On Forked Tower Changes

So, in the fix for the Forked Tower Entry system, SE has allowed premades to enter the tower efficiently, in that players now could join with an alliance, as well as having the option to enter the tower quickly once the instance has started. I think this is very much a step in the right direction to make this content more accessible to a broader range of players.

One thing, however, is rather perplexing. Most of the immediate changes, as well as changes that will be implemented in patch 7.3, are an overall attempt to resolve the problems of giving premade groups an easier entry into Forked Tower. This still does not address the central issues of having possible non-premade players getting into a premade group and affecting those who are not participating in FT. Particularly, point 4 of the future fix points to a possibility of players deliberately delaying auroral mirage from spawning.

A straightforward solution, as many have already stated, is to simply have a queue system so FT can be done outside of the instance. In doing so, it would possibly solve most of the aforementioned issues people are experiencing. However, it seems that this would not be the intended solution that they are focusing on. Would this be due to the supposed philosophy that FT has always intended to be done without premades, or is there another reason that they are reluctant to adopt such a system?

To be able to enter FT the special weather has to be present. And being able to queue directly into FT would make that requirement obsolet.

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Originally Posted by ACE135

To be able to enter FT the special weather has to be present. And being able to queue directly into FT would make that requirement obsolet.

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I am fine with them removing this requirement.

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Originally Posted by TeresaFortell

A straightforward solution, as many have already stated, is to simply have a queue system so FT can be done outside of the instance.

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If they can eventually queue into an OC all of their own, then that is a similar thing, really.

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is there another reason that they are reluctant to adopt such a system?

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It would be technically complicated to rip Forked Tower from OC. From a game development stand point, it means decoupling triggers, id-coded objects, and the whole instance full of entities, over to a separate map, without it messing anything up. There is also the formal link to the support FATE. While I don't think all that is impossible (they did it with Praetorium), I think it is not something that can reasonably be rushed and even if it is, testing is needed, due to the possibility of things like variables being messed up in the process.

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Would this be due to the supposed philosophy that FT has always intended to be done without premades

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Their intention was that as strategies developed and were optimized, and as people began to clear, it would become more trivial to carry people along. This is clear from the fact there are so many telegraphs.

But they did confirm they intended it to be High-End content, because they said they did not provide an indication to players that it's meant to be challenging and that this caused confusion and arguments amongst players. Also, the limited rez tends to be something they do for "challenging" versions of duties such as Criterion, BA, DRS, etc. They also said they believe they overshot everyone's expectations where difficulty was concerned in the Live Letter Digest.

So when I say they intended people to be "carried along", I believe they intended this to be with foreknowledge such as looking up strategy guides or listening to callouts.

Before anyone says "looking up strategy guides shouldn't be needed", it's not and you can of course get together a blind prog alliance if you have the determination to find 24-48 likeminded people. They just know the community and that they usually do lookup guides or raidplans (to such an extent, a raidplan feature is in the works and is going to be released). So they expected it would go like this as Extreme and Savage normally do, and the entry issues made their predictions wrong.

Now, 24 people could have foreknowledge of the strategies from a strategy guide without being a premade. In theory. But if you enter OC and say "hey random 24 people, do you all have foreknowledge of the duty and want to tackle it together?", it probably won't happen. You know? A lot of them won't be there for FT or aren't ready to do it yet, and if you do that same thing in Party Finder, it technically counts as a premade, regardless of if Discord is used.

So since we've established that in most cases finding 24+ people at the same prog point willing to do FT right then and there is likely to be challenging, the question becomes why wasn't PF available for it (under the Alliance tab)? They answered that question by saying they were so rushed with deadlines that they just did things based on precedent and didn't think about them enough, nor had enough QA assigned to it.

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Originally Posted by TeresaFortell

So, in the fix for the Forked Tower Entry system, SE has allowed premades to enter the tower efficiently, in that players now could join with an alliance, as well as having the option to enter the tower quickly once the instance has started. I think this is very much a step in the right direction to make this content more accessible to a broader range of players.

One thing, however, is rather perplexing. Most of the immediate changes, as well as changes that will be implemented in patch 7.3, are an overall attempt to resolve the problems of giving premade groups an easier entry into Forked Tower. This still does not address the central issues of having possible non-premade players getting into a premade group and affecting those who are not participating in FT. Particularly, point 4 of the future fix points to a possibility of players deliberately delaying auroral mirage from spawning.

A straightforward solution, as many have already stated, is to simply have a queue system so FT can be done outside of the instance. In doing so, it would possibly solve most of the aforementioned issues people are experiencing. However, it seems that this would not be the intended solution that they are focusing on. Would this be due to the supposed philosophy that FT has always intended to be done without premades, or is there another reason that they are reluctant to adopt such a system?

