, if the healer dies, it's checkmate (unless you have a SMN/RDM). I don't have an alternative answer for this to be honest (maybe a self re-raise duty action on the healer?), but matter of the fact is, it still compounds furthermore the slow deletion of roles and job based mechanics and toolkits that's been plaguing the game for a while.

Last but not least, criterion doubles down on mechanics and tries to be super fancy with overcomplicated mechanics like that pinboard or those samurai shadow clones and whatnot to make up for the lack of body checks. If anything it compounds the issue even further by showing how much of an empty shell everything else is those days, because that's the only thing remaining in the game that can bring any amount of challenge.

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Originally Posted by Valence

it's 110% focused on mechanical execution rather than true party damage, busters and whatnot.

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Not in Savage. My group had to plan mitigation to the letter because of having a WHM and a DRG, a job without a personal defensive. Missing a single Feint or not getting Heart of Corundum on me could easily lead to a death and thus a wipe. It was fun optimizing that though.

You cannot tank bosses for long as you claim either. Some hit harder with autos but have no TBs (first boss of Aloalo) and some hit for a bit less but have very hard hitting TBs (the other two).


My changes for Criterion would be:

- Making the no death run an achievement that you only require to do once (or more if you wish) by either not using any raises or activating the no-death mode at the entrance. This will make farming the weapon glams (assuming we'll still get more rewards) less tedious.

- On Savage, allow the use of either one rezz action or four (one per player) per run. Not allowing players to make at least one mistake for 20+ minutes is punishing and demotivating. It just makes the content harder through artificial difficulty, particularly if the wipe happens on the last boss. Design the encounters with this in mind to avoid cheesing.

- Provide more glams or rewards for Criterion, particularly the normal version. As it is right now, you simply farm a mount, an orchestrion and a frame. They can make Criterion normal a bit easier so that it's accessible to more midcore players.

- Make better use of all Variant bosses. The first common boss and the secret boss are not used in Criterion. I think it'd be a good idea if each Criterion dungeon had two paths with perhaps a common first boss and then different two bosses per path. Adjust rewards and achievements so that both paths are desirable despite possible difficulty differences. This would also allow them to use more varied trash mob encounters.

- Be more creative when it comes to the boss fights. They have shown that they have no problem experimenting more in Criterion compared to Savage. You have to work for your uptime often as a melee player*, for instance, and some of the mechanics of both bosses and trash mobs have been quite refreshing. However, in some other cases it feels like they just keep repeating the same formula so it'd be good if they leaned more in the new direction.

Implementing 2-target boss encounters or phases, for example, could be a thing to bring from Ultimates into Criterion. Enenra, the secret boss from Mt. Rokkon, would have been a perfect fit for this.

*This has also shown how fragile the balance between DPS jobs can be when melee need to work for uptime (although not equally for each melee job) and also how some jobs thrive in this kind of content whereas others do not. It's not a call for homogenization by any means but it's worth mentioning.


On another note, I don't think roles are being deleted due to the nature of Criterion. In fact, you can for instance clear it without melee DPS due to the strength of jobs like MCH or SMN in this content, and can easily be objectively better in some cases due to not having to work for your uptime as much. BLM is absolutely busted here as well.

Jobs that are less reliant on buffing others and deal higher personal damage are simply superior in this kind of content although obviously any comp can clear, even if the difficulty raises.

Furthermore, ranged jobs can help the melee and tank jobs keep more uptime by dealing with specific downtime mechanics like the wind and bubbles in the first boss of Aloalo or the line attack on the minimized healer in the second boss of Rokkon. Therefore, they can actively engage in mechanics beyond the basic tasks.

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Originally Posted by Valence

the further demolition of the role trinity and identity.
In fact, if you take Variant, it's designed for it to be role agnostic, which fundamentally rubs me the wrong way already because it removes most of the role and identity of healers, tanks etc. Everybody essentially becomes a glorified DPS, and anybody can take defensive mitigation or healing as a duty action.

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But that's what SE wants. SE wants more DPS roles with 'secondary' tasks - we're even getting two new DPS jobs in the new expac even though there are more than enough. But, it's because folks play healers and tanks less. I know I cringe when anyone wants me to bust out the whm; I didn't even bother to gear it this expac because I'm so disgusted with it. Why wouldn't I be? I get the side-eye if I'm not lighting up the DPS charts. It's an *expectation* now that healers are DPS. We don't have support roles - the abilities that XI had for true support roles have been kind of distributed among the DPS roles in this game. That sucks.

