Variant & Criterion Dungeons

[Deveryn]

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.

It's the lost actions. I poked my head in yesterday and there were no more than 10 people in the zone. People came and went. Someone entered the party and suddenly bosses were melting. If it's not lost assassination, it's something else. I never got into that, as I was never getting that deep into the jobs that can do that.

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.

We don't need more gear and I'm sure the team was happy not to have to make more niche gear. We already have our standard sets. This is basically side content, so the rewards aren't going to offer an alternate path to something like savage tier gear.

Entry for criterion is 610. That's crafted gear. All you need is experience with mechanics and processing them.

[KenaiChoppa]

I did my first run solo. It was fun, good bosses, nice story line... im happy with it.

[Moebious]

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'.

I literally spoke of the chair mount being sellable, not the earrings. Even the quote of me you have there, has me only mentioning the chair mount, which is sellable on market board, and otherwise the sabotender umbrella and Sponge Silkie minion likewise.

I only mention the earrings in a different paragraph later on, in regards to its bland design in comparison to other accessory rewards from HoH and PotD, not once did I write them being sellable.

You literally taped two different paragraphs together.

[Tatiana]

I think they need more rewards, be it glams or minions but I feel like the rewards have relatively limited appeal and there aren't really very many. I wouldn't add a gearing system to this at all, but more cosmetics and maybe better titles would make it more worth-while for longer-term play.

[angienessyo]

This is the kicker for me. The content I look forward to the most was told to Take 5 this expansion and this is what they made in it's stead. Rather disappointing by comparison and the bad rewards, 2 mounts I personally don't care for and an outfit that doesn't look good on me, aren't exactly stimulating for me. Hoping something improves for the future V&C Dungeons as the game now lacks larger scale content that I like outside of one weekly Alliance Raid run

I loved Eureka and while I didn't enjoy Bozja as much, I still liked it. (I liked both enough to get Ozma+the Bozja bike) But I'm not at all shocked this style of content didn't return. People complained about Eureka non stop when it was new and they hated it so much that they made it to where the bulk of your relic grind could be done outside Bozja when that came out. And people still complained about Bozja, so I'm not expecting them to do Eureka/Bozja style content again.

I would like to see them expand upon Variant/Criterion dungeons in the future. Maybe gradually add more wings to do or something because I already did all the normal paths and I'm getting through harder versions fairly quickly with my group. The biggest problem with losing Eureka/Bozja is there isn't any sort of a grind to focus on at the moment.

[AmpelioB]

biggest problem with losing Eureka/Bozja is there isn't any sort of a grind to focus on at the moment.

While we got Gangos on 5.25 the Bozja Southern Front only came during the 5.35 together with the glowing Resistance Weapons

This is not something new, since hw relic has been going past and past behind patches

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

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, and some FATEs has poorly scaled, squishy health pools for some reason.

FATEs scaling depends on number of players in vicinity when it was cleared last time. If the FATE was cleared with very few people, the next time it spawns everything will have far less health pool. This value obviously fluctuates rather frequently depending on how players interacts in each zones. But a player with decent valor rays & proper LA+Essence? They can decimate FATEs real fast regardless. Been there before myself, annihilating FATEs with stupidly powered Profane WHM paired with Seraph & Font. Or as a Caster with their Flare Stars. or Profane AST paired with Font+Banish/Burst+Carding self.

[ovIm]

I am a bit disappointed that you can't use Criterion Dungeons to gear up. Of course, a whole new set of gear would be too much to ask, however, tomestone upgrade materials and perhaps another earring so people that don't do savage for one reason or another can gear up to max ilevel without waiting for the catch up patch would have been nice.

That being said, I enjoy this kind of content. Variant dungeons solo do make you feel like a proper adventurer, and finding the solutions to the different puzzles is a lot of fun. I do hope SqEx expands on this kind of content.

[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.

[RyuDragnier]

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.

Because it's EX/Savage difficulty, that's why raid gear is important. They outright mentioned before it even came out that it was going to be that difficult.