Forked Tower: Blood Needs A Normal Mode

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chasingstars

And as I stated, I am going to wait for more phantoms. As if they implement all the FF5 jobs as shards, that is 26 stacks of phantom mastery or 52%. If we exclude Blue Mage and Beastmaster for whatever reason, that is 48%. And since damage buffs are multiplicative, that is going to add up very fast.

---

And that’s what’s I’m saying

Extra damage from phantom mastery won’t help forked because you don’t wipe in forked to enrage and bosses don’t die till they have done all their mechanics

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Supersnow845

And that’s what’s I’m saying

Extra damage from phantom mastery won’t help forked because you don’t wipe in forked to enrage and bosses don’t die till they have done all their mechanics

---

Okay, so why are you arguing with me? My point is more phantom mastery means bosses die quicker. Its the same rhetoric is as if I told you I will do content later when I am overgeared.

As if they implement the remaining 13 phantoms, that is 52%. A dragoon will have 111% damage buff from mastery and their own self-buffs. Meanwhile their current total is 39% with phantom mastery. Or black mage for example, with 26 mastery, that equates to them having a 93% damage buff, where as their current amount is 57%.

That math does not factor in buffs from other party members or debuffs applied onto the boss such as silver cannon or ninja's trick attack.

Which if the bosses die quicker, they will do less of their mechanics.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chasingstars

And as I stated, I am going to wait for more phantoms. As if they implement all the FF5 jobs as shards, that is 26 stacks of phantom mastery or 52%. If we exclude Blue Mage and Beastmaster for whatever reason, that is 48%. And since damage buffs are multiplicative, that is going to add up very fast.

---

Do you think they're going to give us a raidewide Reraise action or something? I don't understand what could possibly make instadeath mechanics easier.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chasingstars

Which if the bosses die quicker, they will do less of their mechanics.

---

Because if you read the last sentence of my post you’ll see “the bosses don’t die till they have done their mechanics”

As in they lock on 0.1% hp till their mechanics are done, well at least dead stars and magitaur do

WIth dead stars, ya you have to do all three of them unfortunately. In my runs so far, we got them to 0.1 percent during the last delta attack or the tb/stack combo and you still have to do the fire phase. That being said, most saved their 2 min for fire ball and thus they die before they do their second set. With magitaur, you will still have to do rune axe but with enough dps, you can skip holy lance when I would consider the most dangerous mech of the fight. Of course, this assumes that everyone knows what they are doing and having as many of the dps pham jobs while still having the essential time mage, oracle, ranger and berserker.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Maltothoris

WIth dead stars, ya you have to do all three of them unfortunately. In my runs so far, we got them to 0.1 percent during the last delta attack or the tb/stack combo and you still have to do the fire phase. That being said, most saved their 2 min for fire ball and thus they die before they do their second set. With magitaur, you will still have to do rune axe but with enough dps, you can skip holy lance when I would consider the most dangerous mech of the fight. Of course, this assumes that everyone knows what they are doing and having as many of the dps pham jobs while still having the essential time mage, oracle, ranger and berserker.

---

So 2 bosses and the inbetween fights go down quicker, well that is good. Also good you can skip that mechanic.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Because if you read the last sentence of my post you’ll see “the bosses don’t die till they have done their mechanics”

As in they lock on 0.1% hp till their mechanics are done, well at least dead stars and magitaur do

---

Ah I see, so one more thing that makes forked tower a weird experience. As SE is going to need to fix that on their end as player damage ramps up in later patches. Might as well be equivalent to an unsynched player waiting for an old trial boss to do its mechanics because it can't go below 0.1%, like Zurvan, except its current expansion content. And depending on fast it reaches 0.1% in a later patch, that is going to be one of those awkward things about doing the towers, as people just have to wait and can't really dps the boss as it might as well become invulnerable at that point.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Because if you read the last sentence of my post you’ll see “the bosses don’t die till they have done their mechanics”

As in they lock on 0.1% hp till their mechanics are done, well at least dead stars and magitaur do

---

I would be so mad if the group I was in got it down to 0.1% and then got hit with something and ended up dying… lol At any rate, it’s still going to leave room for error, even if you are slightly stronger.

But along with that, do we really think we’re getting 26 phantom jobs out of this? The current UI only looks like it has space for 2 more unless they’re going to add another tab to it… they’re adding 2 more before the next zone, but I don’t remember hearing them give an official number for how many they’re going to use.

And still would rather a Normal mode to use them in!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Khryseis_Astra

I would be so mad if the group I was in got it down to 0.1% and then got hit with something and ended up dying… lol At any rate, it’s still going to leave room for error, even if you are slightly stronger.