So what's the answer?

If they want everyone to be a DPS, then that's what they should do. Everyone is a DPS first, and then has some abilities to help out the party as a secondary task. Then those of us who actually enjoy the lore of being a White Mage and healing, or were maybe hoping for Red Mage to be more than just a rezbot or Bard to be more than... well... whatever the **** it is right now, could finally, once and for all, bury all our hopes.

May the days of balanced parties with jobs that all fulfilled different purposes rest in peace.

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Originally Posted by Souljacker

But that's what SE wants. SE wants more DPS roles with 'secondary' tasks - we're even getting two new DPS jobs in the new expac even though there are more than enough. But, it's because folks play healers and tanks less. I know I cringe when anyone wants me to bust out the whm; I didn't even bother to gear it this expac because I'm so disgusted with it. Why wouldn't I be? I get the side-eye if I'm not lighting up the DPS charts. It's an *expectation* now that healers are DPS. We don't have support roles - the abilities that XI had for true support roles have been kind of distributed among the DPS roles in this game. That sucks.

So what's the answer?

If they want everyone to be a DPS, then that's what they should do. Everyone is a DPS first, and then has some abilities to help out the party as a secondary task. Then those of us who actually enjoy the lore of being a White Mage and healing, or were maybe hoping for Red Mage to be more than just a rezbot or Bard to be more than... well... whatever the **** it is right now, could finally, once and for all, bury all our hopes.

May the days of balanced parties with jobs that all fulfilled different purposes rest in peace.

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The lore of whm is to devastate the battle field with holy.

I think they did this for variant dungeons in case you solo them, so that you survive tank busters and stuff. Although with how SE syncs content, I have legit tanked pulls and bosses on a Ninja recently when tanks died (thanks Feint, Shade Shift, Bloodbath, Second Wind).

I don't like the erosion of job identity and uniqueness. But I don't have an actual attachment to the trinity. In fact, I like the Rathalos and Stone Vigil (Hard) fights because of them not caring about tank enmity.

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Originally Posted by Valence

Variant and Criterion were missed opportunities, for a lot of different reasons (rewards, failing to address midcore difficulty, etc)

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Regarding midcore difficulty, I don't believe it was ever intended to be that. Players constantly asked to bring "WoW's mythic+" to FFXIV and to have 4-player raid content and this was the response.

In retrospect, it's fair to say it should have a midcore difficulty ie. criterion being in between variant and savage. But I think it is reasonable that the original concept was just "make it small-party raid content like mythic+" and that midcore difficulty wasn't in the original specification.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Regarding midcore difficulty, I don't believe it was ever intended to be that. Players constantly asked to bring "WoW's mythic+" to FFXIV and to have 4-player raid content and this was the response.

In retrospect, it's fair to say it should have a midcore difficulty ie. criterion being in between variant and savage. But I think it is reasonable that the original concept was just "make it small-party raid content like mythic+" and that midcore difficulty wasn't in the original specification.

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Those two aren't mutually exclusive. Mythic+ is neither raid content nor does it start out particularly difficult. And if they really tried to emulate Mythic+ it basically failed from it's inception, because it focuses on completely different aspects.
I'd argue high deep dungeon floors are closer to M+ than Criterion is.

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Originally Posted by Aco505

Not in Savage. My group had to plan mitigation to the letter because of having a WHM and a DRG, a job without a personal defensive. Missing a single Feint or not getting Heart of Corundum on me could easily lead to a death and thus a wipe. It was fun optimizing that though.

You cannot tank bosses for long as you claim either. Some hit harder with autos but have no TBs (first boss of Aloalo) and some hit for a bit less but have very hard hitting TBs (the other two).

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This is why I specified, "unless it's savage edition". I haven't quite frankly dealt with savage because I'm not interested. But it probably tends to show that the only content that somewhat makes sense may be the savage version. I don't like it, but it seems to be more coherent with itself.

