What was they thinking when they did variant dungeons and criterion

[Floortank]

Game has more content outlets than it has possible rewards.

[magitekLuna]

Some people want to do content solo but talk outside of content such as in FC chat, especially because being matched with random people would give them anxiety. Maybe over time they will overcome that anxiety but it's a common anxiety to have when starting an MMO. This is the whole plan of making the MSQ solo content. It will tease interacting with others constantly to people who thought they couldn't.

Why so much people got anxiety this days?

[Arrius]

Why so much people got anxiety this days?

Have you been outside the last three, maybe four years?

Or doesn't the currently 6.5+ million deaths by a pandemic faze you at all?

[Jeeqbit]

Why so much people got anxiety this days?

"Why" doesn't matter. They just do. But part of it is just natural. People are born with different levels of anxiety toward things, even if you account for all the circumstances, life events and life style choices that affect it.

Half the battle is confronting the thing that makes you anxious so that it doesn't make you anxious anymore so it is quite smart to start people off with solo content and see if they dip their toe in further.

[magitekLuna]

Have you been outside the last three, maybe four years?

Or doesn't the currently 6.5+ million deaths by a pandemic faze you at all?

Why a over inflated number need to faze me?my mental state is ok.i don't live on drugs from young age.

[Moebious]

I'm rather baffled by how they dropped the ball so hard on this.

It seems almost obvious that the Variant was made to have high replay value, by how the bosses can change(ability wise n such), along with how Namamo's choice grants more chests. Yet, there's not any rewards that are super rare enough, nor are there glam rewards which warrant you want to return, after 'One and Done' 12 routes.

The vendor clearly has several rows of different item sections, so it would also seem they at some point were thinking of adding more rewarding items, or even weapon glams but decided not to. Especially by the extreme lack of rewards from Criterion and its savage mode, is just utterly baffling. They either clearly made a last minute call to remove stuff, or they have become so tone-deaf they actually thought the rewards that were there was plenty to last 2 months.

I really thought, since they made it into 3 different difficulties, there would be special zone gear added for it too.

The Variant bosses are fun enough to give people a slight enough variety, if there were any form of farming incentives to it, along with Nanamo's choice, yet there's none.

Don't know about others but I always thought this would need to be their answer to exploration content in scope, and that this would last far longer than Island Sanctuary in replay value, yet I enjoyed 2 weeks of Island Sanctuary, maybe even a little more. Yet I was pretty much all done, after 2 evenings in this. And had no reason to do Criterion/Savage, since it had no rewards that would have enticed me to even try it.

I could easily have seen myself enjoyed it far far longer, if it had (zone)progression gear or weapon glams, or super special rare glams inside.

While speaking of glams, the noir set is really meh. Truly, what were they thinking...

[magitekLuna]

"Why" doesn't matter. They just do. But part of it is just natural. People are born with different levels of anxiety toward things, even if you account for all the circumstances, life events and life style choices that affect it.

Half the battle is confronting the thing that makes you anxious so that it doesn't make you anxious anymore so it is quite smart to start people off with solo content and see if they dip their toe in further.

It's not . Just the excuse of "all have anxiety" gets old

[Alleo]

It's not . Just the excuse of "all have anxiety" gets old

Maybe some of us have already gotten paired with absolute jerks in runs and simply dont want to deal with that? You bascially dont know who you will get when you play with randoms. It could be a wholesome group, it could be a okay group or it could be a group of horrible people that make it absolute miserable.

Then there are the different playstyles. Some will want to speedrun it, others want to take their time, maybe even read notes if the dungeon has them. Others simply are part of a FC and run soley with them and their friends.

And then you have someone like me that simply dont want to deal with other people and enjoy running stuff with the NPCs or solo. I can take my time. Look at the scenery, even take a few breaks between pulls. There is nobody there who will berate me for that. And I dont waste someone elses time.

At least in this game you can build your own group for content. Maybe try to use that. I am sure that if there are more like-minded people on your world, the party will fill up and who knows maybe you will gain a few players that you can do more content with.

That is the great thing about this game. You can do it all with other people. And those who dont want to, can do it too.

[LianaThorne]

It's not . Just the excuse of "all have anxiety" gets old

Gonna start off by saying that other peoples mental health is absolutely none of your business, nor is it your business to comment on it. I've seen some gross takes on this forum lately but this is some really gross stuff.
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As far as the topic at hand, Variant & Criterion are fun and I like how they were designed. Do we need more rewards to keep the content going? Yes. No one outside of brand new people & those who are farming it for the glam/to sell will run it after a couple weeks. I also would not be shocked if they tie Variant to the new relic weapon, which I mean....at least it's not Crystal Tower spam (gopefully). I look forward to seeing what they do with it in the future but it absolutely need more rewards (other than materia & glam) to push forward from here and keep future floors viable.

Second, as far as Endwalker vs. Shadowbringers, it should be pretty obvious the game has taken a dip in terms of being bug proofed/QA. I joined FF in 5.2 and I have 0 memory of any of their patches being as buggy or broken as Endwalkers have been. I can understand that maybe the flood of new people before Endwalker launched would cause some problems (cause it was unexpected, I don't think anyone knew what happened at Blizz was going to happen outside of it) so I can't fault them for the issues the launch of Endwalker faced. However, we're almost in 6.3, knowing they have a massive audience should be over now and they should have some sort of idea of how to launch patches smoothly, just like before in Shadowbringers. I really fail to see why some are just not acknowledging that they used to put out patches without a problem and now we're getting bugs each time.

Third, as far as this forum is concerned, yes it's a cesspit sometimes..I don't think anyone here would deny that either. However, as was stated before, the forum isn't a social media website like Twitter or Reddit. If you want endlessly fluffy content, direct your attention there. The forum is (even though it's hardly maintained as it used to be) a line to the devs in a way social media sites are not. Housing lottery idea? Came from here. I still remember that thread as an example. Yeah, people here are extremely critical of the game sometimes but we also have to be to see change happen since no one else is doing it. If you want people to endlessly praise the game, you don't want to be on here. We do give praise where it is due, don't get me wrong, but this isn't a place for 100% positivity and niceness.

[Lustre]

One pertinent question I have is who exactly is this Criterion content even meant to be for. I have no real issue with variant, I'd call that a success even if the rewards are a bit more sparse than id like. Savage raiders dont wanna do it cause rewards dont justify the effort, casual players wont be able to at all. Extreme players can't even get past the first boss. So the fact the reward is the game's fifth(?) chair mount with a price that continues to fall on the MB is like a slap in the face. Especially considering the existence of Criterion Savage. If I was mr square enix, I'd do this:

Leave variant alone, add a couple more rewards in the shop
Completely rework criterion. All bosses on one route, make them do more damage, add a couple of mechs to each boss.
Move current criterion to Savage, cause rn both versions are practically the same, and rn standard criterion is closer to savage than anything else.

In doing this, you create a difficulty gradient, instead of a difficulty staircase where the first step is 8 meters high.