But along with that, do we really think we’re getting 26 phantom jobs out of this? The current UI only looks like it has space for 2 more unless they’re going to add another tab to it… they’re adding 2 more before the next zone, but I don’t remember hearing them give an official number for how many they’re going to use.

And still would rather a Normal mode to use them in!

---

Yoshi p said “they will more than double” by the end and there is 26 jobs in FFV meaning we have exactly half of them

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Khryseis_Astra

What they should do is take the current Forked Tower, dub it Savage Mode, add their PF fixes, and let it be queued for directly outside the zone. Then make a Normal mode which will continue to use the in-game cipher entry, 1 per person, first come, first served. Dial down the difficulty by removing rez restrictions and any mechs where one player can wipe the entire group, but leave in some of the interesting parts to use phantom job skills. It would be about the equivalent of CLL/Dalriada/DR Normal.

---

So, I was thinking about this: If it's first come, first served, then you can't require that anyone in the party have a certain phantom job leveled up to a certain point. In which case, how do you leave in the "interesting parts" to use phantom job skills without making those skills required?

We've seen this exact problem in South Horn because phantom job skills are tightly designed around addressing various pass-fail mechanics. How do you make a geomancer's Suspend interesting but not required for success? Time Mage's Dispel? Ranger's Falcon? Bard's stun? Thief's lock picking? Chemist (all of it)?

The thing about CLL, Delubrum Normal, and Dalriada is that they don't actually require any Lost Actions or essences. The reason for engaging with Lost Actions isn't those raids; it's to play one role (tank/healer/DPS) while taking on the characteristics of another role, which is "interesting" independent of any specific piece of battle content.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

So, I was thinking about this: If it's first come, first served, then you can't require that anyone in the party have a certain phantom job leveled up to a certain point. In which case, how do you leave in the "interesting parts" to use phantom job skills without making those skills required?

We've seen this exact problem in South Horn because phantom job skills are tightly designed around addressing various pass-fail mechanics. How do you make a geomancer's Suspend interesting but not required for success? Time Mage's Dispel? Ranger's Falcon? Bard's stun? Thief's lock picking? Chemist (all of it)?

The thing about CLL, Delubrum Normal, and Dalriada is that they don't actually require any Lost Actions or essences. The reason for engaging with Lost Actions isn't those raids; it's to play one role (tank/healer/DPS) while taking on the characteristics of another role, which is "interesting" independent of any specific piece of battle content.

---

Good point, which I think someone also brought up in one of the other Tower threads (and maybe this one? It’s getting long lol). Probably the only way to accommodate that would be to allow the changing of phantom jobs, outside of combat. Or alternatively, at the entrance, similar to how DRN did. Without wipe mechs you would just go back to the beginning instead of it being game over, so you could just regroup and make sure you have a good mix of jobs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

So, I was thinking about this: If it's first come, first served, then you can't require that anyone in the party have a certain phantom job leveled up to a certain point. In which case, how do you leave in the "interesting parts" to use phantom job skills without making those skills required?

---

Or they could open the normal version for PF, and let the group creator decide "I want 2 of Phantom Job X, 1 of Phantom Job Y, and 3 of Phantom Job Z" - much like you can already ask for certain roles or jobs.
Using party finder to create a party with certain rules might sound like a crazy concept, but the longer you think about it the more sense it makes, no?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gwenkatsu

Or they could open the normal version for PF, and let the group creator decide "I want 2 of Phantom Job X, 1 of Phantom Job Y, and 3 of Phantom Job Z" - much like you can already ask for certain roles or jobs.
Using party finder to create a party with certain rules might sound like a crazy concept, but the longer you think about it the more sense it makes, no?

---

I mean his point is that selecting by phantom jobs you’d have to be able to select by level of phantom job alongside normal job and normal level, like a thief is useless if they aren’t max level

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gwenkatsu

Using party finder to create a party with certain rules might sound like a crazy concept, but the longer you think about it the more sense it makes, no?

---

I've said as much in another thread:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

The reason to organize via Discord is because many of the mechanics require coordination at the level of six light parties, and those light parties need to have a certain distribution of Phantom Jobs. SE would need to add phantom job requirements to Party Finder for that to have any hope of being a completely satisfactory mechanism.

---

But going back to:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Khryseis_Astra

Without wipe mechs you would just go back to the beginning instead of it being game over, so you could just regroup and make sure you have a good mix of jobs.

---

My point is that in a first come, first serve system where anyone can just walk up to the pavilion, it doesn't matter if you allow everyone to switch jobs at will if no one in the instance has, say, Time Mage leveled. I imagine it's actually quite difficult to design a raid where Dispel has an interesting use case without it being arbitrarily more difficult and annoying (but still clearable) without it.

