Forked Tower: Blood Needs A Normal Mode

Sorry you had a bad experience… I’m sure there are plenty of good groups out there that wouldn’t do something like this at the last minute.

But still, the fact that the design of FTB pretty much forces us into having to schedule and coordinate these things outside the game is the issue here. The in-zone version with cipher entry should be a Normal mode. Move the current version with its rez restrictions and wipe mechanics to PF as Savage mode.

Also it would be nice to have an Exploratory mode for the Tower itself. Especially if all the field notes could be obtained that way… just throwing out ideas. But bare minimum I want to be able to explore the Tower and grab the last 5 field notes before starting the next zone.

A Normal mode is definitely preferred, but either way I think it would be cool to be able to go back in and just wander around, kinda like they did for the Nier raids.

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Originally Posted by Laphael

Yes, we need a normal mode.

The alternative would be to implement the queueingfix as planned in 7.3 and let everyone who likes the challenge beat it like this and then in 7.4 NERF it down to DRN/Dalriada difficulty.


Sadly i fear the SE alternative will be: pretend it doesn´t exist after 7.3

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They can't do that because they need to prepare new South Horn phantom jobs for us in 7.45 as per their own timeline, which will be tested rigorously in the Forked Tower by people progging. :)
As of 7.55 I expect them to forget since we'd be getting the new zone North Horn.

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Originally Posted by XtremePrime

They can't do that because they need to prepare new South Horn phantom jobs for us in 7.45 as per their own timeline, which will be tested rigorously in the Forked Tower by people progging. :)
As of 7.55 I expect them to forget since we'd be getting the new zone North Horn.

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Honestly I wouldn’t care if they did FTB:Normal alongside the release of the new zone, just so I didn’t have to start the new zone before completing the Tower. But for them to just say, “oh we didn’t think it was needed or important enough to do,” while saying the next zone will have both doesn’t really make sense since the two Towers are supposed to be mirrors of each other somehow.

This just isn’t content I want to have to prog at all. Extreme Trials, Savage, Ultimate? All those can be queued up again immediately if you wipe. This pretty much requires me to clear a whole day off my schedule and hope I can find a run at a good time for me, even after they add the PF fix, and then do it all over again if we don’t clear.

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Originally Posted by Khryseis_Astra

Honestly I wouldn’t care if they did FTB:Normal alongside the release of the new zone, just so I didn’t have to start the new zone before completing the Tower. But for them to just say, “oh we didn’t think it was needed or important enough to do,” while saying the next zone will have both doesn’t really make sense since the two Towers are supposed to be mirrors of each other somehow.

This just isn’t content I want to have to prog at all. Extreme Trials, Savage, Ultimate? All those can be queued up again immediately if you wipe. This pretty much requires me to clear a whole day off my schedule and hope I can find a run at a good time for me, even after they add the PF fix, and then do it all over again if we don’t clear.

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There was no hard confirmation on FT: Magic having a normal mode, as was clarified to me. It was just a "We'll think about it, maybe".

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Originally Posted by Daralii

There was no hard confirmation on FT: Magic having a normal mode, as was clarified to me. It was just a "We'll think about it, maybe".

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Figures… *sigh* to go from CLL/Dal/DRN to go with BA2, twice, is really disappointing.

Forked tower magic having or not having a normal mode is also going to be impacted by how they choose to do gear progression beyond what we currently have because as it stands sanguinite is not accessible to casuals to +2 gear is inaccessible

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Forked tower magic having or not having a normal mode is also going to be impacted by how they choose to do gear progression beyond what we currently have because as it stands sanguinite is not accessible to casuals to +2 gear is inaccessible

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Not quite. There is a support fate that spawns when people are in the tower that rewards participants with sanguinite. Only 2, but it's better than nothing.

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Originally Posted by BristolRuss

Not quite. There is a support fate that spawns when people are in the tower that rewards participants with sanguinite. Only 2, but it's better than nothing.

