Can I ask why Creative Business Unit 3 are radio silent on the issue of Forked Tower?

I don't understand why someone in the dev team decided that the perfect storm of:
72 man instances
Unable to queue in as a 48 man alliance into an instance
Making the content 48 man content with mechanics that can wipe an entire raid if a random / one player makes a mistake / doesn't communicate you get the idea
Unable to choose an instance to join

Why was this greenlit? Did nobody have the foresight to see what it would cause?
All of this results in, as a lot of people have been complained about already, making the content waste hours of people's time trying to get into the same instance to do this content.

This also elevates people's frustration levels to ridiculous levels, it's an insult to people's time, we haven't received any apology from the dev team, no hotfix to implement at least the capability to queue in as a 6 party alliance. We shouldn't have to game the system by queueing on Dynamis (which is exploiting another problem brushed under the carpet of a dead Datacentre), of which EU doesn't have the luxury to do so as Shadow was removed.

So now we get instances of people getting angry and frustrated at the game after one person makes a mistake and wipes the raid. For all the "FFXIV respects your time just go play other games when you run out of content" memes (which is massive copium by the way), this is the biggest disrespect of everyone's time, and if anything Japanese culture should understand what it means to have wasted everyone's time.

Not only that but you've bred the perfect toxic environment where communities become intolerant due to how much time is invested into trying to get into the content. 47 people feel miserable when one person causes a wipe, and then the 1 person feels even more miserable because they have the eyes of everyone on their back.

You could blame "Toxic Elitism" of the raiders for ganging up on the one guy who made the mistake, you can blame the one guy for making a mistake, but ultimately the people to blame are the devs who somehow didn't foresee this happening with how this system works. For the few people who have managed to get a clear out of this, they've also created thousands of extremely upset, angry, frustrated players who are taking it out on each other. I find it hard to blame any of them, and my ire is directed at the dev team right now.

But what also really gets me is the radio silence from the devs, just nothing, no communication, no acknowledgement of the issue, nothing to let us know that the devs even care anymore.

I don't think I'm speaking for just myself, so I'll use "We" in this context.
When something isn't up to scratch, that can be fixed rather easily (in theory) by just letting us queue as a 6 party alliance into a single instance, AND by reducing the cooldown between runs, we would like some communication from the devs that they're aware of the issue, that they hear us, or know there's something wrong that they can or cannot fix. We want communication, we want to know that the dev team are aware of these glaring issues, we don't want to be gaslit into believing the issue lies with us when the system or content itself is inherently flawed.

In this particular case it's extremely egregious as we're spending 4 hours outside trying to even get into the content, before spending between 5-30 minutes inside the content before Billy does a mechanic wrong and causes everyone to wipe, forcing everyone to wait another 30 minutes (or worse) to attempt the content again. All this time adds up, every single person taking part in this content has their time wasted, I can't stress how hard on how much time has been wasted, of which some people have precious little of.

This has been an ongoing issue with the entirety of Dawntrail so far, and it's broken my faith in the devs, whether it be the MSQ, or how content is engaged with or released. Whenever there is criticism we are met with corporate speak, or told we are asking for too much, or ignored.

Although this is a thread bringing up the issue of Forked Tower, it is ultimately a rant thread questioning why it feels like the devs now avoid their players and do not want to engage with their worries or complaints, and on occasion with the dev team pointing at us as the problem whenever there is discourse.

Wait until the 20th (when the next LL is) to see if they say anything. If they don't, that's when I'd start getting frustrated (well, more then we already are having FT being like this in the first place).
I'm huffing the copium that they will actually say something because even the Japanese playerbase is extremely confused about it, many of them on their own forums saying they will skip it. They use Discord way less then we do.

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Originally Posted by Infindox

Wait until the 20th (when the next LL is) to see if they say anything. If they don't, that's when I'd start getting frustrated (well, more then we already are having FT being like this in the first place).
I'm huffing the copium that they will actually say something because even the Japanese playerbase is extremely confused about it, many of them on their own forums saying they will skip it. They use Discord way less then we do.

