Forked Tower is making me quit the game

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Originally Posted by Bryson

The group I cleared FT with, had people who don't raid savage or ultimates. The boss mechs are on par with ex.

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Since I haven't attempted it I was simply going by what I've read here. Nonetheless, I don't think anyone is claiming it is "casual friendly."

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Since I haven't attempted it I was simply going by what I've read here. Nonetheless, I don't think anyone is claiming it is "casual friendly."

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don't go by what you've read.. a lot of misinformation being peddled.

not casual friendly.. but far from savage and ults..

if you've done ex trials & and can "stomach" joining a discord (literally had my mic muted the entire time) you can do it. Is how they went about it annoying? yes... is it the hardest content ever.. no.

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Originally Posted by Bryson

don't go by what you've read.. a lot of misinformation being peddled.

not casual friendly.. but far from savage and ults..

if you've done ex trials & and can "stomach" joining a discord (literally had my mic muted the entire time) you can do it. Is how they went about it annoying? yes... is it the hardest content ever.. no.

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I focus on PvP. Never done an EX on cycle and have no desire to. And, yes, I'm one of the many people to have had negative experiences with Discords related to this game and avoid them like the plague.

woe the tower falls.

https://i.ibb.co/rRVQntjY/a001153.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/j9M2Gfg3/main-image.jpg

Boss 2 is the only real issue because if one person behaves like an idiot, it's a wipe. It's about as annoying as EX3 bridges, Ascian Prime Hades, CoD 24man body check. It's like first floor savage basically. But just that boss. The rest is like. Extreme. But people who consider doing extremes "hard" will obviously struggle with the idea of being not allowed to fuck up for four minutes of a fight, and if they do, they're free to join a party at their prog point til they get it right. What makes it "harder" than extremes is that instead of finding 7 other competent people, you gotta find 47, and you can't replace people who underperform because of the crazy entrance requirements.

e/: Also, if you don't do extremes or above, this content is probably not for you unless you want to put in the effort to learn and study raid plans. Simple as that.

RP isn't for me either, and that's fine! I don't scream at RPers in Limsa because I don't enjoy their thing. PvP is fine for me, but you don't see people griefing in Ranked because they expect to get carried by people who actually do their best.

And if you don't wanna do the content out of protest... Yeah, but don't bother the rest of us who are trying to make it work.

P.S. clearing the second/third easiest ultimate doesn't automatically make you a team player, news at 11. it's almost like 8man raids and 48man raids require partially different skillsets!

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

I focus on PvP. Never done an EX on cycle and have no desire to. And, yes, I'm one of the many people to have had negative experiences with Discords related to this game and avoid them like the plague.

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so why do you even care about ft then?

My thoughts exactly, Bryson. The amount of people here who whine about FT and haven't even been in as a non-sniper is rather staggering.

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Originally Posted by Bryson

so why do you even care about ft then?

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I was expecting FT to be sub-EX difficulty and OC to be interesting. Wrong on both counts.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

I was expecting FT to be sub-EX difficulty and OC to be interesting. Wrong on both counts.

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earlier you said "Once again in DT, SE has released content designed for savage raiders."

now you saying you expect sub ex, but you also said you don't do ex trials on patch and you focus on pvp

I don't understand what you have to be upset about

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Originally Posted by 0blivion

My thoughts exactly, Bryson. The amount of people here who whine about FT and haven't even been in as a non-sniper is rather staggering.

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The fact that you people don't get the reason for that though is to me, also staggering.

Content that requires people to sift through discord forms for a chance at a spot (maybe you can enter the raid once a day if you're lucky) and join a vc with 48 strangers , is failed content. The mechanical difficulty COMBINED with the entry method is what is causing all of the backlash. Nobody is saying this raid is savage level on a purely mechanical level, even so it took world first longer to clear this than a bloody ultimate on release. And that is world first people who have access to a 48 man static unlike the rest of us.