We can have CLL/Delubrum Normal/Dalriada style entry for Forked Tower, but then just as Lost Actions don't really matter there, neither would Phantom Jobs. Or we have entry gated behind Discord or an improved Party Finder, and mechanics where Phantom Jobs matter.

SE has kind of written themselves into a corner with how phantom jobs are designed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

My point is that in a first come, first serve system where anyone can just walk up to the pavilion, it doesn't matter if you allow everyone to switch jobs at will if no one in the instance has, say, Time Mage leveled. I imagine it's actually quite difficult to design a raid where Dispel has an interesting use case without it being arbitrarily more difficult and annoying (but still clearable) without it.

We can have CLL/Delubrum Normal/Dalriada style entry for Forked Tower, but then just as Lost Actions don't really matter there, neither would Phantom Jobs. Or we have entry gated behind Discord or an improved Party Finder, and mechanics where Phantom Jobs matter.

SE has kind of written themselves into a corner with how phantom jobs are designed.

---

True… I’ve had them all maxed for awhile now, so I didn’t think of that. Still, assuming there is a Normal mode created, as enough people try and clear it, it will become known what is needed, and anyone who doesn’t have them maxed will know which ones to have leveled if they want to do it.

I pretty much quit OC after finding out the Forked Tower wasn't like a Dalriada or Castrum. I had Oracle and the gold coin Phantom jobs left to level, but it would be pointless.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lufir

I pretty much quit OC after finding out the Forked Tower wasn't like a Dalriada or Castrum. I had Oracle and the gold coin Phantom jobs left to level, but it would be pointless.

---

I leveled up all the jobs and got the achievement for 500 CEs, and when they add new jobs I'll go level those up, but same. I'll grind boring content all day long but I'm not going to jump through annoying hoops for it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FuturePastNow

I leveled up all the jobs and got the achievement for 500 CEs, and when they add new jobs I'll go level those up, but same. I'll grind boring content all day long but I'm not going to jump through annoying hoops for it.

---

Same.

Not surprised, but still disappointed that today’s Live Letter did not mention anything about the possibility of a Normal mode for FTB. Not that I had much hope for it, but JP seems to have a good many people disappointed by it as well. At this point, if it’s not done alongside the North Horn release, I doubt it ever will be, and if so, I think that’s a mistake. It will ruin the content as a whole for a large amount of people.

So I will continue to campaign for it, but I don’t have much hope left.

SO there is a recent interview https://www.famitsu.com/article/202507/48601 talking about forked tower and we got some tidbits about what they want to do. The translations are taken from the reddit discord

Quote:

---

When asked about the future plans the dev team have in mind in response to player's feedback regarding the raid system for 48-man has been implemented on "Cresent Isle" in advance, YoshiP plans to do the following where they want to retain the players (have the players remain) in the instance for a period of time after their entry. In addition to this, they also plan to include a system that allows players to see and have a clear idea how many sanguine ciphers they have invested, and determine if they themselves are selected to enter Forked Tower, since displaying all of them could lead into troubles between players. For now they're still in discussion on whether they'll be able to adjust the gimmick at that stage.,

YoshiP then elaborated that as long as a viable strat has been established, it can be cleared by 24 players with the other 24 players can follow along and clear, and that was the intention. But YoshiP admitted that they didn't adjust properly on that part considering the amount of mechanics that involve collective responsibility. Which is why in Patch 7.3 they aim to adjust it so that it will reach the difficulty they originally envisioned for the content. The next Forked Tower is in development and will be created based on the feedback they received from the players. There are also players who asked for complicated mechanics and thus the devs want to fulfill that wish in some degree.

---

So it looks like though the alliance change was welcome enough, it still didn't raise clear rates to where they would of liked. In addition to the other changes, they are thinking of adjusting certain parts in FT itself. However, I think it's too little too late in that regard.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Maltothoris

SO there is a recent interview https://www.famitsu.com/article/202507/48601 talking about forked tower and we got some tidbits about what they want to do. The translations are taken from the reddit discord



So it looks like though the alliance change was welcome enough, it still didn't raise clear rates to where they would of liked. In addition to the other changes, they are thinking of adjusting certain parts in FT itself. However, I think it's too little too late in that regard.

---

Unless they make it puggable, clear rates are going to stay in the toilet.

So the "intent" was that 24 players who know what to do would be able to carry up to 24 others through it, which from my understanding is basically how BA and DRS are run, but they failed to actually design the mechanics to follow that intent. How do you get that so wrong?

