Forked Tower premade patch coming before 7.3

**MarniDawg** · 07-03-2025 08:54 AM

Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

It wasn't already implied that I haven't done it yet when I said I didn't want to get carried by a Discord?

My comments have been curiosity on how we might accomplish it in public PFs. I'm certainly going to look for them and see what resources might develop that make it possible. It's not meant to be reductive but more to theorize on how we might accomplish it as the non-Discord community. And if it doesn't work, to find the pain points we can give feedback on to SE about why. But we have to try it first.

My honest opinion on the best way to do this is have the wtfdig website post the strats and have specific roles do specific phantom jobs. As long as the 6 parties can queue together and everything else is decided (strats/jobs) beforehand then it all comes down to people's patience with each other while everyone screws it up until they don't.

**RiotSiren** · 07-03-2025 09:27 AM

I'm gonna cut this off at the pass and ignore the 12 pages of people yelling at each other in circles about the obvious problems with this content and it's relation to discord.

Pretty much everyone is in agreement it's access is poorly designed from most angles considering the content type and difficulty. Cool? Cool.

1: The reason they are doing this right now, is because it's a low hanging fruit solution to a major issue that is heavily impacting the content being played. Forked tower was designed to be a part of the OC zone and likely can not be removed into it's own que without a major rework, particularly on the back end. This was the easiest and quickest solution they could put out so that players can actually DO the content. We can argue if discord should be required or not till our hands bleed but that does not change the reality of how the content was created. They simply made a quick change that made the content more easy to access for premade groups.

2: They likely will NEVER create a normal mode for this, not because they have some sort of specific contempt for "casual" players but because at this point it simply isn't really a valid solution to this issue. No matter how much money you can throw at it, development takes time, making a normal mode of forked tower would practically be the equivalent of making a 24 man raid. Just because it's easier to play, does not mean it's easier to make, it would still require just as much play testing, and bug testing as the current Forked tower did. Everyone saying "Just remove _____ _____ and _______,and put it out" have no idea how the development process works, particularly at a company this large. Even if they threw infinite money at it, it would still take far longer then they have. By the time it would be released this content would be long out of it's "new" period, hell it already is. Likely it wouldn't be ready until later portion of OC are already complete, and by that point, its far to late. Yoshi P was saying there will not be a normal mode created, because by the time it would finish it would 100% be dead on arrival with it released as already out dated content in the progression of OC by the time its done.

For the record, I agree there 100% should have been a normal mode, and this content was designed in a way that was "out of touch" to put in generously. Considering how rare this kind of quick change is and how unanimous the distaste for the entry methods of this content is, I think they know they messed up. They looked at the situation, looked at the easiest, quickest, and most importantly viable way the could make the content *Playable* and did it.

They chose the method that made the content more accessible to the people who wanted to approach it as a group, because any solution to make the content more accessible to the general public would take much longer to implement, long enough that it would no longer really be worth it.

So many people on this forum have this bizzare "us vs them" mentality, where they get mad when people who aren't them get what they want and they don't. Nothing about this change takes away from players who want a easier Forked tower, and I 100% agree with you that it should have been normalish difficulty in the first place. But this change specifically isn't about the developers "catering to hardcore" or anything of the sort, it's simply about making the already created content actually accessible.

For whatever it's worth there is no chance they aren't scrambling to add a normal mode to the next big raid at this moment to avoid this situation when the next zone comes out.

**Mawlzy** · 07-03-2025 09:43 AM

Originally Posted by RiotSiren

2: They likely will NEVER create a normal mode for this, not because they have some sort of specific contempt for "casual" players but because at this point it simply isn't really a valid solution to this issue. No matter how much money you can throw at it, development takes time, making a normal mode of forked tower would practically be the equivalent of making a savage version of a fight.

Nearly that much work, huh?

Yeah I imagine doing that 12 times for 7.X, they're all out of resources.

**RiotSiren** · 07-03-2025 10:05 AM

Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Nearly that much work, huh?

Yeah I imagine doing that 12 times for 7.X, they're all out of resources.

I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm not defending them, I'm saying it wouldn't realistically be worth it or viable in a quick enough time frame. Developing a properly balanced, fun, and polished normal mode for players is a far bigger task then people seem to think it is. Forked tower was likely being worked on and balanced before DT even came out, for sure the assets existing would speed up the process, but you can't really rush things like play-testing, and the iteration it requires, unless you want extremely unpolished content, which I don't think you do. I agree this should have never been like this in the first place.

**Mawlzy** · 07-03-2025 10:10 AM

Originally Posted by RiotSiren

I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm not defending them, I'm saying it wouldn't realistically be worth it or viable in a quick enough time frame. Developing a properly balanced, fun, and polished normal mode for players is a far bigger task then people seem to think it is. Forked tower was likely being worked on and balanced before DT even came out, for sure the assets existing would speed up the process, but you can't really rush things like play-testing, and the iteration it requires, unless you want extremely unpolished content, which I don't think you do. I agree this should have never been like this in the first place.