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It’s 360 sanguinite for a full set of +2

180 support fates for one of 7 sets of gear is basically the equivalent of being inaccessible

Especially since the support fate spawns right before the final boss so not every forked instance reaches it and since it needs to solve the puzzle to spawn it’s actually time optimal to skip it which is a new meta I’m seeing forming the last few days

Hell, the amount of Sanguinite you get for killing the bosses is barely anything as is when progging. I would have thought they'd design it so you can get a fair bit of Sanguinite by doing FT so you can get +2 equipment faster to better tackle Forked Tower. Kinda like how they used to design progression on Savage with the first two being easy enough to get into and get gear so you can prog the harder 3/4. The fact that the first boss drops 1 is pretty ridiculous. lol

No wonder they had that 100 clear achievement...

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Originally Posted by SeriousPan

Hell, the amount of Sanguinite you get for killing the bosses is barely anything as is when progging. I would have thought they'd design it so you can get a fair bit of Sanguinite by doing FT so you can get +2 equipment faster to better tackle Forked Tower. Kinda like how they used to design progression on Savage with the first two being easy enough to get into and get gear so you can prog the harder 3/4. The fact that the first boss drops 1 is pretty ridiculous. lol

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Sanguinite being massively backloaded is another big problem with forked

Eureka understood this ironically because doing ovni->art/owain->raiden->hallways->portal->support fate

Was a really good farming loop to get eureka fragments to eventually tackle AV and ozma

Meanwhile if you aren’t making it to at least clearing marble dragon consistently you may as well just wait for the support fate. I don’t know why the support fate doesn’t spawn between dead stars and marble dragon, that way people can decide if they want to tackle marble dragon or spawn the support fate then leave and do it with the people outside in OC

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Especially since the support fate spawns right before the final boss so not every forked instance reaches it and since it needs to solve the puzzle to spawn it’s actually time optimal to skip it which is a new meta I’m seeing forming the last few days

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Another side effect of the way this content was set up… great, now we have a “meta” that excludes those outside the Tower getting anything at all. No wonder I’ve only seen two support fates! Not that I was planning to build a whole set of +2 gear with only 2 sanguinite at a time anyways, but I thought maybe I’d have a piece or two before the next zone hit.

So not only am I missing 5 field notes, a TT card and the experience of exploring the Tower at will, but I’ll be even more undergeared than expected going into the next zone. A Normal mode needs to happen.

Just further evidence that too little thought and planning went into the design of the content. If they cared, they'd put it back in the oven for another patch.

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Originally Posted by Khryseis_Astra

Another side effect of the way this content was set up… great, now we have a “meta” that excludes those outside the Tower getting anything at all. No wonder I’ve only seen two support fates! Not that I was planning to build a whole set of +2 gear with only 2 sanguinite at a time anyways, but I thought maybe I’d have a piece or two before the next zone hit.

So not only am I missing 5 field notes, a TT card and the experience of exploring the Tower at will, but I’ll be even more undergeared than expected going into the next zone. A Normal mode needs to happen.

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I’m still questioning how they intend to do gear in north horn

I’m like 99% sure they won’t make north horn gear upgrade from +2 without making sanguinite more accessible outside of forked but I’m less sure they will attempt to avoid either of

1) making it so north horn uses a different progression system so +2 remains BIS for north horn
2) 7.45 phantom jobs are purchasable with sanguinite rather than gold/silver or fates

Either way if they don’t add a normal (which they won’t) there needs to be an alternate route to sanguinite because this does work like DRS

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

I’m still questioning how they intend to do gear in north horn

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Yeah can’t exactly compare to Eureka, because BA was at the end of the content… unless you look at it like maybe this set of gear replaces Eureka’s dyeable level 70 gear grind at the beginning, so there will be a whole new set of gear plus upgrades for North Horn like Eureka did Elemental gear starting in the second half (Pyros iirc).

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Originally Posted by Khryseis_Astra

Yeah can’t exactly compare to Eureka, because BA was at the end of the content… unless you look at it like maybe this set of gear replaces Eureka’s dyeable level 70 gear grind at the beginning, so there will be a whole new set of gear plus upgrades for North Horn like Eureka did Elemental gear starting in the second half (Pyros iirc).

