Criterion Dungeons released in Patch 6.25 have caused an uproar amongst many more casual players in the community. They want to be able to engage in content like Criterion Dungeons without a massive disadvantage compared to savage raiders. Even Iâve been corrected saying not everyone wants to raid savage just to be capable in other content.
Letâs discuss! Cause I DONâT KNOW THE ANSWERS but I can say people have raised this concern A LOT lately!
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I should note I am NOT saying item level shouldn't impact Ultimate Raiding because it 100% SHOULD! But I'm talking more casual content like Criterion Dungeons. It's kinda paradoxical to make it so top raiders also have an EASIER time clearing this content than non raiders. I don't think that's fair but that's kind of where things stand as more casual players are like "Well where is the content for me?"
I'll clear the criterion in 7.0. I've come to accept I will never have a team or even the skill to compete on savage levels
Know what I'm doing during this downtime for casual people like me? Levelling SGE because I never got around to it. Turns out it's surprisingly fun. Don't know if it will take the place of SCH as favorite healer for me.
But, yeah, I'm not sure what casuals as a whole are supposed to be doing during this. But, as it is, my most geared class, RDM, only has Astronomy tomestone gear, so I haven't even stepped into the new content. I just log on, do a Leveling Roulette, a Trial Roulette, and mess with my island sanctuary a little bit because that's all I really have time for. Criterion Dungeons are not for me, apparently.
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Don't ask me how far behind I am on Raids. I'll get the 2B gear someday, I swear.
I dont even understand why item lvl is a thing to begin with. the fun/challenging part of raids is doing them, not the item lvl. Why is there even a prerequisite? Just a carrot on a stick to keep chasing? Is it the illusion of something to do outside of everything else? Gear up your character for the new raids. Why?? Do raids for the fun, rewards, and challenge of it. The clout. Why why why do we have to keep running the same daily content over and over to get access to new content???
There has to be a good balance that rewards players who do obtain the best gear from endgame content vs allowing entry level players to try to clear content. I feel like you can't swing one way too much because then you invalidate that playerbase. I feel like FFXIV is the best at this and they do a good job at allowing this balance in modes like Bozja and Eureka already. I think having something like this will be similar considering everyone will have over 635 ilvl come 6.3. I do like that they have it where having a high ilvl does make you hit harder and take less damage because it being an rpg makes sense. Games like Destiny 2 where everything scales with your current ilvl makes it feel bad because you never feel like you're getting stronger so there are negatives to balancing all content and never gaining an advantage
Cole, my bruh, you can do the normal criterion version easily at 610. Iâve cleared in pf multiple times in min 610 groups where some people had close to 610. Just do the mechs the enrage check is a joke. I doubt youâve even cleared the normal
Criterion yet, so donât worry about savage. Once you clear criterion, complain to your heartâs content. Or just do what all the rest of us do and clear the tier. Maybe practice more instead of making vids bitching about why you canât have bis? Youâll never get bis if you canât beat the bosses. I have 8 books for p8s and Iâm gonna wait to spend em until balance adjustments to spend em cuz I have 3 abyssos chest pieces and like 5 weapons. Itâs fun af, be more like me lol.
Cole Evyx's shields bring the boys to the yard, and damn right, they're better than yours!!!
I joined my first static for raiding about three weeks ago, it's pretty casual and we have only made it to p6s cachexia 1. My most geared class is monk and I'm barely at 618 with some drops and tome gears. Didn't help that I tried gearing sch first and then drk but due to lack of pfs with either slot available I ended up going mnk. I'm thinking I'll be geared for criterion in about 6 more weeks, so for the time being I'm enjoying the leveling process and side quests. I'd have enjoyed a way to gear my other favorite classes with criterion or some other mech. Hope the devs notice the current talks around gearing alt jobs.
Good luck with this tier
I completely disagree. I don't see the point in making everyone the same item level to do content. This isn't PVP. At that point why have item level at all why have armor at all? Instead every dungeon makes you strong enough to defeat said dungeon and to go through the story you just click the next dungeon and watch the cut scenes and never get gear and never do anything because you will always be synced and have a certain amount of strength.
I'm a midcore/casual person. None of my jobs have even broken 600 ilvl. The current gearing system is definitely demoralizing to someone like me. I don't care about getting BiS, but I want gear that won't keep me locked out of the next patch's dungeon or whatever trial is next, etc. I realize that if you slowly and methodically plan your gear and keep up with your dailies/weekly raids you won't have this problem.
But that's the thing, grinding out stuff I've already done a million times for good enough gear for months is extremely unappealing. It was why I was so looking forward to the V&C dungeons maybe giving me something more convenient to obtain that wouldn't take me forever so I could gear all my jobs.
As a person who hasnt cleared this savage tier yet and not having super high ilvl it's actually not even an issue of me not wanting to enter because it will be tough… it's a case of people not even recruiting people unless they are BiS.
