Variant & Criterion Dungeons

[Moebious]

The new Variant and Criterion seemed like great fun, until realizing how poor or lack of rewards there were. Once you've got your hamster mount, and you get lucky with Sabotender Umbrella & Sponge Silkie minion from random chest (or buy them from marketplace), you're pretty much done. The glam noir set isn't my cup of tea, so there's pretty much no reason to return. Not to mention that the extreme and savage versions having only a stupid chair mount, which can be bought on the market place as well.

In comparison, at least Palace of the Dead and Heaven on High, have means to get weapon glams, and when you clear them, in groups too, you get a token which can be exchanged for glowing earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and rings, along with their respective interaction trophy model, when you reached the final floor, for completion. Pumpkin Glass & Firecrest glam is still one of my most favorite accessory glams ever(except bracelets, needs more pumkins).
And yet the one earring you can get from the new Variant/Criterion is a complete joke, no interesting design, nor even a glow/light source to make it pop even a little bit.

If they don't want to add progression gear in these new content variety, at least add plenty of interesting novelty gear/glams to aim for.
All this "one and done" content, is starting to become a rather underwhelming and disappointing theme, for this Expansion. :/

[Alleo]

I have done one run of the Variant dungeon(s) right now and I liked what I saw there. I look forward to solving the puzzles by myself and only will get a guide if I am truly lost.

The rewards for the harder versions could have been a bit more, but I do like them for the normal one. I dont think this content is meant to be run as long and as much as a deep dungeon is (after all we will get that one later in this expansion too) and for that its imo fine. I hope we will get more of those in the future. I love the lore bits we get.

Even if I am done with this, I still have other stuff to do. Getting my currency for the first step of the relic weapons, tending to my island, doing the daily omicron quests and doing old ARR relics. (Right now I am doing all book steps for all jobs and its slow) And sometimes I will run Palace of the death and some treasure dungeons too. So all in all I am happy with the amount of things to do.

I'm confused as to why they opted to make some of the criterion rewards like the chair mount sellable on the MB.

You need a carrot on a stick if you want to convince people to run hard content, so giving them an option to bypass it entirely is just going to contribute to a lack of interest in the long term.

Maybe they thought that people running it would be able to get some nice Gil for selling them (thus making them run it more often since they could sell them again and again) while not forcing those of us, who are simply not good enough into this content. At least with the extremes and other fights you are able to unsynch them many years later, not sure if that is possible here.

[Hanayumi]

Ngl think this content wouldve been better suited for a 6.3x patch. Give folks a bit more time to gear up cause the ramp up to Criterion from Variant is fairly wide, they couldve slapped tome upgrade mats for rewards even if as weekly, and it couldve given second wind to raids which its already fairly dead especially with no ult this tier...

[MisterNublet]

What an absolute massive disappointment Criterion is. They had such a big opportunity to create something amazing, so instead of making another Eureka/Bozja, they created another ol' dungeon with a handful of harder mechanics and a rez modifier... while simultaneously giving it some of the worst loot. God forbid we have alternative gearing routes.

For Criterion, they could have taken the variant dungeon, have only one path open each week, created a handful of new bosses for each path, and added additional instance modifiers that change the flow of battles. Criterion Savage could have the same (with no rez), but the paths could be random each time you enter the instance. Loot could have been twine/shine once a week. This would have given longevity to the new content.

Nah, here's more half-arsed content that'll die off within a few weeks. FFXIV and disappointing end game content; name a more iconic duo.

[Deveryn]

FFXIV and disappointing end game content; name a more iconic duo.

ya'll and your garbage takes

[Ransu]

What an absolute massive disappointment Criterion is. They had such a big opportunity to create something amazing, so instead of making another Eureka/Bozja, they created another ol' dungeon with a handful of harder mechanics and a rez modifier... while simultaneously giving it some of the worst loot. God forbid we have alternative gearing routes.

For Criterion, they could have taken the variant dungeon, have only one path open each week, created a handful of new bosses for each path, and added additional instance modifiers that change the flow of battles. Criterion Savage could have the same (with no rez), but the paths could be random each time you enter the instance. Loot could have been twine/shine once a week. This would have given longevity to the new content.

Nah, here's more half-arsed content that'll die off within a few weeks. FFXIV and disappointing end game content; name a more iconic duo.

Bozja/Eureka are literally just fate farming where everything dies in .5 seconds. I don't get why people love them so much. That content is boring as hell.

[MisterNublet]

Bozja/Eureka are literally just fate farming where everything dies in .5 seconds. I don't get why people love them so much. That content is boring as hell.

I don't disagree. But I still enjoyed them due to the fact that they were "open world" content with a handful of players occupying the same location, which made it feel like I was in a MMO again. It's why I preferred Eureka over Bozja, because Eureka felt like it had more of a community within it. Though Bozja had better fights through the boss fate system, and it was fun watching people get annihilated by the red chocobo or behemoth. They also had gear that you could use for alts.

Even with Eureka/Bozja being boring as hell, it still held my attention longer than the variant dungeon did (more than an hour). Criterion is a one and done for me unless something drastic changes soon.

ya'll and your garbage takes

Includes yours.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

The new Variant and Criterion seemed like great fun, until realizing how poor or lack of rewards there were. Once you've got your hamster mount, and you get lucky with Sabotender Umbrella & Sponge Silkie minion from random chest (or buy them from marketplace), you're pretty much done. The glam noir set isn't my cup of tea, so there's pretty much no reason to return. Not to mention that the extreme and savage versions having only a stupid chair mount, which can be bought on the market place as well.

To correct you, Savage has a pair of Earrings exclusive to it that requires the manuscript item drop that comes from clearing it and -cannot- be put up on the marketboard, along with a housing item that I -think- cannot be MB'd either. It also has a title, to be technical.

Not saying the rewards are lackluster however, just that there are some exclusive things beyond 'just the chair'.

[Midareyukki]

Bozja/Eureka are literally just fate farming where everything dies in .5 seconds. I don't get why people love them so much. That content is boring as hell.

Yeah, stuff dies way too quick in there. And I honestly can't tell if the problem is the scaling the Fates have or if it's the Lost Actions. And I'm willing to bet it isn't just a combination of both.

That said? Open world content, people trying to work together (at least on launch) to spawn stuff, interesting fights with the CE system they had going on, minigames like the Duels or farming for clusters...

I do wish that it had a bit more to it than "just glorified Fates", but I said the exact same about Eureka at the time, so at least Bozja's a slight improvement over that. Still needs a bit more to it. Eureka added the bunny fates, but it honestly could have just reworked the treasure map system to fit Eureka, it'd at least make it a group interaction thing. They otherwise had a good idea for the sort of areas they wanted, I just feel they could do with a bit "more".

Just like every other content they've been implemented. "It's a nice idea, but it needs 'more'". And then they drop it, and I am sad.

[Libby9]

All they had to do for these new dungeons was create a unique gearing system for them like Eureka. The most disappointing thing is that you can’t even mess around with different jobs. You’re pigeon holed to the job that you acquired savage gear with.

I had a few friends sign up just to mess around in harder 4man content and it’s not even doable without weeks of raid and/or tomestone gear. Why is that a requirement for a dungeon with no reward? A unique gear system inside the dungeon would solve this and let people explore different jobs as well.