Also never said you can tank bosses forever, but definitely for a while compared to savage, I've seen that whale being tanked almost from buster to buster which is probably half the fight... And, that's just, you know, just a tiny telling detail in the bigger picture.

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Originally Posted by Aco505

- On Savage, allow the use of either one rezz action or four (one per player) per run. Not allowing players to make at least one mistake for 20+ minutes is punishing and demotivating. It just makes the content harder through artificial difficulty, particularly if the wipe happens on the last boss. Design the encounters with this in mind to avoid cheesing.

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I mean, that's what ultimates are, so in a way it makes sense to me. I never liked that artificial difficulty, but past a point when you're progging phase 5+ or something, you have to go through 10+ minutes of gruesome fight again and again and again just to have the pleasure to prog for 15 seconds and wipe more where you left the fight. It's artificially inflated difficulty like no other that doesn't respect my time at all, but people seem to like it. I always assumed criterion savage seeked to stroke the same kind of feathers here.

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Originally Posted by Aco505

- Provide more glams or rewards for Criterion, particularly the normal version. As it is right now, you simply farm a mount, an orchestrion and a frame. They can make Criterion normal a bit easier so that it's accessible to more midcore players.

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Completely not the point of the thread, but I'd say they should make criterion normal comparable to challenging alliance raids and with a roulette behind + appropriate rewards yeah. Midcore content essentially.
If anything criterion normal should probably be closer to variant with randomly chosen paths (without the puzzles) so that it's fitting to a roulette or chainable content.

You know what? Delubrum had similar designs that eroded role identity a lot to my eyes as well, but the encounters were perfectly tuned for midcore content, imo.

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Originally Posted by Aco505

some of the mechanics of both bosses and trash mobs have been quite refreshing. However, in some other cases it feels like they just keep repeating the same formula so it'd be good if they leaned more in the new direction.

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I really enjoyed the trash. They wouldnt even need to change it much for midcore content. It was pretty neat without being overwhelming for that kind of difficulty.
However I've hated some of the bosses with a passion, but that's just a me problem. It's essentially doubling down on solving puzzles and (often convoluted) visual cues under a handful of seconds which I absolutely hate. Not what I'm looking for in the game period.

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Originally Posted by Aco505

On another note, I don't think roles are being deleted due to the nature of Criterion. In fact, you can for instance clear it without melee DPS due to the strength of jobs like MCH or SMN in this content, and can easily be objectively better in some cases due to not having to work for your uptime as much. BLM is absolutely busted here as well.

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Isn't that exactly the opposite though, aka deleting role specificity if everything is interchangeable?

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Originally Posted by Aco505

Jobs that are less reliant on buffing others and deal higher personal damage are simply superior in this kind of content

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Only because the hidden damage buffs provided to buffing jobs in that very content were botched by SE and unable to compete with selfish jobs. How they could mess this up I don't even know.

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Originally Posted by Aco505

Furthermore, ranged jobs can help the melee and tank jobs keep more uptime by dealing with specific downtime mechanics like the wind and bubbles in the first boss of Aloalo or the line attack on the minimized healer in the second boss of Rokkon. Therefore, they can actively engage in mechanics beyond the basic tasks.

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Sure. I guess. Some things still survive.

They design Criterion to be cleared at min ilvl but almost everyone is going in with raid BIS. It's more of an issue of Square not knowing what they want the difficulty of the mode to be and the timing of the content release. Criterion comes out well after the Savage raid tier is over and provides no actual gear upgrades, so the only people who end up doing it are people who have fully cleared Savage and are bored.

The content needs to be a pre-cursor to savage and not the other way around. But the mechanics are easily savage difficulty, because the so-called "Savage" version of the fight has the exact same mechanics and needs to appeal to hardcore players. So of course the "normal" version will have Savage difficulty mechanics as well. If they actually used the three difficulty levels properly, then we can have a properly tuned Savage version that people actually want to do and Criterion can maintain its forgiving nature to help people practice up for the Savage.

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Originally Posted by Miki_L

They design Criterion to be cleared at min ilvl but almost everyone is going in with raid BIS. It's more of an issue of Square not knowing what they want the difficulty of the mode to be and the timing of the content release.

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The timing is a problem. They can't add meaningful gear upgrades such as tomestone augments if they don't release them alongside the 8-person savage, because by the time they release many people will already have upgraded their gear from 8-person savage.

