Forked Tower Is Unplayable — And I’m Done

[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.

[ServerCollaps]

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.

must be an american thing. On EU we have multiple discords that do newcomer runs on a regular basis, that help progging and explain mechs

[Exmo]

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.

OP is not a victim. Please don't weaponise the language of therapy to score points in internet arguments.

[Themarvin]

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.

They wont, it is much more about status and having status on discord now a days.

[TeresaFortell]

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.

But this isn't a problem with the community. The community resorts to these methods because the content itself is not newcomer-friendly. Even in the case of DRS, when a queue system is in place, runs are still typically conducted on these channels, as they require coordination. Regarding FT, it still features a BA-like entry system, three rez restrictions, and complex mechanics that, if performed incorrectly, can wipe out the entire party. If the community wants to address these shortcomings, the content itself needs to be discussed in terms of these elements first.

[Exmo]

But this isn't a problem with the community. The community resorts to these methods because the content itself is not newcomer-friendly. Even in the case of DRS, when a queue system is in place, runs are still typically conducted on these channels, as they require coordination. Regarding FT, it still features a BA-like entry system, three rez restrictions, and complex mechanics that, if performed incorrectly, can wipe out the entire party. If the community wants to address these shortcomings, the content itself needs to be discussed in terms of these elements first.

Majority of OP was complaining about how other players behave surrounding challenging content. There are some valid points about accessibility and in-game tools, but we all know the community still behaves this way when content *is more easily accessible using the in-game tools available*.

[Raikai]

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.

What? The game's structure is problematic and is the crux of the issue - the players in the equation are also problematic aspect, but that's a symptom, not a cause.

And by problematic, it's not just about the accessibility, but a collection of different issues that connects to that.

[Amarande]

But older players and people with families have always played MMOs. It's always been a good way for partners to bond fighting fantastical bosses together. Real life isn't quite as exciting as that, after all. And people have always met partners through MMOs too, as much as journalists only "discover" it as if it's new thing every so often.

This is a big reason I opine that DT's difficulty uptick is a step in the wrong direction. Group content SHOULD bond people together much better than it does; instead, it all too frequently drives people apart, because it is rare for folks to be not only personality compatible but also lockstep enough in skill and learning rate to be able to stick together without the n-2 others in the group getting annoyed at the slower learner and/or the faster learner getting annoyed at the group ...

Honestly most of the DONT JOIN UNLESS YOU HAVE 50+ CLEARS parties

Is it really starting to get that bad in places? This feels like GW2 raiding levels of bad mojo if that's the case (and we all know how this nearly killed GW2 raiding altogether)

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

I think I get what sentiment was trying to be expressed here, the expression is probably off though. It would be better said on the lines of "the game has shortcomings, but players choose to react to them in a manner that exacerbates rather than mitigates their effect"?

They wont, it is much more about status and having status on discord now a days.

Kinda yeah ... it's like NA especially is rapidly deterioriating to the point where competitive, job-like play is becoming the only allowed way to play the game if you hope to get an endgame group (See my frustrated comments in other threads about why we can't adopt things like JP-style strats that are actually designed to CLEAR THE CONTENT instead of maximize competitiveness at the expense of comfortable consistency). There are a few scattered holdout communities and that is it, and I worry for their future if the game continues on present trends (eg we're almost halfway through the Moogle Event leading up to odd patch and most people I know are still bashing their head on the first half of this Savage tier, if they haven't thrown in the towel altogether ... I know very few with a 7S or 8S clear).

I really hope it's not the thought I've had for some time (since the Covid era when GPU prices hit the moon pretty much) where the root cause is the sorry state of the US economy (basic idea being that too many of the "nicer" crowd in NA has been priced out of the gaming hobby, while the folks successful enough in the working world to continue to afford to play comfortably have enough of the hyper-competitive go-getter personality to create a positive feedback loop usually described as "toxic competition") ... Given the suggestions EU is faring better though, I can't rule it out.

(It might be of note here that most of the people I am consistently closest friends with in MMORPGs either have disabilities, are homemakers, are retirees, and/or are not from the USA ... Which makes the above feeling about the trend seem still more likely ...)

I am totally ok with hard content but not harsh, mean and punitive mechanics. Not even the savage or ultimate fights are this mean. How many savage or ultimate clears would you see with such penalties? A whole lot less, that’s for certain. Oh, somebody stood in the wrong spot, we are now all dead and have to wait 30+ minutes before the next pull.

Yeah, I don't really get what SE is going for here either on reflection on your comment.

Practically every other game publisher has steadily moved in the direction of minimizing downtime between attempts (e.g. WoW making it massively easier to rez a raid in-instance rather than have to make the trek back from a graveyard, LOTRO eliminating the 10-minute Dread penalty, etc). Why is the friction considered good design here?

The main issue is that there are few prog groups available at the moment. The people who have done it on patch release are now doing clear/reclear runs instead of going back to prog groups. Therefore, people who are at further prog points have little choice but to join prog groups that may be at earlier prog points.

Yep. I've gone looking for fresh groups and there are painfully few on days I'm not working even before considering whether they have room for a WHM (and sometimes I've started to see two-session runs advertised, where the second night may not actually stay fresh prog depending on how the first night went so if you can only sign up for that run you may be out of luck) ...