Please make Forked Tower more Accessible and easier like Bozja

[Aravell]

Honest question here, and I don't mean to be an ass to statics trying their best at FT, since we are all victims of CS3's awful design here:
would that not theoretically fall under the "aiding the enemy" bit of the Prohibited Activities in Final Fantasy XIV? I'm fairly certain refusing to heal/resurrect people in the instance can be considered that, which would theoretically make not resurrecting people in FT a offense reportable to a GM.

I think this is a different case here where that would not be applicable.

If you choose to silently join FT alone without communicating with anyone at the entrance, then you have chosen to undertake the content alone, so you can't really blame the others for not cooperating with you because you have shown that you yourself do not want to communicate and cooperate. It's like if you go to a CE and stand there without joining a party, you're choosing to play solo so you can't exactly report every healer for not raising you when you die. It would be a different case if they force you into a party when they teleport you into the tower instance.

If the premade runs a tankbuster into you though, that's 100% reportable. It's probably also reportable if the solo player runs into a trap and wipes the run if they're told to stay behind.

[MistressMinfilia]

I’ve been playing FFXIV since the beta between the end of 1.0 and the launch of ARR. I’ve been loyal through thick and thin, only stepping away when health issues required it. I’ve defended this game time and time again — because I love it. But this situation with The Forked Tower (FT) is, frankly, unacceptable.

The fact that players could queue into DSR as a full 48-man alliance, but cannot do the same with FT is absolutely baffling. Multiple groups across Crystal, Primal, and Dynamis spent hours trying to get their alliances into the same instance — and were met with failure after failure. Instead of one cohesive instance, we saw countless half-empty ones, splitting up friends, statics, and communities.

There were so many ways this could have been anticipated and avoided. And yet, for some reason, it wasn’t. Again.

To those saying, “Just wait for the Live Letter on the 20th” — respectfully, that’s not good enough. We all know the likely response: “We’ve heard your feedback, and a fix is coming. Please look forward to it.” But while we wait, people’s time is being wasted in a game that has prided itself on respecting players' time.

The NA and JP communities alike are making noise about this — and the silence from the development team feels like a slap in the face. This isn’t just a PR issue. It’s a matter of trust and player experience.

We’re not asking for damage control. We’re asking for the team to do better — truly and meaningfully. Please.

[idkmatt]

Just going to add my 2 cents to the forums hoping square will read them as what I'm about to say is already already said. For forked tower I have been in groups trying to "instance prog" for over and hour then disbanding since we cant get in an instance together. Square you already have the system in place for Field operations under alliance for Delumbrum Reginae (savage) for a full 48 man group. Can you make one for occult crescent so we can queue into an instance with up to 48 people. I understand the way its built isn't like delubrum and its open to the public but at least let us not have to spend hours just trying to get the group together for nothing. I heard they had similar issues in Eureka for BA but the game has gained a bigger player base so this old issue has exploded into an even bigger one affecting more players.

[TaleraRistain]

I clear all current savage content with my static. I cleared Chaotic using PF and pugs over 50 times. There is no way I'm going to do this Tower content.

If using an external system, Discord in this case, is REQUIRED to get a a group together for in-game content then said content is a failure. Tower is the biggest failure in this game to date.

This. I do Savage with my static and in PF. I use Discord with my static and I use Discord with a community group that I also do Savage, Extremes, and Unreal with.

But when I am forced to go to some specific Discord because said Discord has decided they own the content for the entire datacenter, I refuse. I've never done BA and never will because it's a failure in design that it can't be organized in game. Same with Forked Tower. Any design that lets any one group of players monopolize and claim content and gatekeep it away from the rest of the playerbase unless they jump through their hoops is failed content.

I've been doing OC constantly. It's fairly boring but at least the CEs can be kind of fun. They should have had a normal version where they could still use the cipher system that people could do for the lore, the TT card, the record (I believe I've heard one of them is in there), and maybe a currency that someone could work toward +2 gear with. That would also give players a stepping stone to potentially try a harder version. And the harder version should have a direct queue so people could get together and practice and prog it.