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The closest comparison we have is +2 is augmented laws order gear which remained BIS in Zadnor

But Zadnor also gave us rays which OC already has shades of with phantom mastery stacks

I am sure that if Forked Tower had a normal mode and it had the 100 clears for the title I would run it every day for weeks. Actually it is what I was expecting before 7.25 so it was a biiig letdown. I like doing savage, but I prefer playing with 47 guys in a casual environment, Dalriada and Delubrum normal were so much fun.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

I’m still questioning how they intend to do gear in north horn

I’m like 99% sure they won’t make north horn gear upgrade from +2 without making sanguinite more accessible outside of forked but I’m less sure they will attempt to avoid either of

1) making it so north horn uses a different progression system so +2 remains BIS for north horn
2) 7.45 phantom jobs are purchasable with sanguinite rather than gold/silver or fates

Either way if they don’t add a normal (which they won’t) there needs to be an alternate route to sanguinite because this does work like DRS

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I think probably the North Horn gear + jobs will be massively overpowered in South Horn content, and they expect that once some people have upgraded they'll be able to steamroll the older raid. Which doesn't actually solve the problem for anyone who doesn't want to join a discord and be carried but I don't think SE cares about anything except clear rate stats

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Originally Posted by FuturePastNow

I think probably the North Horn gear + jobs will be massively overpowered in South Horn content, and they expect that once some people have upgraded they'll be able to steamroll the older raid. Which doesn't actually solve the problem for anyone who doesn't want to join a discord and be carried but I don't think SE cares about anything except clear rate stats

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Eh I don’t think that will fix anything given BA still has horrible clear rates and BA is literally doing level 70 content with level 85 stats

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Originally Posted by FuturePastNow

I think probably the North Horn gear + jobs will be massively overpowered in South Horn content, and they expect that once some people have upgraded they'll be able to steamroll the older raid. Which doesn't actually solve the problem for anyone who doesn't want to join a discord and be carried but I don't think SE cares about anything except clear rate stats

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True, if that ends up being how it works. I would’ve liked to do the content in order, instead of having to start the next zone, complete another gear set there, then see if I can get through FTB when everyone else is going to be focused on FTM!

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Originally Posted by Miguelstein

I am sure that if Forked Tower had a normal mode and it had the 100 clears for the title I would run it every day for weeks. Actually it is what I was expecting before 7.25 so it was a biiig letdown. I like doing savage, but I prefer playing with 47 guys in a casual environment, Dalriada and Delubrum normal were so much fun.

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Oh definitely! While I don’t enjoy the setting of Bozja as much as I did Eureka, I still go back in and run those dungeons every now and then. That’s the kind of thing that makes sense to have a 100-clear achievement. I would run it every time it popped til I at least got 1 set of +2 gear and the TT card, which I assume is random drop, and then work on the 100 clears over time.

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Originally Posted by Khryseis_Astra

So not only am I missing 5 field notes, a TT card and the experience of exploring the Tower at will, but I’ll be even more undergeared than expected going into the next zone. A Normal mode needs to happen.

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They will be absolutely insane if the next zone requires gear upgrades from this zone. Maybe +1 would be fine but not +2 unless they want even worse playerbase pushback.

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Originally Posted by Miguelstein

I am sure that if Forked Tower had a normal mode and it had the 100 clears for the title I would run it every day for weeks. Actually it is what I was expecting before 7.25 so it was a biiig letdown. I like doing savage, but I prefer playing with 47 guys in a casual environment, Dalriada and Delubrum normal were so much fun.

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I already raid three nights a week for three hours and PF on the weekends. I enjoy raiding too but man we need some downtime to do something fun and less intense just as much as casual or midcore need that type of content.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

I already raid three nights a week for three hours and PF on the weekends. I enjoy raiding too but man we need some downtime to do something fun and less intense just as much as casual or midcore need that type of content.

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Another good point… especially with all the division in the community right now. Everyone wants something that’s fun to do and, especially, fun enough to be repeatable, without it always having to be something super challenging that has to be organized, progged and stress-inducing. That repeatable fun instance was what so many were hoping for in this type of zone and I really hope they’ll reconsider working it in.

