Forked Tower: Blood Needs A Normal Mode

[Khryseis_Astra]

I feel 100% confident they meant that North Horn will have both normal and savage.

You've got to remember this is translation and things get lost in translation. It's pretty obvious to me they meant North Horn will have a normal mode and they've got around a year to find the development resources.

Hoping you’re right! They usually seem to be very careful with the official translation so as not to have anything be misconstrued, but this one felt like it could go either way to me.

But also hoping that since they have a year, they realize how uneven it is to have FT: Part 2 be easily accessible to casuals while Part 1 is not, and create Normal modes for both at the same time to balance out the content.

[Eight]

Honestly if they just added the ability to queue in it would solve the problem and would make the need for a normal mode unnecessary. The current FT is challenging but realistically it's not that bad and most people can clear it. The problem is it takes so long to actually go in and the fact that it kicks you out if the party wipes creates an artificial wall that slows people from progressing. If they just had a queue people would be able to just go in and practice and I guarantee you there would be a huge number of people clearing and none of this would be an issue. The content is more than doable by everyone but SE decided to make it over complicated as usual.

[Supersnow845]

Honestly if they just added the ability to queue in it would solve the problem and would make the need for a normal mode unnecessary. I think they really don't need a normal mode because the current FT is challenging but realistically it's not that bad and most people can clear it. The problem is it takes so long to actually go in and the fact that it kicks you out if the party wipes creates an artificial wall that slows people from progressing. If they just had a queue people would be able to just go in and practice and I guarantee you there would be a huge number of people clearing and none of this would be an issue. The content is more than doable by everyone but SE decided to make it over complicated as usual.

Dead stars is not being casually pugged even with no restrictions on entry and death

Slimes is fine, like I mean even TA normal people will kill you if you don’t align hot and cold. Snowballs is 6 coordinated wildcharges followed by a tether stretch that’s straight up a wipe if done wrong. Delta attack does way too much damage for casual pugs unless you luck into a really competant SCH who can ignore the mechanic with spreadlo. Then fire towers is a mechanic where every single person has full raidwide responsibility, a single person standing in the wrong spot on fire towers can and will wipe the raid and unlike something like snowball tether stretch or meteors on tablet it’s not just “hope you don’t get the raid wide responsibility mechanic” because everyone has to participate in towers

People can barely hold 8 man prog groups together through more than 2 wipes of content people are supposed to know. You would be very unlikely to get many groups casually through dead stars and if you start tomestone checking for making it to marble dragon you are basically in the same position you are now

This is assuming you even reach dead stars and not just all run in, realise nobody has thief and then wipe to someone blowing up a super trap in hallways

[TeresaFortell]

Honestly if they just added the ability to queue in it would solve the problem and would make the need for a normal mode unnecessary. The current FT is challenging but realistically it's not that bad and most people can clear it. The problem is it takes so long to actually go in and the fact that it kicks you out if the party wipes creates an artificial wall that slows people from progressing. If they just had a queue people would be able to just go in and practice and I guarantee you there would be a huge number of people clearing and none of this would be an issue. The content is more than doable by everyone but SE decided to make it over complicated as usual.

Having difficulty entering the content is indeed a part of the problem. The main issue, however, is that FT is not a raid that relies solely on personal responsibility. Additionally, you have role responsibility and group responsibility that everyone must adhere to when interacting with the bosses' mechanics. Just as in a chaotic raid, especially in the second phase, if a single person or two commits a mistake in the run, it will not only kill themselves but also likely wipe out the entire raid. Therefore, simply having a queue system would not be enough, as too much coordination is required for groups even to contemplate completing the raid.

[AmiableApkallu]

The main issue, however, is that FT is not a raid that relies solely on personal responsibility. Additionally, you have role responsibility and group responsibility that everyone must adhere to when interacting with the bosses' mechanics. Just as in a chaotic raid, especially in the second phase, if a single person or two commits a mistake in the run, it will not only kill themselves but also likely wipe out the entire raid. Therefore, simply having a queue system would not be enough, as too much coordination is required for groups even to contemplate completing the raid.

Requiring coordination is fine. It's what turns a bunch of solo players vibing to their own tune into an actual party making their way through a raid, dungeon, whatever.

In terms of a normal mode FT, the issue is making mistakes something other than ridiculously punishing.

[XtremePrime]

The content difficulty is arguable, but it's fine.
The real issue is the way it was introduced still makes me wonder who exactly it was meant for?

The lack of premade/queueing to it and having the free for all "just go there to join" system makes it seem like it wants to appeal to casuals who want to "try it out" when it pops, but the amount of personal responsibility and coordination in both jobs and mechanics required makes it seems like it's meant strictly for statics.

I'd love to read the design doc of FTB just to see how it was presented and argued.

[Raikai]

The content difficulty is arguable, but it's fine.
The real issue is the way it was introduced still makes me wonder who exactly it was meant for?

The lack of premade/queueing to it and having the free for all "just go there to join" system makes it seem like it wants to appeal to casuals who want to "try it out" when it pops, but the amount of personal responsibility and coordination in both jobs and mechanics required makes it seems like it's meant strictly for statics.

I'd love to read the design doc of FTB just to see how it was presented and argued.

To me that sounds awfully lot like a corporate miscommunication issue. It's kind of hard to believe that Yoshida green lit this with full awareness of the situation, unless he delegated somebody else to approve the material, since it's side content. Probably? I would believe that a director having to manage multiple huge projects had to do this in order to work or not go insane.

[Khryseis_Astra]

Speaking of translations, I decided to take a look at JP’s forums to see what they had to say about the Tower. For the most part they seem to have similar complaints to ours, and I was heartened to see that their posts in favor of creating a Normal mode had a lot of stars on them.

[Khryseis_Astra]

From one of the other threads:

So at that anime expo that happened, we got a few more details https://www.rpgsite.net/interview/17...ward-to-future Most of it is about the future but he did make a few comments on OC and FT.

"I do feel that Forked Tower: Blood was a misstep in development. It wasn't meant to be hardcore content, so to speak. The intention was that it might be more difficult at first, but over time more players might be willing to take on the challenge; yet, in the end we made it too difficult for players to even get into the raid in the first place. That's why we're making adjustments with 7.3, and why some of those adjustments were pushed even earlier than that. [...] That's why we're revising our roadmap to account for this feedback in patch 7.5." Yoshida also reflected that the team may have been putting too much focus on a player's individual responsibility, and how a single person's failure could have such a profound impact on the whole party. They regret that they weren't able to strike that balance they had intended for the content.

[Daralii]

From one of the other threads:

There's a point where "We accidentally made it hardcore" stops being a mistake and becomes a problem with SOP/QA.