Forked Tower

[RaionKansen]

Some people don't want to need Discord for playing simple content.
Other people don't want easy mistakes to wipe the group in content that wasn't even intended to be "hard" (simple to understand and simple to execute are too different things as Chaotic had already shown with that many players).

I have all the respect for the Discord people who take it unto them to make the devs mess even playable but I certainly don't enjoy following Callouts like a sheep.
All those "it's not hard, just use Discord" posts really don't help because they miss entirely the problem people have had with FT.

This never makes any sense. Before Discord people used Mumble, or Teamspeak, or Vox, or Skype, or plenty of other things.

"I shouldnt have to use discord" is an unrealistic ideal with no relevance to MMORPG gaming in the last 20 YEARS.

You have to socalize to do group content in an MMORPG. Crazy I know.

We used to have to recruit and do applications on obscure forum pages or on the official forums. Nothing has changed. Its more streamlined than ever

[Xieldras]

They'll probably run out of budget again and go "Woops, hard-mode only" when North Horn's version releases.

You have to socialize to do group content in an MMORPG. Crazy I know.

Oooh, is that what the chat window in-game is for? Cool.

I don't know about others, but other MMOs I've played I've limited my chatting to the game itself. This is the only one that kind of asks me to join dozens of Discord servers (FCs, clubs, events, content). This is a failure on Square's part since the available tools for matchmaking and chatting are limited, especially for large-scale content. Maybe Cross-DC matchmaking will be helpful in this case.

Regardless, this means that Forked Tower was DoA content for most people, even moreso now that we're past the honeymoon phase of New Content.

As for the whole "it's so easy" part of the discussion. If there's a 3-strikes-you're-out system, in content where everything can snowball easily and that has a lockout of one hour (I think), you're going to have a good portion that won't even bother because it is a wall. Not even a fun scalable one, but one designed to make you waste time for completion.

(Also, the fact that we had people target-and-assassinate so-called "snipers" the first time around made me decide that I simply do not wish to engage with such toxicity. I didn't forget).

[Chasingstars]

sry but, its not even extreme mode difficulty
The mechs are very simple and easy to understand. On top of that, you have people that callout literally everything if you join any helper discord. Literally everyone can clear it by now
the "dps checks" also got nerfed multiple times by now (and get more nerfs with 7.55)

To me that sounds equivalent to modders having to do extra work just to fix the mistakes Bethesda made for a game. As you need to make use of third party programs and websites just to make something workable than the sorry state it was released in.

[FuturePastNow]

Normally I don't post anything but this is too much. Why has the community dropped the ball on not continuing to blast the boards about that there is still no Normal mode for Forked Tower going on 1 year after it's disastrous launch. I loved how the Bozjan Southern Front was implemented and loved CLL and DR. I hated the entry system for Eureka's BA as well as getting kicked out because Spirit of Remembrance deciding to not work. I'm not buying the they didn't have the resources line. We as a community need to do better and not lose focus and keep reminding the devs that they screwed up royally and the "fixes" that was implemented primarily benefited the hardcore players and not the casual to midcore players. I would love to try Forked Tower but do not want to be that one guy to ruin a run for everyone else simply because I made a mistake or I can't prog it because of the stupid 3 death limit. I don't know why they couldn't just replicate CLL or DR, those were fun. I would also want to know they are so dense and refuse to make it up to the community by refusing to fix their mistake and repair the trust and confidence in them and FFXIV by still not having a Forked Tower Normal yet.

They made the content they wanted to make. They just badly miscalculated what most players wanted.

[Voidmage]

This never makes any sense. Before Discord people used Mumble, or Teamspeak, or Vox, or Skype, or plenty of other things.

"I shouldnt have to use discord" is an unrealistic ideal with no relevance to MMORPG gaming in the last 20 YEARS.

You have to socalize to do group content in an MMORPG. Crazy I know.

We used to have to recruit and do applications on obscure forum pages or on the official forums. Nothing has changed. Its more streamlined than ever

The time of old MMO's is over.
The only reason why this game is as successful is because it is not like those classical MMO's.

The unrealistic thing is making content that requires Discord in a game that doesn't need it otherwise, even in it's harder fights.

You can see it as antisocial, weird or whatever but FT, which was supposed to be for the broader Playerbase, needing Discord is the outlier in this game and the players made it clear that they were not happy with it.

You want Discord then use it but let others decide for themselves.
When the majority decides against it and the content isn't run because of that then so be it.