I know it’s not a simple request… but neither is it as time-consuming as creating a whole new dungeon. It already exists, it just needs duplicated with a few tweaks to make a Normal mode, and I think it would be well worth whatever time investment is required.

I have one very simple question for people asking for a 'Normal Mode' of Forked Tower.

Baldesion Arsenal is so popular to this day that many players will go out of their way to join Discord groups for clears.

Delubrum Reginae is PF-able, and yet there's practically zero listings for it most of the time.

If Delubrum Reginae is this super-amazing, flawless, example that the devs should follow to the letter for ALL content relating to Occult Crescent, why is it comparatively dead from a player interest standpoint?

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Originally Posted by ElysiumDragon

I have one very simple question for people asking for a 'Normal Mode' of Forked Tower.

Baldesion Arsenal is so popular to this day that many players will go out of their way to join Discord groups for clears.

Delubrum Reginae is PF-able, and yet there's practically zero listings for it most of the time.

If Delubrum Reginae is this super-amazing, flawless, example that the devs should follow to the letter for ALL content relating to Occult Crescent, why is it comparatively dead from a player interest standpoint?

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What % of players do you think have actually cleared BA, given it was released in STB expansion (admittingly post, but before SHB release). BA is mostly loved by those that do it, not the wider player base, who wouldn't touch it.

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Originally Posted by ElysiumDragon

If Delubrum Reginae is this super-amazing, flawless, example...

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It's not. No one's said that.

Delubrum Reginae Normal is the sort of thing that PUGs would queue for... if only they could do so while hanging out in Southern Front or Zadnor.

Delubrum Reginae Savage has exactly the queuing mechanism one might expect for content that requires significant organization.

Forked Tower literally takes the worst aspects of both DR versions.

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Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

It's not. No one's said that.

Delubrum Reginae Normal is the sort of thing that PUGs would queue for... if only they could do so while hanging out in Southern Front or Zadnor.

Delubrum Reginae Savage has exactly the queuing mechanism one might expect for content that requires significant organization.

Forked Tower literally takes the worst aspects of both DR versions.

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Also, to that, DRN was something that you did in the course of Bozja and your relics. Of course it doesn't get run widely now. I still see PFs for it every now and then, from someone going through Bozja fresh or wanting to complete a relic. DRN is a different audience to those that do BA/DRS.
But, even if they did a normal Forked Tower and it was queued outside of OC, it would get run constantly, as it would be current content.

Absolute agree that Forked Tower needs a normal mode.

I was *so* excited to level thief up and be able to unlock doors in dungeons and find traps, because that is my character's specialization in his characterization but isn't represented in the game- except when thief came out in Occult Crescent.

I farmed gold below a level that made sense for it out of sheer determination to get thief and then maxed it, absolutely thrilled to be able to unlock doors and find secrets in this cool dungeon!

...only to find out that this is savage content and it wasn't a dungeon + cool mechs and something I could explore and discover at all.

I am a savage raider but from experiences with CAR getting a bunch more people together to do a raid is a pain (even though CAR is not that hard as savage content goes, coordinating that many people is rough. But at least CAR is thoroughly optional and not tied to any other thing or story- and you fight that boss in a normal raid!). I'm still farming CAR because the rewards require a bajillion runs to get enough rewards, which is a different complaint. I'll try to get to learn FT after if anyone is still doing it, but it sucks to have to learn things ahead of time and study guides and prog it rather than explore and have fun, which breaks the fantastic exploration feel of the rest of OC. My savage group also usually does a blind run for fun for our first fights, but this feels like you can't do that without letting down a whole bunch of people, since there's also no easy reset. So there's no real way at all to just explore and have fun and use the in-dungeon skills I was so excited for.

So from my perspective, Forked Tower breaks multiple promises. Not only is it savage content with no normal option, it promised me cool thief skills I can't even use in any normal content yet.

They can totally go back and make a normal mode, and should.

