Variant & Criterion Dungeons

[WalksIntoMordor]

Impressions from the Variant (haven't tackled Criterion yet):

Pros:
Love the variable paths, and how little things can affect the fights that follow. It actually feels like a real dungeon.
Variant Actions help make it very solo-able. I've experimented with a bunch of jobs but settled on SMN with Variant Rampart and Variant Cure as my go-to - the bosses are about the same on most of the jobs I've done, but the trash melts under SMN's AOE onslaught. Also love how VRam and VSpirit Dart are OGCD abilities so you can weave them in whenever you have space. I get why the Cure wasn't OGCD, but it does throw off rotations a bit when you need to apply it.
Mechanics tended to be very well telegraphed, in a good way - they are easy enough to understand but still require thought and care to address.
LOVE the deep lore exploration. I knew about some of the things revealed in here from the Encyclopedia but the game never addressed them or left them not-fully-explored. It was great to see things like the old alliance between certain powers (won't spoil for those who haven't done the right routes) and the Sil'dih war come into focus.

Cons:
Biggest gripe is that changing jobs isn't really a thing you can do. You CAN switch, but then you're on cooldown with different abilities taking different time to get ready. While I would have liked anytime swapping, I get why that WOULDN'T work, but if you're going to allow it between pulls, make it so that we're ready to go.
Could do more with the trash, I feel. Make them a bit more meaningful.
I'm a bit disappointed there isn't a way to spend the SAVAGE resources on upgrade mats. I wouldn't expect that from the Variant or even Criterion, but Savage deserves it IMO.
While I enjoyed the Variant Actions, I also felt like they were TOO limited. Even if they don't want to make full on Lost Action holsters' worth of options, they could have made visual presentation variable for each player based on the jobs they have. So, instead of Variant Rampart, you could get the animation of Variant Darkest Night if you have DRK at 90, or even Variant Magicked Barrier. Keep the same mechanical effects, but let me choose to rep my other jobs visually at least.

Hopes/suggestions going forward:
Kind of hoping for some super rewards later down the line that allow you to spend the currencies from multiple Variant dungeons.
Also kind of expect/hope this will be relevant for the relic weapons.

[Aniya_Estlihn]

Also kind of expect/hope this will be relevant for the relic weapons.

Not gonna happen. They already said this relic series will be quest based like anima, they aren't going to tie it to new content, that's not the point of relics.