OC NEEDS multiparty queuing, forked tower is a orginizational nightmare!

[Senri_95]

It would be interesting if someone from SE, not Yoshida though since he has made it clear on numerous occasions that he's out of touch with ffxiv and the ffxiv-playerbase, could explain what exactly their thought process and motivation behind this method of queuing into OC and FT was. No matter how much I try to come up with good reasons why this awful system exists, I can't. If their intention was for random players to meet up in OC and spontaneously be like "hey wanna do FT?" and tackle the content, then by now they must be very embarassed.

You can't do FT this way, because:

• You require a certain number of level 20 players in the same instance. Then you need to wait for the correct weather to appear. Then... you need to pray that at least 16 random players are willing to go into FT with you (good luck with that). If they aren't willing, then you wait 40 minutes for the weather to appear again.

• If they do want to go in the tower this time, great, but then you pray they don't join any CE's as the weather is up, because yes for some reason CE's still spawn during this crucial signup window of 5 minutes which requires not only a specific item (cipher) but also demands your character to physically be present at the Solitary Pavilion (in the middle of the map).

• Once you're in FT you pray the random gang of players that queued in can meet party role (tank/healer/dps) and very specific phantom job (and phantom job level) requirements. If they do (press x to doubt) then you pray that others are at the same prog point as you, which let's be real, will never be the case, as most players you meet this way are players interested in trying out FT for the first time.

• Then when you clear the first boss (which you won't because everyone else got pushed off the arena or died to towers), you have to get through a long section of dungeon mechanics (traps, hidden rooms, trash) and realize you have the majority of players on the Oracle phantom job, instead of geomancer and thief. (Unlike in an organised run (or you know an alliance PF party wink SE) you can't expect or require players to have read up on mechanics/studied a raidplan, expect them to know what phantom jobs (+ level) are mandatory, because it's a group of random players that got together - most of which who probably won't return after realizing that content like this requires a certain amount of actual organising.)

All of the above are indicators that random meetups within OC instances leading to FT progging was never the intention. So why make it so difficult for the players who want to access this content in a more realistic manner? Through this design players who avoid 3rd party communities to do content ingame are being gatekept, while the actual 3rd party communities are simultaneously being gatekept by fricking Jeffroy the Expedition Coordinator.

[Eremite]

It would be interesting if someone from SE ... could explain what exactly their thought process and motivation behind this method of queuing into OC and FT was.

It's a very simple thought process that applies to most new content. They are simply copy/pasting ideas from previous iterations of this content without understanding why or having a cohesive idea of what the end result will play like.

To expound (ramble):

Eureka had elemental level so they added knowledge level, only took away the player power side so you can't murder low-level mobs anymore, but higher level ones will still one-shot you.
Bozja had CEs and FATEs so they kept that.

Baldesion Arsenal had an in-zone system for the raid similar to FT. It was mechanically simple but punishing. Snipers exist, but for most mechanics they can just get themselves killed. Most mechanics can be explained through calls.
Delubrum Reginae (Savage) was direct-queue but much more punishing mechanically. It needed queueing, so you could get your pre-made together to compensate for one person being able to murder everyone.

Forked Tower: They kept the in-zone system and added the personal responsibility of DRs. End result is that snipers can (and VERY OFTEN do) join the run for the sole sake of trying to wipe the run after you spent an hour getting into the same instance and waiting for weather.

On the topic of instance-progging - it's much easier to do in older content like Eureka because the zones are mostly empty. Trying to get 6 full parties into the same instance is a nightmare in OC.

I could go on, but once you start to see the pattern of "copy/paste from old content, lol I dunno" vibes in newer stuff, it's hard to unsee.