It's not even about the socializing (you only follow Callouts anyway) for some.
It's about the unneeded extra steps for something so ridiculous when it should have been in-game clearable.

[hydralus]

They'll probably run out of budget again and go "Woops, hard-mode only" when North Horn's version releases.



Oooh, is that what the chat window in-game is for? Cool.

I don't know about others, but other MMOs I've played I've limited my chatting to the game itself. This is the only one that kind of asks me to join dozens of Discord servers (FCs, clubs, events, content). This is a failure on Square's part since the available tools for matchmaking and chatting are limited, especially for large-scale content. Maybe Cross-DC matchmaking will be helpful in this case.

Regardless, this means that Forked Tower was DoA content for most people, even moreso now that we're past the honeymoon phase of New Content.

As for the whole "it's so easy" part of the discussion. If there's a 3-strikes-you're-out system, in content where everything can snowball easily and that has a lockout of one hour (I think), you're going to have a good portion that won't even bother because it is a wall. Not even a fun scalable one, but one designed to make you waste time for completion.

(Also, the fact that we had people target-and-assassinate so-called "snipers" the first time around made me decide that I simply do not wish to engage with such toxicity. I didn't forget).

Most MMOs you've played likely don't have content requiring the level of coordination needed since their bosses tend to just be zerg rushes until the boss runs out of HP. I know for Wildstar voice chat was a must for harder content. D&DOnline also needed voice chat but it was built in. I suppose the devs could do that but they could also put in a DPS tracker in game and simply choose not to for whatever reason.

[Xieldras]

Most MMOs you've played likely don't have content requiring the level of coordination needed since their bosses tend to just be zerg rushes until the boss runs out of HP. I know for Wildstar voice chat was a must for harder content. D&DOnline also needed voice chat but it was built in. I suppose the devs could do that but they could also put in a DPS tracker in game and simply choose not to for whatever reason.

It's true that the most complex coordination my old guild back in Eden did was large-scale PvP events, not PvE. All done in typed chat as the leads laid out the game plan for Territory and Guild Elim, and adjusted as needed. There were always a meeting or two before the weekly events too.

Coordination is fully doable within the game's systems, but not as convenient. It's the "mandatory voice-chat/Discord" mindset from players that irks me.

[Hyperia]

What is keeping me from even considering trying forked is the death penalty. That is one of the most stupid artificial difficulty increase methods out there. All it does is encourage cliques and hostility to new players who mess up and wipe the raid. More than anything else, I would ban one death and your out mechanics. If you can unlimited rez in ultimates, then you should be able to everywhere.

[Khryseis_Astra]

Regardless, this means that Forked Tower was DoA content for most people, even moreso now that we're past the honeymoon phase of New Content.

As for the whole "it's so easy" part of the discussion. If there's a 3-strikes-you're-out system, in content where everything can snowball easily and that has a lockout of one hour (I think), you're going to have a good portion that won't even bother because it is a wall. Not even a fun scalable one, but one designed to make you waste time for completion.

And it feels like they went backwards as far as this content goes, to make a harder BA. After Bozja, people were expecting a few Normal mode duties, like CLL, Dalriada and Delubrum Reginae, with maybe an equivalent to DR Savage at the end. All required player coordination, but on the level that it could be organized in chat and cleared in about the time of an Alliance raid when it was fresh.

But Bozja set some precedents that Occult Crescent threw out the window. Bozja had multiple duties, 3 Normal, one Savage. Bozja’s field notes were ALL obtainable by doing Normal mode content, and awarded a mount for collecting them all. Bozja’s Triad cards either dropped from the Normal level content or were purchasable in the NPC shops with currency that could be farmed. And collecting the zone’s actions, gear and raising your mettle made the duties easier over time; even Eureka had that to a degree. While the Phantom jobs were interesting, collecting them all doesn’t really give you any substantial advantage for the Tower.

That’s really the key problem I have, is that Normal level rewards are put in content that requires so much outside organization. It made sense for BA and DRS to reward mounts, and I would have been fine if Forked Tower had the Normal/Savage split and Savage got the mount. But it doesn’t make sense to have field notes and Triad cards - that aren’t a guaranteed drop, mind you - in content that can’t be easily done over and over again by randoms.

[PaulusHamsteru]

I honestly didn't find FT all that bad. Should they have added a normal mode? Absolutely, but I honestly didn't mind it all that much that they didn't.