Figured I'd post coming from someone who completed both modes.

When looking at the dungeon from a PvE mechanic point of view, PA did a great job. From this perspective the puzzles were quite fun to solve (yet frustrating for the time it took, but that's the point of a puzzle). The visuals are nice, the area is cool, and the boss and monster mechanics and their skills are pretty neat (yet annoying). I would give PA 8/10 in terms of overall dungeon mechanics and fun factor. Definitely could use a bit of tweaking, but overall the thought behind the puzzles and boss mechanics are pretty cool.

Below is in reference to elvia-hardmode:

When looking at the rewards point of view, PA did a poor job to some extent in regards to the elvia-hardmode. While the the "up-to-TRI" accessory box sounds great, in the end, it IS an RNG box. Everyone in my group got at least a PRI accessory (I forgot exactly what everyone got but one member did get a TRI basi belt). From the elvia chest, you also get 30 oaths (which are used to trade in for stuff like stacks, elkarr, weapon exchange coupon, etc) and 10 maha fragments (equivalent to 100mil). Unfortunately, this is all you get from the "tough" fight at the boss fight. Good news is, the final boss fight is instanced and you DO NOT LOSE crystals at the final boss fight when you die. Because my group already knew the boss mechanics from previously beating the regular mode, we only failed once. The overall fight took about 30min or so. And YES, you do need gear for the final boss fight. The final phase of the boss (last 30% of his health) involves him spawning lava pools throughout the room and if you take too long, the room fills up with nowhere to run/fight and you all die quick. So, gear and DPS is a must have (had 2 700+ in my group, I was the lowest at 666, and the other two were around 680/690 GS). So when comparing the rewards versus difficulty, the rewards are lacking; HOWEVER, because its a mechanic that can be simply mastered, this "reward" will inevitably be easy to obtain as groups continusouly run this over and over and become masters of it. This dungeon will eventually be a weekly chore/quest. So although the rewards are poor initially, in the long run, the rewards become somewhat worth it.

As many of you may have heard, you can and will lose crystals on death from mobs outside the boss fight. Some of the higher elite mobs can do 1-hit kill skills but they can be easily iframed/dodge or just get out of the AOE. Obviously, more DP will allow you to take the hits, but the elvia-hardmode mobs DO hurt. The puzzles only need to be done if you need people that want to complete the weekly black spirit questline for the dungeon. If you simply just want to go for the boss, you can just run past all the puzzles, get your 10 horns from the mobs/elites which you simple-alchemy into the item that lets you and your pass the gateway. Rinse and repeat basically until the final boss fight.

I would HIGHLY recommend completing the dungeon on normal/regular mode first as it is significantly easier to do in terms of damage received and damage output. And, it exposes the group on what to expect. The rewards are nearly the same except the accessory box is only up to the PRI and the oaths and maha fragments are significantly less. If you speed run regular/normal mode, I'd say it should take no more than an hour (there should be plenty of guides going up by now going over the boss mechanics).

Would I recommend doing this dungeon on elvia/hardmode? If your group has gear and is "competent" enough to follow directions and mechanics, yes. Will I be doing this weeky? Hell yes. It'll only be easier here on out for some quick and easy rewards. 

So, what all the fuss and negative reviews about this content? Simpy because we are BDO players and we, after the last 5+ years have been so used to killing things that posed nearly no threat to us. We have been so used to the hack-and-slash of this MMO that "mechanics" piss people off, especially when it involves puzzles. Literally, y'all just need to take a bit of time to think about the puzzles and watch how the mobs and boss mechanics work. If you run in and hack and slash, of course you will die and lose crystals. This PvE content is not a hack and slash dungeon, there was thought put behind this content. This thought and complexity was meant to put in because this content was and is supposed to be different than the regular good ol hack and slash grinding.

This was a bit of a shock because most content in BDO has revolved around one tapping mobs. That said, there are various issues that need to be dealt with including what's in the OP. So I hope the devs take a hard good look at feedback.

I dissagree with you dungeon wud be kinda ok like this with some minor flaws if it was instanced, but with random people pulling mobs all over the place and onto you when fighting something plus puzzles which can be messed up by anyone in the area randomly runing over it or interacting with something not to mention randomised loot of mobs and few other smaller flaws is just bad design.

Anyhow am glad you liked it but apart from few enthusiasts like you this content is dead on arrival, most people will probaly not even complete it once, and vast majority of the rest will do it once and never again which will leave few people like you doing it regularly.

Also about the puzzles dunno what you found so fun in them they are pretty simple, mostly its basicly simon says(childs game), so yeah nothing complex or very interesting in that the only challange of them is getting other 20 people in the area to not fuck it up for you by doing random shit:)

Oh definitely yes, the whole thing about it not being instanced was a definitely a major flaw.

As I had mentioned, once you know the mechanic around the boss fight, subsequent once per week attempts will only get easier. I would imagine speed running with good/geared groups such as I mine in the near future would only make the dungeon run take about 45 minutes, maybe an hour at most. Now, assuming the desert chest is obtainable once/week, it makes it worth doing once a week for the chance of up to a TRI accessory and then the 100mil + the oaths (the main thing worth trading in the oaths for are the elkarrs of course).

@ Factorial

Definitely was a shock, but I went into the dungeon knowing that it should be hard. Devs need to look at feedback, but I just hope they don't dumb down this dungeon or the future remaining 3 dungeons to be hack-and-slash dungeons. This content IMO is pretty neat and something worth trying despite the lacking rewards. For those that have been aggravated by the type of content that this is, they should simply just ignore it just like I ignore sea and bartering content. Of course, everyone loves nice, free and/or easy rewards, but I don't mind taking effort to get a good pay day. Aside from the dungeon needing to be instanced and some of the tweaks to the puzzles, I think the biggest thing they need to work on is the rewards for this type of content. This is the reason why the Savage Rift and Pit of Dying or whatever is called was also DOA,. Rewards need to be good and consistent for people to repeat it even if it's simply getting a good amount of dust, caphras, etc.

I mean i get it what you are trying to say and yeah as i said originaly if it was instanced it wud be kinda ok with some minor flaws mybe worth 7/10 but as it is atm its pretty bad and without some major tweaking and changes i dont see it being done by many people more than once. In its current state i wud rate it like 3-4/10 and i fell even that is genrous.

Don't worry about instancing, it will be empty within a month, so you can literately have the whole instance for yourself.

Excellent player review. Positive and negative aspects, parts that could be improved/tweaked/changed.

You nailed it when it comes to a review of the dungeon.

Also about how the players react as well, I admit I did laugh hard when i read about players being used to one tapping.

Funny how close to 700+ gs is are preaching others about difficulty.. Dude you are hard gear carried for this and still admit problems. Imagine actual avarage people doing this...

I dont have any problem with harder content. I had fun wiping in Altar of Blood several times and I got all way up to 10 rounds done.

But here so many people are losing 500+ mil crystals. Also boss mechanic is horrible because in phase1 20% of time trash mob ignores you and goes heal boss from 60% to 100%. This bugged agro was defienetly last nail for me.