Variant/Criterion dungeons are more dead than Bozja/Eureka ever were

[Alexandre_Noireau]

Field Operations.

Eureka.
Bozja.

Need to return. And if this was cut for more Ultimates... Sigh.
They also serve a very good design "relief". They are places of more horizontal progression, or at least "diagonal", where you keep getting levels but they are OTHER levels. And specially interesting in Bozja to have those cool actions and actual builds that are diferent...

Criterion is nothing, is not hard, is not rewarding, is not really interesting, doesn't have a narrative thread, nothing, adds absolutely nothing to the game.

The lack of a Field Operation in this expansion is my biggest dissapointment with it, and why im of the opinion that Endwalker in terms of concrete content added to the game, is lacking. Whatever is Dawntrailer, i really hope is not Endwalker, thematically is one thing, but if the core game remains the same... There might be a storm coming to that ship.

[OdinelStarrei]

Field Operations.

Eureka.
Bozja.

Need to return. And if this was cut for more Ultimates... Sigh.
They also serve a very good design "relief". They are places of more horizontal progression, or at least "diagonal", where you keep getting levels but they are OTHER levels. And specially interesting in Bozja to have those cool actions and actual builds that are diferent...

Criterion is nothing, is not hard, is not rewarding, is not really interesting, doesn't have a narrative thread, nothing, adds absolutely nothing to the game.

The lack of a Field Operation in this expansion is my biggest dissapointment with it, and why im of the opinion that Endwalker in terms of concrete content added to the game, is lacking. Whatever is Dawntrailer, i really hope is not Endwalker, thematically is one thing, but if the same core game remains the same... The might be a storm coming to that ship.

Not to speak for the dev ops here, but consider that back in Stormblood, Ultimate was a new thing. Yes, there were hints of it in things like SCOB(Savage) and if you want to be literal in terms of mechanics, A8S, but during that expansion, we got two ultimates, four exploration zones, and BA. Stormblood was STACKED. Coming up on Shadowbringers, we got one ultimate, two exploration zones, DR, Castrum, and Dal. A few less zones, but the zones had a lot more going on in them, some attempt at adjusting the formulas, and CEs/Duels/builds are much better in terms of complexity, enjoyment, and player expression. And I'm pretty sure that if Covid didn't exist, DSR would've been put inside of Shadowbringers, based on the explanation given for it's delay. DSR is not a fight developed only in Endwalker, and TOP has...controversies of it's own. The gradual shift in Ultimate fight design and difficulty over the last three expansions is worthy of a topic in and of itself.

It's only here, in Endwalker, where the content and how that content is incentivized to the playerbase, became a problem. We don't have enough insight on how resources were allocated to make a definitive judgement. I just know that it sucks for me.

[Rolder50]

Heck knows I did the first Criterion exactly once, thought it was boring, and didn't bother doing the savage version.

Then they released the second Criterion, I saw they made zero changes to the formula, so I didn't even bother doing the one clear.

[Jeeqbit]

It also doesn't help that BA and DRS are both made significantly more bearable and approachable by "experts" of the content who bring Physeos Weapons/Elemental Gear +2 or full triple ten stack DRS teams who absolutely encourage other players to join them for learning or reclears. There is nothing like that for Criterion

I actually disagree here. Criterion gets significantly easier at the max item level due to faster kill times and you can sync down a little higher once the next tier releases. So if you want it to be more approachable you just wait until the next tier releases or until you have max item level (which these statistics seems show people may have done for the previous Criterion and I remember seeing it increase in popularity at the end of 6.3 when even people in pure tomestone gear could be at almost 630).

However, I agree that Criterion Savage rewards don't seem good and what I quoted didn't even include Criterion Savage, because Criterion itself is already high-end content in that it involves learning the fight. Nevertheless, the savage clears also seem to be higher the longer it has been.

It could just be coincidence that there are more clears the longer the content has been out and that it is actually a reflection of interest in the content, but at a glance it doesn't seem we can dismiss the release date of the content as the reason when all of the clear rates scale with how long it's been out.

[Supersnow845]

I actually disagree here. Criterion gets significantly easier at the max item level due to faster kill times and you can sync down a little higher once the next tier releases. So if you want it to be more approachable you just wait until the next tier releases or until you have max item level (which these statistics seems show people may have done for the previous Criterion and I remember seeing it increase in popularity at the end of 6.3 when even people in pure tomestone gear could be at almost 630).

However, I agree that Criterion Savage rewards don't seem good and what I quoted didn't even include Criterion Savage, because Criterion itself is already high-end content in that it involves learning the fight. Nevertheless, the savage clears also seem to be higher the longer it has been.

It could just be coincidence that there are more clears the longer the content has been out and that it is actually a reflection of interest in the content, but at a glance it doesn't seem we can dismiss the release date of the content as the reason when all of the clear rates scale with how long it's been out.

Slightly outlevelling criterion doesn’t come close to how hard the vets abuse BA and DRS

Go into a kill log for ozma on a BA run and you’ll see that about 5 vets in full armour abusing DE/magic burst/EES are doing like 70% of the raids cumulative damage

[purgatori]

These were dead *days* after release on materia. Pointless content/pointless DC, take your pick.

[Anonemoose]

You WILL get Island Sanctuary 2.0
You WILL get more criterion dungeons with no rewards
You will NOT get new field operations
And you WILL be happy.

[Atelier-Bagur]

I didn't even do them once. From what I read there is no incentive to do them at all from what I gather.

Only real incentive is to collect all entries for both extra in-game lore and the mount. Which I think is fine for the casual player.

They could try to maybe reintroduce aethereal gear within Variant/Criterion dungeons or something.

Speaking of which remember when that used to be a thing? The pink gear items?

[Amnmaat]

Or you know.

Variant dungeons could have made you clear it 100 times for you to get a weapon or weapon glam using that new ghostly magicked prism/firework as a weapon glow. Even if they had to re-use old weapon models from dungeons or something of that sort.

Balance be damned, the weapon would've had "ghost" status effect. This effect would have 10% chance to petrify your target in certain content like dungeons, bozja, eureka, variant dungeons, and open world areas.

But hey, this is square enix we're talking about hahaha, creative stuff like that is too much to ask; because BALANCE.

[DixieBellOCE]

Slightly outlevelling criterion doesn’t come close to how hard the vets abuse BA and DRS

Go into a kill log for ozma on a BA run and you’ll see that about 5 vets in full armour abusing DE/magic burst/EES are doing like 70% of the raids cumulative damage

How is that abusing, its how the content was designed to be run.

Anyone can do it, you just need to put some effort into collecting the logos actions, BA fragments and gear.
But we know putting effort into anything ingame is the opposite of what people want, so i'll be over here in my BiS maxed out BLM Eureka Gear with Cassie Earring and Blitzring, Elder and MburstL doing 30-40% of the raids damage... because i put the effort into obtaining everything for it.