It's worth pointing out that the Variant dungeons were designed to be released 8 weeks after the raid tiers. Sil'dih released 8 weeks after Abyssos. Rokkon was 8 weeks after Anabaseios. This was advertised as content designed for people who had EARLY CLEARS OF THE SAVAGE TIER and were supposedly already BIS on their chosen jobs (lol). Aloalo is off pattern (probably because they wanted to release three dungeons this expansion) but I expect that in the 7.x patches they'd have each tier have its own Criterion dungeon. I think they intend for the Criterion weapon upgrade to be a reasonable side grade weapon at that 8 week post-raid release point, on the same patch where they release the catch-up non-BIS relic. Aloalo is very unfortunately timed to be right before the patches where we're getting the final relic + at a time when everyone is EXTREMELY DISSATISFIED WITH TOME GEAR PROGRESSION. The reward I really want though is sidegrades for tome gear (rather than raid gear), or even a totem or something to trade for one piece of tome gear. :( The tome lock is STILL the biggest hurdle for any gear progression imo.

Oh if criterion had gear progression like the typical savage raiding it would be so much better for healers and tanks since they get gear last in statics anyway, which ironically, it's four players.

SE makes upgrading weapons from design contest impossible for casual players who desperately want to glam. What a shame.

I'm still pissed that the Blu Mage weapon upgrade is behind content that Blu Mages can't even do.

if i want glam from hard content, i wait until it can be unsynced lmao

Please post this to the forums, SE never properly watches videos or reddit for feedback, this is a good breakdown of the reward issues.

I think the Criterion should be at Extreme trial difficulty level to call these 'catch-up' gears.

Really hope the dev's see this video and consider it when designing the 7.0 Criterion system The way it currently is, they are missing the point of why people wanted harder 4-man content. I believe like myself most of them simply don't have the schedule stability to maintain a static raid group and don't have the time to wait for a full-party to form in PF.

I play with three irl friends and we've talked about wanting something exactly like this for year. Hopefully they can listen and get it right with Dawntrail!

To me it just seems like they need to call the Normal version savage and get rid of the no death one. Edit Xenos also agrees

the sad thing about criterion is that its actually good content and we get to see different ways devs approach mechanics, another way to get people to do the content is have a BiS piece for ultimates in fututre

I just hate how criterion THE CONTENT FOR 4 PLAYERS requires you to do 8 PLAYER savage to even use the weapon you get from the 4 PLAYER savage. It makes no sense they made this exactly for people who want tougher stuff in smaller groups. Also why is the gentleman's umbrella there you can't even do this on blue mage.

I have a three friends who would love to try some harder content but they're too nervous to try 8 man random groups and too busy to join a static. Crit would be incredible for them... if it was an actual progression path. Right now it's just a novelty, as useful and rewarding as deep dungeon aka ZERO.

As a glamour chaser your 100% correct, most of us are casual and if the content is too bothersome wont bother especially if our time is more limited. My red mage glam has always been the dreadwyrm weapon, i'd love the gold one but i've always disliked the idea of trying to form a group with strangers for an Ultimate cause people can get downright nasty in those raids. Critera Savage is a similar boat, a lot of effort if your a mostly solo player for practically little pay off.

When criterions were first announced I was SO hoping it would finally be mid-core content, instead it was just more savage-level crap. The gap in content difficulty and lack of mid-core content is still one of this game's biggest flaws imo.

Really hoping in one of the (obviously) upcoming interviews that Yoshi-P finally explains what their mindset is/was around developing Criterion.

Remove the savage difficulty and this would be more interesting and worthwhile to do.

@25:20 the chatter who said bis should only be from savage stuff dont let them know about the x.55 relic or they'll be mad

I think adding the weapon was a step in the right direction, but its not enough. Also this is for the SAVAGE, not the normal, which I think needs help too on the rewards. People barely have a reason to do the normal criterion as it is. The mounts and orchastrations are purchasable on the market board, and there are much easier, more profitable, ways to farm gil in this game than doing Criterion. Criterion Savage having glam is fine, but Criterion Normal needs help in the rewards department too imo. Like give us an armor set or something. stuff like the twines and shines would be a great reward too with maybe some nice glam that isn't on the weekly lockout. I think Variant’s rewards are okay. There are minions, furniture items and the like you can farm and the potsherd items are valuable. However Variant could also do with a roullete of some sort. Edit: to add to the Criterion Savage idea of having more bosses. SE ALREADY HAS A RECIPIE FOR THIS, THEY LITTERALLY HAVE A FOURH BOSS IN THE VARIANT THEY COULD BE USING BUT AREN'T! Like, get the first three bosses, make them slightly harder with a new mechanic, do more damage or whatever. And then instead of the normal last, boss the last boss can be a Criterion, harder version of the secret route boss for the savage! That would be perfect! Heck, why not use the midboss too?! We can have a five boss dungeon, sure, lets go!

