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

[Pierllos]

Hello everyone,

I’d like to share an experience I recently had in the Forked Tower instance, to raise awareness of behaviors that we hope are rare exceptions.

A friend and I joined the public queue to discover the raid, with no intention of disrupting anyone. The mood was light-hearted, and we were genuinely enjoying the experience.
We successfully cleared the initial corridors and the first boss — yay!

Unfortunately, even before entering the instance, some players started insulting us in chat, pointing at us with emotes, and warning us that they would let us die — simply because we weren’t part of their private raid group.



And indeed, during the second boss, I was intentionally killed by a tank who moved into me during the tank buster.
We waited just in case someone would raise us after the boss, but at the end, players simply ignored us and even jumped on our corpses.

The issue with these groups — in our case, apparently led by a streamer named Rinon Inanna — is that they regularly attempt to monopolize public instances, rejecting or harassing anyone who isn’t part of their community.

Let me be clear: we’re not here to stir up drama or start fights.
This post is not meant to spread hate, but rather to encourage respect for public content — which is open to everyone.

Forked Tower was designed to be shared and cooperative.
No community — even a well-organized one — should try to privatize it or push out other players who join through Square Enix’s official matchmaking system like anyone else.

Thanks to those who read through, and enjoy your adventures out there! ✨

[Supersnow845]

Here’s the thing

You shouldn’t have been assassinated or laughed at or whatever

But they aren’t wrong. They aren’t “monopolising” content. With the design of forked you essentially are dead weight here and getting in the way of what they likely organised as tight groups that had the necessary jobs. The idea of monopolising seems to imply that if they weren’t blocking you out then other people would get to join, but it’s not that way, it’s either they try to organise it themselves or nobody does it; because it isn’t puggable

Like they were rude but they weren’t wrong. Plus if they are a static they want to queue together, they don’t want to initiate randoms, that isn’t wrong either

[Gurgeh]

Here’s the thing

You shouldn’t have been assassinated or laughed at or whatever

But they aren’t wrong. They aren’t “monopolising” content. With the design of forked you essentially are dead weight here and getting in the way of what they likely organised as tight groups that had the necessary jobs. The idea of monopolising seems to imply that if they weren’t blocking you out then other people would get to join, but it’s not that way, it’s either they try to organise it themselves or nobody does it; because it isn’t puggable

Like they were rude but they weren’t wrong. Plus if they are a static they want to queue together, they don’t want to initiate randoms, that isn’t wrong either

Bollocks!

Thats the game.
Its WAY against ToS for the tank to bait a buster and kill them.

They are entirely, fully , in the wrong.

They need to accept they are supposed to give it there all including to helping out randoms.
again, and again, and again, and again, until eventally in a couple of months time the only people that remain are people who know the instance well enough that they get through.
Or perhaps never , but thats the game.

I encourage everyone to report such behaviour from premades.
All of it.


If the game is any good the GMs can replay the instance, see the behaviour, and hand that tank a 1 month suspension.

As for the people that made the 'threat' against the other players, that should be insta 1 week ban.

They are entriely in the wrong.

Thats the game. They don't get to add their own rules.
If they don' like it F off and play another game.

Sociopaths.
High end, savage, ultimate, self interested, selfish, controlling, manuipulative, arrogant, narcissistic, sociopath/psycopaths.

Thats the game. You don't get to add your own rules, especially when they are 'definitely' against the sprit if not even the word of ToS.
If you don't like it 'leave' play another game who's rules you do approve of.

Lets face it, it really is 'not' all that uncommon among high end is it now.
One out of two 8 player PFs have one or more of these judgemental, arrogant, selfish 'progliar' sociopaths in, that just think everything should be done their way because they think they they know better than the game designers, who clearly intended the instances to be a mix of randoms, and for these high end players for once to put up with it and do it the normal, hard-work way.
Where you be patient, communicate before hand, and help each other along.

I'd like to think the whole instance is scaled to the number of people who first enter. So that if your letting too many people die, then your fkd and will never clear the net boss much less the last.

I can't wait to hear that while JP don't like it, they are having none of 'this' level of hostile malevolent behaviour.

Making people feel unwelcome is malicious.
Making people feel unwelcome is MANIPULATIVE, its done to dissuade them from joining in the future.
If you wanted to let them die, you could just do that without telling them you are going to, yo can just tank bust them without warning them.
MANIPULATIVE unpleasant arrogant selfish sociopaths.

