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

[Aravell]

And offering Discord after everyone's in the instance is like telling someone that you really want to go to prom, and you really need a date, but there's no one left to ask out.

The time to explain the content's difficulty and offer Discord was before everyone got into the instance -- and it likely would have helped if it was made clear that only listening was required, not necessarily talking. And yes, once in the instance, these not-originally-in-the-premade folk should have opened up Discord, put some headphones in, and if shy, muted themselves.

I'm pretty sure people only offer Discord to the random players after everyone zones in because there's no point kicking your own premade members out of your party and inviting the randoms in and giving them a link to the Discord when it's all RNG who gets in in the first place and you can't really tell who outside of your party is going in until everyone is already in.

Discord is offered after everyone is in because now you're all stuck with each other and you might as well make the best of the situation.

[AmiableApkallu]

I'm pretty sure people only offer Discord to the random players after everyone zones in because there's no point kicking your own premade members out of your party and inviting the randoms in and giving them a link to the Discord when it's all RNG who gets in in the first place and you can't really tell who outside of your party is going in until everyone is already in.

Discord is offered after everyone is in because now you're all stuck with each other and you might as well make the best of the situation.

Whereas if you had clicked through links and read anything I wrote previously, you'd understand that you can "offer Discord" before zoning in as a means of welcoming someone to future runs -- because offering someone a path forward is surely more welcoming and constructive than simply closing the door on them in the here and now.

After all, the problem is that there is someone -- maybe multiple someones -- who want to run the content. You have no right to expect them to react well if you can't somehow communicate a path forward for them, especially in a game that's known for being bad at that.

[Supersnow845]

Worth noting as well that these Discord folks had no problem playing with randoms and casuals in the rest of Occult Crescent content (the FATEs and CEs), or even expect those outside Forked Tower to go kill some specific mob for them at some point during the instance.

But the moment they have to play with those randoms and casuals within Forked Tower? After said players played a factor in them getting their Phantom Jobs leveled and such? (Unless these Discord groups are doing 100% of Occult Crescent content together I guess.) NOW suddenly they're no longer useful and deserve to be "punished" if they dare step on that platform, or how they're leveraging de-leveling as a way to make them forcibly comply.

Would be kind of funny if people start remembering the names of the jerkwads they run into within Forked Tower and if they see them needing more warm bodies for a FATE/CE, or they're shouting for revives, to just leave them twisting in the wind. It's going to make North Horn progress quite the spectacle when people have been treating each other as enemies this whole first-half and muting/blacklisting premades or randoms depending on which side they fall on.

Isn’t it strange that I don’t want the person who was in the dungeon with me that can be soloed by a WAR also in my savage prog just because their qualifications include “helped me in a dungeon”

I’ll be real, most of the CE’s are actually easier to do with 6 or 7 people than with 70. Acting like other randoms in the content extensively helped you do things like level phantom jobs and that’s justification for anything makes absolutely zero sense

[Aravell]

Worth noting as well that these Discord folks had no problem playing with randoms and casuals in the rest of Occult Crescent content (the FATEs and CEs), or even expect those outside Forked Tower to go kill some specific mob for them at some point during the instance.

But the moment they have to play with those randoms and casuals within Forked Tower? After said players played a factor in them getting their Phantom Jobs leveled and such? (Unless these Discord groups are doing 100% of Occult Crescent content together I guess.) NOW suddenly they're no longer useful and deserve to be "punished" if they dare step on that platform, or how they're leveraging de-leveling as a way to make them forcibly comply.

Would be kind of funny if people start remembering the names of the jerkwads they run into within Forked Tower and if they see them needing more warm bodies for a FATE/CE, or they're shouting for revives, to just leave them twisting in the wind. It's going to make North Horn progress quite the spectacle when people have been treating each other as enemies this whole first-half and muting/blacklisting premades or randoms depending on which side they fall on.

While I agree with calling out bad behaviour, I think this is giving too much credit to everyone else.

Why do people even do CEs and FATEs? They do them for silver, levelling their own phantom jobs, working to the achievements or simply because they find the content fun. Everyone is doing the things they do for their own goals, not because they're altruistically helping those evil Discord users who eventually throw them away when it comes time for FT. I'd argue the only people who are altruistic are the ones who go out of their way to raise someone that died in an obscure corner of the map.