It might be interesting if they dropped the criterion savage for each tier, and then released a savage at the end that had the end or secret bosses from each previous criterion, no trash - just boss rush.

Criterion should be a bit easier, make a mid point between extreme and Savage, this savage + lvl is horrible with no good rewards, having to be decked out in savage gear to do criteron is crazy. Id rather personally have it been a "midcore" which we dont have much of, and almost none in 6.x I would prefer extreme SOLO content.

As a PLD Main, I practically HAVE TO do Savage now. The Sword and Shield look just wayyy too good.

Regular Criterion is already the "savage" and Criterion Savage should actually be Criterion Ultimate. A boss gauntlet. No Trash. Bring in the variant boss from the "secret" path, bring in the first boss from variant - a 5 boss gauntlet with 4 rezzes, no reset of rezzes after each boss. Maybe each boss is slightly shorter than in savage, but with new and different, harder mechanics.

I agree with xeno's solution. Because it Opens up the raid tier and is a great catch up mechanic. I think Criterioni savage should just be removed IMO because the implementation leaves no desire to do it. Unless there are different mechanics who cares? Because the reward would be so monumental to force people to do it, it would be a crying shame. Also, i think adding more raid tier to reward to Criterion also targets MORE Than just those who dont have 7 other people to do savage. It can help struggling casual and Midcore groups get gear as well.

Honestly i just want to get the glowing NIN daggers from the savage aloalo, but finding another 3 people that share same sentiments with me is a daunting task lmaooo (Not even my static members want the hassle of progging criterion savage kekw)

The addition of the glamour weapon is a tiny step in the correct direction but it definitely doesn't cover the issues that most content creators like Mr. Happy, Arthars, and Xenos have covered. The glam could be a motivator for a few more people sort of like mini-ultimates. I hope Square continues to listen and find time and resources to fix Criterion because the battle content in normal Criterion is quite fun and a bit more unique than your standard raid savage or extreme. It is like one team (the battle team led by Mr. Ozma) is doing its best and using Criterion as a mini testing ground, the art team goes ham on the assets and spectacle, but the rewards team is phoning it in.

I didn't know the Ilvl665 weapon from Criterion still required you to augment your tome weapon from P11S. Holy shit when you pointed that out, I understood immediately the rewards are still garbo.

make it drop upgrade for normal raid gear and tombstone weapon, you still have to run the normal raid but dont force you to do savage also make getting alt gear more easier

I am a raider, I love glamour but I will not subject myself to criterion. I hate it I cant be asked for just a weapon glam thats not even mid to me...

absolutely agree and on point with the new rewards. I dont like doing hard content much, but the glamour has actually motivated me to try criterion dungeon. but needing to go through other savage raids for the shiny weapons rewards just demotivated me. i thought criterion was suppposed to be a lower stakes style raid that is outside of getting bis.

On top of all this, the weapon upgrade will be OBE by 6.55, whats the point have having that higher ilvl when all the stuff you need you could use it for is done, ultimate? maybe

In the dropping Savage equivalent gear, for the people that are against it. Why do you want your casual content to take longer?? Casuals will be do more damage, it also helps with he ilvl difference too. The numbers wouldn't need to have such drastic difference if we only go up by 10 or 20 ilvls each tier instead of 30

you nailed it!!! That's exactly what the game is missing, it would be a dream and so epic!!!

I don't get it. When a raid tier comes out, you pretty much throw away all the gear for crafted stuff anyway. As long as crafted gear provides day one bis, I personally do see the point in gear progression in FFXIV. It's all glamour, lol.

Honestly I would have preferred the weapons just being ilvl 1 glam items. Like you said, tomes are already at a premium for gearing alt jobs, and on top of that, I have to hope I get lucky on loot rolls in p11s for a few weeks. I feel sorry for anyone who can't find a group to even clear that fight since they have no hope of getting the weapons before 6.55, or even 6.58 if they wait on releasing the weapon upgrades.