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I have not been liking their track record with this expansion so far with how they've tackled any of the criticism whether it be the writing, the community experience, or the content or content delivery itself. If this was a one off I'd still be all smiles and brushing it off as a mistake that I could say "Yeah I have faith the devs will address this, they don't need to say anything, and I don't need to say anything". But I don't have that faith anymore, and I do not believe I am at fault for having lost that faith.

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Originally Posted by Yoshihara

I have not been liking their track record with this expansion so far with how they've tackled any of the criticism whether it be the writing, the community experience, or the content or content delivery itself. If this was a one off I'd still be all smiles and brushing it off as a mistake that I could say "Yeah I have faith the devs will address this, they don't need to say anything, and I don't need to say anything". But I don't have that faith anymore, and I do not believe I am at fault for having lost that faith.

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Oh I get it. After patch EW and current DT, I get it.

After over 10 years of this game, I can confidently tell you, they're always slow about addressing things. The earliest they might as at an emergency patch within weeks. More likely not until 7.3 or North Horn if that.

I sort of assumed it is working as intended?

These are professional game developers. The implications of the design choice in FT would be obvious to people with that background. It may be a nightmare for most players, but "most players" are no longer the target demographic.

It's pretty rare for them to fix things. I wouldn't be surprised if Forked Tower stays how it is. Maybe they'll get around to making FATEs scale properly in a few weeks though.

Having items you have to farm from the tower for the vendor to purchase especially the emote is ridiculous when most of us are never going to get inside. That leaves just random rng to obtain it. Utterly ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

I sort of assumed it is working as intended?

These are professional game developers. The implications of the design choice in FT would be obvious to people with that background. It may be a nightmare for most players, but "most players" are no longer the target demographic.

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The same "professional game developers" that had a flaw in their experience distribution system that was taken advantage of back in patch 4.5 with Blue Mage and then six years later was still present that they had to hotfix out for OC? Those professionals?

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

I sort of assumed it is working as intended?

These are professional game developers. The implications of the design choice in FT would be obvious to people with that background. It may be a nightmare for most players, but "most players" are no longer the target demographic.

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I don't think it is 'working as intended.' And even if it is, it has backfired. Both the JP, and Eng playerbase are struggling to make it work so compromises have to be made so that their players can, y'know actually play the videogame. From what I've gathered, the fights, and puzzles themselves are not the problem, it's actually just getting groups into the Forked Tower is the problem. That needs to be fixed.

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Originally Posted by Ryaze

The same "professional game developers" that had a flaw in their experience distribution system that was taken advantage of back in patch 4.5 with Blue Mage and then six years later was still present that they had to hotfix out for OC? Those professionals?

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I'm sure we've all copy-pasta'd a line of code from one sub-routine to another, and then during play-testing its consequences somehow remained completely invis...

Okay, I see what you mean.

'maybe fork tower wasnt optimal, we will do better in the next one. look forward to it'
i kinda expect something like that. then they will make a joke about it and laugh because they are always so very funny. and then they will move on and ignore it.

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Originally Posted by mallleable

I don't think it is 'working as intended.' And even if it is, it has backfired. Both the JP, and Eng playerbase are struggling to make it work so compromises have to be made so that their players can, y'know actually play the videogame. From what I've gathered, the fights, and puzzles themselves are not the problem, it's actually just getting groups into the Forked Tower is the problem. That needs to be fixed.

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Yeah I'm not defending it. It's clearly either a massive oversight or an incomprehensible decision.

I was hoping for some normal content, which clearly demonstrates my own stupidity.

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Originally Posted by Asari5

'maybe fork tower wasnt optimal, we will do better in the next one. look forward to it'
i kinda expect something like that. then they will make a joke about it and laugh because they are always so very funny. and then they will move on and ignore it.

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If they claim the plan was to tune it between normal and extreme and this mysterious goblin once again ramped it up to savage, they better skip the laughing.

They don't change things unless its horribly broken, and don't communicate anymore outside of live letters.

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Originally Posted by Ryaze

The same "professional game developers" that had a flaw in their experience distribution system that was taken advantage of back in patch 4.5 with Blue Mage and then six years later was still present that they had to hotfix out for OC? Those professionals?