This is made worse by releasing the third one during the .5 patch, where many people are taking a break from the game, instead of in the first tier of savage, so that it can become a consistent part of raiding and gear progression in the form of extreme > criterion > savage > ultimate. Or, for people who jump into savage immediately, they can do extreme/criterion/savage alongside eachother and get useful gear and augments from all 3.

Variant is somehow a worse normal dungeon, due to being kept from doing big pulls, and you have to wait for RP walking npc, yapping the same dialouge every time.

12 different endings? more like fight the same miniboss 12 times, and each other boss 4 times each (one path you only fight the same boss 3 times yay). there is one unique hidden boss which is cool, but that's about it.
5 unique bosses, barely more than a normal dungeon. And no, the bosses having 1 new added abilitiy based on the choices you made, doesn't make it unique or new, its still the same fight 90% of the time

The puzzles are a joke aswell, and to call them puzzles is a insult to puzzles. Do you want to press the left or right buttom? so fun and exicting

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Originally Posted by Gullis

The puzzles are a joke aswell, and to call them puzzles is a insult to puzzles. Do you want to press the left or right buttom? so fun and exicting

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Most of them are just left or right (or "try all the objects in sight once"). There are some genuine puzzles that take some figuring out in each one though, which are based on hints given in the diary. I figured them out myself and there were genuinely some diary entries that I knew were hinting something, but it took me lots of attempts of trying different ideas to figure it out.

But trying those different things is painful because it requires going through a bunch of boring bosses just for your theory not to work.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Most of them are just left or right (or "try all the objects in sight once"). There are some genuine puzzles that take some figuring out in each one though, which are based on hints given in the diary. I figured them out myself and there were genuinely some diary entries that I knew were hinting something, but it took me lots of attempts of trying different ideas to figure it out.

But trying those different things is painful because it requires going through a bunch of boring bosses just for your theory not to work.

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yes, it does have a few good ones, but usually it boils down to just either picking option A or B

I think this speaks to a larger issue within the game itself, as theres no smooth transition to role agnostic gameplay within XIV as it stands. because I think having role agnostic content is fine, but with XIV it's either hard coded content where each role has a strict set of role based mechanics, or it's content where it's role agnostic, and this has never been more of an issue until now within EW.

my personal issue with the role agnostic gameplay with Variant/Criterion is that it feels derivative and boring compared to Bozja. in Delubrum you can at least have more fun mixing and matching the different essences and lost actions, but in Variant? boring heal, boring mitigation, boring fixed potency DoT.

I believe the fun of Variant is to adventure around and solve all the paths without using a guide to learn some neat lore. I'm sure any Lore Masters if any are present love Variants for this reason.

I believe the fun of Criterion is to be Savage-lite with core group of friends and offer a good challenge that is non-committal. (hopefully with rewards worth the effort along with your mount)


So my fundamental understanding of V/C is that it exists to be fun. I'm kind of okay with that.

Well considering that you can just buy the mount and the ost roll off the marketboard for the criterion normal stuff, it really doesn't add incentive to do so. Plus there is no reason to do Criterion Savage over and over again outside of Aloalo.

Edit: And this is coming from someone who done all 3 of them and has the epic hero title.

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Originally Posted by Nadda

I believe the fun of Variant is to adventure around and solve all the paths without using a guide to learn some neat lore. I'm sure any Lore Masters if any are present love Variants for this reason.

I believe the fun of Criterion is to be Savage-lite with core group of friends and offer a good challenge that is non-committal. (hopefully with rewards worth the effort along with your mount)


So my fundamental understanding of V/C is that it exists to be fun. I'm kind of okay with that.

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That's the issue with current Criterion though for me. It's not Savage-lite, it's quite punishing, and the rewards aren't quite worth it. It's created two problems:
1. People who wanted this as "somewhat challenging content with friends" get stuck with the normal Criterion and don't get the rewards that Savage gets. They do it maybe once then never touch again.
2. People who can do Savage also do it once and leave because the rewards aren't really worth it. They made all the cool stuff buyable on the MB and they tried on the weapon skins, but they honestly don't really look all that great, and you're certainly not getting them for ilevel.

I love the "easy" mode but I hope they work on the rest of it before we get another one in Dawntrail.