Also, the reason people even care to help with the support mob isn't because they're so nice and want to really help the people inside FT, it's because the mob drops sanguinite, which you can only get from FT otherwise, plain and simple. If the support mob didn't drop anything, no one would care.

[Kasumii]

Worth noting as well that these Discord folks had no problem playing with randoms and casuals in the rest of Occult Crescent content (the FATEs and CEs), or even expect those outside Forked Tower to go kill some specific mob for them at some point during the instance.

But the moment they have to play with those randoms and casuals within Forked Tower? After said players played a factor in them getting their Phantom Jobs leveled and such? (Unless these Discord groups are doing 100% of Occult Crescent content together I guess.) NOW suddenly they're no longer useful and deserve to be "punished" if they dare step on that platform, or how they're leveraging de-leveling as a way to make them forcibly comply.

Would be kind of funny if people start remembering the names of the jerkwads they run into within Forked Tower and if they see them needing more warm bodies for a FATE/CE, or they're shouting for revives, to just leave them twisting in the wind. It's going to make North Horn progress quite the spectacle when people have been treating each other as enemies this whole first-half and muting/blacklisting premades or randoms depending on which side they fall on.

It is also worth noting that we went from "this isn't harassment" to "yes this is harassment but it is okay because they are not in our group/discord/premade/party" and you still have people arguing that their behavior is somehow okay and in accordance to ToS even if you *show them the actual ToS they have been violating*.

It is also very clear that the hate goes very much both ways. The ways casuals and normal players have been branded "antisocial jerks" and "leeches" makes people like me not even want to attempt FT. Not on my own and definitely not with the discord groups that are actively harassing and griefing them. In that way I guess the discord cliques have won. Because I don't want to be around anyone or play with anyone who thinks of me as a leech and an antisocial parasite and calling content I find challenging "braindead". And yet those same discord groups shudder at the thought of being called "gatekeepers" and "elitists" when that is exactly what they are and how they act.

I am also looking forward to seeing how North Horn develops if half the playerbase has each other blacklisted because "they sniped MY instance that belongs to ME".

[Aravell]

So why do people bother to hoard up for the stuff in the field then? The convenience? The lulz? Does it give them a faux-sense of being an MMO even though they don't actually care if anyone else is progressing or if they're present at all?

Because if the implication here is that nobody cared about anybody right from the jump, then Forked Tower was screwed before it even opened because everyone was already treating everyone else as an expendable NPC throughout the rest of Occult Crescent. That some of these same people will be the first to howl in rage when you suggest more content should be doable with actual NPCs is even more mind-boggling, because its clear they hate dealing with most other players anyway to the point they will actively threaten to kill them inside content and then leave them for dead as promised.

No wonder it's so easy for players to treat others as enemies in this game, they don't see them as people to begin with. An MMO where the community treats each other as a prog point and obstacle, holy shit... this game really is cooked.

This has been the case for a very long time, honestly. The last time I saw genuine cooperation between random people was back in Stormblood.

It doesn't help the community when everyone finds any and all reason to bite at each other.

> Casual players screaming about savage getting exclusive bosses back in Stormblood
> Raiders screaming that casuals dumbed the game down in Shadowbringers
> Casual players screaming about raiders making body checks happen
> Raiders screaming about casuals making dungeons boring

And on and on it goes.

[Luluya]

The topic talking about LGBTQ players being harassed was also recently locked, it even had a GM show up right at the end announcing as much.
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Worth noting as well that these Discord folks had no problem playing with randoms and casuals in the rest of Occult Crescent content (the FATEs and CEs), or even expect those outside Forked Tower to go kill some specific mob for them at some point during the instance.

But the moment they have to play with those randoms and casuals within Forked Tower? After said players played a factor in them getting their Phantom Jobs leveled and such? (Unless these Discord groups are doing 100% of Occult Crescent content together I guess.) NOW suddenly they're no longer useful and deserve to be "punished" if they dare step on that platform, or how they're leveraging de-leveling as a way to make them forcibly comply.

Would be kind of funny if people start remembering the names of the jerkwads they run into within Forked Tower and if they see them needing more warm bodies for a FATE/CE, or they're shouting for revives, to just leave them twisting in the wind. It's going to make North Horn progress quite the spectacle when people have been treating each other as enemies this whole first-half and muting/blacklisting premades or randoms depending on which side they fall on.