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the same "professional game developers" who created a blacklist that now enables the stalking of players and their laughable attempt at fixing the vulnerability they created was rendered useless within hours of the patch going live too btw.

I think it would be fine to do it this way if the raid itself is the difficulty of Bozja's CLL, Dalriada or DR. Because then it's actually possible to do it with randoms. If it demands the sort of survival as Chaotic then it makes it a strange decision to enter it via the field instance.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

These are professional game developers. The implications of the design choice in FT would be obvious to people with that background.

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I don't think the implications of a design choice always occur to them. In ARR, they threw a lot of mud at the wall to see what sticks. Analyzed historically, the decisions didn't make any sense from a game design perspective. They only made sense from a lore perspective ie. White Mage having Fluid Aura to knock enemies back (incredibly annoying for melee jobs), Monk having Featherfoot to increase Evasion when they aren't a tank and other DPS having similar gear and abilities as if they are tanks etc.

The relic was more efficient to farm outside Bozja in Shadowbringers. Fortunately that's fixed this time and it's better to do it in Occult. Yet that was an obvious design flaw surely. A number of decisions surrounding that made it best to avoid the raid in it (Castrum Lacus Litore) which was also an incredibly obvious oversight.

I could go on but while I feel their established formulas are very intentional and they know the implications of them, often with a lot of experimental content, they make strange oversights just like this. Despite it being the third type of Field Operation, I don't think they've fully set on the formula like with many other things in the game.

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Originally Posted by Wyssahtyn

the same "professional game developers" who created a blacklist that now enables the stalking of players and their laughable attempt at fixing the vulnerability they created was rendered useless within hours of the patch going live too btw.

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This.
And didn't say a word for over a month.
When they did it was "were thinking about suing people" not "we're fixing our broke game"
And still haven't said anything since their fix, fixed nothing.

Lack of Cross party DC continues to cause the various server communities to be cannibalised. Nothing not a word.

It's because PR 101, is that if you acknowledge a problem then you have to do something or it looks worse.
They don't talk to us because they do consider it an option to fail to deliver.
And to do nothing.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

I think it would be fine to do it this way if the raid itself is the difficulty of Bozja's CLL, Dalriada or DR. Because then it's actually possible to do it with randoms. If it demands the sort of survival as Chaotic then it makes it a strange decision to enter it via the field instance.

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My thoughts exactly, I actually like the strange entry to the thing, makes the instance feel more real and adds to the mysterious feel of the island, however... thanks to the content itself it just becomes a mess. Each instance is small and to enter you need to bring a ticket over to a specific spot on the map during a specific weather event, the entry period is not long and once enough try to enter it becomes a lottery system, ok but... once you've managed to get in there is a difficulty spike that requires clear communication, specific phantom jobs, good gear and high skill, all the while being punishing with no way to really practice outside of watching a guide.

So the entry method pushes for jumping into it blind with random people that's on the field but the content itself pushes for you to have a static and being fully prepared with the right tools. What I think should have been done is make the current version the hard version you can queue into outside of the instance, while the current entry style is used for a easier version that could be like the training wheels introducing you to the mechanics the harder one will fully utilize. Maybe you even have to beat the easy one to unlock the hard one? Just anything other than this for the first instance...

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Originally Posted by Ryaze

The same "professional game developers" that had a flaw in their experience distribution system that was taken advantage of back in patch 4.5 with Blue Mage and then six years later was still present that they had to hotfix out for OC? Those professionals?

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I kinda maybe wish you could completely hide ignored people's posts/threads and if someone quotes them too (not blaming you).

because

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

I sort of assumed it is working as intended?

These are professional game developers. The implications of the design choice in FT would be obvious to people with that background. It may be a nightmare for most players, but "most players" are no longer the target demographic.

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This is very high levels of cringe by square enix community worker. I mean, come on, people can disagree on some stuff about game which WORK (difficulty of mechanics, visuals (inc glam) etc), but idk on which side are you supposed to be when defending this trash design choice.

BA style entering raid is bad, especially BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD if the raid's difficulty is "one dude is able to wipe you and you can't even kick them out". That's why there are TWO (not one but TWO) raids in bozja and you can queue savage as 48 man alliance.