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Originally Posted by Infindox

That's the issue with current Criterion though for me. It's not Savage-lite, it's quite punishing, and the rewards aren't quite worth it. It's created two problems:
1. People who wanted this as "somewhat challenging content with friends" get stuck with the normal Criterion and don't get the rewards that Savage gets. They do it maybe once then never touch again.
2. People who can do Savage also do it once and leave because the rewards aren't really worth it. They made all the cool stuff buyable on the MB and they tried on the weapon skins, but they honestly don't really look all that great, and you're certainly not getting them for ilevel.

I love the "easy" mode but I hope they work on the rest of it before we get another one in Dawntrail.

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Yeah it just needs something.
I honestly think it should be another way to get Savage content gear.
Savage difficulty? Then Savage Gear.

If you can get twice as much savage gear per week or faster than how we've been gearing now.
That's more than enough incentive. To do it.

If you're a serious raider you hyper speed getting your bis.
If you're a raider but maybe not all your members show up in a casual setting - you can at least do the criterion savage for gear.
If you're new to raiding but non-committal but want to dip your toes in or don't have a group it'll be easier to get at least 4 people instead of 8.


OR maybe it can have an Tome to upgrade your tomestone gear?
I'm not sure exactly what... but it should be gear related.

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Originally Posted by Infindox

That's the issue with current Criterion though for me. It's not Savage-lite, it's quite punishing, and the rewards aren't quite worth it. It's created two problems:
1. People who wanted this as "somewhat challenging content with friends" get stuck with the normal Criterion and don't get the rewards that Savage gets. They do it maybe once then never touch again.
2. People who can do Savage also do it once and leave because the rewards aren't really worth it. They made all the cool stuff buyable on the MB and they tried on the weapon skins, but they honestly don't really look all that great, and you're certainly not getting them for ilevel.

I love the "easy" mode but I hope they work on the rest of it before we get another one in Dawntrail.

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For me there's a 3rd problem, it doesn't actually fulfill the niche I personally wanted, harder 4-man dungeons.

Criterion is really just 3 extreme/savage bosses with a corridor in-between, a very similar formula to the 8-man high-end content we've had for years.
To me it doesn't even qualify as a dungeon.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

But trying those different things is painful because it requires going through a bunch of boring bosses just for your theory not to work.

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That's an issue with all difficult content in this game if you do it blind, unfortunately.
If you're trying to figure out a mechanic 10 minutes into a fight and you want to test your solution, you have to slog through the previous 10 minutes again. (cough cough P7S)

I think people wanted something like M+ from wow which is really popular but variant and crieterion isn't that. V/C is all bosses the bosses have puzzle mechanics where its not obvious what is going on to someone that is watching the game, most people rely on videos to do these after the puzzle has been solved by other players that are good at puzzle solving. V/C difficulty comes from executing the puzzle correctly and less on dps/healing/tanking. M+ however all the bosses have very simple mechanics you can figure out what to do just by playing the game no need to watch a video or guide to figure it out the difficulty comes from higher boss hp and damage. So you have harder and harder dps/healing checks and they have a timer in order to get a higher keystone to do i higher level dungeon you have to beat the timer.

I would personally like it if FF14 had something else for difficulty besides puzzle bosses. Take the regular dungeons and start to scale up those bosses and mobs with more HP and damage taken.

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Originally Posted by Nicola_Kunu

That's an issue with all difficult content in this game if you do it blind, unfortunately.

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It's really only recently become a problem.

Older fights had significantly less bodycheck mechanics that would just wipe your party if so much as a single player was dead. Sure, doing the mechanic wrong might have killed half your party but you could recover.

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Originally Posted by Zumi

I think people wanted something like M+ from wow which is really popular but variant and crieterion isn't that. V/C is all bosses the bosses have puzzle mechanics where its not obvious what is going on to someone that is watching the game, most people rely on videos to do these after the puzzle has been solved by other players that are good at puzzle solving. V/C difficulty comes from executing the puzzle correctly and less on dps/healing/tanking. M+ however all the bosses have very simple mechanics you can figure out what to do just by playing the game no need to watch a video or guide to figure it out the difficulty comes from higher boss hp and damage. So you have harder and harder dps/healing checks and they have a timer in order to get a higher keystone to do i higher level dungeon you have to beat the timer.

