Difficult experience in Forked Tower – a reminder to respect public content

[itachi-otsutsuki]

I want to touch on the voice chat topic (Not the rest directly, this is a bit too inflammatory for me)

Ultimate, at the time of the content introduction, was thought to be unpuggable. Something like UCOB is mainly an execution check, and the ease of entry (direct queue) meant that you did have people get reasonably far in the opening days. Once strategies started to become more normalized, it became feasible, but that came through years of community effort through guides, toolboxes, videos, and simulators. Shoutout to clees.


It's awful.

Yeah , I am not even arguing against voice chat. It is obviously useful, especially for blind prog. I have used voice chats before mostly in statics.
And sure ultimate is the hardest content in the game and it must have been a mess on introduction.

However, FT isn't ultimate level content , it's arguably not even savage level. And I have pugged ultimates and some of the hardest savage tiers from week 1-2 onwards with really no need for organized runs or VC. Once the 'puzzles' are solved there is almost no benefit to VC, in fact it can be a distraction.

That's why this is so absurd to me. The mechanics aren't the issue. FT has been solved since week 1.
The issue is the amount of organizing it takes, to get a prog-able instance going and the punitive system around wiping which enforces discord only organizing, and VC callouts in an attempt to minimize those wipes. Which again not even ultimate PF prog enforces.
This leads to a huge problem even within the discord servers where there is too few runs hosted to meet the demands, cause everyone that wants to do said content is funneled through servers with limited capacity.

It is just a huge flop on SE's side that this has to happen.

[OdinelStarrei]

To me it's weird because while I agree that Square created a problem where some toxicity might arise, it's also that clunky weird way of designing this content that built a community around Eureka and BA, and it's where I met a lot of people I am currently friends with. It's why I say it was probably intentional, and why I can't decide if it's terrible design, despite people calling me a discord elitist narcissist and being hostile towards me.

Yeah, I understand where you are coming from with that, but we have to think of what's best for the majority of people trying to do this stuff, in both regards. I think we can agree that if someone yoinks a spot in a premade, and causes an instance wipe via this mechanic here that 0blivion so kindly sourced, there is more "suffering by the majority". And I do mean direct suffering, not ambivalence. This entry method is causing a lot of direct suffering in the content by the majority, and of those who are not, are probably veterans like us who are used to SE screwing us over like this, doesn't mean it's acceptable. Most won't have the experiences we did. We could have still got that experience if it was more like DRS, those still require significant coordination and didn't cause this much blowback because it was designed better in this regard.

We made some battle brothers in those trenches, I know. But SE said they wouldn't do it again, and they did. The well is poisoned.

I am an avid white knight of Square and 14 but Forked Tower and most of their recent updates are not defendable at all.

I root for Square and 14 to succeed as I am in love with this game but they have to be better. Always the goddamn shitty fights that are nearly impossible for the average player. No wonder most of my friends stopped playing already. It's so frustrating.

Do you mind if I ask you why? After everything that has happened in the last two expansions? I'm not saying you are wrong. But I am wondering why would you hope for better, when not even the developers seem interested? How do you maintain that belief?

[Voidmage]

People talk when they play video games together. The game requires strategy, and some things can only be accomplished by a team that is on the same page. It's easier to get to that point when you can speak your thoughts than type them, if you are not already following the same script/raidplan.

I don’t really disagree with the „speaking“ and voice chat point as I also used it from time to time but I think people often forget that many have not English as their first language and so are averse to a Discord voicechat (I know others exist but English is the biggest language) or they have other reasons to not wanting to speak like privacy or even simple “I don’t want to use Discord”.

But I think the biggest thing some overlook, even if they mean well with Discord (and I agree that it first and foremost exists to help players) is that it partly goes against what a good number of players actually expect of this game or like of it.

This game since forever gave people the ability to play an MMO with others while only interacting in chat at most.
It was enough to clear even savage. A macro in chat and you were good to go.
Just doing a 180 from SE and going full „lol no, use voicechat“ goes pretty much against it.