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I get it, i do. But the systems are already there and there would have to be changes. Like, what about lockwards/oracle/soup? If you could queue directly in they would have to make major changes to that section of the duty.

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Originally Posted by Altina_Orion

I get it, i do. But the systems are already there and there would have to be changes. Like, what about lockwards/oracle/soup? If you could queue directly in they would have to make major changes to that section of the duty.

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I mean the soup already gets ignored so they completely botched that didn’t they

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Their intention was that as strategies developed and were optimized, and as people began to clear, it would become more trivial to carry people along. This is clear from the fact there are so many telegraphs.

But they did confirm they intended it to be High-End content, because they said they did not provide an indication to players that it's meant to be challenging and that this caused confusion and arguments amongst players. Also, the limited rez tends to be something they do for "challenging" versions of duties such as Criterion, BA, DRS, etc. They also said they believe they overshot everyone's expectations where difficulty was concerned in the Live Letter Digest.

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I think the difficulty aspect of FT has played a significant role in why many who have already cleared would simply join a clear group rather than carrying people who either have not yet cleared or are entirely new, as that would minimize the amount of risk involved for the arduous amount of time they have already spent prepping.

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Originally Posted by Altina_Orion

I get it, i do. But the systems are already there and there would have to be changes. Like, what about lockwards/oracle/soup? If you could queue directly in they would have to make major changes to that section of the duty.

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Given the recent reception and the changes that have already been made, as well as those that will be implemented in 7.3, I doubt they would be content with this current system in place. If they could apply such a drastic measure for FT's entry system in such a short time, then changes to that section of the duty would not seem so out of the picture.

they need to lower FT difficulty or when a wipe happen make people start at the beginning of FT not OC

What I am witnessing now is that many premade parties are primarily reclear parties, which typically already have predefined rosters in place. This is expected, as the content has been released for over a month. However, since reclear parties are the majority of these premades, there are few prog groups available to those who would want to try this content, even via third-party tools. This creates another barrier to accessing this content, which I believe contradicts the very essence of what SE intended to do. I still think this content should be open to everyone who wants to try it. Therefore, it is rather disheartening to see that it is reverting to a niche so quickly.

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Originally Posted by TeresaFortell

What I am witnessing now is that many premade parties are primarily reclear parties, which typically already have predefined rosters in place. This is expected, as the content has been released for over a month. However, since reclear parties are the majority of these premades, there are few prog groups available to those who would want to try this content, even via third-party tools. This creates another barrier to accessing this content, which I believe contradicts the very essence of what SE intended to do. I still think this content should be open to everyone who wants to try it. Therefore, it is rather disheartening to see that it is reverting to a niche so quickly.

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Unfortunately, that's a pipe dream. It's doubtful they're going to make anymore changes than they have done so far and what is outlined for 7.3. Those changes put out the immediate fire so people get off SE's behind. They've never made BA anymore accessible so it's also remained something that isn't open to anyone who wants to try it.

They should have learned their lesson from Chaotic. People "got theirs" and stopped running it so all you might see now is the occasional reclear PF. The only way to keep these things from becoming niche is making them accessible and puggable. That's why even if the Bozja zones aren't heavily populated like they used to be, you still see plenty of interest in CLL and Dalriada. DR is a mixed bag because it's queued outside. But people in Bozja zones are very interested in joining the instance CEs when they pop up. With things like honors and overpowered lost actions, the veterans can very easily carry new people.

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Originally Posted by TeresaFortell

What I am witnessing now is that many premade parties are primarily reclear parties, which typically already have predefined rosters in place. This is expected, as the content has been released for over a month. However, since reclear parties are the majority of these premades, there are few prog groups available to those who would want to try this content, even via third-party tools. This creates another barrier to accessing this content, which I believe contradicts the very essence of what SE intended to do. I still think this content should be open to everyone who wants to try it. Therefore, it is rather disheartening to see that it is reverting to a niche so quickly.

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A lot of this is due to the stupid 100 clears achievement, which for achievement minded people (a lot of raiders) gives them a big incentive to only play with clear ready groups to ramp up their clear numbers. I can't say for sure how many people would have instead gone back to help prog parties if the achievement didn't exist, but it's definitely a nonzero number.

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Originally Posted by Router

A lot of this is due to the stupid 100 clears achievement, which for achievement minded people (a lot of raiders) gives them a big incentive to only play with clear ready groups to ramp up their clear numbers. I can't say for sure how many people would have instead gone back to help prog parties if the achievement didn't exist, but it's definitely a nonzero number.

