Variant & Criterion Dungeons

[Kaliesto]

Hello I was directed here from my topic on the subject, so I'll transfer over what I wrote:

I think its kind of cool this idea was something I posted before awhile back minus some differences, and while I definitely like the direction this is going in, but there is a few gripes I have mainly with the normal difficulty version.

The Cons:

1) I think the Monsters should be randomized, and slightly more tougher and their mechanics should be on the same speed like the harder version. Not only will this get players a bit more trained, but helps them out in the harder content.

2) While I appreciate the slightly different mechanics with the 1st boss, but I think the 1st boss in each pathway should had been different rather than the same boss. The fun factor gets hurt in this regard.

3) Since you can change jobs during the dungeon run I think this was a missed opportunity to let different jobs have the ability to open different pathways or find interesting things, it would have added a bit more replay and fun.

4) More Reward variety, I've seen the complaints on the forums here about it.

The Pros:

1) The puzzles are decent enough, Its kind of hard to do puzzles these days because of the internet but still I like it was still tried.

2) The Branching pathways to fill up that book was a nice way to get players to try different routes. There has been a lot of arguments regarding how if this was done in normal dungeons people would try to take the path of least resistance, but the rewards here negates that and everything is on even ground. I wanted something like this for a very long time, and happy Yoshida & Friends made the attempt here. I would love this actually start being done for normal dungeons in general!

I would say they should done more branching paths during the first part of the dungeon besides the last half just to make more interesting, but this is a good start.


That is all I can think of atm..I kind of wanted to share this with the JPN forum, but I'm none too confident using DeepL.

[AstreMcClain]

I will admit whole heartedly that I am not clever enough to remember something on another route (I Spent all day hugging walls looking for some kind of lever to stores on the map after killing all the enemies there and to get to the shaded area on route 1). Eventually I grew tired after 3 Attempts (Two were purposely saying Lightning at the door) and went to route 1 with a friend who was having the same issue as I was on route three. Neither of us knew what to do there because nothing stood out. After He logged off, I looked up a guide (Just for one and two, I didn't scroll past that) cause it was very frustrating cause we ran back and forth several times on route 1 after clearing the entire path.

It wasn't until I made a PF to get some help with three that I was told that the hints were in the pages you get after clearing a route, I remained skeptical and pressed onward, they then told me that the codes for one and two were in another route.

Needless to say I don't do the "This quest won't be logged in journal..." quests for the same reason I find these hard: Even when I notice something and write it down I don't seem to fully understand what it is the game is trying to tell me in that moment so me remembering something from another route is extremely hard for me to even accomplish.

And while I know that I could always join a party and get help, like many other people have seen and stated in this thread, they don't know the hints and wind up screwing it up, or as the same friend had told me, they always bicker about which way to go.

Eventually I got into the stores mentioned earlier after I thought about it at the same time as the person helping me mention it but yeah, I don't like this if I have to remember other routes while looking for something I wouldn't recognize blatantly.

The Bosses are also Damage Sponges solo but that's an okay price to pay for being Solo. Other than that, I like the concept and everything.

No, I have not done every route at the time of writing this for obvious reasons as I like to clear things like this route by route considering I spent a combine two hours looking for a hidden switch for the door to the position.

Despite what you might think, no this is not a troll reply I actually spent most of my day hugging walls until I doordashed and the did the PF stuff when I got back.

[AmpelioB]

I will admit whole heartedly that I am not clever enough to remember something on another route (I Spent all day hugging walls looking for some kind of lever to stores on the map after killing all the enemies there and to get to the shaded area on route 1). Eventually I grew tired after 3 Attempts (Two were purposely saying Lightning at the door) and went to route 1 with a friend who was having the same issue as I was on route three. Neither of us knew what to do there because nothing stood out. After He logged off, I looked up a guide (Just for one and two, I didn't scroll past that) cause it was very frustrating cause we ran back and forth several times on route 1 after clearing the entire path.

It wasn't until I made a PF to get some help with three that I was told that the hints were in the pages you get after clearing a route, I remained skeptical and pressed onward, they then told me that the codes for one and two were in another route.

Needless to say I don't do the "This quest won't be logged in journal..." quests for the same reason I find these hard: Even when I notice something and write it down I don't seem to fully understand what it is the game is trying to tell me in that moment so me remembering something from another route is extremely hard for me to even accomplish.

And while I know that I could always join a party and get help, like many other people have seen and stated in this thread, they don't know the hints and wind up screwing it up, or as the same friend had told me, they always bicker about which way to go.

Eventually I got into the stores mentioned earlier after I thought about it at the same time as the person helping me mention it but yeah, I don't like this if I have to remember other routes while looking for something I wouldn't recognize blatantly.

The Bosses are also Damage Sponges solo but that's an okay price to pay for being Solo. Other than that, I like the concept and everything.

No, I have not done every route at the time of writing this for obvious reasons as I like to clear things like this route by route considering I spent a combine two hours looking for a hidden switch for the door to the position.

Despite what you might think, no this is not a troll reply I actually spent most of my day hugging walls until I doordashed and the did the PF stuff when I got back.

i'm gonna be honest, I don't think you ever played a puzzle game (i'm not judging you, that's mostly the impression I getting) because that's really common in puzzle games, you are thinking as each route as a separate thing and not as a whole setup, it's not the kind of thing that you just ram down. also is new content don't be sad just because you didn't clear it all day one. it's not an competition.

[hobostew]

stuff

I think where it stands to be a problem is that in say a puzzle platformer you might run into a puzzle you can't solve because you need something from a different area the general idea is communicated in a much clearer fashion where as here you would expect the puzzle solves to have some in dungeon/visual clues but instead they are tucked away in little notes in a journal. Even worse someone might not have the time or desire to run this more than once or twice any given day and the expectation that you remember what you've tried or haven't over the course of weeks is kind of ridiculous. You also don't know if you got the solve right until you finish clearing the entire thing so you're set to potentially be running the same instance over and over hoping you worked out the correct answer.

I imagine most people will just look up a guide cause at the end of the day ain't nobody got time for that.

[Deveryn]

I imagine most people will just look up a guide cause at the end of the day ain't nobody got time for that.

If people don't have time for that, this game isn't for them. All we have is time and there are groups that have already done it without looking at a guide.

[AmpelioB]

I think where it stands to be a problem is that in say a puzzle platformer you might run into a puzzle you can't solve because you need something from a different area the general idea is communicated in a much clearer fashion where as here you would expect the puzzle solves to have some in dungeon/visual clues but instead they are tucked away in little notes in a journal. Even worse someone might not have the time or desire to run this more than once or twice any given day and the expectation that you remember what you've tried or haven't over the course of weeks is kind of ridiculous. You also don't know if you got the solve right until you finish clearing the entire thing so you're set to potentially be running the same instance over and over hoping you worked out the correct answer.

I imagine most people will just look up a guide cause at the end of the day ain't nobody got time for that.

The content only got out this week jeez. Here, get some help.

[hobostew]

The content only got out this week jeez. Here, get some help.

It's not about FOMO it's about it being a hella tedious approach to a puzzle game but you go on and feel smug

[AmpelioB]

It's not about FOMO it's about it being a hella tedious approach to a puzzle game but you go on and feel smug

your point was mostly about time and tunnelling the content, I do consider that FOMO. feel free to think everyone is just attacking you rather then you are failing to communicate.