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

[Chasingstars]

Honestly the discord server issue is beyond the point of what this thread was at this point, which is the content has such a bizzare entry system that even people who get a group can be screwed over by a myrad of options which then causes player fighting. Which honestly at this point I still don't understand why they thought it was a good idea, even disregarding the fact they "couldn't make a normal version".

Playtesters likely had a much more forgiving experience in the sense they would have infinite ciphers, didn't have to deal with sniping, either with a command or as a constant could always just set the weather to tower weather, of being able to reset their knowledge level to 20 after deleveling, and finally easy access to different tiers of crescent gear.

As I personally can't imagine the crescent behaving the same for the playtesters. Like for example just sitting around for 30 mins while waiting for weather to change. As that sounds very unproductive for employee time.

[Jeeqbit]

Playtesters likely had a much more forgiving experience in the sense they would have infinite ciphers, didn't have to deal with sniping, either with a command or as a constant could always just set the weather to tower weather, of being able to reset their knowledge level to 20 after deleveling, and finally easy access to different tiers of crescent gear.

As I personally can't imagine the crescent behaving the same for the playtesters. Like for example just sitting around for 30 mins while waiting for weather to change. As that sounds very unproductive for employee time.

That's all irrelevant. They had a thread just like this with around 100 pages for BA in Eureka Hydatos, complaining of the exact same issues.

It was understandable to mess up their first time making a new type of content. It was just really strange to repeat the same issue all over again when many of their developers are well aware of what happened with BA. Most likely they assumed Ciphers would make a difference somehow due to it solving the problem for Duels in Bozja, but it was an enormous risk to test that, especially without a backup plan they could enable urgently in an emergency patch.

[Chasingstars]

That's all irrelevant. They had a thread just like this with around 100 pages for BA in Eureka Hydatos, complaining of the exact same issues.

It was understandable to mess up their first time making a new type of content. It was just really strange to repeat the same issue all over again when many of their developers are well aware of what happened with BA. Most likely they assumed Ciphers would make a difference somehow due to it solving the problem for Duels in Bozja, but it was an enormous risk to test that, especially without a backup plan they could enable urgently in an emergency patch.

I actually think its relevant in that I am explaining how its very easy things can get overlooked in a controlled environment for playtesting. Like again, are you disagreeing when I say the playtesters wouldn't be waiting for the weather to change like how it is on live? As if they can just hop right back in and test it again, all that lethalness of the tower goes down as it would just be like requeuing for DRS again in a controlled environment.

[Jeeqbit]

I actually think its relevant in that I am explaining how its very easy things can get overlooked in a controlled environment for playtesting. Like again, are you disagreeing when I say the playtesters wouldn't be waiting for the weather to change like how it is on live? As if they can just hop right back in and test it again, all that lethalness of the tower goes down as it would just be like requeuing for DRS again in a controlled environment.

I agree they can't fully tell how it will go once it releases due to their test environment having different circumstances. In fact, I would have used your entire list of justifications for them messing it up in BA - it was a new idea and a complete shot in the dark for them. They didn't really know how players would interact with it. Even though the possibility of problems was predictable, it wasn't guaranteed because you don't always know how players will handle it.

But the controlled environment doesn't justify it this time, because one of their developers will defintiely have said this in a pitch meeting:

Person #1: "Remember all the problems we had with the BA portals and how we addressed that with CLL/Dalriada/DR/DRS? What is better about your proposed solution that will allow the return of portals?"

Person #2: "We will have Ciphers like with Bozja duels. That way, organized groups can just buy 50 ciphers to guarantee entry. It'll definitely work, 100%."

Team: "Sounds like a plan! Let's do it!"

Any way you think of it, that conversation must have happened because team members were there for BA. And it doesn't seem there was any backup plan for this very risky return of portals.

[Chasingstars]

I agree they can't fully tell how it will go once it releases due to their test environment having different circumstances. In fact, I would have used your entire list of justifications for them messing it up in BA - it was a new idea and a complete shot in the dark for them. They didn't really know how players would interact with it. Even though the possibility of problems was predictable, it wasn't guaranteed because you don't always know how players will handle it.

But the controlled environment doesn't justify it this time, because one of their developers will defintiely have said this in a pitch meeting:

Person #1: "Remember all the problems we had with the BA portals and how we addressed that with CLL/Dalriada/DR/DRS? What is better about your proposed solution that will allow the return of portals?"

Person #2: "We will have Ciphers like with Bozja duels. That way, organized groups can just buy 50 ciphers to guarantee entry. It'll definitely work, 100%."

Team: "Sounds like a plan! Let's do it!"

Any way you think of it, that conversation must have happened because team members were there for BA. And it doesn't seem there was any backup plan for this very risky return of portals.

To some extent sure, but we also have a repeat of a fix that was also done for bozja. Remember back in the day? CLL could spawn during critical engagements and people would have to either sit a CE out or hope they could join in time? And the devs had to release a hot fix for it so CLL didn't spawn during CE. So what happens in the crescent? The same thing again, but with critical encounters and forked tower blood instead with weather changes.

As surely they would've had notes and experience from past mistakes that told them not to repeat mistake of spawning the special raid for the field op during a boss fate. After all, bozja may not be a complete shot in the dark, but it was innovating in different ways compared to its predecessor so things were to bound to fall through the cracks. But, with crescent, they did it again anyway. And the only way it makes sense, is on-demand tower weather to miss something so simple and similar to something they had to fix before.

And that is why I think we can be on the same page. Because otherwise it makes no sense how they repeat mistakes.

Like they had issue also a hotfix for phantom jobs. Because for whatever reason, they could be powerleveled the same way as how blue mage used to be leveled. Which we would think again, they would have notes on what not to do and have that wisdom of experience.

[Aravell]

But the controlled environment doesn't justify it this time, because one of their developers will defintiely have said this in a pitch meeting:

Person #1: "Remember all the problems we had with the BA portals and how we addressed that with CLL/Dalriada/DR/DRS? What is better about your proposed solution that will allow the return of portals?"

Person #2: "We will have Ciphers like with Bozja duels. That way, organized groups can just buy 50 ciphers to guarantee entry. It'll definitely work, 100%."

Team: "Sounds like a plan! Let's do it!"

Any way you think of it, that conversation must have happened because team members were there for BA. And it doesn't seem there was any backup plan for this very risky return of portals.

I think the cipher system would function better if it counts a party of players as one unit.

So a full party who all offered 1 cipher would count as 1 entry with 8 ciphers, if a solo player gets the spot instead, the full party of 8 won't get in. This would encourage people to pre-form parties outside rather than go in solo and ask for a party inside since if each person in a full party offers 2 ciphers, that would be 1 entry with 16 ciphers offered and a solo player would have to offer more than 16 ciphers to enter alone. That would be a massive currency investment just to troll people, so it would cut down on that.

Plus, if one solo player can kick out an entire party, they'd be sabotaging their own chances of progressing by trying to go in solo, which would again encourage trying to get a party up before entering.

[Jeeqbit]

I think the cipher system would function better if it counts a party of players as one unit.

That's a good idea. They could just cap the cipher contribution at 8, the party contribution at 8, and the individual contribution at 1. Then discords can just ask each party member to get 1. In order to snipe, they'd have to get together a group of snipers, which at that point would be coordinated sabotage.