Whoever proceeded with Forked Tower entering approach should just retire and never touch anything gaming related.

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Originally Posted by Stasya

I kinda maybe wish you could completely hide ignored people's posts/threads and if someone quotes them too (not blaming you).

because



This is very high levels of cringe by square enix community worker. I mean, come on, people can disagree on some stuff about game which WORK (difficulty of mechanics, visuals (inc glam) etc), but idk on which side are you supposed to be when defending this trash design choice.

BA style entering raid is bad, especially BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD if the raid's difficulty is "one dude is able to wipe you and you can't even kick them out". That's why there are TWO (not one but TWO) raids in bozja and you can queue savage as 48 man alliance.

Whoever proceeded with Forked Tower entering approach should just retire and never touch anything gaming related.

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I don't think they aren't defending? From other posts, I assume they are not very impressed with CBU3 and that that particular post was sarcasm. "Professional game developers" indeed. And yea, you WOULD think it would be obvious to them. Yet, here we are. CAR, CE, OC, just from recent releases from these professional game developers...

There's been a progressive reduction in player outreach since Stormblood. DT has been the most noticible, with the bare minimum number of Live Letters (part 1 and part 2 before every patch, for a total of four since launch) and no real communication outside of that. No idea what brought on this change. The limited communication around OC is just part of this larger pattern.

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Originally Posted by Astronema

Having items you have to farm from the tower for the vendor to purchase especially the emote is ridiculous when most of us are never going to get inside. That leaves just random rng to obtain it. Utterly ridiculous.

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Also a TT card and it sounds like one of the records is there? Huge mistake.

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Originally Posted by ChrysOCE

I don't think they aren't defending? From other posts, I assume they are not very impressed with CBU3 and that that particular post was sarcasm. "Professional game developers" indeed. And yea, you WOULD think it would be obvious to them. Yet, here we are. CAR, CE, OC, just from recent releases from these professional game developers...

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Yeah, my bad, I skipped the /s

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

If they claim the plan was to tune it between normal and extreme and this mysterious goblin once again ramped it up to savage, they better skip the laughing.

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More likely Yoshi P will pretend to be confused as to why the players are unhappy and tell everyone to "please look forward" to some minimal changes that weren't asked for and don't even address the issue.

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Originally Posted by SkankyRoe

Nah, I don't think they'll pull an "oops we made it savage teehee" this time around. More likely Yoshi P will pretend to be confused and tell everyone to "please look forward" to some super minimal "fixes" that don't do jack shit to address the actual issue.

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I suspect you're right, and it simply isn't good enough.

They are silent about most things because most things in this game are kinda embarrasing.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

Also a TT card and it sounds like one of the records is there? Huge mistake.

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It's five records that's tied to the tower, or 1/6 of the current total records.

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Originally Posted by Daudream

once you've managed to get in there is a difficulty spike that requires clear communication, specific phantom jobs, good gear and high skill, all the while being punishing with no way to really practice outside of watching a guide.

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This is probably better saved for one of the 20 other OC/FT doomposting threads, but your comment about it being punishing with no real way to practice makes me want to point out what I personally think is a FT issue on par with its entry system... the way it's handled the resurrection restriction.

Forked Tower has the same rez restriction debuff as BA and DRS, but with the caveat that you can only be raised three times throughout the entire instance. If you die a fourth time, you have to release and delevel, which means spending time releveling and then waiting for the weather before you can go back in and try again.
There are also literally only two ways to raise - Chemist, and healer LB3. (There's also currently a bug where if someone uses healer LB3 while you have a pending raise from a chemist... you lose two stacks)
In comparison, BA has three ways to raise (healer LB3, spirit of the remembered/reraise, and sacrifice), while DRS has four (healer LB3, 2 kinds of reraise, sacrifice, and arise) - and in both cases, the only limit on how many raises you can get just depends on how many plates/actions people brought.

