Current fixes to Forked Tower is not good enough

[Raikai]

I like the fix. May even make me attempt to find a party on Aether for it if I decide to renew my sub in the following week (I'm just returning for a month I was gifted with, to check the updates).

It doesn't excuse the lack of a normal mode, though. Sometimes I just want to do something like CLL... you still play with others in sort of a challenging way, but don't necessarily need to go all the way as hopping to a different Datacenter and outsourcing the party finder to a Discord Server. Hopefully the actual ingame PF is having a healthy amount of movement after the update. Didn't check Aether's myself, but Crystal sees almost no action.

[TaleraRistain]

I like the fix. May even make me attempt to find a party on Aether for it if I decide to renew my sub in the following week (I'm just returning for a month I was gifted with, to check the updates).

It doesn't excuse the lack of a normal mode, though. Sometimes I just want to do something like CLL... you still play with others in sort of a challenging way, but don't necessarily need to go all the way as hopping to a different Datacenter and outsourcing the party finder to a Discord Server. Hopefully the actual ingame PF is having a healthy amount of movement after the update. Didn't check Aether's myself, but Crystal sees almost no action.

Unfortunately all I've seen so far on Aether's PF is the same one or two premade groups that are looking for fills for specific times. Nothing where a more pick-up type of situation is trying to develop organically. Though maybe this weekend when more people will be off work.

[CNitsah]

I understand the argument, but we've had Baldesion Arsenal fill this exact niche in Stormblood. It is impossible to do a pug Baldesion Arsenal run, so you need a premade group and more realistically a discord for callouts.
Genuinely asking, but why are people letting Baldesion Arsenal get a pass when Forked Tower is in the exact same spot? (minus the way you queue in the instance works)

BA was the final optional step. The enterety of Eureka was still relevant without BA. Relic quest are considered finish without the BA step. Even the story is considered finished with BA being an epilogue.

With FT, the story leads directly to FT. OC is irrelevant if you don't plan to do FT. I hope they won't be stupid enough to gate the rest of OC behind FT...

People give a pass on BA because the context is different. Plus BA didn't come after the better option DRS was.

[Kozh]

I'm sorry but what do you mean by locking people out of it based in 3rd party software? We're talking about PF with randoms, aren't we? How do people know who use it or not.

[Yoshihara]

I'm sorry but what do you mean by locking people out of it based in 3rd party software? We're talking about PF with randoms, aren't we? How do people know who use it or not.

People who treat this game like a single player game with social skill issues and quite often view other players as merely NPCs or obstacles / tools to them view universally accepted tools to befriend / socialise and talk to each other as a personal attack against them - It's an MMO after all. It's just more common in FFXIV because the community and dev attitude has been a bit too welcoming and accepting of them and now they'll go leaving opinion pieces saying "Please don't listen to X and Y they don't represent the community" when what they're really saying is "I am the community, listen only to me".

[Hanzz96]

People who treat this game like a single player game with social skill issues and quite often view other players as merely NPCs or obstacles / tools to them view universally accepted tools to befriend / socialise and talk to each other as a personal attack against them - It's an MMO after all. It's just more common in FFXIV because the community and dev attitude has been a bit too welcoming and accepting of them and now they'll go leaving opinion pieces saying "Please don't listen to X and Y they don't represent the community" when what they're really saying is "I am the community, listen only to me".

Exactly this! People treat this game like its Second Life. They want to dress up their characters and roleplay but don't want actual gameplay and the devs were very welcoming of this in EW adding solo options for MSQ and loads of other content.

But now that the devs want 14 to play like an MMO or any other video game with some form of gameplay and challenge they whine and complain that they are being forced to socialise and actually play a video game where they have to try and can't just afk and be carried.

This has led to the insane situation we are in now where high end raiders are being demonised for existing, told casuals are the only community in the game and these entitled crazies are demanding SE tailor brain-dead content just for them. The excuses for not being able to do forked tower are insane. There are people here stating discord killed their family, that they don't have time, or don't want to spend their free time organising runs or watching guides unlike raiders who FT was intended for. But they don't realise that this is a hobby like any other and you make time to get good.

[Khryseis_Astra]

BA was the final optional step. The enterety of Eureka was still relevant without BA. Relic quest are considered finish without the BA step. Even the story is considered finished with BA being an epilogue.

With FT, the story leads directly to FT. OC is irrelevant if you don't plan to do FT. I hope they won't be stupid enough to gate the rest of OC behind FT...

People give a pass on BA because the context is different. Plus BA didn't come after the better option DRS was.

This. We went from Eureka zones where the story and relic felt pretty much complete armor/relic-wise, with the big NMs feeling like zone bosses, and BA came at the end. Still want to do it eventually to see if there are any extra cutscenes and/or story dialogue after, but I don’t feel my time in Eureka was wasted, and I still go back there every few months or so.

Then we got Bozja, with CLL, Dalriada and the DRN/DRS split… so many felt like it was backwards to go back to a BA-style raid when - love Bozja or hate it - the dungeons were fun and accessible to all skill levels. They weren’t really easy at first, but they became easier as you leveled in the zones and built up your mettle and stash of actions, as well as learned the mechs.

And now we have the next incarnation of BA… right in the middle of the content, with no other dungeons in the instance, making the lack of a Normal mode very noticeable and disappointing. Everything leads to the Tower, and it’s likely going to be the same for the next zone. Not only that, but the last 5 field notes are locked inside it, something Bozja did not do with its harder duty DRS. As well as another Triad card, which is probably random drop, whereas Bozja had theirs in the currency shop.

I would’ve much preferred something equivalent to CLL/Dalriada/DRN, especially when they’re locking basic rewards behind a duty with rez restrictions and multiple wipe mechs. The harder version having the mount and maybe some extra currency rewards is fine, but there’s nothing Normal level to get everything else and feel like you participated in the story until it gets to the point where discords are offering carry runs, and by then we may already be well into the next zone before many players can even get that scheduled. I’m going to try to get it done before the next zone if I can, but this isn’t the experience I wanted to have. I don’t want to have to prog a whole damn dungeon. I wanted something I could just pop into the zone and do, which was a realistic expectation post-Bozja.

[Gokki]

Devs do something good quicker and some weirdos still complain. None of the previous options were taken away, relax, just do it how you feel is best. I'm sure there are MANY people like you to play with you as you prefer.

[Themarvin]

Devs do something good quicker and some weirdos still complain. None of the previous options were taken away, relax, just do it how you feel is best. I'm sure there are MANY people like you to play with you as you prefer.

Not a weirdo, pointing out some major flaws and on top of that taking full instances hostage for eg. CE and Fate stuff as well....

It is not that they did something, but it is an half attempt of doing something right and just a band aid, on something that require a much deeper fix.

During the past 2 years, SE has been incredible notorious for not adding proper content for the masses and those little that is added is barred far away from the actual player base.

[Hanzz96]

Not a weirdo, pointing out some major flaws and on top of that taking full instances hostage for eg. CE and Fate stuff as well....

It is not that they did something, but it is an half attempt of doing something right and just a band aid, on something that require a much deeper fix.

During the past 2 years, SE has been incredible notorious for not adding proper content for the masses and those little that is added is barred far away from the actual player base.

Nothing is barred from anyone. Causal players who aren't the only "actual player base" (but think they are ) can do ALL content they just have to *gasp* try and put in a little effort like you do for most hobbies.