I am talking to a bunch of people who have been hard progging this since launch in discord, and they still haven't cleared Magitaur simply because the raid can't be progged like any other raid. I refuse to subject myself to that nonsense, and apparently so does most of the playerbase.

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Originally Posted by Bryson

earlier you said "Once again in DT, SE has released content designed for savage raiders."

now you saying you expect sub ex, but you also said you don't do ex trials on patch and you focus on pvp

I don't understand what you have to be upset about

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Oh that's simple. We had a good PvP FL update in 7.2 which was ruined by the addition of a PvE map, meaning you can only actually play FL PvP 2 out of 4 days.

I was then looking forward to Cosmic Exploration since I'm an omnicrafter/gatherer and the content is shit.

I was then looking forward to OC since I enjoyed both Eureka and Bozja and the content is shit.

Clear?

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Oh that's simple. We had a good PvP FL update in 7.2 which was ruined by the addition of a PvE map, meaning you can only actually play FL PvP 2 out of 4 days.

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Preach! Though... I actually like shatter (when people decide to PVP).

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Originally Posted by ChrysOCE

Preach! Though... I actually like shatter (when people decide to PVP).

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I think secure is a much better implementation of pve in pvp. I like how it forces engagements mid and the teleporters mean you can push a side lane and still make it to mid in time. The only reason I don't like shatter is too many big ice spawn and there's only two safe ways into a big ice. So either you have two teams fighting and one off in narnia or two at the choke not moving into the ice because they don't want to get pinched and the team on the ice gets it free. They don't enable natural engagement sadly. If the big ice pits were more open to flanks rather than focing the flanking team to drop down a cliff taking damage and having no way out it would feel way better.

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Originally Posted by YovelaLindswood

I think secure is a much better implementation of pve in pvp. I like how it forces engagements mid and the teleporters mean you can push a side lane and still make it to mid in time. The only reason I don't like shatter is too many big ice spawn and there's only two safe ways into a big ice. So either you have two teams fighting and one off in narnia or two at the choke not moving into the ice because they don't want to get pinched and the team on the ice gets it free. They don't enable natural engagement sadly. If the big ice pits were more open to flanks rather than focing the flanking team to drop down a cliff taking damage and having no way out it would feel way better.

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They could just leave PVE out of PVP entirely. I just like shatter when players actually engage in PVP. When it is all ice licking, it bores me to tears.

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Originally Posted by 0blivion

My thoughts exactly, Bryson. The amount of people here who whine about FT and haven't even been in as a non-sniper is rather staggering.

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Dissatisfaction that this is yet another piece of content targeted at a tiny minority of players?

I agree with it being boring with only pve but at the same time only pvp turns into just tdm mid all game which also gets stale fast. You need a balance of objectives that naturally draw fights between all teams and the fights themselves. Take the meteors in secure. The more people you have in it compared to enemy teams nets you more points so it naturally engages fights. Big mid tower has aoes and stacks going off which can turn the tide of a fight. I love being a rdm and dashing into a teams stack when I have a stack and nuking them for instance. But yeah shatter needs a rework bad.

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Originally Posted by itachi-otsutsuki

You literally just said nothing. We all refuse to jump through those hoops to get access to the content. That is the whole point of the bloody thread. And you can't force us with your gatekeeping.

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That's not gatekeeping my guy.

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Originally Posted by itachi-otsutsuki

More passive aggressiveness. Don't tell me what I can and can not clear. I literally did FRU in PF.

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https://i.redd.it/xrnipmdxp70c1.jpg

the content is easy as hell, the difference between this and savage and ultimate is extremely ABISM, I already find extreme casual af, and if you tell me that this is a personal opinion I say the same, you think it's hard doesn't mean it's hard, the argument falls against you ''"but there is a learning curve'' of course there is, but just don't put your opinion above those of other people who have lives outside the game and put in an effort that you don't want to put in.

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Originally Posted by YovelaLindswood

Its really easy to get in a premade with helplines or another discord. There's probably one available in your 2-3hr time frame. If they don't have one see if they are willing to try one at that time or ask if you can host one yourself. Yes this is the worst designed content I've ever seen but if you don't want to put in the effort to get in that's entirely on you. Don't get passive aggressive with the guy telling you how to get into tower because you want handouts.