Literally the only other raise restricted duties in the game are Criterion and Savage Criterion... and I would argue that FT is worse than both of them when it comes to progging. Criterion gives everyone a single raise they can use on anyone (so you could in theory have 3 out of 4 raises used on the same person), but it's replenished every time you clear a boss or trash pack. Meanwhile Savage Criterion doesn't let you raise at all... but if you die and wipe, you just end up at the start of the instance again immediately to try again. You also technically can "practice" the mechs through regular Criterion, since the only changes in Savage beyond the raise restriction are more HP and fewer telegraphs.

That combined with the time that will need to be spent releveling and waiting, and I genuinely don't think they could have made a less puggable/blind prog friendly raid if they tried. Even just a change as small as "each time you clear a boss/duty objective, your rez restriction stacks get replenished" similar to what Criterion has could go a long way to making it feel more accessible than it is now... assuming you can get inside the damn place, of course.

Another week or two and Occult Crescent will be as desolate as Cosmic Exploration is.

There's a great lack of communication between the devs and the playerbase (Japanese and Global) that I believe would solve a lot of problems if there were sufficient. Looking at other companies, the first that comes to mind is Blizzard. Maybe they flop around so much, but at least they're pretty active in communication and doesn't need to tell you to wait until a live letter for hopes of addressing something.

I'm pretty sure the devs will not say a word and wait for the content to peter out over time, until just one or two instances remain at most and organized groups can finally get into it pretty easily like they do today with BA.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

There's been a progressive reduction in player outreach since Stormblood. DT has been the most noticible, with the bare minimum number of Live Letters (part 1 and part 2 before every patch, for a total of four since launch) and no real communication outside of that. No idea what brought on this change. The limited communication around OC is just part of this larger pattern.

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My personal pet theory is that they grew too wary of some of their quotes being taken to the moon, like "just go play ultimates" and others like that. This added with multiple sorties of Yoshida about players being crude or outright insulting on the forums toward the devs, tends to make me think that way anyway.

The communication between devs and the playerbase is in a horrible shape. This mystery box approach was cute at the start, now it's just bad communication and lack of transparency. I've been harping on about it, but DAMN. Is it so hard to give us a roadmap on how the game is going to look like in the next months, years to come?

Since they said they wanted more friction in the game and harder content, I'm afraid this may very well be "working as intended." They may intend for only a tiny number of players to be able to do this dungeon for now. They may figure the problems will work themselves out in time; as the rush of players in South Horn dies off it will be easier to get groups into the same instance, and after the final zone drops some people will have +4 or whatever gear, and organized groups will be able to carry some new people each run. Like BA, but even more annoying. That's probably true, but it's not a good thing.

To be clear, I don't think any of that is good. For the benefit of whatever poor community person is reading the forum and making a spreadsheet of feedback: I strongly dislike the design of this content, considering a superior system was already created for the previous foray zone.

While I hope they at least explain why they chose to make it work this way, I don't expect any communication, and I certainly don't expect them to make any changes beyond minor adjustments.

In typical corpo japanese fashion, they've most likely gotten feedback, and will act upon it according to their planned schedule, ie in 2 expansions.

This is just going to become gatekeeped/discord content swiftly like Bozja did.

You see it's actually sad to read threads like this these days.

Because the implication of it is that they:
a) care enough
and
b) Know what a well designed system looks like
and
c) does not have an incessant need to make arbitrary changes for the sake of being able to say "Well this is new, right? right?!?"

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Originally Posted by DynnDiablos

This is just going to become gatekeeped/discord content swiftly like Bozja did.

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It's already at the point of Discord groups "reserving" instances up to a week in advance.

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Originally Posted by Daralii

It's already at the point of Discord groups "reserving" instances up to a week in advance.

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I am quickly realizing the content they are developing is no longer for me. I loved the Firmament Restoration in all its stages, but Cosmic Exploration is nothing like it and feels distilled. Tribe Quests have been reduced to 3-4 of the same quests in rotation, and rewards normally saved for the end (mount and minion) are now available super early, so the final reward is really nothing all that great. Yoshi P and team seem to want to cater to the hardcore base more even though they are fewer and it also seems that content is being solely designed for FF14 streamers who will hype up anything. Yoshi P could poop on a plate, and Mr.Happy would be like lick it up baby!