I am not saying Discord is bad but I think it’s also important to at least try to understand why some people are so averse against it.
It’s not right to hate on those who use Discord but it’s also not correct to attack those who don’t want to use it.

Some people are maybe antisocial but others might have completely different reasons and content shouldn’t need it, at least not in a game that invited people with the promise of “you can do your things completely ingame”, and especially not in content that is supposed to be for the more casual crowd.

At one point I predict the casuals will become fed up.
Not only because they get no content but also because they get hate for simply not wanting to use a third party tool.
And I can’t blame them.

I would even go so far and say that for a good number of players FF14 is some kind of “safe heaven” that didn’t force them to interact with others outside simple chats ingame and I don’t see how anyone has the right to judge that.

[Nero-Voidstails]

They think what they're doing is great regardless. See: their response to the negative Island Sanctuary feedback.

sad part about the island is unable to make a house on it. would have fixed many thing overall

[Nero-Voidstails]

I mean the way you call me Discord Elitist makes me think you're scared of engaging with people through voice. Like Discord's a standard for playing games online, you can go into OverwatchMarvel Rivals ranked with a group and you will 99% of the time use Discord.



I wanted to give him some grace but it's starting to look like that for me as well lmao.

I wouldn't call you discord elitist at all but mostly your prefered way to play. But try to see that not everyone might enjoy it in itself so if a content cannot be done thro in-game chat for me there is a problem. Making thing hard is fine but forked is well kinda in a bad spot because of how you enter and then people pushing away the others that doesn't use discord make it not just unfriendly but damage the content overall.

[Bhaal17]

You being there gravely hinders their chance of clearing the content. They know it, and you probably know it too, given you managed to live through 1st boss and the corridor afterwards. As long as the group intends to clear, you will not be raised, you were even warned.
Besides, I don't necessarily believe you were sniped by the 2nd boss's TB on purpose, given how that TB works, would had to be a rather impressive snipe.

[Volgia]

I wouldn't call you discord elitist at all but mostly your prefered way to play. But try to see that not everyone might enjoy it in itself so if a content cannot be done thro in-game chat for me there is a problem. Making thing hard is fine but forked is well kinda in a bad spot because of how you enter and then people pushing away the others that doesn't use discord make it not just unfriendly but damage the content overall.

TBH I'm not even into Discord that much, I mostly prefer to play without voice, but I am also not especially against it since this content in particular doesn't require me to talk to anyone but to listen to someone guide me through the dungeon. It's why I'm surprised at the hostility and thinking that discord is the "scourge of humanity".

Trying to see the silver lining here for me is that just like Odin says, the clunky way this was designed forced me to interact with people and eventually make friends over trying to clear BA and Eureka.

[Mawlzy]

TBH I'm not even into Discord that much, I mostly prefer to play without voice, but I am also not especially against it since this content in particular doesn't require me to talk to anyone but to listen to someone guide me through the dungeon. It's why I'm surprised at the hostility and thinking that discord is the "scourge of humanity".

Trying to see the silver lining here for me is that just like Odin says, the clunky way this was designed forced me to interact with people and eventually make friends over trying to clear BA and Eureka.

This simplest explanation is that many players have had extremely negative experiences with FF14 Discord.

[OdinelStarrei]

This simplest explanation is that many players have had extremely negative experiences with FF14 Discord.

The FF14 Discord is run by REDDIT.

Of course their experience is going to be horrendous!

[itachi-otsutsuki]

As a side note though I think it's a mistake to make a savage-level raid 48 people. It should be 24 people, like chaotic. Keep the 48 people for more casual alliances. Cause that on itself is a breeding ground for toxicity and discord gatekeeping. How are you suppose to coordinate 48 people and make sure there are no griefers? It's kind of crazy to me that they went with this.
It's literally stacking every possible thing that could lead to time wastage and griefed runs, on top of eachother and putting it out as content.