Forked Tower Is Unplayable — And I’m Done

[Kirutsuki]

The main issue with it is that they want it to go through their QA process, which can take 1-2 weeks at minimum, and that doesn't take into account if they find a bug that is challenging to fix and takes time to figure out how to solve. Although rare, there can be sneaky bugs that are complex and difficult to identify the root of. Given it's a large-scale game with people's player data on the line, they don't want anything to wreck their character data, so that's why it will need to take some time.

It will also relate to how they manage their branches, since they've said they have one for each patch.

I agree with what you say here if the issue is a systemwide one for an MMO. But what's going on with Forked Tower isn't that.
Ofcourse there's some spaghetticode or whatever and implementing FT into duty finder might be more work than just 1 week.
But hotfixes are usually lesser fixes to the actual issue and CAN be temporary fixes until the actual fix is out.

Here's the thing, other gamedevs are able to do these sorts of hotfixes in a reasonable time from release. Sure one week would be optimistic, but let's say a month.
A clear statement from the devs saying they know it's an issue and are trying to solve it asap, but here's a temporary hotfix to alleviate the issue. And for something as crucial like this I would have expected a hotfix ~2weeks ago.
Since OC released May 27th, within the first week people started reporting issues, that would have been ~June 4th and it's now July 19th. It takes way too long for fixes to happen that the playerbase clearly reports on.
Japan is also a country where they work all year around (which is a problem of it's own) but essentially they don't get vacation in June either.

I get it that realistically speaking creating an actual fix would probably take a month or two before QA, but that's also with the aspect in mind that they are working on other stuff as well.
But critical issues should be brought to the forefront in their whiteboard and it's all hands on deck when those issues arise for that singular problem.

And YoshiP only recently coming out on interviews saying that getting into FT is an issue tells me that they are WAY behind on community reported issues or don't address issues unless they make headlines.

Lastly I just want to say that this issue specifically is instance based, it's within OC itself and it should not effect players data other than inside OC itself, so the QA could also be shortened.

[Doki]

Don't worry. A year from now they will add echo to it completely trivializing everything, but there still won't be enough people interested in running it.

[Themarvin]

Funnily enough Eureka, & Bozja faced much the same issues where people were rather dissatisfied with them in the beginning. Eureka especially, but even Bozja was mixed.
I was not expecting anything to be any different in the new zones and I have not even gone there cause I knew the devs would screw it up, cause they always do when they add something "new".

Island Sanctuary was mediocre, V&C was a mixed bag. The only thing that works to relative success is Deep Dungeons, but thats due to how incredibly formulaic it is so it would be incredibly difficult to mess it up.
But that also has the downside where things become TOO formulaic and people have started to notice a trend there as well. Dongeons are ok, but formulaic etc.

Players are both fed up with formulaic content, but also when they make something less formulaic it always has some major issues.
And here's the kicker, it takes TOO LONG to fix. Forked Tower would probably have been better received IF the devs just applied a hotfix to it within a week of it's release.

But no, they're so set on their ways of formulaic update cycles that they can't provide a hotfix unless it's RMT related.

Especially Bozja and the content and zones to follow that, was much much more friendly towards new people and you would not accidentally be blasting the entire instance for doing an error or two, or just chain kicking the bucket over and over again... and people was much more able to pick up those people as well and help them, like having room for messing up being able to cover for them and to help them at the same time, in the 'open raid alike events' like castrum and so on and so forth.

[DiaDeem]

As a subscriber of 11 years, I currently feel very taken for granted by the devs.

[Veritas-Ancora]

Unfortunately, I don't even care what they have to say in the Live Letter next week. They're becoming so predictable these days. There's no surprise, no excitement.

Forked Tower was a disappointment and brought down the entire OC progression. What is the point of me leveling phantom jobs if I'll never use them?