Top end raiders don't get enough content while the casual playerbase gets stuff hand over fist. Complaining about Criterion Dungeon having an intense gear requirement reeks of entitlement. In fact, Variant Dungeons are exactly the type of "no item level required" content you're talking about. Also, we're getting Deep Dungeon next major patch which is even more "no item level required" content. Add to that a new Expert and new Alliance Raid and casual to midcore are eating just fine. Criterion is less a dungeon, and more a Savage/Ultimate Raid for a Light Party. It's meant to challenge the hardcore playerbase, not reward midcore and casual. Think about it this way; Would you be upset if they made it easier to get Necromancer? How about removing the Level Sync from old maps so people could solo get titles like Luckiest of Lords/Ladies? Should you get Mahjong Master from playing Triple Triad? Mahjong isn't content for me, so why does it exist?
The only thing I really agree with you on is there should be a greater incentive to run at least Criterion Savage. Maybe a weekly reward that gives a tomestone upgrade material.
so i did run the normal thing with healer 603gear, my first grp was two healers 2 dps that other healer did like 7k+ dps while healing a bit, i was doing like maybe 4-5k dps and the two dps rocking like 10-11k dps or somehting, it was easy as fuck, than next run 2 dps 1 tank and me as a heal i was maybe doing 3-4k dps tops because i had to heal way more tank was doing 3-4k dps and the dps 3-4k isch dps too or somehting, it was the same shit but it was sooo much harder. felt like two completly different things.
3:54 you made me choke on my PB&J đ
Since crafted and normal 610 gear came out in late august, I would just guess this is just content on the side for those wanting to test the waters with a light challenge, without going into savage. It is still a middleground, but for those willing to get gear with tomes and are waiting for 6.3 to drop, it is still a decent introduction for those wanting to start looking forward into clearing more difficult things in the game
I think you bring a very good point like this could help a lot of problems. If you take this idea and run with I think it could be game changing
It's a dillemma. ilvl should matter, but have more way to upgrade to max lvl without savage raid or wait 8 months for the next tier to drop.
Stuff like bozja or potd where ilvl doesn't matter is fun for some people, not fun for the others. sure people want challenge the first time around, the next next reclears people don't care about challenge but reclears asap.
If I go to bozja now, i'll still be struggling 1v2 with some grunt flying mech there. it didn't get easier for me, it was as annoying as it was when I first entered bozja. If people want challenge, why delubrum party these days always ask for essence.
the other way with ilvl matters, it's pretty much people who actually love the challenges of hard content, have the party & equips to clear those content. Got it easier. People who don't or can't clear a super hard challenges, won't have the means to do another hard challenges, will just skip it. Because the only way to get BiS is by savage raiding.
But since this is mmo, BiS is temporary, the only way normies clear content with difficulty just enough for normies to clear is wait for next tier gear to drop. or have another way to reach BiS.
Me? I'm skipping all hard content, do DR with 100 astronomy for all jobs relics, and weeklies. while and playing tower of fantasy and genshin.
My static barely can do 1 lockout a week with the people who want to do savage raids because of scheduling, so we're all far from BiS. Then with Criterion, the only people available for it most of the time were the ones doubled up on what they were using for savage, forcing 2 to go full crafted while the other 2 are like ~617 at best. Not sure why Criterion normal couldn't just be scaled to 610 max IL if it's not going to give rewards that have anything to do with gear.
I cleared the last savage tier I'm not clearing this savage tier due to lack of time so I have both sides of the spectrum here, Yes it should. without it you take away the prestige of savage and its reward from clearing the content. It does make a massive difference in the content but isn't that the point?
Another important thing about item level outside of raiding is what I want to run other content as another job. I will explain further. I am main healer and I have 621ivl becuase I am getting the pieces that I need for my class but for the criterion dungeon I dont want to run that as healer so eventually when I am BiS on healer I am still undergear on the class that I want to use for criterion dungeon. With out current method of gearing up we are "married "with one job for a long time so If I want to run something that requieres high ilvl I only and only have 1 option and that's it.
I don't do Savage but item level should be for that & pvp but those two alone! The regular game does not need item level! I hate when the MSQ locks you out if you don't have a high enough item level! That should not be a thing! I love the Variant Dungeons & am happy that the Silkie mount came from that 12-page storyline! It was fun getting those & running all the paths to collect them all! I want more Variant Dungeons but will NEVER touch Criterion Dungeons! Great vid, keep up the great work! đ
Further evidence of FFs on-rails design my dude. What's there to "overcome" running Criterion so far beyond the curve at crafted 610 when the deck is so heavily stacked against you? Could rant about how tightly scripted so many of the fights are, but tl;dr it's less iLevels and more a lack of difficulty modes that exist between Normal and Savage. Ex Trials are the sole thing that exists in that space. Essentially everything else is Raid Finder-tier easy or Savage with bosses running their scripts down to the nanosecond and single mistakes resulting in a reset. Again: Nothing to "overcome" when Savage mechanics are so often all-or-nothing.
Conversely I can understand people wanting to overgear an instance, because lol it's an MMO – yeah taking top-tier BIS that took weeks and weeks of running mind-numbing Savage content to obtain into some random dungeon should matter and put you ahead of the sprout who just unlocked the dungeon. But go figure I think it's because so much of the community finds Savage unrewarding that there's backlash against that kind of stuff. If you could gear out (fully) just below BIS from something like Criterions on par with ExTrials in terms of general difficulty and you weren't locked into FF's on-rails weekly tome & drop schedule, then I think you'd see a huge portion of the community flock there.