Sensible position. I think many of us are just fuming at the "lack of resources" explanation of why there was no normal mode, when as you note, the amount of work (if committed to early) would be less than 1/12th that of the relatively niche savage raids of 7.X.

**RiotSiren** · 07-03-2025 10:30 AM

Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Sensible position. I think many of us are just fuming at the "lack of resources" explanation of why there was no normal mode, when as you note, the amount of work (if committed to early) would be less than 1/12th that of the relatively niche savage raids of 7.X.

Ah for sure, thats completely valid. Though I'll be honest I actually appreciate the transparency, like it or not CBU3 is subject to cooperate politics and gets the budget they get. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if he specifically mentioned it to put pressure on those who designate the budget.

Though your statement about " 1/12th that of the relatively niche savage raids of 7.X. " is loaded as all hell though and honestly very incorrect. I'll be honest, I misspoke, as it several fights that all need to keep the phantom jobs in mind. It would be more equivalent to designing another extra 24 man raid in development time, of which we will have 4 (5 if they do another one in OC). Either way though, I still stand by my point, that expecting a fully developed 48 man normal raid (that needs to take into account phantom jobs. current and future) before the content becomes outdated is unrealistic

**mallleable** · 07-03-2025 09:39 AM

Whoa, so they can smack the emergency maint button to make big changes like this.

Thanks!

**Khryseis_Astra** · 07-03-2025 10:36 AM

Originally Posted by RiotSiren

I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm not defending them, I'm saying it wouldn't realistically be worth it or viable in a quick enough time frame. Developing a properly balanced, fun, and polished normal mode for players is a far bigger task then people seem to think it is. Forked tower was likely being worked on and balanced before DT even came out, for sure the assets existing would speed up the process, but you can't really rush things like play-testing, and the iteration it requires, unless you want extremely unpolished content, which I don't think you do. I agree this should have never been like this in the first place.

It would be worth it for the part of the player base that feels like they’ve left out entirely… and I wouldn’t mind waiting until the next zone comes out. I’m not expecting it to be as easy a fix as what they’re doing tonight. But it should happen. There are only two zones for OC. Forked Tower Blood and Magic are a matching set here. Even if they make a Normal for the next zone, and honestly I’m not getting my hopes up at this point, it’s going to be lopsided if this one doesn’t get one.

As it is now, the scheduling alone will keep me from doing it for quite a while, let alone the prospect of having to do so multiple times to get a clear. And honestly having to prog it and not just having it be a still challenging but less punishing experience is going to suck most of the fun out it for me anyway. If the next zone gets Normal, great, but then what about those who didn’t manage to get the first one done? Maybe some will be fine doing things out of order or just skipping the first Tower altogether, but for most I’d wager it kills their motivation to go through the content altogether.

**brinn12** · 07-03-2025 10:37 AM

Occult Crescent premade patch coming before 7.3*

It's still a band-aid fix. Hopefully the Forked Tower premade comes in 7.3. And of course it doesn't compromise the patch, when SE revealed most of 7.3's content after the Forked Tower fiasco.

**Khryseis_Astra** · 07-03-2025 10:59 AM

Originally Posted by RiotSiren

Either way though, I still stand by my point, that expecting a fully developed 48 man normal raid (that needs to take into account phantom jobs. current and future) before the content becomes outdated is unrealistic

On this point in particular: Define outdated. lol OC is the current field ops zone, but Eureka and Bozja still see engagement to this day. Eureka especially was packed before OC and Cosmic released, and Bozja continues to be popular just for its ability to level jobs.

But then look at the dungeon instances involved… Bozja’s have replay-ability. CLL, Dalriada, Del Reg Normal… They weren’t “easy” on release but became so over time as one got stronger in the zones and learned the best ways to utilize the lost actions, there were no rez restrictions or “single person makes mistake=game over” mechs, and were usually puggable in a single run unless things went catastrophically wrong. But even so, you could just try again later, and it was fun enough to do as many times as you needed to get coins, relic bits, etc., while offering DRS for those who wanted more of a challenge. BA on the other hand is the ancestor to the current FTB. How many times do most people run BA? Considering it also has the same entrance contrivances and inability to run without scheduling and organizing. I’d guess the overwhelming majority are “one and done” on that, other than those that enjoy either maximizing gear or hosting runs. This isn’t something you can just pop into the zone and get done. Which is why I still haven’t done BA, regardless of how much I loved Eureka in general.

So tldr, I’d argue that adding the Normal mode, more on par with the Bozja instances would actually extend the life of the content, and make it desirable to go back to long after it’s no longer new & shiny.

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