What was they thinking when they did variant dungeons and criterion

[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]

"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.

[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.

[aveyond-dreams]

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.

It was asked for and intended for the WoW content creators who have long since been chased away by FFXIV's gcbtw behavior. Though I imagine even they would scoff at the pathetic state of this content's rewards.

[magitekLuna]

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.

So you look for people that want to play the same way you do. I normally takes up to 30 min to find people if no one I know is free. I just don't see how play solo in the solution in an MMO.

[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.
---------------

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.

[caffe_macchiato]

snip

Many people here deeply love the criterion dungeons BECAUSE they have no rewards. They want to clear once for the challenge and that’s it. They don’t want to have their time playing other games or AFKing taken up by a mandatory grind. Let’s face it, we’re in a big season for new games coming out. We don’t have time for replaying old content like criterion. FFXIV isn’t meant to be a “main game” like WoW is, it’s a side game. We log in, do dailies or weeklies, then log out or go AFK. We like to get our business over with. Let me play other games Square, I don’t like FFXIV that much and neither do you.

[Midareyukki]

Many people here deeply love the criterion dungeons BECAUSE they have no rewards. They want to clear once for the challenge and that’s it. They don’t want to have their time playing other games or AFKing taken up by a mandatory grind. Let’s face it, we’re in a big season for new games coming out. We don’t have time for replaying old content like criterion. FFXIV isn’t meant to be a “main game” like WoW is, it’s a side game. We log in, do dailies or weeklies, then log out or go AFK. We like to get our business over with. Let me play other games Square, I don’t like FFXIV that much and neither do you.

I'm having way more fun doing it for the lore book. >: 3c but then again my favourite game was FF12 so of course I'd go for the text rather than the fancy outfits.
And I think that's the model FF14 relies on. It's clearly a game designed for you to be chill with, it's not going to be so demanding. And at the times when it is, it's very controlled (Savage/Ultimate) and once you do clear them, you'll have nothing more to do than the menial tasks. Square does let you play other games. There could be an argument made that perhaps this is unbecoming of a game with a monthly subscription, but eh.

[LianaThorne]

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.

Pretty sure some people wanted harder 4 man content/a savage-esque experience that didn't involve finding a static or dealing with 7 other people so Criterion was born.