And how do they "aim to adjust it so that it will reach the difficulty they originally envisioned" in 7.3 without redesigning all of those mechanics, which they are not doing? The changes they have announced don't do that, they just make it easier to enter for the groups getting their 100 reclears.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FuturePastNow

So the "intent" was that 24 players who know what to do would be able to carry up to 24 others through it, which from my understanding is basically how BA and DRS are run, but they failed to actually design the mechanics to follow that intent. How do you get that so wrong?

---

Having not done BA or DRS, from what I've seen of FT (up to boss 3 enrage), I'd wager it's mostly a function of: (1) Raise restriction. (2) Mechanics that require baiting something.

The first prevents six knowledgable, coordinated light parties from otherwise dragging all the other bodies across the finish line. The second is how one person ends up wiping the entire raid by accident.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

Having not done BA or DRS, from what I've seen of FT (up to boss 3 enrage), I'd wager it's mostly a function of: (1) Raise restriction. (2) Mechanics that require baiting something.

The first prevents six knowledgable, coordinated light parties from otherwise dragging all the other bodies across the finish line. The second is how one person ends up wiping the entire raid by accident.

---

Because of potency buffs and the power of Eureka's gear bonuses, you can effectively walk into BA 10-15 levels over, and both it and DRS have tools to strategize around the raise limit and focus more heavily on personal responsibility. I don't think either have anything like FT:B's mechanics where one person's attention lapsing can kill so many people that you fail a body check and unconditionally wipe.

Current mode is normal mode, it just needs to be able to be accessed proper and with lesser penalties for stupid stuff... it is as simple as that, and current system of how it is 'supposed' to work is not it either.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Maltothoris

So it looks like though the alliance change was welcome enough, it still didn't raise clear rates to where they would of liked. In addition to the other changes, they are thinking of adjusting certain parts in FT itself. However, I think it's too little too late in that regard.

---

Depends on what exactly they’re planning to do… I’ve consistently said that I didn’t think it should be nerfed, but that they should create a Normal mode and let this one be Savage. Those that have cleared it with the difficulty it is now deserve recognition for that, and I can sympathize with those that might feel their achievements will be cheapened by SE simply nerfing the Tower.

But at the same time, this was probably the most disappointing thing for me, that there wasn’t a Normal-level, easily repeatable dungeon experience for this zone, especially with some rewards being random drop. If they make it so it’s actually puggable, I might actually be able to do it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

Having not done BA or DRS, from what I've seen of FT (up to boss 3 enrage), I'd wager it's mostly a function of: (1) Raise restriction. (2) Mechanics that require baiting something.

The first prevents six knowledgable, coordinated light parties from otherwise dragging all the other bodies across the finish line. The second is how one person ends up wiping the entire raid by accident.

---

The raise restriction barely matters because the only mechanic where people regularly wipe only themselves is slimes which only causes one death

You aren’t chain rezzing zombies over the finish line because you don’t zombie to enrage on forked, you wipe to a prog point like fire towers

I mean if we're going to continue leveling with the next OC installment in 7.5 they could just allow folks to enter FT with the new lv cap. We're also getting a sprinkle of new phantom jobs between now and then, so who knows what those could bring to alleviate things.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hanayumi

I mean if we're going to continue leveling with the next OC installment in 7.5 they could just allow folks to enter FT with the new lv cap. We're also getting a sprinkle of new phantom jobs between now and then, so who knows what those could bring to alleviate things.

---

The ilvl cap won’t change, they never change the ilvl cap of field exploration

When they add more phantom jobs in 7.45 it will increase mastery stack passive damage and if they give us more gear in 7.55 with north horn it will indirectly nerf forked (depends on how they choose to advance gear past +2 being the current OC BIS) but you already don’t wipe to enrage on forked so some more passive damage won’t change much

In the interview, they did make it sound like they might be easing the “one person wipes the entire raid” mechanics at some point during this patch. But so far that hasn’t been detailed. Today’s patch notes only mention the new Alliance-exclusive instance.

As others have said some mechanics would have to be taken out or straight-up redesigned to get rid of the wipe potential, so I guess it remains to be seen how far they’re willing to go with this.

But my original point of Normal-level rewards, some of which are random drop, being locked into the Tower means that there needs to be an easily repeatable and preferably puggable, no-scheduling-required mode. Again, I hate that they’d rather nerf it than just create a separate Normal mode. But if that’s closer to what their “original intent” was, and it means I can go in there and get my notes and maybe farm for the TT card (which should’ve been in the Sanguinite shop anyways! Or an outside NPC after North Horn is completed…), then so be it. At least I’ll be able to run the content without a bunch of external hoops to jump through.