I know the lock-outs and tome schedules are to throttle no-lifers, but again: The lack of meaningful rewards and meaningful difficulty between Normal & Savage is the real crux of the issue. The on-rails boss scripting and "every fight is just an arena with a deathwall" will never be fixed, but lol they could at least put more stuff between Normal and Savage.
Off the topic
Can you give me an idea of naming the Hrothgar?
I'm thinking and writing my original story of my Hrothgar and I was in the mud about naming him
Item lvl in this game is shit. Raiders should have TOP ilvl gear, all bis. Tome gear should be enough to START raid, no tome gear should be bis or highest ilvl. Criterion should be uncapped ilvl tomes OR be AMAZING glamor, not shit clown suits, pig heads, or wedding attire. Actual armor sets that are fantasy based and look great. This game right now is in terrible shape. Rewards suck, midcore sucks, you can either casual your ass off (no thanks) or savage raid. THat's it. Rewards for criterion are… MATERIA. Ok
Please, no! Keep that crap out of everything else.
Cleared with a midcore casual group, we havenât even cleared P8S yet and we cleared this content quite easily both mitigation and damage wise we were more than fine. We couldnât easily skip last mechanic on third boss, but if youâre 620+ youâre more than fine
Item level is just idiotic, everything that matters is hard content, skins and more skins. Raiders will go to do hard content for rewards and challenge not because the ilevel.
for someone like me, got 90 with everything, i dont do savage raiding as i am not good enough, the content that has been coming out lately is hugely demoralizing, my friendlist people online is getting smaller and smaller everyday, as people like me simply dont have anything to do, and FF has ended up as a 3d discord chat, the 450 weekly tomestones i can get is laughable, its done in 2 days, and then i am back sitting on the bench doing nothing waiting for next tuesday, had hoped the new v and c dungeons would have brought me some kind of content, but well i cant even get friends to go in there as there is 0 rewards for doing it, and i know alot of people that feels same way as me
i dont comment very often on youtube barely ever but… this is one topic i am very passionate about and i feel that gear should matter in as many places as possible to give value to getting better gear because as things stand (before the new dungeons) at this moment gear matters in 3 places: raid for faster clear times (which are irrelevant because you already killed everything), faster clears in dungeons (if saving 1 minute is worth it to you in your busy day and that only if ilvl is uncapped) and ultimate (if its current) and that is it, otherwise you are BIS and can to absolutely nothing meaningfull with it you stand there questioning the time you spend getting that gear… so my point is please for the love of god make gear usefull >.<
In my opinion, the criterion fights should be treated like Savage raiding in itself due to the difficulty. However, 2 things need to be changed
1: Clears should somewhat helps with gear progression
2: There's an alternative difficulty that sits between the too easy Variant and the too difficult Criterion
:Barrier Size Queen"
isnt that every SCH/SGE bottom đ¤
The dungeons should be ilvl synced like Bozja even level synced. I wouldn't mind running these as I level other classes. Would make the crap rewards less crapish because its leveling content.
just my 2 cents
"not gonna get the body for another 6 weeks" aint gonna be words leaving a casual player's mouth. I expect I'll get the body piece when this tier becomes farmable in a few months.
yea i dont think ilvl is the issue with criterion midcore players realistically would cap tomes every week and will have a higher ilvl than 610 when criterion came out ilvl helps but lets be honest once players figured out the mechs this is not that hard extreme difficulty at best and savage is the same you just cant die the main issue is there is no point in doing it once you clear it you gotta really like that stupid chair to run it 25 times to get it because there is no evergreen rewards that keep players coming back every week
this subject is very interesting.
I actually like that ilvl matters outside of raids, as it gives the raid some sort of use. I cleared till p7 for example with the exact same gear i had at the start. Cleared p8sP1 with 517 the first time. If now all my gear only works there it would feel kind of worthless. Great its gear for 4 bosses, that i could beat without it.
I do understand the point of full casuals that don't want to raid, but if you can clear the first boss in criterion you can clear to p7, it's not much harder.
What can I say? People wanted a 4-man challenge. And then they got a 4-man challenge. And they still whine around.
The thing with M+ in WoW is, its not all the same difficulty. There are different levels you climb until you reach the highest keys (I think 25 is highest?). You have to complete one key within the time limit to get access to the next higher key, meaning the next difficulty. Criterion isnt this! Its like introducing key 15 or 25 from the beginning. Which isnt sensible: in M+ you get better gear the higher your key, meaning beating higher keys gets "easier" during the climb: you wouldnt attempt a key 10 when you dont have the gear from previous keys (or from other content).
I wonder what (and who) this content is for. Just a fun challenge that should suffice to be a reward in and of itself? A nice idea, but it doesnt work: this isnt a challenge everyone can master if he just knows how to play this game and how to perfectly execute his rotation under stress. This is a game mode for people who have already bested the most difficult content this game has to offer. And is therefore very exclusive for a tiny minority. It may be a stretch, but I dont think this was intended…