Forked Tower: Blood Needs A Normal Mode

Maybe its just because I play tabletop games like dungeons & dragons, but this repeat of "oops all savage" is giving me bad dungeon master vibes. In the sense the dungeon master (in this case battle designer), for whatever reason, is creating more elaborate and harder fights. Yet the players they have are not all at the same skill level or with characters capable of tackling the fight, some are able to yet the remainder are not.

The reasons can vary but they can be chalked up into 4 categories for how fights get designed:
1) The creator of the fight accidentally or purposefully creates "meat grinder" fights where there is a high rate of fatality.
2) The creator of the fight purposefully designs fights as some form of arms race with players who over perform while neglecting other players.
3) The creator of the fight just went with what they thought at the time would be cool for players to do but didn't realize what exactly they had created.
4) Any combination of the above.

As much like a fight designer for an mmorpg, a dungeon master has to design battle encounters for the players that they do have. But the key difference is the number of players. As with a game of D&D for example, you can have tables of 1 to 8 players, with 8 being on the high end.

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Originally Posted by Chasingstars

The reasons can vary but they can be chalked up into 4 categories for how fights get designed:
1) The creator of the fight accidentally or purposefully creates "meat grinder" fights where there is a high rate of fatality.
2) The creator of the fight purposefully designs fights as some form of arms race with players who over perform while neglecting other players.
3) The creator of the fight just went with what they thought at the time would be cool for players to do but didn't realize what exactly they had created.
4) Any combination of the above.

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I’d like to think it was 3, but I definitely think there’s an element of 1 involved too… it’s just too punishing to have 20-some mechs where one person can wipe the raid. Plus it kills replayability for most of the player base, and also makes it less likely for anyone to risk taking along newbies. I’m sure there will always be a few discords around scheduling runs because they enjoy leading people through it. But a lot of the runs lately are reclear runs for the achievement. Which is an insane achievement for content with so many wipe mechs and a rez limit. What other content of this difficulty has a 100-run achievement?!

So it still needs a Normal mode added. I’d prefer they not nerf the one they have now, so people who like that kind of challenge and time-sink can have at it. But the rest of us want to explore the Tower too, with a difficulty along the lines of CLL/Dalriada/DRN. The zone feels incomplete without it.

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Originally Posted by Chasingstars

is giving me bad dungeon master vibes.

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This is an excellent comparison. And just like a bad dm, if you question them at all, you are met with derision, indifference or a glaringly big ego. Along with that one player who thinks the dm is the best dm in the entire world and no other dm can compare so anyone who disagrees can just go play with a different dm

I don't want to assume too much about their thinking, but I would assume the battle content team makes what they think is cool and what they want to play. And given certain past comments, I would also assume their skill level is well above the average player, to the point where they have difficulty "designing down" content like this.

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Originally Posted by FuturePastNow

I would also assume their skill level is well above the average player, to the point where they have difficulty "designing down" content like this.

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That would be a skill issue on their end being a creator. If you can't make something easy and fun, how can we trust you to make something difficult fun?

On the topic of whether or not OC is enough content if you don’t do the Tower, brought up in another thread:

Everything does lead to the Tower, which makes it feel incomplete without a Normal mode. The phantom jobs, while fun to play, have skills that are only really useful in the Tower. You can’t get your gear to +2 without the Tower, because for outsiders that relies on support fates, of which I’ve only seen 2, for a whopping total of 4 pieces of sanguinite.

Bozja had 2 dungeons - CLL and Dalriada - both of which were slightly challenging at first but eased up as you leveled in the zone with mettle and actions. Plus it had DRN/DRS. Forked Tower is a descendant of Eureka’s Baldesion Arsenal, but what makes those such different experiences? One, Eureka had the big Fates for each zone that acted as kind of zone bosses. And those bosses had rare drops that were used for special items to give an in-zone advantage, and tradeable on the mb for millions to this day. Two, BA came at the end of the content so it felt like optional bonus content, as well as not having as many wipe mechs so newbies could be carried through. FT comes right in the middle, has 20-some places where a single person’s mistake can mean game over, and locks the last gear upgrade of the zone’s gear behind it, putting non-Tower clearers at a disadvantage going into the second and final zone. Third, and perhaps the most important to me, it locks rewards that should be Normal mode level, behind Hard mode content. The last FIVE field notes are in there, along with a TT card. This did not happen with either Eureka or Bozja: BA and DRS only had a mount, Bozja’s field notes were obtainable without doing DRS and their cards were sold in the cluster shop, Eureka had no field notes, but their cards were obtained from boss NMs and an NPC outside the zone.

As far as I’m concerned, current FT can keep the mount, and maybe higher drop rates for all the other stuff, but it needs a Normal mode so that everyone can go through and get the notes and have a chance in hell of getting the card (which honestly should be in the sanguinite shop anyway), as well as sanguinite for gear upgrades.

I’d also add that I haven’t gone to OC for about a week now… my only other goal is to max out gold and silver before the next zone comes out and I just honestly don’t feel like it. I’ll probably go in and max out the new phantom jobs when those come out, but that’s about it. Not having a Normal mode Tower to repeat for rewards definitely makes the zone feel lacking to me. You can only grind the same Fates/CEs for so long until it gets old.

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Originally Posted by Uzephi

That would be a skill issue on their end being a creator. If you can't make something easy and fun, how can we trust you to make something difficult fun?

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I think they proved that they are cappable if designing difficult/fun content with the latest savage fights etc (unless its a different team)

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Originally Posted by ServerCollaps

I think they proved that they are cappable if designing difficult/fun content with the latest savage fights etc (unless its a different team)

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As far as I know, they rotate people around to design different content. So someone who designed a dungeon might then design a raid. Rotating gives them rounded experience, avoids burnout from doing the same thing, and allows them to inject different ideas into it.

Yes, it would be nice if this content was accessible for everyone.

Tbh its more fault on OC game design than FT:B as a whole lmao.
Instead of having normal CLL and HARDCORE SAVAGE CLL i rather have CLL and DR(S).

So i dont agree on normal version of FT:B, because it WILL be easier by the next time we got new Phantom Jobs anyway.
But puggable super dungeon with a difficulty as Ridorana/Orbonne? Hell yeah.