Posted in another thread, but felt like it needed to be its own topic.

They should have made room in the schedule for a FTB Normal mode… and I still think they should make one, even though it’s after the fact. If it was like CLL or Dalriada, or even DR Normal, the cipher entry would be seen as story immersion, rather than the pain it is now, because it would actually make sense to run the content with whoever showed up. Anything that requires the level of coordination just to enter, let alone run, should be a separate entry with PF freely available.

The problem is that they’re going to fix the entry method for the Hard mode, to an extent. But there’s not going to be a Normal mode in zone, and there’s no other instanced dungeon equivalent for people who are not or don’t want to be progression raiders, especially with the amount of coordination a 48-person run requires, and the potential to be that person who makes a mistake and wipes the entire attempt.

Field op content is one of the things a lot of casuals look forward to, and after all the jobs are leveled and all the gear collected, there’s no way to complete the rest of the zone story without having to schedule a run of content that many feel is over their heads.

What they should do is take the current Forked Tower, dub it Savage Mode, add their PF fixes, and let it be queued for directly outside the zone. Then make a Normal mode which will continue to use the in-game cipher entry, 1 per person, first come, first served. Dial down the difficulty by removing rez restrictions and any mechs where one player can wipe the entire group, but leave in some of the interesting parts to use phantom job skills. It would be about the equivalent of CLL/Dalriada/DR Normal. (And probably a lot of fun to run with both friends and randoms!) Despite any complaints people may have about Bozja, the in-zone dungeons were one area where they got it right, and it feels like going backwards.

Rewards? Savage keeps the mount, maybe higher drop rates for any field notes that are random (think a couple are just survey points?), more currency than it currently gets, maybe the addition of gold or armor upgrade materials as well. Normal gets field notes and TT card at whatever the current drop rate is, to encourage running it for more than just phantom xp.

It makes no sense for them to add a story mode next zone and leave this zone undone! I know this isn’t as easy to do as the PF hotfix they’re planning, but it absolutely should be done. If they have to wait and release it alongside the next zone, that’s fine, but it needs to be there so that there’s no break in story continuity for those that either can’t or don’t want to schedule and prog a 48-person raid.