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You can 100% see this on ABBA who’s entire bot queue system is built upon people queuing to their respective prog point and then people pull from the queue as needed which works for BA and DRS

Now 90% of the listings for forked are like “THIS IS A RECLEAR SPAM RUN NO EXTRA SANGUINITE COLLECTED IF YOU MAKE A MISTAKE ILL COME TO YOUR HOUSE AND KILL YOU WE WONT BE PULLING FROM QUEUE ITS A SIGN UP WHERE I PRIORITISE YOU BASED ON PARSES”

like way to miss the entire point of how ABBA is designed and make forked seem way more daunting than it is leaving only like 1/20 runs being fresh prog/dead stars prog

tempted to level this character just so I can make my own FT runs with blackjack and hookers

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

Unfortunately, that's a pipe dream. It's doubtful they're going to make anymore changes than they have done so far and what is outlined for 7.3. Those changes put out the immediate fire so people get off SE's behind. They've never made BA anymore accessible so it's also remained something that isn't open to anyone who wants to try it.

They should have learned their lesson from Chaotic. People "got theirs" and stopped running it so all you might see now is the occasional reclear PF. The only way to keep these things from becoming niche is making them accessible and puggable. That's why even if the Bozja zones aren't heavily populated like they used to be, you still see plenty of interest in CLL and Dalriada. DR is a mixed bag because it's queued outside. But people in Bozja zones are very interested in joining the instance CEs when they pop up. With things like honors and overpowered lost actions, the veterans can very easily carry new people.

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Seeing how they could put an emergency change in place this quickly to counteract the negativity surrounding it, I assume that if people complain loudly enough, then more positive changes would follow, as the current system still caters to no one. It still requires entering enough ciphers to enter FT, and people not in premades can still enter if they add a cipher and more to the entry system.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

You can 100% see this on ABBA who’s entire bot queue system is built upon people queuing to their respective prog point and then people pull from the queue as needed which works for BA and DRS

Now 90% of the listings for forked are like “THIS IS A RECLEAR SPAM RUN NO EXTRA SANGUINITE COLLECTED IF YOU MAKE A MISTAKE ILL COME TO YOUR HOUSE AND KILL YOU WE WONT BE PULLING FROM QUEUE ITS A SIGN UP WHERE I PRIORITISE YOU BASED ON PARSES”

like way to miss the entire point of how ABBA is designed and make forked seem way more daunting than it is leaving only like 1/20 runs being fresh prog/dead stars prog

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The only way to fix this is to fundamentally change the entry system entirely, which they are working on and improving, so that it would not be so daunting even to enter the tower. However, at the same time, they would have to tone down the overall difficulty, because it is still too challenging to do it without coordination at the moment.

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Originally Posted by TeresaFortell

The only way to fix this is to fundamentally change the entry system entirely, which they are working on and improving, so that it would not be so daunting even to enter the tower. However, at the same time, they would have to tone down the overall difficulty, because it is still too challenging to do it without coordination at the moment.

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That wouldn’t change anything because the problem is the majority of people who have cleared forked and still run it want the 100 clear title so they have proverbial internal justification to lock runs to other “consistent clearers”

BA works better here because there is no incentive to clear more than once

Ironically removing that 100 clear achievement would make it be cleared way less often but pugged by more people

Like ABBA is regularly getting complaints right now by people going “I want to prog forked but I’m not sure how I can when there is 1 prog run per week and 130 reclear only runs” and those endless reclear runs are being driven by the 100 clears system

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Originally Posted by TeresaFortell

Seeing how they could put an emergency change in place this quickly to counteract the negativity surrounding it, I assume that if people complain loudly enough, then more positive changes would follow, as the current system still caters to no one. It still requires entering enough ciphers to enter FT, and people not in premades can still enter if they add a cipher and more to the entry system.

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Unfortunately the raging fire has been put out. This is only screwing over a smaller section of players now, so the complaints aren't going to be loud enough anymore. All we can do at this point is speak with our activity and avoid the content so we don't add to their clear numbers.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

Unfortunately the raging fire has been put out. This is only screwing over a smaller section of players now, so the complaints aren't going to be loud enough anymore. All we can do at this point is speak with our activity and avoid the content so we don't add to their clear numbers.

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I think this is also affecting the larger playerbase who do not even want to partake in FTB. The main reason is that if one ignores FTB, there is no significant alternative incentive for any player to engage in OC. For example, say that you have completely maxed out all currently available phantom jobs, received your phantom weapons, and that you have also collected the notes, aside from those from FTB, if you do not want to do FTB at all, your only option for partaking in OC would be to loot treasure coffers. However, the loot in these coffers mainly consists of materials or items from previous field operations, which have effectively also destroyed their value on the market board. Thus, it is not enticing enough for you to loot these coffers other than wanting to upgrade your phantom armours.

All of the activities one undertakes in OC seem to point in the direction of doing FTB and discourage any alternatives.