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

[Pixieish]

Whoever made that call shouldn't be involved in content design.

Could apply that comment to a lot of decisions made with this expansion. I'm figuring it's safe to say I can probably skip buying the next expansion, maybe someone competent will be put in charge after a few years.

[Astronis]

If you as a casual player are interested in trying it and people already tell you over and over again that "lol this content isnt meant to be puggable" and "join a discord" then how would you feel?

I'm not a casual player (or really much of a hardcore player), but when people tell me I can't do something I frequently take it as a challenge to prove them wrong or die trying. I've been playing games long enough and been around the frothing masses of online discourse long enough to have a reasonably decent gauge of when people are blowing things out of proportion one way or another. Only way to really know for sure is to try it myself. I'd hazard a guess that, sight unseen, Forked Tower is difficult enough that a totally random pickup group wouldn't make it through, but YOLO go in and give it a shot, it's just a game. Have some fun.

But then I am frequently doing stupid stuff that ends up with me on the floor with an empty HP bar. Why should I not? I don't lose anything for the attempt! And I tell that same thing to most of the players I know who ARE casual. Go try it! Unless I know them very well (like for ten years well--those people would never suggest I try jumping puzzles and I'd never suggest they try an EX).

[Luluya]

The difference between OP and Jonny Football is that Mr. Football actually succeeds in disrupting the efforts of the people who spending hours trying to coordinate the respective content to accommodate other people.

[Jeeqbit]

It's time to dispel everyone's opinion of these Discords, I've consistently been told that CEM (on Crystal) welcomes randoms. This is how welcoming ABBA was to randoms when I was in the other day (outside peak hours):

[Novarius]

Not to mention that if an unprepared person gets the meteor stack jump on boss 1, they will kill all meteor players (8? 16?), lol.

Thankfully this is recoverable if one of the stacks that is meant to be on the meteor side still goes there (and then if the other meteor side stack is on the safe side they adjust and go to the wall so they'll launch people backwards instead of off the platform or if they don't you don't stack with them, let them die and then rez so you don't risk more deaths)... if both meteor side stacks go wrong then the meteor people are cooked because they have no way of getting launched back to the safe side...

[Novarius]

Without a doubt, the most out-of-touch thing ever said in a Live Letter. "Let's make a piece of supremely casual content and cap it off with a raid random players can't do." Whoever made that call shouldn't be involved in content design.

I'm perfectly willing to accept that they only had the time/resources to make one version of it, but the choice they made is insane.

This hits the nail squarely on the head, if you can only commit to one raid then you make it as accessible to as many players doing OC as possible, I mean removing the rez restriction, allowing Phantom Jobs to be changed outside of combat and not kicking people out of Forked Tower on a wipe would already go a long way to making the content more accessible without having to lower the difficulty of the fights themselves, although some re-balancing might be needed regarding DPS checks so you can't just have everyone go Chemist and faceroll the content by chain rezzing if people die... Honestly although I've nearly beaten FT I can say it feels particularly mean-spirited when it kicks you out to the OC, even Ultimates and Criterion Savage feel more charitable, you can fail them as many times as you like without having to get booted out and wait 30 minutes to queue in again... I think the worst thing in Forked Tower has to be the Idols on the Bridge, if your Bard messes up and stuns them too early or the two sides pull at different times and one Bard accidentally stuns the other side's Idols too early as a result it automatically leads to a wipe, it just feels so cheap, I feel that situation should be recoverable but it's just not sadly... even if you kill the Idols on your side if the other side didn't get stunned properly they just fly over and kill your side as well...

[Volgia]

It's time to dispel everyone's opinion of these Discords, I've consistently been told that CEM (on Crystal) welcomes randoms. This is how welcoming ABBA was to randoms when I was in the other day (outside peak hours):

The cartel truly trafficking casuals.

[Empyr]

I think people should have the emotional capability to accept that people don't like snipers and the social knowledge to know why acting all self-important in front of 48 people is somewhat frowned upon. If you don't want to find an organised run in discord to prog the content, it's okay because they are ways to get into Forked Tower like organising in instance like YoshiP intended.

[Mawlzy]

Always amusing when a single anecdote is used to "prove" a hypothesis.

I give credit to any individual or group that is genuinely helpful.

The issue that is being overlooked is: why is it that so many people have negative opinions regarding 14-related Discords?

I too can only provide a personal anecdote. It's because I have been a member of many such Discords.

[Empyr]

Always amusing when a single anecdote is used to "prove" a hypothesis.

I give credit to any individual or group that is genuinely helpful.

The issue that is being overlooked is: why is it that so many people have negative opinions regarding Forked Tower snipers?

I too can only provide a personal anecdote. It's because I have been sniped by many Forked Tower snipers.