This is a regular problem with Japanese companies - changes require accepting on alot of different levels and nobody wants to pull the trigger before others. As result it takes a way more time than it would require, same goes for how big changes they can implement. They love formulas because they work in general and are very reluctant about stepping away from them.

I'm glad you said that the ultimate raiders do it for the fight and not the item (the item is just a trophy for them). A lot of people play for the sake of optimization and that is what SE struggles with understanding and catering to. People who play for optimization do not care about hardmode content outside of being a means to compete on the numeric values and in many cases, do not even like doing the savage content they are forced to clear. The devs intend that measly 5 point boost to the weapon score as a trophy, but in reality it becomes a requirement for people who are about optimization, so they end up being forced to do the fight just to get max iLvL so they can do what they really want to do. And people who Optimize are not strictly end game hardcore raiders! A lot of people who are into optimization can only afford to do savage maybe 9 hours in a week and sometimes get walled all over the place because of that. Some can't even really get what they want until the last patch of the entire expansion, as that is the only point where the max iLvL gear is mostly accessible. Even then, they have to deal with not having BiS armor which does impact what they are doing.

If the Savage Criterion needs BiS gear, then the normal Criterion should be a way to get that BiS gear, either through tome upgrades or alternate gear. At least add the tome weapon upgrade if the Savage is meant to upgrade that weapon to be equivalent to the raid weapon

For me there is really multiple instances where they could introduce some horizontal progress. - Dungeon gear, it is such a shame that this is really just glam and maybe for ultimate bis. Why do we not introduce a way to maybe make it BiS in the end. Would be fine with the catch up patch and the upgrading it with the 2nd rate tomes. - Alliance raids: I dont care how you do it, it should max ilvl. Make it augmentable for all i care. - In my opinion there should be a gear set in the expansion that follows a similar system as the relic weapon (no, i dont want a relic armor set), but something like eureka armor, bozja whatever, and here it would have been cool to have variant themed sets you can upgrade. -10 ilvl from variant, then upgrade it via criterion. Get the weapon via savage. And on a side note, please make it that I get faster my tome stuff. It is miserable. I want it at least in the catch up patch to be like this: - the one week cap should allow me to buy anthing from chest,legs, weapon whatever - what is this BS with the weapon, I dont understand why it is not buyable like any other gear. Having a shitty token in savage, requiring 7 weeks of last tier normal, come on. - with full capped stomes I should be able to buy everything.o - At the end of the raid patch I want to have all relevant tome gear

Who translates your videos into Japanese in the captions? That's kinda cool.

The idea of one or more extra boss in the savage is really neat, especially when you consider the secret route in the variant. Like imagine a portal opening after the last boss dies and you have the secret boss show up, that would rule. Or even the first boss that shows up in every variant path coming into play. Plus some variations in the variant weren't used, like the thin green square that buffs you and the whoopie cushions for the faerie

I think Criterion being savage is a huge mistake, if they added an extreme mode that had extreme level gear I think it would be way more popular and accessible since way more of the community is willing to do extreme level content. I'm not sure if other people have this experience but I have lots of friends who don't have time for savage but still want somewhat challenging content and they love farming extremes and I thought criterion being extreme would be perfect since it would give them more things to do and I could have more things to do with my more casual friends who don't want to do savage or ultimate.

Thank you so much for bringing up horizontal progression. That's all I wanted from Criterion! I got a couple friends together much easier than putting an 8 man static together. But we walked into the first one in crafted gear and got *demolished*. We couldn't get over enrage timers! How do we overcome that? Go into Savage to get better gear? That defeated the point! Everyone was complaining about rewards, meanwhile it didn't appeal to non-raiders b/c it was tuned for people who already had raid gear. Crazy Frustrating.