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Originally Posted by Falak

Weather comes up every half hour. Maybe figure out how it works first before complaining about it. There's already more than enough to complain about when it comes to Forked Tower entry.

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Originally Posted by 0blivion

Join a discord and sign up for a scheduled run. Also, what Falak said.

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This is the "Best Community" in the gaming industry btw. Always helpful, always polite. The queue system is bad because a bunch of old men in Japan get to make bad decisions and no one can disagree with them because that's their "culture" and just how things work in Japan, so I just don't play the content, that was my solution. But good lord y'all will you please have some basic decency for your fellow man?

A game that relies on players using a 3rd party program (Discord) which is explicitly not allowed (per the ToS) is kinda silly yeah? Don't you want the game to be good? Why would you step on someone who's having a hard time dealing with the game being bad? Why are you happy that FF14 isn't a good game anymore?

The one thing I've learned from the many threads related to CAR and FT is that I want absolutely nothing to do with the raiding community.

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Originally Posted by YovelaLindswood

Its really easy to get in a premade with helplines or another discord. There's probably one available in your 2-3hr time frame. If they don't have one see if they are willing to try one at that time or ask if you can host one yourself. Yes this is the worst designed content I've ever seen but if you don't want to put in the effort to get in that's entirely on you. Don't get passive aggressive with the guy telling you how to get into tower because you want handouts.

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Is this like a troll account? Please tell me you are trolling.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

The one thing I've learned from the many threads related to CAR and FT is that I want absolutely nothing to do with the raiding community.

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FT really just reminded everyone how wide the gap between the casual and hardcore group is really. A lot of the time the playstyles and mindsets clash far too much.

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Originally Posted by Shadyshawty

the content is easy as hell, the difference between this and savage and ultimate is extremely ABISM, I already find extreme casual af, and if you tell me that this is a personal opinion I say the same, you think it's hard doesn't mean it's hard, the argument falls against you ''"but there is a learning curve'' of course there is, but just don't put your opinion above those of other people who have lives outside the game and put in an effort that you don't want to put in.

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I don’t disagree that the content isn’t savage level but you all also contradict yourself.
On one hand you all say, it is easy so just do it.
On the other you all say, no you can’t just pug it with randoms because it’s too hard and a sniper will ruin the entire run.

Fact is that this thing has a certain difficulty that requires premades and raidplans, a learning curve like you said.

I think at this point some people on both sides are just unfair.
One side wants to defend that they did it, which is understandable given some rather extreme outbursts against them and the other side gets frustrated because they are treated as borderline subhumans (not you) for not wanting to use Discord which usually isn’t needed in this game even in harder content.

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Originally Posted by YovelaLindswood

Its really easy to get in a premade with helplines or another discord. There's probably one available in your 2-3hr time frame. If they don't have one see if they are willing to try one at that time or ask if you can host one yourself. Yes this is the worst designed content I've ever seen but if you don't want to put in the effort to get in that's entirely on you. Don't get passive aggressive with the guy telling you how to get into tower because you want handouts.

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Content that requires a third party tool as an absolute hard requirement has already failed on delivery.

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Originally Posted by Kandraxx

Content that requires a third party tool as an absolute hard requirement has already failed on delivery.

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Has it though? what about people who want content that requires a high degree of coordination? which is something that FFXIV has been known to provide in the past with raids like BA, which are still strongly beloved to this day.

I tried FT for the first time today, and I had an absolute blast, it made me want to keep doing it and reminded me why I enjoyed BA so much several years back, the fights themselves are also not too bad, they are somewhere between EX2 and EX3 in difficulty, just hard enough to keep me focused while giving me plenty of breathing room, and it is the only style of raid in the game that genuinely feels like a raid, like not the FFXIV or even a MMO definition of a "raid", I mean a textbook, dictionary definition.