[Khryseis_Astra]

They should have had a normal version where they could still use the cipher system that people could do for the lore, the TT card, the record (I believe I've heard one of them is in there), and maybe a currency that someone could work toward +2 gear with. That would also give players a stepping stone to potentially try a harder version. And the harder version should have a direct queue so people could get together and practice and prog it.

Agreed. I’ll probably try it at some point, but honestly the need to schedule it outside of the game is why I still haven’t gotten around to BA. At least BA was the end of the content! With Forked Tower the way it is, I probably won’t be doing it any time soon, and I’ll be missing lore going into the next zone! Like Eureka, I’m really loving the setting here and want to see where the story goes, but now I feel like I’m going to be missing a chapter.

Not to mention another TT card that will probably be random drop for content that will probably only be feasible for me to do once… up til Eureka Orthos, I had every card in the game, and here’s another that will be near impossible to get. I’ve also gotten all the field notes you can get in South Horn, the last FIVE are from the Tower, also probably random drop. How many times do they think most people are going to be able to run this? I love the zone but the choice to set this up the way they have really boggles the mind.

[Arohk]

Agreed. I’ll probably try it at some point, but honestly the need to schedule it outside of the game is why I still haven’t gotten around to BA..

I have tried once, wasted an entire evening hoping for a spot to get in there.
Total garbage design

[TaleraRistain]

I think this is a different case here where that would not be applicable.

If you choose to silently join FT alone without communicating with anyone at the entrance, then you have chosen to undertake the content alone, so you can't really blame the others for not cooperating with you because you have shown that you yourself do not want to communicate and cooperate. It's like if you go to a CE and stand there without joining a party, you're choosing to play solo so you can't exactly report every healer for not raising you when you die. It would be a different case if they force you into a party when they teleport you into the tower instance.

But this is something that can be randomly joined in the zone, though. If you make that argument, wouldn't it also apply to someone running roulettes alone instead of in a premade group? Both involve joining something where you may not be able to choose your partymates. But it's not okay to leave someone dead in a roulette just because they didn't queue with you. The idea with anything where we can potentially have randoms is that we're expected to work together and help each other.

[TaleraRistain]

Agreed. I’ll probably try it at some point, but honestly the need to schedule it outside of the game is why I still haven’t gotten around to BA. At least BA was the end of the content! With Forked Tower the way it is, I probably won’t be doing it any time soon, and I’ll be missing lore going into the next zone! Like Eureka, I’m really loving the setting here and want to see where the story goes, but now I feel like I’m going to be missing a chapter.

Not to mention another TT card that will probably be random drop for content that will probably only be feasible for me to do once… up til Eureka Orthos, I had every card in the game, and here’s another that will be near impossible to get. I’ve also gotten all the field notes you can get in South Horn, the last FIVE are from the Tower, also probably random drop. How many times do they think most people are going to be able to run this? I love the zone but the choice to set this up the way they have really boggles the mind.

The TT card sucks but the lore is what I hate because it really sounds like the towers are tied to the architect and anyone who doesn't do them is going to be missing a huge amount of that information. I don't want to read about it on a website. I want to gather it myself in game with the record system they put into place.

[0blivion]

Nah, I'mma be real, I think they can make a normal mode version for FT, but the current version needs to stay additionally. Furthermore, we as a community should have a no-tolerance policy towards disruptive behavior like sniping. FFXIV has its "toxic positivity" rep for a reason, unfortunately. We shouldn't tolerate players intentionally undermining the great efforts hosts go through to actually progress these fates. Killing snipers with TB is against ToS, but you should absolutely just leave them on the floor, as they can easily wipe you past boss 1. Unintentionally stumbling into tower is fine, the issue arises when people get told in /yell or /tell to please step off the platform because there's a 48man premade and then ignore it. That doesn't deserve coddling.

[andyhunt]

Just came here to +1 this. I loved Bozja, it's fine if players want harder content, but please, give us a "normal" version as well. The harder version should be just queue-able outside of Occult Crescent.
I don't understand why they even changed it. The way they handled it before was perfectly fine.