Why are Criterion dungeons so hard?

[Besame]

Spent a couple of hours trying the new Criterion dungeon out and got part way through the first boss. Having done a little Savage and EX in Endwalker, the Criterion dungeon comes across as yet more Savage level content. Why so hard? Especially since there's a Savage mode for it as well.

I was hoping we'd get some sort of middle ground - a duty that takes maybe 3 hours to clear for an average player. I can see the Criterion dungeon taking a lot longer than that.

I've seen a lot of people drift away from the game after msq because there isn't a good endgame for casual/average players - Savage/EX is very hard and time consuming, while normal stuff gets repetitive - and there's nothing inbetween. It's sad to see people go, but the right level of challenge isn't there to keep people around. The Criterion dungeon was an opportunity to fill that niche, but sadly I don't think it's going to help.

I tried a solo and a group. Trash was fine, bosses were taking forever in both soooo...I won't go back, I don't need the rewards bad enough to go through it.

[einschwartz]

Just attempted it with my FC members. Blind. None of us do Savage so we were on average i610.
Spoiler: After 6 pulls on Silkie we decided this mode was not worth it for us.

In my opinion, feel like the jump between Variant and Criterion is too much. While doing Variant solo can be somewhat challenging, doing it as a light party does feel like a generic dungeon run minus not being tied to roles. In criterion, the trash mobs feels just right. Nothing too hard. They only require more attention as they hit harder combined with frequent aoe. I liked it.

The boss however is really difficult. I agree that the pacing and mechanic is of savage level. I'm open to try Criterion again with a proper group and better ilvl. The 3 others who I played with are no longer interested in trying (they never touch savage even unsync, while I have done Eden Savage sync but with echo). Until I can attempt it again, my impression are just what I said above for now.

I do feel like the boss need to turn down a notch. Then again, I'm not good at progging blind. Maybe I'll change my mind after trying again with guides.

[Nezerius]

Just attempted it with my FC members. Blind. None of us do Savage so we were on average i610.
Spoiler: After 6 pulls on Silkie we decided this mode was not worth it for us.

Something to keep in mind is that the requirement to even queue up for Criterion is set at i610. This is the same requirement as P7S/P8S, so this should already be a big hint at what kind of difficult content you're stepping into.

[Yimiko]

Idk what their reasoning is for most things, but I kinda see this one getting nerfed. The rewards aren't worth the difficulty and the difficulty isn't worth the attempt to most players. Why get irritated in criterion when there are so many other more rewarding high end things to tackle?

Might also just be that it is tuned kinda high for the current gearset and will be significantly easier by 6.5, though. In either case, as fewer people are even attempting it going forward, it will either be brought in line or forgotten like diadem, that's their call. o.o;

[RamenJD]

It's hard but not impossible to come up with ideas that aren't just team jump rope bosses. The deepest floors of deep dungeon are about carefully navigating around traps and roaming enemies, and conserving limited use items/buffs.

The point you made just contradicted to yourself. You said it’s just the team jump rope bosses. But in both PotD and HoH, all the boss fights are scripted with fixed timelines, and their mechanics in my opinion are very basic. Boss fight being in a scripted timeline is just how the fight design has been in this game for many years (especially since HW), and deep dungeon bosses are no exception.

Trash mobs on the other hand, there’re roaming mobs in both first area and second area too. If you get to the 2nd area in ASS, you would have some similar feelings of being in a deep dungeon too. All 4 mobs are roaming and you have to observe their walking routes which are different per instance, and pull them carefully without accidentally aggoring any other mob (which is gonna likely wipe you). The only difference between ASS and a deep dungeon floor is missing the traps and pomanders.

[Troxbark]

Personal responsibility is actually pretty low, and you can recover insane situations .

I disagree from the healer perspective. Personal responsibility is dialed to 11 since aoes occur right after major mechanics and pretty much guarantee a wipe if the healer dies. I view it as a double punishment for the healer.

Recoverable? Rarely. Even if your team is able to recover, enrage just became far more likely.

[LittleImp]

I disagree from the healer perspective. Personal responsibility is dialed to 11 since aoes occur right after major mechanics and pretty much guarantee a wipe if the healer dies. I view it as a double punishment for the healer.

Recoverable? Rarely. Even if your team is able to recover, enrage just became far more likely.

The Tank won't die to a raidwide, and at least one of the DPS can almost always be kept alive using their own kit and the tanks. From there you just rez the other two people and carry on like nothing happened. Hell, in some of the fights the tank can just invuln and then daisy-chain rez the entire party in order to skip some of the hardest mechs lol.

The enrage is unbelievably lax on these. We've had pulls with 3-4 deaths and still killed the bosses, despite running double caster and not even having a melee lb2 lol. I've even cleared the first boss in a group with two DPS doing less damage than the tank.

[fumofu]

Must say I totally agree with OP. Criterion ex was a complete disappointment. I expected it to be on a similar difficulty of a final deep dungeon floors, but got just another savage duty instead. Why is that? There were supposed to be 3 difficutlies, right? Normal, hard and savage, no? Instead we got normal, savage, savage+! So.... after clearing all paths on normal, which took me 4 evenings, I'm out of content again? I seriously feel this game is getting a bit too hard for my taste, with so much focus on difficult content, which I don't like...
I'm not a casual player, I just prefer playing on easy/normal difficulty.

[Llynethil]

The normal criterion should have been Dalriada level of difficulty when you had 0 bozja buffs, I always though that was the perfect in between difficulty of regular raids and savage raids, they took it a little too far I feel.

It's fine if the savage version is really hard, but the regular criterion should have been dialed back a little.