I can't wait to hear how even though JP have their complaints, they yet again aren't experiencing this common level dysfunction.

And this is why i dont touch high end pve content with a ten foot pole. But excusing harassment of players who just join something through a public queue? Jfc this playerbase's hypocrisy is off the charts.

Great community BTW

Amen. And people have to take responsibility for their stance. Because rankly that includes people like snow if that's the side of the fence they are clearly coming down on.
If they really think that kind of behaviour is at all justified.

Common SE, maybe you can step up.

Start handing out the bans.
Start putting up notifications in the news bulletins.

X people suspended for harassment behaviour in Forked Tower contrary to ToS. We would like to remind our players that XIV is supposed to welcoming and fun and 'accommodating' environment for all. Thank you for your cooperation.

Now is an occasion where you could act SE.

[Gurgeh]

Here’s the thing

You shouldn’t have been assassinated or laughed at or whatever
...

Fair enough snow, apologies. I didn't give enough weight to that. Got a little emotional.

They are still 100% in the wrong though. It's still its bollocks.

You don't try to manipulate people into not joining the content in future.
You don't wilfully stop heling people and leave them on the floor.
You don't willfully bait mechanics into them.

[Supersnow845]

Fair enough snow. I didn't give enough weight to that. Got a little emotional.

They are still 100% in the wrong.

You don't try to manipulate people into not joining the content in future.
You don't wilfully stop heling people and leave them on the floor.
You don't willfully bait mechanics into them.

No you shouldn’t assassinate people we both agree on that. But this content also 100% doesn’t work if people try to organise it then say 2-5 portals get taken by randoms then you have to baby randoms because you can’t get rid of them and teleporting out wastes your cipher. This isn’t hypernerfed BA as we run it today. This is at minimum launch DRS

Square just needs to add a way to manually queue for this because it isn’t fair to people trying to organise to have spaces sniped when the content physically doesn’t work without organisation and coordination but it also isn’t fair to other people to get deliberately killed for just trying to do the content. The problem is squares awful system design at its core

[itachi-otsutsuki]

Here’s the thing

You shouldn’t have been assassinated or laughed at or whatever

But they aren’t wrong. They aren’t “monopolising” content. With the design of forked you essentially are dead weight here and getting in the way of what they likely organised as tight groups that had the necessary jobs. The idea of monopolising seems to imply that if they weren’t blocking you out then other people would get to join, but it’s not that way, it’s either they try to organise it themselves or nobody does it; because it isn’t puggable

Like they were rude but they weren’t wrong. Plus if they are a static they want to queue together, they don’t want to initiate randoms, that isn’t wrong either

Sorry bub, but they are absolutely monopolizing it. Yes the root cause is SE's shit design but don't say they aren't doing what they are doing lol.

[Supersnow845]

Sorry bub, but they are absolutely monopolizing it. Yes the root cause is SE's shit design but don't say they aren't doing what they are doing lol.

There is 1039601968275 other instances up at any one time with enough people to spawn auroral mirages. If this content worked like square intended then you could enter any of those instances and call out “hey guys let’s do forked” and get a group going. But that never works because the content isn’t designed like that

Having one instance that an organised group got into by chance ask people politely to let them enter is not monopolising because you can hop instances in 0.5 seconds and find another one with auroral mirages up.

Nobody is seeking out people trying to organise forked groups “organically” and trying to stop that formation. People would just prefer if an organised group is present in that instance only they should be allowed to enter as that group.

[itachi-otsutsuki]

Then blame SE not the players. What you are doing is just shifting blame to randoms making use of an entrance system that spawns in their instance. That is what I call gatekeeping. Discord is a third party tool and should not be forced upon people. Which is exactly what these groups are doing. Join the discord, or gtfo of our instance. Meanwhile acting like the thing is well designed and creating a false image of the huge problem with this design, cause they literally own the content.

[Gwenkatsu]

Two things:

1) You should redact out the names in your text and screenshot - listing player names is usually not accecpted on gaming forums.

2) That a company with 10+ years of experience in MMO design creates content that fosters such player behaviour is... well... I honestly don't know what to say. Is CBU3 run by interns these days?

[Saraide]

Queue sniper surprised the thing they were warned about happened exactly like they were warned about, more news at 11.

I find it funny how the premade was apparently so rude but OP chose to include the screenshot of them asking nicely instead.