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Originally Posted by ElysiumDragon

I have one very simple question for people asking for a 'Normal Mode' of Forked Tower.

Baldesion Arsenal is so popular to this day that many players will go out of their way to join Discord groups for clears.

Delubrum Reginae is PF-able, and yet there's practically zero listings for it most of the time.

If Delubrum Reginae is this super-amazing, flawless, example that the devs should follow to the letter for ALL content relating to Occult Crescent, why is it comparatively dead from a player interest standpoint?

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BA isn’t popular and it’s clear rate today is dwarfed by DRN/DAL/CLL when they were current. BA is a small community of people who mostly rerun the content for fun because BA is such a well designed raid once you get into it

I used to host BA and I could probably make a case for being one of the top 10 highest all time clearers of BA and basically all my runs were the same 25 people going round and round with maybe 10 new people each time who just wanted ozma

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

They will be absolutely insane if the next zone requires gear upgrades from this zone. Maybe +1 would be fine but not +2 unless they want even worse playerbase pushback.

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If they do it that way they will 100% make sanguinite accessible in north horn

I mean, how are you gonna make the trap aspect matter on normal mode considering they can already be cheesed as-is, and making them not even instakill would defeat the point of having them in the first place? Like sure, I think the skills could have alternate effects for outside FTB, but in general, much like DRN, all the unique parts of field exploration content become entirely inconsequential the second they don't actually kill you.

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Originally Posted by 0blivion

I mean, how are you gonna make the trap aspect matter on normal mode considering they can already be cheesed as-is, and making them not even instakill would defeat the point of having them in the first place? Like sure, I think the skills could have alternate effects for outside FTB, but in general, much like DRN, all the unique parts of field exploration content become entirely inconsequential the second they don't actually kill you.

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Basically do to Forked what DRN did to DRS

DRN’s traps still killed you, you could still precept them. All the skills still worked the same (other than arguably pure essence of the divine) it’s just the fights themselves were easier (and they removed very problematic aspects like minotaur and slimes/golems)

Just take forked, make the bosses easier, remove hard checks like using stop to stop the idols from casting raidwides, possible either delete bridges or make it much more simple and make the support puzzle a small extra thing one party can do like Lyon in the final boss of CLL

Help the "delete bridges" made me cackle because, yeah, they'd need to.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Basically do to Forked what DRN did to DRS

DRN’s traps still killed you, you could still precept them. All the skills still worked the same (other than arguably pure essence of the divine) it’s just the fights themselves were easier (and they removed very problematic aspects like minotaur and slimes/golems)

Just take forked, make the bosses easier, remove hard checks like using stop to stop the idols from casting raidwides, possible either delete bridges or make it much more simple and make the support puzzle a small extra thing one party can do like Lyon in the final boss of CLL

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*Nods* There’s people on the other thread about the PF fix saying how this isn’t really Savage difficulty, more like Extreme. But I’d say the rez restrictions and the wipe mechs themselves are what puts it on Savage difficulty. Someone on a discord I belong to listed out 23 specific things that have to be done by people using a specific phantom job, that can cause a wipe if not done correctly. To me, that’s enough to be considered Savage. And it’s also enough room for error for me to put it off even further, if not altogether, if we don’t get a Normal mode added.

A Normal mode would be something I’d want to do over and over again. This version? Endure it once and never touch it again, assuming I’m lucky enough to clear before I get sick of trying.

Their explanation, that they ran out of time or that there was a "cost" issue or whatever, is comical to me. It's like they did triage but in reverse. Instead of focusing their limited development time on something that could provide the maximum enjoyment for the largest amount of people, they hyperfocused on something turbo-niche that ultimately wound up being gatekept behind a discord and enjoyed by mostly raidslop enjoyers and amassed a whopping 400 clears after several weeks. Again. This is like the third time this has happened, lmao. They keep prioritizing this endgame sweaty poopsock crowd that makes up a minority, while most of the game's population which is casual just waits patiently for something that doesn't require prefight knowledge and markers and synchronized coordination and bodychecks for days so that one guy screwing up can anchor your progress all night.
But hey, I mean -- at least twitch raidstreamers are happy. Subcount's falling off a cliff and the game is visibly emptier outside of roleplay gooner areas, but at least twitch raidstreamers are giving the game a thumbs up on stream. Thank god, too. Where would we be without praise from out of touch players who never leave the comfort of their static?