What is and isn't midcore/hardcore has been a hot topic recently. I wouldn't mind seeing you grade XIV content by how difficult you classify it as. Like on a 1-10 scale, 1 is casual 5 is midcore 10 is hardcore. Or do a tier list

I plan to do all crits as my entry into hardercore content as i dont have enough active friends to do stuff like actual raids easily and scheduling is a nightmare but got like 4 people

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I WAS SAYING!!! THE GAME NEEDS HORIZONTAL PROGRESSION AND MOVE THE CRITERION SAVAGE BEFORE THE ULTIMATE. The point should be to have content come out in bursts so that you can gear prep for the ultimate. I hate that we need the dungeon gear the patch after the ultimate to be helpful. They did a great job at least revealing Exquisite weapons and can officially make it possible to have exquisite be a term that horizontally changes how gear works. They can all be Bis pieces competitively in terms of item level but have different substats They should officially, make the Savage Raid Gear, Savage Criterion Gear, some form of Exquisite Alliance, Exquisite Craft and Exquisite Deep Dungeon gear, ALL be competitive for BiS and all of this content should come out BEFORE the Ultimate.

for how much ff14 likes to say it's casual friendly it's one of the most casual unfriendly when it comes to gearing. You either raid or you slowly collect a pittance of 450 tomestones a week which is 10 ilvls behind and ends up taking months to just gear 1 role and that doesn't even count weapon which is not shared between classes which takes 3 weeks by itself. Then months later once a week you get an item from alliance that finally let's you upgrade it to raid ilvl, but even then you'll still be stuck with garbage like piety tenacity and speed stuff. When I heard hard dungeons were coming out I thought it would be an alternate path like wow m+ for those who don't want to raid and all it is yet again is more content for raiders to use their gear on with dumpster rewards that you can just buy off the market if you even care about them.

"When they add the to the 24 man, it's gonna be with the relic patch, right?" Unless I'm mistaken, it's after the relic patch. Relic patch is 6.55 for sure and the 660 tome item from the alliance raid shop should be 6.58. At the very least, it was x.58 for stormblood and shadowbringers (checked patch notes). x.55 and x.58 tend to be around 2.5 months apart.

The community design weapons should have been part of the Manderville weapons. I was looking forward to collecting those.

I am getting tome cap every week since week one and i still don't have all the BiS armor for all jobs from tomes, i only bought one tome weapon before clearing P12.

1:42 - 1:47 *The entire FF community needs to hear this daily* Fucking fr

If they do it this way. One clear should give you all the weapons. And then make an easier grindier way of getting them outside of that. And/or god forbid, put in some unique items to gather and let us craft them. Now there are 3 different ways of getting these cool unique community designed weapons.

Wow for the very first time i watched many rant videos of yours, this is the one i really strongly and very agree to you about all those points you made out. Thanks for pointing those out it kinda bothers me sometimes.

as a raider I wouldn't mind doing the variant and criterion mode? Idk all the modes but the savage sounds like a straight up headache no matter how you slice it

I'm one of those "I do Savage for the glam" people. I started in Eden because I wanted the greatsword from Shiva (and mounts.) And I don't mind the challenge. But I haven't even side-eyed Criterion. My Static can't do it because we're an 8-man, not a 4-man. We're also a pretty slow static. So I'd need to find a second, smaller Static, with different hours from my normal Static, that fits my ALREADY very tight free time schedule, for a dungeon we'd run maybe a couple of times. Same reason I haven't done the Blue Mage savage content despite wanting to. Way too much of a hassle for something that's really not worth the energy.

There's no point for the savage version to even exist. Just make it an achievement to do the content without any party members dying. There's no point in putting that content out if its no different mechanically from the regular criterion dungeon and there's no point in locking catchup gear behind it if it's going to be a direct endurance test. What they should have done is make ilvl 655 armor coffers drop from the regular variant dungeon bosses (slot depends on the path you take), an ilvl 655 weapon coffer drop from the secret boss of the variant dungeon, then ilvl 660 weapon & armor enhancement items for completing base criterion with the weapon being directly exchanged for an ilvl 665 glowy version of the weapon at a specific vendor once you complete the no-death achievement. What they're doing right now makes absolutely no sense.

Kinda agreed tbh. def not gonna grind a headache savage crit run + do p11s reclears, for all the weapons i want to upgrade, just for a weapon with the same stats as p12s weapons. id rather just do p12s again LOL. but i respect if people do want to do it.

Actually if you're really into glamour you HAVE TO do savage content because the normal gear isn't dyeable.

5:03 yes, you are completely correct. I want the blue mage weapon, so l am just going to use "alternative method" to get it

It is disappointing that the normal Criterion doesnt give any rewards that encourage you to do this besides a mount that you can buy from the market board Then you get a weapon that maybe is pretty for your job (or maybe not?) that is not even worth doing because its identical to the raid weapon. And for this you have to play this without dying Criterion would be worthier as catch up content that is more challenging than alliance raids I hope they give savage item rewards in Dawntrail, otherwise good content with no rewards

add more bosses is probably the most important thing. they have those secret bosses in the variant dungeons and basically havent used them for criterion. that's so dumb.

