So how is everyone feeling about Occult Crescent now that it’s been a few days?

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

Especially since people don't want to party up for gold in the instances since there's a far superior solo option. I foresee that getting nerfed hard.

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You get less gold doing it solo compared to that strat everyone does, but you're able to get decent gains with any tank, so long as you know your pull limit. Better then having to deal with PF, at least. I sure hope they don't nerf it.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Then we get to Forked Tower which is downright baffling on how poorly implemented this is. The portal system from Eureka was widely criticised though JP seemed to make it work. Shock of all shocks, SE only pay attention to one demographic again. Ironically, even they're complaining because a 72 instance makes it challenging even for them. The cherry on top is going in with less than 24 people is an instant wipe. Just... how does something like this get past any sort of testing? This is early Heavensward type mistakes not five expansions later. It's decisions like this that genuinely make me feel like a B or even C team is working on XIV nowadays.

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Not even the Japanese players like how Forked Tower was implemented and are just as baffled as we are. I'd say they were listening to the more hardcore crowd, but even they don't like it because it's extremely difficult to get a whole group into an instance.

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Originally Posted by FuturePastNow

Unless it was translated wrong, they said in the live letter that it isn't necessary to the story. In fact Forked Tower doesn't seem to have any story, it's just a thing that is there, challenge content for people who want challenge content (and who have a high tolerance for the BS entry requirements). I don't like the way it was implemented but I don't think anyone will ever be required to do it

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There's still notes and TT cards attached to it, which is ... Beyond frustrating for collectors. Other then the one card in Eureka Orthos (I can probably get it, just haven't attempted it solo) it's usually not too difficult to get them. One can *hope* they do it like Eureka and put the cards on an NPC you can get later. Don't know about the notes though in the future...

People intent on collecting every item ought to be used to having to do high-end content for their habit though. How many people had to do Memoria Misera Ex for a TT card? That's just how it is if you want everything

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Originally Posted by FuturePastNow

People intent on collecting every item ought to be used to having to do high-end content for their habit though. How many people had to do Memoria Misera Ex for a TT card? That's just how it is if you want everything

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MM EX wasn't difficult to get into, can now be unsynced to beat faster, and even on content was doable for most players.

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Originally Posted by Infindox

Not even the Japanese players like how Forked Tower was implemented and are just as baffled as we are. I'd say they were listening to the more hardcore crowd, but even they don't like it because it's extremely difficult to get a whole group into an instance.

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I meant JP was more okay with the Portal system in Hydatos compared to NA and EU. What I suspect happened is due to the criticism of Delubrum having no future proofing their solution was to go back to "what worked." Except not only did it not work for two regions, but even in JP it remained divisive with a 144 player instance. The fact they cut that in half and never thought it might exasperate the issue is absolutely mind-boggling.

If they were listening to the hardcore crowd things like the two minute meta would be long dead as that's widely despised by that demographic. Not to mention job changes like Dragoon, and especially Summoner, are changes no hardcore player ever asked for. The problem is they're listening to the wrong players and trying to please everyone which leads to pleasing no one.

If the gear was an alternate path to i750/760 gear, the effort might be worth it. But given that it only has a purpose inside OC, I don't see myself bothering with any of this. To be fair, I think prior iterations of this types of zones were the same way. And I didn't upgrade those either.

I think it's generally alright but there needs to be way more incentive for people to work together. Right now you just mob from one CE/Fate to the next, there's no coordination required and honestly no time to even chat in /shout because they auto spawn so quickly. That's why I liked Bozja less than Eureka and it's sad to see that style continued here.

If they don't want to do the mob prepping from Eureka again past the couple CEs that require it then they should add other fun little objectives on the map for people to work together to complete. Maybe there could be platforms that require certain jobs to stand there to open a door or a tower you have to capture or whatever. Anything more engaging than just a big silent death ball rolling around the map.

I haven't had much time to play, got to about level 15 and just a couple of phantom jobs unlocked, have done every CE about twice so far. I am kind of disappointed, for how long the content was in the oven. I feel like I have seen almost everything *meaningful* in the field zone in less than 5 hours of play.

I despise how forked tower is set up, I much preferred Bozja's CLL or Dalriada system, especially towards the end of the content. Feels like a step backwards personally, the wrong type of content this field content truly needed for the majority of players. I am sure it will have a niche audience, but another niche isn't what the game needed.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

I'll need to go back to my screenshots but it did sound like the two towers were going to be important to discovering just who the architect of Occult Crescent is. If that's true and Blood just remains some hardcore premade only thing, then we won't be able to finish the story without joining a Discord. Which is not awesome.



Especially since people don't want to party up for gold in the instances since there's a far superior solo option. I foresee that getting nerfed hard.

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There's not really any feasible way to nerf it that will make it any more clearable by the average player, they'd have to entirely rework the fights, something I highly doubt they'll do considering they never did for the Coils of Bahamut. And from what I heard from someone I partied with last night who was in the W2 group the raid has no actual story beats locked behind it. I think it's been set up to remain completely optional, between Ketenramm and Archive pushing us toward the Magic tower and our own dialogue choices regarding the Blood Tower I think it's heavily implied that any foray into the Blood Tower is purely an adventure/treasure hunt our WoL is doing on their own time while waiting for Ketenramm and Archive to update us.

I love the Occult Crescent but there are several issues that should be fixed to make it perfect. This is likely why there's a lot of feedback on it.

A Castrum/Dalriada-like CE is sorely missing, as the tower is for a more organized audience. The tower way of entry should also be addressed, either 144 player instances or being able to queue directly like in DR(S). Hopefully they give us both types of content in the two future updates: a puggable raid and a harder raid. I want to use my mastered jobs on more medium-difficulty content and not just normal CEs!

FATEs and CEs should work more like in Eureka: needing to kill specific mobs or do specific FATEs to spawn the CEs. Some FATEs and CEs can still spawn randomly but the point is to incentivize players to interact with the world.

It should be possible to have 2-3 normal FATEs at the same time, a pot FATE and a CE to counter the current waiting-at-the-aetheryte way of dealing with the content.

Tie silver and gold currencies together in some shape or form.

Some way of combining phantom job actions, or at least to be able to always have one active chosen action from a mastered job. It might perhaps become a thing in future updates with new phantom jobs such as Mime or a feature of Freelancer, though.

Minor gripe but Life Surge and Reassemble should cause a phantom weaponskill to (direct) crit so that there's some interaction there, just like many phantom actions benefit from innate job haste or damage buffs. Additionally, fix phantom actions breaking the DRG (and other jobs') combo.

Let phantom experience gained while playing a maxxed job spill to other jobs, even at a reduced rate, or be stored somehow so that we can enjoy the jobs we like without being forced to change to a new one every time.

There's plenty of feedback in this Reddit post, as well, should you want to check it.


Overall, it's good but it can be so much more. To the developers: please take this feedback as incentive to improve the content and not to cancel it for the following expansion!

I was having a lot of fun with it. I was using it to become more comfortable with BLM since I've taken an interest to it lately. After mastering all the phantom jobs that have a heal, it became really frustrating doing CEs and just slowly dying when I couldn't get an invite to a party or had a party with no healers. After I found out the only way to +2 gear was to do the raid that is incredibly hard to get into at the moment, my motivation took a major hit.