[TeresaFortell]

Over the past week, I signed up for three Forked Tower runs via Discord. All three got canceled — not because there wasn’t interest, but because players who could have joined simply didn’t, as they were further in progression and didn’t want to “waste time.” Worse, there was no transparency — no way to see how many had signed up or if help was needed until 30 minutes before formation, when the run was abruptly canceled. I waited 6 hours without a single update. I have a job. I need to eat and sleep. I don’t have endless hours like streamers — yet that’s what this system now expects.

The problem is that if one is not there during the first month when everyone is pugging it, it will likely be far more challenging to attempt it at a later time. Consequently, groups on these channels are mostly reclear parties instead of prog groups. How ironic that an initial system designed to help non-premade players progress in FTB turned into a frustrating procedure that, in the end, led to the devs essentially abandoning it.

[Supersnow845]

The problem is that if one is not there during the first month when everyone is pugging it, it will likely be far more challenging to attempt it at a later time. Consequently, groups on these channels are mostly reclear parties instead of prog groups. How ironic that an initial system designed to help non-premade players progress in FTB turned into a frustrating procedure that, in the end, led to the devs essentially abandoning it.

Honestly most of the DONT JOIN UNLESS YOU HAVE 50+ CLEARS parties seem to be approaching 100 clears right now so it will ironically become easier as those parties die out and are replaced with mostly just parties made by people who want to help people and have fun

[TeresaFortell]

Honestly most of the DONT JOIN UNLESS YOU HAVE 50+ CLEARS parties seem to be approaching 100 clears right now so it will ironically become easier as those parties die out and are replaced with mostly just parties made by people who want to help people and have fun

Would love to share your optimism, but I am afraid that this would likely go the way of Chaotic. In all likelihood, instead of having parties running daily, this would regress to having parties on a weekly or monthly basis.

[Exmo]

Dear FFXIV Team and community,

I'm done.

I’ve reached my limit with how broken and inaccessible Forked Tower is — and how this game now caters to elitism, gatekeeping, and rule-breaking without any real intervention.

Over the past week, I signed up for three Forked Tower runs via Discord. All three got canceled — not because there wasn’t interest, but because players who could have joined simply didn’t, as they were further in progression and didn’t want to “waste time.” Worse, there was no transparency — no way to see how many had signed up or if help was needed until 30 minutes before formation, when the run was abruptly canceled. I waited 6 hours without a single update. I have a job. I need to eat and sleep. I don’t have endless hours like streamers — yet that’s what this system now expects.

Forked Tower isn’t even available through Duty Finder or Raid Finder. There’s no official tool to support 48-man content with high failure potential. When content relies entirely on Discord servers, cryptic acronyms, and FFLogs filtering, it becomes exclusionary by design. If you're not “in,” you're out.

Meanwhile, third-party tools are everywhere. FFLogs are used constantly for screening, even though it violates your own Terms of Service. NSFW mods are openly hinted at in search comments (e.g., “Mare Lamentorum”), and players stream with overlays, parse runs, and flaunt ToS violations — with zero consequence, so long as it’s not directly stated. The double standard is blatant and exhausting.

I’ve stuck with this game for a long time. I’m 4 cards short — 2 from the tournaments plagued by win trading (which I accepted, knowing I could eventually get them fairly). I would’ve gotten Orthos eventually. But Forked Tower? There’s no chance for players who aren’t perfectly aligned with the right group, checkpoint, and logs. This content was not designed with accessibility or inclusion in mind.

So I’ve unsubscribed, uninstalled the game, and left every FFXIV Discord I was in. I’m done.

You’ve lost a paying customer and someone who genuinely cared. And before anyone assumes this is just a rage post: I won’t be reading replies. I’m not coming back to the forums. I won’t follow content, check patch notes, or wait for changes. I’m fully disconnected.

You let this happen. You let the game rot from the inside.

And now I’m gone.

– A Former Player

This is all a problem with the community, not inherent with the game. It would be great if the community were to address these shortcomings though.

[Veritas-Ancora]

This is all a problem with the community, not inherent with the game. It would be great if the community were to address these shortcomings though.

This is some intense victim blaming. The game is broken but it's not the game's fault? The players are the problem?

C'mon now.