Someone really needs to summarize the points Xeno made and translate it to japanese to be posted in JP forum. These are good points. People has been suggesting the kind of proper rewards they would like to see in Criterion, but I never really see the devs responding why those rewards are not there yet. They really seem to only look at JP forum and not twitch, twitter, youtube or probably even non-JP forum. I'm completely baffled at how out of touch the devs seem regarding Criterion. When they did LL and said that there's going to ilvl upgrade rewards, I expected them to explain what they are going to put and not going to put. And more importantly, why? Devs have history of such discussion for other things in the game, but it feels like they're avoiding any discussions about criterion as if they're planning to shut it down for good. Who knows.

The potential of this content is high but theres the denizens of ff offical forums who will say "casuals shouldn't have raid level gear" if the dungeons come every catch up patch, the raid gear is already past expiration. Yoshida needs to just reconize that this isnt going to be another Diadem 1.0 situation (the 135 pink weapon controversey) since they have the gear power level progression standardized. There needs to be horizontal progresson because it becomes annoying when you want to gear more than 1 class and your raid group becomes lazy about reclears.

I must be a weird BLM at a 2.43 GCD. I trying to go lower SPS. And was hoping the new Criterion weapon offered some incentive.

The weapon rewards is literally at the end of the patch cycle. Like why not just add it in the beginning of the raid tier ? Just tone down it a little bit I say like extreme level rewards. Or some accessories that is 5 Ilvl lower, it's better than crafting, slightly better than non augmented tome gear but slightly lower than raid gear.

I really appreciate the final turn you took from "lazy" to "cautious". I agree 100% that the devs are worried about breaking their sandbox and pissing people off, and end up pissing people off by default.

I have an idea for savage. Savage should have rez like criterion, and there should be 2 boss rooms with each room having a set of 4 bosses swapping between each other or combining mechs in a 10 minute fight per room (sort of like a mini ult). So you end up with a 18-20 minute dungeon with 2 boss rooms, 8 bosses total, and no trash. Now I don’t know if that works or sounds fun for others but it does to me. As for rewards I think that normal criterion should have weekly tome upgrades like xeno said, with savage having a 665 tome wep right away instead of an upgrade, or something of that level, given that there are A lot of jobs and we’re getting more soon.

I agree, the difficulty for the Criterion just feels so unnecessary for the level of rewards your getting. I get it that its a savage lvl item lvl, but after so many months of raiding on the final tier many people already have those lvl of weapons with p12s. They honestly should have either add more to the reward pool like mount or a new really gorgeous glamour armor set, or at least lower the difficulty so thats its above Extreme but easier than savage because those mechanics are just plain nutty.

I like to collect glam, but I don't do savage/raid content, so if it's too hard or require too much commitment, then I'll skip it, even when I like the glam.

Have you been able to look into adding JP subtitles for your videos?

Variant should be normal mode, criterion extreme , and savage, savage difficulty. Normal to criterion is a huge jump in difficulty

i mean i never did the savage versions for the reward, it was just a fun thing to do while waiting for the next ultimate. Guess the weapon is more of a glamour piece like the ultimate weapons.

Great video Xeems, TBH the one major thing I've wished FFXIV had for years is more linear progression. Hopefully people get it and they'll make adjustments for Dawntrail.

my fix for rewards: - normal mode drop upgrade for tomestone weapon 660->665, drop upgrade for tomestone gear 650->660 (alternative source for upgrade other than alli-raid coins) - savage mode drop upgrade for tomestone/raid gear 660->665

So, here's my take (as a relatively scrub player who WANTS to get into end game raiding): Criterion itself should just provide *UNIQUE* gear just slightly below the most recent raid tier. That way, it acts as a way for players to effectively "raid" without needing an 8-man static etc, AND acts as a stepping stone to 8 man content, without "devaluing" (not that I think it would devalue anything imo) the raid content available. The SAVAGE should be treated similarly to Ultimates - Provide a big chase title and unique glowing weapon that exists purely for bragging rights - Ultimates themselves, aren't "really" worth doing in terms of reward, but people do it anyway BECAUSE they want those weapons and titles for bragging rights; same will apply here. I think Variant and Criterion are some of the best content we've received (fight me, shits fun and ACCESSIBLE, while still being challenging, and the Variant stuff is a nice change of pace from regular generic dungeon runs), but the rewards just aren't there yet - And honestly, SE needs to stop being scared, and actually give rewards to match the content - The problem is, raiders *will* bitch if Criterion/Savage gets rewards that echoed Savage/Ultimates respectively; when the reality is, that's EXACTLY what Criterion needs as a whole to be relevant and worth engaging with. I *really* hope SE continues to give us this content, but with better rewards, because I'd hate to see it go, just because of the negativity surrounding the rewards.