If the entrance method was less convoluted, it'd be 10/10 content to me, and I still have hope they will simplify it, they simplified BA and these devs are nothing if not consistent to a fault, whether this will be enough remains to be seen, but I am confident something will be done.

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Originally Posted by VeyaAkemi

Has it though? what about people who want content that requires a high degree of coordination? which is something that FFXIV has been known to provide in the past with raids like BA, which are still strongly beloved to this day.

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Why do you need a Discord for that? Savage and Ultimates require a high degree of coordination and cooperation and we can PF those.

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Originally Posted by VeyaAkemi

Has it though? what about people who want content that requires a high degree of coordination? which is something that FFXIV has been known to provide in the past with raids like BA, which are still strongly beloved to this day.

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I'm sure they'll continue to be given plenty of it at the expense of the majority of players.

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Originally Posted by VeyaAkemi

Has it though? what about people who want content that requires a high degree of coordination? which is something that FFXIV has been known to provide in the past with raids like BA, which are still strongly beloved to this day.

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This reason falls flat because Savage and ultimates can be done through PF. Hell my top clear was done in PF with no discord. Having a system that is turning the community hostile to the point where people start going out of their way to mess with others it's a failure in design and needs to be changed. Why this content wasn't able to que just like the Dalraida I will never know.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

Why do you need a Discord for that? Savage and Ultimates require a high degree of coordination and cooperation and we can PF those.

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It's a very different form of coordination found there, please read what I said, I value the player density and the process, and it is just a fact that it takes a lot more to wrangle 48 players together than it takes to wrangle 8.

You need to understand, I actively enjoy the Discord organization, specifically because it's something not found elsewhere in the game, only in these incredibly sparse raids.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

I'm sure they'll continue to be given plenty of it at the expense of the majority of players.

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There are 3 raids in this style in the game, the last of which prior to Forked Tower was released almost 5 years ago(patch 5.45 for DRS), in what world is this "plenty"...

Look, I am not arguing against a Normal version of this content or whatever else, I am arguing against the idea this content is fundamentally bad for requiring that extra layer of external organization, because it is precisely what I crave, a style of raid that sparsely exists in the game.

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Originally Posted by VeyaAkemi

Look, I am not arguing against a Normal version of this content or whatever else, I am arguing against the idea this content is fundamentally bad for requiring that extra layer of external organization, because it is precisely what I crave, a style of raid that sparsely exists in the game.

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Which is fine because you have the same right to get your content as anyone else and are not wrong in thinking that FFxiv has a bit little in that regard.
The problem is that in this form with its entrance system it clearly doesn’t even want Discord (the tower doesn’t know what it wants.

The whole thing could have been mitigated with simply following DRS.
Have content for pugging and one version for heavy organization through Discord.

Right now the only thing I see in the zone is people having absolutely no interest in doing it at all because of all the talk around it.
Some of what I have seen is players who have just… given up or are like me and only do it begrudgingly in Discord without having fun at all.
Imo not even chaotic had downright broken players to this extent because there at least you could just use PF and people still had the hope of “our content will come in 7.3” just to be let down by SE again.

It’s probably just anectodal but I have never seen the more casual players that disappointed and let down like right now.

The worst is that it also alienate people that used to like that kind of content. Eureka and bozja were content made for everyone with more challenging option. OC only has interest if you plan to do FT. I spent hundreds, maybe thousands of hours in both Eureka and bozja. I'm at 30 hours in OC, 5 jobs maxed, and I don't see the point anymore. At this point, it's just sad.

This might be the worst error of 7.X patches. A lot of players that put their hope in that content have been told "This game is not for you anymore, even the content you were the most involved with is not for you". FFXIV won't die (too many whales/people using it for its mods/raiders fine with the state of the game), but its reputation can.

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Originally Posted by remiff

Honestly, given how it's designed like crap—light-years away from BA, which was already designed like ass back then—I seriously doubt it.
It's content doomed to die, just like Chaotic.