I would personally like it if FF14 had something else for difficulty besides puzzle bosses. Take the regular dungeons and start to scale up those bosses and mobs with more HP and damage taken.

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M+ also doesn't rely entirely on it's bosses for difficulty, often the trash packs are the more lethal thing because they do more than just auto attack the tank. Knowledge over which route to take, what you can and can't pull together and which of the 6+ enemies to focus down is important.

I had hoped for a WoW mythic style dungeon- something where you get tokens or keys that allow you to progress to harder and harder difficulties that have floor affixes/debuffs players have to work around and the rewards are better gear and cosmetics. Basically, Similar to how in ffxiv HoH or PotD works, just in a more cinematic/dungeon style way but requires 4 people due to mechanics.
Even if it wasn't that exact formula; it needs to be something that encourages group play and not soloable as well as is challenging but also very rewarding.
I am really tired of 8 man savage content and want 4 man savage content that is rewarding.

Criterion/ Variant is not very rewarding, or worth repeating. (unless you just want to farm cosmetics which is all this place is for, just pick 1 path and do it over and over)
While the devs showed they finally started getting the hint with Aloalo savage, and rewarding players with a weapon upgrade that also gives them a cool effect, it still falls short.
It doesn't need so many paths unless the paths get more difficult and offer worthwhile rewards.
4-man savage content rewards should be near 8-man savage raid equivalent gear that isn't tomestone bound- As well as this savage mode ((that should offer near raid equivalent gear/weapons and cosmetics that aren't tomestone bound)) should also release after 8-man savage raids have been out for sometime.
The roles should be traditional; healer, 2 dps 1 tank and the fights not soloable due to mechanics that should require all 4 people. It should be unsync'd a long, long time after everyone has moved onto other expansions.
I do enjoy the cinematic aspect of these dungeons, the amount of paths though doesn't need to be a thing if it's only going to be the same boss each time.
Just increase the difficulty by putting in dps/heal checks and tank specific mechanics that need to be done in a specific allotted time.

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Originally Posted by Zumi

I think people wanted something like M+ from wow which is really popular but variant and crieterion isn't that. V/C is all bosses the bosses have puzzle mechanics where its not obvious what is going on to someone that is watching the game, most people rely on videos to do these after the puzzle has been solved by other players that are good at puzzle solving. V/C difficulty comes from executing the puzzle correctly and less on dps/healing/tanking. M+ however all the bosses have very simple mechanics you can figure out what to do just by playing the game no need to watch a video or guide to figure it out the difficulty comes from higher boss hp and damage. So you have harder and harder dps/healing checks and they have a timer in order to get a higher keystone to do i higher level dungeon you have to beat the timer.

I would personally like it if FF14 had something else for difficulty besides puzzle bosses. Take the regular dungeons and start to scale up those bosses and mobs with more HP and damage taken.

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^^^^^ This to the highest degree

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

For me there's a 3rd problem, it doesn't actually fulfill the niche I personally wanted, harder 4-man dungeons.

Criterion is really just 3 extreme/savage bosses with a corridor in-between, a very similar formula to the 8-man high-end content we've had for years.
To me it doesn't even qualify as a dungeon.

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Word.

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Originally Posted by Zumi

I think people wanted something like M+ from wow which is really popular but variant and crieterion isn't that. V/C is all bosses the bosses have puzzle mechanics where its not obvious what is going on to someone that is watching the game, most people rely on videos to do these after the puzzle has been solved by other players that are good at puzzle solving. V/C difficulty comes from executing the puzzle correctly and less on dps/healing/tanking. M+ however all the bosses have very simple mechanics you can figure out what to do just by playing the game no need to watch a video or guide to figure it out the difficulty comes from higher boss hp and damage. So you have harder and harder dps/healing checks and they have a timer in order to get a higher keystone to do i higher level dungeon you have to beat the timer.

I would personally like it if FF14 had something else for difficulty besides puzzle bosses. Take the regular dungeons and start to scale up those bosses and mobs with more HP and damage taken.

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I'd like that a lot too, but unfortunately there is nothing remaining in this game that would actually support such content. :c

And then we loop back on how encounters are literally the alpha and omega in this game with little else besides.