Thank you for all your responses! It's nice to talk about it, and to hear what you think. I run a community on OCE and the raiders all seem to love Criterion since they get a break from organising full parties!

The reason I thought Criterion would be easier is because a Savage mode was already advertised. I don't understand why the normal mode is as hard as Savage, plus there's a Savage mode as well. Maybe they could make more actions available in the normal Criterion mode and allow more Raises from the healer.

EX may be a bit easier than Savage but it still takes a lot of time and skill to get through. Based on my experiences with EX2 and EX4 in EW it might take 3 to 5 evenings (2 hours a sesh) to get a group of average players through it. I think you have to be pretty committed to stick with it. People don't have a lot of time, and probably want to spend their game time doing other things too.

Ultima Unreal was close to the kind of difficulty I'd call a middle ground. I could take just about anyone into Ultima and run them through it in an evening (say 2 hours of play). Then we'd have a weekly challenge to do that was accessible and fun but also kept you on your toes. The current Unreal is up there with EX and there's much less interest, because people soon realise it's so much more work to learn.

It's a shame to see people go. Once msq is done there's a lot of desire to group up with friends and take on a challenge. Two hours is valuable time and everyone wants to see something for it - decent progress so everyone can look forward to next time! The current Criterion means people spend 2 hours getting only part way through the first boss, and a full clear of the whole dungeon feels out of reach.

Thank you again for all your polite responses! It's appreciated!