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

[Chasingstars]

Is there a strict 1 paladin per 48 players? If not, I don't see how that is relevant to clears. As for it be greater than 400 yet still having 700 paladins, that has to be in a range of 1.00 to 1.74 paladins per group. As 1.75 paladins per group is 400. Going higher than starts making the number of clears that contain paladins dip below 400 such as with 1.76 which is 397 clears. Like if fflogs show 8 warriors cleared FT, are they being counted as 8 warriors for 8 clears, 8 warriors for 1 clear, or 8 unique warriors in a variable number of clears from 2 to 7?

Also, to add, the reason I question this kind of 700 paladins relating to clears is because paladins get a really substantial +25% damage buff from their fight or flight ability for 20 seconds anyway. As with how people been experimenting with the phantom jobs, there is basically top 3 main contenders for normal jobs that can significantly boost their damage of their phantom abilities. Dragoon (39% or 1.15x1.10x1.10 multiplicative), Black Mage (27% at a rate of 1.27 for spells), and finally Paladin (25% at a 1.25 rate). With the most consistent being paladin (25%) and black mage (27%) throughout a whole fight. While dragoon's (39%) is higher, it can be prone to drifting more.

[TaleraRistain]

Wait, so now people not only have to join a Discord but they have to be able to host their own new people runs? You guys keep moving the goalposts here.

[AmiableApkallu]

Wait, so now people not only have to join a Discord but they have to be able to host their own new people runs? You guys keep moving the goalposts here.

This is where I miss Castrum Lacus Litore and Dalriada.

Yes, they kinda get rote after the 10th or 20th clear, but whoever managed to queue in could be dragged kicking and screaming across the finish line. And they each had their segments -- the initial boss fights, prisoners, the three hallways, Lyon -- where a modicum of coordination was required, but nothing that /sh and /y chat couldn't work out in a minute or two.

(In case it matters, I started FFXIV when post-ShB was current, so I do not know what those instances were like on-release.)

[0blivion]

I mean, yeah. If you're whining about not getting into a party because apparently typing a password or filling out a signup sheet is just too difficult for you, then hosting it yourself is always an option

[Jaltaer]

FFXIVCollect is entirely opt-in so yeah it only showing about 500 people with the mount sounds about right. Lalachievements scrapes public lodestone data and it shows a little over 4k people at the moment with the mount which sounds a little more accurate. Just wanted to poke my head in and correct that bit of info going around.

I'm not going to touch the majority of the arguments in here with a 10-foot pole - I have no issue with the field op discords, I would have never gotten my BA and DRS clears without them; the real issue is what many people have stated already, that the design of the content is fundamentally flawed and skews towards needing that level of coordination outside of the game. Personally even though I love the older field op high-end duties, I'm not even touching FT until the instance prog issue is fixed (also I hate the mount so I'm definitely not pressed waiting on that).
And also, speaking again as someone who loves BA and DRS and thinks they're some of the most fun duties in the game - I agree 100% with everyone pointing out what an astronomically stupid decision it was to prioritize the high-end version over a more accessible one. Before that LL you could have almost written some of it off with the same non-excuse Chaotic got of "teehee we made it too hard", but in making the statement that they decided to prioritize the version we ended up getting, they literally outright admitted "yeah we made a version the majority of the playerbase either can't or will struggle engaging with", which I think is far more damning than anything else.

[Bryson]

Cleared FT

DPS
729 BLM
527 VPR
474 DNC
373 SAM
373 MCH
316 BRD
297 NIN
286 DRG
265 PCT
263 MNK
256 RDM
207 SMN
98 RPR (LOL)

Tanks
963 PLD
631 WAR
393 DRK
229 GNB

Healers
761 SCH
670 SGE
480 WHM
471 AST

[Bryson]

Wait, so now people not only have to join a Discord but they have to be able to host their own new people runs? You guys keep moving the goalposts here.

No?

They're saying you can do either if you want to increase the likelihood of clearing.

I like how you unironically think joining a discord is unfathomable.

[Jeeqbit]

I see we've reached the point in the discussion where hardcore raiders start trawling around for data to claim "the content is fine, actually," despite the fact the rest of the player base can see it's shit.

Being a raider doesn't mean you're hardcore (you could quite literally sub, join a discord run and clear quickly due to callouts, then unsub for 2 years), and I don't think there is anyone actually saying this was a good entry system. They are just saying that, despite the bad entry system, social interaction and etiquette exists.

If they really wanted to do it this way, they should have:

• Allowed people to form 48-person PFs without being warned by a GM.
• Allowed people to enter as an alliance of 48 (it only lets you enter as up to 8 people).
• Had multiple Forked Tower instances in any given instance.
• Allowed the alliance leader to reserve a Forked Tower instance and set a password, then the alliance all enter it.
• Scrapped the weather. It's a needless delay that artificially extends the raid time and leaves everyone tapping their foot.

Wait, so now people not only have to join a Discord but they have to be able to host their own new people runs? You guys keep moving the goalposts here.

I don't know if anyone actually said that, but obviously most people are not saying or expecting people to host their own runs. They are just saying that you can and that it's possible to if you have the confidence and initiative.

This argument stems from the fact humans rarely take initiative. Let's take party forming, for example. If 100 people type /shout lfg, but none of them actually right-click and invite eachother, then none of them took the initiative. In a similar way, if 1000 people try to join a run, but only 1 person organizes a run, then only 48 of them get to do a run.

So they're just saying that if people are struggling to get into a run then it may be that more people need to take the initiative to organize one. But not everyone's gonna be able to bring themselves to do that, just like not everyone's going to be able to bring themselves to invite people who type "lfg" at CEs. Fortunately, not everyone has to - just enough have to.

[Bryson]

I see we've reached the point in the discussion where hardcore raiders start trawling around for data to claim "the content is fine, actually," despite the fact the rest of the player base can see it's shit.

your bar for "hardcore" is incredibly low then

I'd be happy to show you all the casuals in my daily ft reclears

just because you can't clear it, or chose not to, doesn't mean everyone who did is "hardcore"

the amount of time you spend on the forums, could've been on ft instead.

[Infindox]

ffcollect doesn't have everyone. There is way more people who have clear it now.

It's still beyond low for content that's been out for almost a month now. By now, many more people would have passed it if it wasn't such a bizzare system.
I looked at lalachievements and it has it at .75%. That's still low for month-old.