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Originally Posted by ElysiumDragon

I have one very simple question for people asking for a 'Normal Mode' of Forked Tower.

Baldesion Arsenal is so popular to this day that many players will go out of their way to join Discord groups for clears.

Delubrum Reginae is PF-able, and yet there's practically zero listings for it most of the time.

If Delubrum Reginae is this super-amazing, flawless, example that the devs should follow to the letter for ALL content relating to Occult Crescent, why is it comparatively dead from a player interest standpoint?

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You're comparing FT to the wrong thing. You shouldn't be comparing it to DR. You should be comparing it to CLL and Dalriada. Those are both accessed inside the instance the way BA and FT are. And they are both still popular. I just took friends through Dalriada right before OC dropped so they could finally finish Bozja. You don't see the maximum numbers of people like when it was current, but there is still plenty of interest from those inside the instance and it's very easy to clear. I did CLL not too far back as well and it also wasn't an issue. Bozja is not hugely populated and can be hard to get people interested in FATEs but the instanced CEs still get plenty of participation from those inside the instances.

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Originally Posted by Khryseis_Astra

*Nods* There’s people on the other thread about the PF fix saying how this isn’t really Savage difficulty, more like Extreme. But I’d say the rez restrictions and the wipe mechs themselves are what puts it on Savage difficulty. Someone on a discord I belong to listed out 23 specific things that have to be done by people using a specific phantom job, that can cause a wipe if not done correctly. To me, that’s enough to be considered Savage. And it’s also enough room for error for me to put it off even further, if not altogether, if we don’t get a Normal mode added.

A Normal mode would be something I’d want to do over and over again. This version? Endure it once and never touch it again, assuming I’m lucky enough to clear before I get sick of trying.

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The crazy this is that even Savage lets you try again immediately. And we complained about body checks in Savage not because we want things easy but because it's artificial difficulty. Panda was body check after body check after body check. You had very little options to recover so you had mechanics you couldn't even see until you could run the body check gauntlet perfectly. These past two tiers have been praised because there are still body checks but they're used tactically and allow room to recover and see mechanics. We all complain about add phase in m6s but we also praise it because it's real difficulty in needing to prioritize targets and refine dps to get past that wall. So it's kind of even more head-scratching that they go back to this artificial difficulty when they had a lot of feedback from even the raiding community that we didn't like it either.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

The crazy this is that even Savage lets you try again immediately. And we complained about body checks in Savage not because we want things easy but because it's artificial difficulty. Panda was body check after body check after body check. You had very little options to recover so you had mechanics you couldn't even see until you could run the body check gauntlet perfectly.

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Bodychecks are the teams favourite form of padding for the combat design in this game. Don't know what mechanic to add to make it harder? Bodycheck time! I concur with your point completely.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

The crazy this is that even Savage lets you try again immediately.

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Exactly. Having content difficult enough to have to prog, but not being able to repeat it at will until you get the hang of it is just not fun for me. Even with the PF fix, it’s still going to be finding a run that works with your schedule with a Discord group, and hope you can eek out a clear without hitting your rez limit or wiping the raid, or you’re going to be repeating the process all over again.

Looking at the first boss, they could easily make a normal version out of it without having to remake the fight.

1: Show telegraph at casting start.
2: Rotate gets the rotating marker and pre-mark the danger zone
3: Meteors as normal, instead of four updraft markers on people, they have two fixed locations on the meteor side
4: Adds, two options, either use dispel on the red add, or kill the smaller adds to remove the defense buff (if the group lacks time mages)
5: No floating towers

With these changes, even a complete random group with no communication should be able to beat it. And you don't need to remake the entire fight. It's still mostly like the current fight, but makes it easier to see what's going to happen so people can adjust earlier for it.