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I'll hold you onto your word in an expansion or two.
But I'm not convinced this is going to stick as well as BA, because it's not a novelty like BA, and the mechanics inside look on savage level, which wasn't the case for BA, so this is going to drastically reduce accessibility and the amount of people ready to run it.

Discord raid, nope. Toxicity allowed? Nope

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Originally Posted by VeyaAkemi

It's a very different form of coordination found there, please read what I said, I value the player density and the process, and it is just a fact that it takes a lot more to wrangle 48 players together than it takes to wrangle 8

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Well we're getting some conflicting information about the difficulty of this raid. I've seen people on these forums say they just had to mute themselves and listen to where to go in the Discord runs. I don't know if you do Savage, but you definitely can't just mute yourself and get told where to go. You have to actively engage and think and respond to mechanic triggers. If it's just knowing where to go, then if FT were able to be organized in PF and queued, that sounds like something that could be handled with macros and raidplans and sites like wtfdig that will tell you exactly where to go and when and you just study it ahead of time. We did that with Chaotic.

What's the aspect that it makes it something that absolutely needs Discord?

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

The one thing I've learned from the many threads related to CAR and FT is that I want absolutely nothing to do with the raiding community.

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There are bad apples in every type of community but there are also some pretty chill people who raid. Even people who do PF for it. There are casual statics that are much more laid back about things. If you're ever curious, I'd look into one of those.

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Originally Posted by VeyaAkemi

It's a very different form of coordination found there, please read what I said, I value the player density and the process, and it is just a fact that it takes a lot more to wrangle 48 players together than it takes to wrangle 8.

You need to understand, I actively enjoy the Discord organization, specifically because it's something not found elsewhere in the game, only in these incredibly sparse raids.

Look, I am not arguing against a Normal version of this content or whatever else, I am arguing against the idea this content is fundamentally bad for requiring that extra layer of external organization, because it is precisely what I crave, a style of raid that sparsely exists in the game.

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So the external organization is part of the appeal for you!? Do you work in HR?

I have now heard it all. And refer you to post #61.

I still think FT should be a raid you que in like DR in Bozja and what this community have with always using discord omg xx) once a content need discord it just mean it failed as a public content like it is

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

What's the aspect that it makes it something that absolutely needs Discord?

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From what I've seen clearing it a few times and entering 50+ times, mostly figuring out required phantom jobs, and getting enough people interested in the tower into one instance are the problems Discord/other forms of scheduling solve

At bare minimum, tower needs 24 people out of the 72 in the instance to even be clearable (bodychecks), and they need to be willing to communicate. For a comfy run, you need the full 48, and good luck getting 2/3ds of an instance of random players to be level 20, holding ciphers, and interested in the tower (Not to mention the various different prog points they'll no doubt be at)

And on top of that, required phantom jobs. Not only do you need 7+ different phantom jobs for different parts of the tower (you can not swap phantom job after the starter room), you need 2 or 3 each of a few of them.
To make matters even worse, you can't tell at a glance what phantom jobs the raid has. Because of this, most discord raid organizers make signup sheets on Google Forms so they can spreadsheet out what jobs and phantom jobs people are willing to play. It's not convenient to do, but it sure beats everyone having to type what theyre bringing in yell chat, then someone writing all of that down, then begging people who arent on a necessary pjob to swap to one (because you always end up needing something), nevermind the headache that is making sure each party is balanced, with 2tanks, a shield healer, a pure healer, a physranged, a melee, a caster, and an any dps (Most of these are just for a smooth run, but the raid does need 3+ tanks and 12+ interrupts to be clearable, also shield healers for raidwides).

If you could make 48-man PFs and instance directly in, the player count problem would vanish, and getting required phantom jobs via yell would be slightly easier because in alliance chat every message would also say your party number next to it (so we could easily see if we have a thief in A/B/C, and another in D/E/F) also, parties wouldnt have to say "I'm party A" "Why are we A?" "I claimed A, just remember it for mechanics..." when figuring out which party is which for positioning. That and PF leaders can control who gets in the PF, if someone joins a "Need oracle" slot and doesnt want to play oracle, kick. If they join a final boss clear party and have never set foot in the tower, kick. No more random players kicking someone from the premade out either (Bonus points if the person who didnt make it in was on a necessary phantom job).

