Current fixes to Forked Tower is not good enough

[Daralii]

I'm too lazy to do something out of the game for Forked Tower. Delubrum was perfect in that regard. No issues arose with chaotic i successfully cleared it 50 times in PF. They should've done queue for the raid instead of doing their bullshit lottery mechanic.

According to the LL, they didn't like that people could just use the PF to find a party and queue for DR/DRS. There has to be FRICTION and STRESS, but only with encounter design and getting into the raid.

[TheGrimace]

It's stupendously befuddling they made Forked Tower even more difficult to prep than Baldesion Arsenal, instead of emulating the much more positive experiences provided by Lacus Litore, Delubrum Reginae (and Savage), and the Dalriada. It really makes me question their idea of "fun."

[Mawlzy]

It's stupendously befuddling they made Forked Tower even more difficult to prep than Baldesion Arsenal, instead of emulating the much more positive experiences provided by Lacus Litore, Delubrum Reginae (and Savage), and the Dalriada. It really makes me question their idea of "fun."

Whatever it is, it appears to come with a side serving of sadism.

[Jeeqbit]

If they design things counting on "braindead cheeses" then it is no wonder that the pve has taken such a nosedive for a while.

I don't think they necessarily meant braindead strats, I was just being blunt, that's all. The exact wording from the LL digest is:

"We initially anticipated that, as strategies developed, those who cleared the dungeon would be able to assist others with their clears. But entry method-related complications have hindered groups from going back for multiple clears; as a result, the overall situation has yet to reach the state of affairs that we originally envisioned."

they didn't like that people could just use the PF to find a party and queue for DR/DRS.

I assume they meant the gathering and selection of Lost Actions and having to set all that up being overbearing. In contrast, Phantom Jobs choose the action setups, reducing the focus on that as much.

"The system features for Delubrum Reginae seemed too overbearing, so we tried making them a little more hands-off this time around. By doing so, we hoped to open up more opportunities for players to converse with each other and form their own practices."

It's stupendously befuddling they made Forked Tower even more difficult to prep than Baldesion Arsenal, instead of emulating the much more positive experiences provided by Lacus Litore, Delubrum Reginae (and Savage), and the Dalriada. It really makes me question their idea of "fun."

"when designing a new in-game system, looking back at previous projects helps set the bar for what seems "good enough," but this could also be considered complacency. Our intention is, and has always been, to strive for the best results possible, even in the smallest of ways. But as content and project sizes continued to swell, with pending deadlines to be met, more and more design decisions were made based on precedence rather than seeking ideal solutions for each scenario.

"we should have prepared an adequate number of QA staff beforehand. Because we stuck to our standard protocol, certain sections of the game were released with undiscovered issues. There were a large number of new functions added in these implementations, and there were also issues that persisted across several frames of animation."

"Having multiple difficulty levels would've been ideal; unfortunately, with the time constraints that we had, we lacked the development resources to design and debug two separate difficulties in addition to creating large-scale battle content like Forked Tower from the ground up. Furthermore, we believe the difficulty level overshot what players were expecting before release."

[Themarvin]

This is from the live letter, translated into English by Square Enix:



It also includes factors like death limits which is what they tend to put on "high-end" versions of content.

They confirmed that their intention was that we would figure out optimal or "braindead" strategies and then begin carrying first timers through - because that's what happens with a lot of high-end content if we're honest. But their intention was not achieved due to the entry system issues that made it hard for pre-formed groups to even get in together and made them play instance roulette and wait ages for a weather.

Played games where 1 revive or no revive is an option at all, if they wanted to make it high end should had made it 8 or 16 man only content, they are placing a huge doorstop in the major supposed to be fun zone for all baffles me and it should baffle everyone, elite or not.

It is bad game design and the only thing you can do is to admit to the facts.

[Jeeqbit]

Played games where 1 revive or no revive is an option at all, if they wanted to make it high end should had made it 8 or 16 man only content, they are placing a huge doorstop in the major supposed to be fun zone for all baffles me and it should baffle everyone, elite or not.

I understand why they are making 24-48 person content. It's because in Endwalker, they made a lot of solo content and people felt bored, like there was no social interaction. Island Sanctuary was solo. Variants were soloable. MSQ dungeons were now soloable. Relics were virtually not additional content at all, whereas they were social activities in expansions before it.

[Themarvin]

I understand why they are making 24-48 person content. It's because in Endwalker, they made a lot of solo content and people felt bored, like there was no social interaction. Island Sanctuary was solo. Variants were soloable. MSQ dungeons were now soloable. Relics were virtually not additional content at all, whereas they were social activities in expansions before it.

Ït is not that I am opposed, it is the execution of it, as I said get the facts right, stop being a dreamer and become a realist.

[Kaurhz]

Making 24-48 man content is nice... It's an MMO, so larger scale content should be the norm, in my opinion..

But I struggle to understand how they managed to derive a system closer to BA when the rationale was:
a) Precedence
and
b) Good Enough

Just sounds like word salad for extremely poor decision making.

[Jeeqbit]

Just sounds like word salad for extremely poor decision making.

Seems like what they were trying to say is that they were in a rush to meet deadlines and didn't think about it holistically nor assign enough QA to see what it's like when it's tried in its entirety with 48-72 people (they do actually have over 100 QA). Which was actually an issue in 1.0. Each individual did their thing, but when it all came together, it wasn't working so well.

[Kaurhz]

Seems like what they were trying to say is that they were in a rush to meet deadlines and didn't think about it holistically nor assign enough QA to see what it's like holistically. Which was actually an issue in 1.0. Each individual did their thing, but when it all came together, it wasn't working so well.

I mean, sure... But generally I am just chalking this to bad decision making, even if you think of a silo'd system... I would have imagined there to be team meetings, or a team meeting to go over the 'project' itself... e.g., what the intended difficulty is, and frankly if it was communicated that the intended difficulty is extreme/savage large scale, then I would generally say the last thing going through a sane mind is... "Ah, let's turn it into an open minefield"

Especially when you look back at, say, BA... Which even 7 years later suffers from the exact same issues that we're seeing here, albeit not as... Intense, simply because of the age and relevance of the content... Like, you still get groups of 12-16 people in Hydatos trying to claim ownership of an entire instance (and still getting upset when people do join that instance)

I just don't see any universe where someone thought this was a good idea... Even in a silo, and it seems fairly clear that it was a decision issue, versus a... logistical one, when they've already openly stated in PLL that they thought Delubrum had... Too many support systems.