What was they thinking when they did variant dungeons and criterion

[Avoidy]

I find this outlook a bit odd. Island Sanctuary is only "dead" to those who've completed it at level 90. It doesn't require other people to play it, provides a few interesting glamour items and mounts/minions, and is quite likely to be very much alive for all of those up-and-coming players who haven't reached level 20, let alone level 90. Same thing for the Variant dungeons. If it's soloable, and there are rewards people want from it, it will never be "dead".

When I say "dead," I mean that the vast majority of players aren't bothering to run this stuff because they completed it when it came out and there isn't a reason for them to return. Like, if I go into Bozja right now, I'm sure there'll be a few dudes in that big empty map running a mini FATE train, but I still wouldn't consider bozja healthy and living content since most people abandoned it, the rewards haven't been updated, and lord help you if you want to do a delubrum to get your relic; you've gotta join a discord for it because finding people in game for that is a pain. You mentioned my island sanctuary example. Will island sanctuary always have people running it as newbies trickle their way into endgame? Of course. Is island sanctuary a bustling hub of content that offers replayability to the vast vast majority of players who have already completed it? Unfortunately, no. You get your stuff, and you're done. There's no reason to go back. And I guess that's fine, but damn... if I were a dev I'd want people to have a reason to go back to the thing I spent a year+ building.

It's just content that you can't do over-and-over-and-over again. And that's ok.

I think it's okay when the content is framed like Island Sanctuary or Variant dungeons, yeah. Even if most people aren't even focusing on it in their periphery, at least someone who wants to make it their focus can just complete it alone. But for a lot of the content in this game that can't be soloed, that sudden loss of interest from most of the community is quite detrimental.