They should add Beard for clearing Criterion Savage, I think Xeno would be happy with that lol

all we wanted were slightly challenging 4 mans.

Here is an idea if they are so worried about rewards being too easy to get: 1. No savage mode. 2. Make the first bosses of variant mode (the gigas, ninja lady, and wooden dog) be apart of criterion. 3. Make the hidden bosses from variant mode the final boss of criterion. That is 5 bosses with a savage element to them. Well worth the reward of shines, twines, titles, glams, and weapons. No copy paste, and its just a fun challenging marathon with a weekly lockout.

I'll be real, I've avoided doing criterion because of lack of reward. Finally decided to start going through with them starting with this one that just came out. 100% agree with your sentiment here. I think what would make a good savage is design it just like an ultimate where you have to do back to back encounters with the bosses that appear in the criterion boss. Revamped mechanics and include a 4th boss that you see by doing all the 12 routes in the Variant. More rewards ofcourse. Also, comment on adds. I like difficult add clearing in mmos, but they are done poorly in criterion. Tbh, I don't even think, with how ffxiv is designed, difficult add packs are really possible to design well.

Glam hunters are a dice roll - they are either super casual or walk around with a TOP weapon on wearing the fucking hellhound armor

The good take start at 42:14 xff Winetime

I only do the variant to get the 12 logs to get the mount/achievement/trophy

I don't get the "don"t ilvl sync Criterion NM" argument. The min ilvl is crafted & the ilvl sync is max current (when released) raid gear ilvl. I don't understand, really. Post the raid tier they were released in (and if SE digs into making it catch-up / alternative way of gearing), it loses all value anyway (unless it gets a specific set & some pieces are BiS). Before continuing the video (paused to comment on that one), if Criterion Savage keeps being "bragging rights" (and, for what it's worth, my group is finally motivated by doing it because of the weapon glow), ilvl syncing it means the challenge is more or less preserved, a la ultimate, which was their inspiration as Yoshi-p said. Ultimately, what I believe could happen is Criterion NM could be Critical Encounter (Bozja) / EX difficulty and gives non-upgraded tome stuff. Criterion Savage is current criterion, serves the purpose of 1st wave of catch-up / alternative gearing (released in X.[even]5 patches). I love criterion as is already, so I'm fine with whatever happens as long as I get my criterion challenge.

I rather do ultimate for endurance test. Every step of mechs I conquered I feel an achievement. At first it’s for glamour, after the 3rd ult,It’s more on the fun of prog. Criterion on the other hand imo, well not a very fun thing for me to do. But it would be good if it can give me different tomb cap that I can exchange for savage bis. Better still I can farm some Gil instead of dependent solely on market board and duty or drop things I can use to level up my island faster if I don’t enjoy the island toiling. SE should give players more path to do stuff. And seriously ultimate and savage is my main content in FF14. It’s the only 2 things that got me excited. The rest not so much except for the story.

Add rewards to Savage Make the Savage version be Boss Rush only Add one or two new mechanics Third boss is door boss Last boss is the secret boss from Variant.

"it has to be indoor housing because apartments". You need to be level 90 to do criterion. What can you also get at level 90? A FUCKING ISLAND. And what can you put on the island? OUTDOOR FURNITURE

Semi-related rant based on something mentioned in the video. Not only is the weekly limit on current-patch tomes way to low, but I feel its also stupid that you *have* to choose between getting current-patch tomes by doing roulettes as a max level job OR get EXP for leveling below max level jobs. They *want* to encourage people to level all of their jobs, but then wall off the one thing that would incentivise doing that because if you want to GEAR for new content you HAVE to play as the job you finished the content with! There is absolutely no reason they could not give you current-patch tomes when doing roulettes with a job you are leveling.