This piece of public content will likely still get done by people who put in the time and effort as well as coordinate through discord to get people their clears despite the occasional person like OP throwing a wrench in their plans.

In the same manner that The Hunt, another piece of public content, still happens as the people who put in the time and effort to coordinate S rank spawns through discord or other webapps and set pull times to get as many people their kills in a reasonable amount of time despite people like Mr. Football pulling early.

[Kasumii]

No wonder it's so easy for players to treat others as enemies in this game, they don't see them as people to begin with. An MMO where the community treats each other as a prog point and obstacle, holy shit... this game really is cooked.

I think this is the issue right here, "normals" "casuals" "randoms" are all hindrance to the mighty "real" player and their precious prog points. I mean this whole discussion has been brought on because OP was seen as a hindrance to this premades "prog point" and has been deliberately killed (yes yes argue about the tankbuster idc. They were deliberately not revived and have been told in no uncertain terms to piss off).

At this point it isn't about cooperating in an mmo anymore. It's viewing other players as either "inferior" or a "hindrance".

Even *if* you actually go to the discords and look at their sign up sheets:
- Prior savage experience required (provide logs)
- Prog point proof
- Study these 10 guides
- watch these 5 videos
- we will monitor your performance

Even in the discords its not about cooperating or overcoming challenges. It is simply viewing the player as a "hindrance" who you can harass (in the best case scenario they are a random so you can claim its justified) or treat like an inferior being who needs to shut up and fall in line.

That is the crux of the issue. Casuals vs Hardcore is just one of the many expressions of: "This person is a hindrance and inferior to me" and that has been a very growing and real sentiment.

[AvoSturmfaust]

I think this is the issue right here, "normals" "casuals" "randoms" are all hindrance to the mighty "real" player and their precious prog points. I mean this whole discussion has been brought on because OP was seen as a hindrance to this premades "prog point" and has been deliberately killed (yes yes argue about the tankbuster idc. They were deliberately not revived and have been told in no uncertain terms to piss off).

At this point it isn't about cooperating in an mmo anymore. It's viewing other players as either "inferior" or a "hindrance".

Even *if* you actually go to the discords and look at their sign up sheets:
- Prior savage experience required (provide logs)
- Prog point proof
- Study these 10 guides
- watch these 5 videos
- we will monitor your performance

Even in the discords its not about cooperating or overcoming challenges. It is simply viewing the player as a "hindrance" who you can harass (in the best case scenario they are a random so you can claim its justified) or treat like an inferior being who needs to shut up and fall in line.

That is the crux of the issue. Casuals vs Hardcore is just one of the many expressions of: "This person is a hindrance and inferior to me" and that has been a very growing and real sentiment.

You see and that is exactly something you dont get. Its not about "This Person is inferior to me" its about carrying the own weight, if you like it or not but Content especially FT or Savage Raids doesnt matter what now, have a Damage Check and a Enrage and you cant meet the Requirement with People which even have a Issue to press 3 Buttons back to back, or Press Buttons without 10s delay between them, nobody expects that you play perfect flawless like a young God, but we expect that you carry your own weight and if you are as example below Healers as DPS then you clearly dont carry your own weight. Please if you join Content which involves Combat, please try atleast to CARRY YOUR OWN WEIGHT

And people like you should stop to blame everything on Raider (BTW i said it again, every raider seems like to be hardcore for you which isnt even the case but yea) we dont look down on anyone, what we want is something which should be given if you join PUBLIC BATTLE CONTENT

[RuriStone]

Ah... I think my forum access is about to be done here soon, so I likely won't get to respond to anything further (maybe I could still read it? I don't know what I can access or not, though I suppose it doesn't matter).

The best I can leave off with is that at least some people here on the forums were decent people even if we didn't always agree on things, and they seemed to fall into both casual and hardcore camps, so it's not a 100% certainty that every random and premade player out there is only out to screw each other over, but the nice players in this game definitely come off as a minority these days, outside the game and within it.

Keep being the rare diamonds you are because you're in the rough right now with the state of Final Fantasy 14. Toodles.

Please don't leave we need more nice players not less :'(