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

Well we're getting some conflicting information about the difficulty of this raid.

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Personally I would rate the difficulty of Forked Tower's mechanics as on the easy end of Dawntrail extremes. A majority of mechanics can just be called, the rest can be handled with a raidplan.
The real difficulty people are talking about when they say its savage level is the fact that while mechanics are easy Extreme-tier, all 48 players have to do them right. With 6x the player count of a raid, expect 6x the mistakes, and just like in extremes, one single mistake can kill the entire group
...That, and organizing takes a long time, waiting for tower respawn takes even more time, etc. etc. so you usually only end up getting one chance at the content every 2 hours (versus an extreme, where you can pull every other minute if you die early enough)

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

What's the aspect that it makes it something that absolutely needs Discord?

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It's legitimately just player density and all the implications that this density causes, at least in my eyes.

Let me try to explain my perspective on this... there is a wide gap between player skill in this game, right? from hypercasuals who struggle with normal dungeons, to people who only do normal dungeons, to early expac EX like EX1 and 2, to current expac EX like EX3 and 4, to Savage, to Ultimates, right? and the more people you add to the pot, the wider the range of skill in the group becomes, in terms of actual difficulty, I'd say the fights in FT are somewhere between EX2 and 3 in difficulty, but the problem lies not in the difficulty of the fight, it lies on making sure so many people know what to do and remember what to do, and in a way, it shares a similarity to statics that rely on Discord for a raid lead to call out mechanics, of which there are plenty out there, the callouts are being used to bridge those gaps in player skill, there is an added wrinkle of the corridors, which are legitimately very deadly, from traps to mobs that will one-shot a non-Tank with ease, if someone runs ahead, the raid lead can say "everyone stay back", and guarantee the other 22+themselves(since the corridors split) won't get blasted when the one idiot runs into a super trap, to as simple reminders as to switch sides when the Manticores do their arm slam attack.

Then you run into the next issue, and it's that because you have to go into OC, you start facing an issue of preparation, or more accurately a lack of it, think about it, for an Ultimate, you have to have: cleared the associated Savage raid to even unlock the instance and to meet an incredibly strict iLvl requirement that is BiS for this content or very very close, this puts even the attempt of an Ultimate significantly more strict while also creating expectations of how this is meant to be handled, comparatively, because the entry requirements for FT are so low, you literally only need Knowledge 20, it creates a deeper need for organization to make it work, you need to make sure everyone has the right Phantom Jobs, you need to make sure every party has a proper assortment of roles, and the most practical way to guarantee this is properly handled IS Discord or something similar to it.

If this content could be clearable with 8 and had an easier, out of OC entry requirement, it would absolutely be doable in PF, I'd argue it would be easy in PF even, by high end raider standards, but there are so many added wrinkles along the way that complicates the process far beyond that, and you could say that those wrinkles are design flaws, plenty of people already are, but they sum up to creating a very unique experience compared to literally every other content in the game, an experience that is found exactly in 3 raids across the entire game, and if that scratches a specific itch in your brain, which to me is the player density in itself, watching so many people sharing a common goal in a MMO makes me genuinely giddy, which is also why I adore Field Operations so much, then this is it, this is unquestionably what you want.

Hopefully I managed to communicate the point well enough, I feel I got a tad rambly there for a moment.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

There are bad apples in every type of community but there are also some pretty chill people who raid. Even people who do PF for it. There are casual statics that are much more laid back about things. If you're ever curious, I'd look into one of those.

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I'm sure the raiding community includes many pleasant and helpful people.

Unfortunately, the last week or so we have had a procession of Discord raiders marching through the FT threads defending the vigilante "justice" they hand out, and expressing some of the most toxic sentiments I have heard in this game.

I don't want to be within 100 malms of those attitudes.