Shoutout to "just_a_casual_gamer" in the chat for making an account that fast for a meme I'm sure went underappreciated 26:06

This man is spittin'. Especially the part about the ilevel sync.

I can 100% confirm that it's nice because of the smaller group size. Some of us aren't streamers that can just call on 100 people to show up. A group of four at high difficulty content is much easier to put together.

Imo they should've make the normal give you "Replicas" of the weapon with the VFX while the Savage just like Xeno said give you the whole weapon.

I wanna think they made Criterion with the hope it could patch the lack of variety in Expert and weekly roulettes (see only one dungeon per patch), but they didnt wanna actually make another dungeon because it was the least played content

So, at first I was like 'Awesome they added an actual reward.' Then I saw it was only to make weapons Savage tier equals instead of giving alternative gear opportunities too. For this reason I agree with Xenos, Savage Criterion is still not worth the difficulty to reward ratio. Not when you have to not only not die at all, but make it by a specific timer or everything in the dungeon enrages.

I consider myself as a midcore player, but by Xeem's standards I'd be considered casual. I haven't done savage yet. I'm a single mom and I work overnights, so my gaming hours are weird. You know what I like doing in the middle of the night when nobody is on? Challenging myself by soloing old savages and extremes. Just soloed O4S as a GNB and O8S as a WAR. I've been working on Shinryu EX solo and need just a pinch more DPS to beat enrage. Higher iLvl gear has been helping a LOT. So thank you Xeems for standing up for casual players getting the good gear later on when it's not quite as relevant. It drives me NUTS when people talk like we don't deserve the eventual gear upgrades. Let people enjoy things.

Variant actually the best content of the expansion imop. they are gorgeous dungeons particularly the new one the branching pathways are fun to explore. Criterion i havent touched much but i did enjoy what i did. i have seen people go mad for glamour

For me, I do the normal Criterion dungeons because I find it fun to progress them and I would do them even if they have no loot at all. But I would obviously only do it until I managed to clear it once and I would not go for Savage.

I think the best solution is to complete remove (Savage) Criterion and merge all rewards into the normal Criterion mode. Criterion is already dead in PF after 3 days. Nobody cares about normal mode already, what makes people think that (Savage) Criterion will ever be interesting in any way to any player. That's like less the amount of players who do Ultimates in the community. It's too boring and insufferable to prog and reclear Savage Criterion for any of these rewards and it makes no sense. The real midcore solution would be to merge the Savage rewards into Normal mode Criterion and then erase the Savage version from existence. People who think this is a "mini" Ultimate need to get their head checked lmao

I compared criterion savage to ultimate only in the capacity that I am presuming that you will never be able to do the content unsynced, and therefore you won't be able to cheese the content for the weapon, just like ultimate weapons. Beyond that I don't think the two pieces of content are similar at all.

They should introduce crafting materials (which can be sold in the auction house) for upgrading weapons, even to the same item level as the savage ones. At this point, the raid has been available for a long time, so the item level may not matter as much. I also believe players should have the option to enhance the visual appearance of their savage gear through crafting (with creterion materials for exemple). This could involve purchasing materials with raid currency after a few clears or with unused tokens, which can be traded in the auction house. It's important to note that you would still need the original savage gear for the upgrade, and the crafting process would only affect the appearance. The current criterion is poorly designed, and the difficulty is poorly balanced. To address this, they should consider adopting a system similar to the mythic mode in World of Warcraft. I'm not suggesting they copy mechanics, but they should add a progression system. Even if you're not a highly skilled player, you can still work your way up in mythic plus dungeons in WoW because the difficulty primarily depends on numbers and less on mechanics on the lower tiers. It becomes challenging when you need to meet specific DPS requirements and take a lot of damage, can't do perfectly the mechanics and you can't handle it. Some players might struggle because they can't meet the DPS requirements or are at their limit, but they can still progress to a certain extent, albeit with lower item level rewards. Highly skilled players can push their limits, obtain the best gear, and then continue challenging themselves beyond their limits. This approach could be made even more relevant with a ranking system and additional rewards.

Imo the criterion savage should be accessible to people with 640-650 gear, like the beginning of the raid tier is. Healing criterion sucks because there’s only 4 people, so a WHM main like me is already handicapped because of having no shield/few mits. The damage coming out is on par with end-tier raids, while we don’t have the 8-man 5% buff. I feel like I healed nothing in criterion compared to savage/ultimate.