Forked Tower Is Unplayable — And I’m Done

[Pyroboros]

Dear FFXIV Team and community,

I'm done.

I’ve reached my limit with how broken and inaccessible Forked Tower is — and how this game now caters to elitism, gatekeeping, and rule-breaking without any real intervention.

Over the past week, I signed up for three Forked Tower runs via Discord. All three got canceled — not because there wasn’t interest, but because players who could have joined simply didn’t, as they were further in progression and didn’t want to “waste time.” Worse, there was no transparency — no way to see how many had signed up or if help was needed until 30 minutes before formation, when the run was abruptly canceled. I waited 6 hours without a single update. I have a job. I need to eat and sleep. I don’t have endless hours like streamers — yet that’s what this system now expects.

Forked Tower isn’t even available through Duty Finder or Raid Finder. There’s no official tool to support 48-man content with high failure potential. When content relies entirely on Discord servers, cryptic acronyms, and FFLogs filtering, it becomes exclusionary by design. If you're not “in,” you're out.

Meanwhile, third-party tools are everywhere. FFLogs are used constantly for screening, even though it violates your own Terms of Service. NSFW mods are openly hinted at in search comments (e.g., “Mare Lamentorum”), and players stream with overlays, parse runs, and flaunt ToS violations — with zero consequence, so long as it’s not directly stated. The double standard is blatant and exhausting.

I’ve stuck with this game for a long time. I’m 4 cards short — 2 from the tournaments plagued by win trading (which I accepted, knowing I could eventually get them fairly). I would’ve gotten Orthos eventually. But Forked Tower? There’s no chance for players who aren’t perfectly aligned with the right group, checkpoint, and logs. This content was not designed with accessibility or inclusion in mind.

So I’ve unsubscribed, uninstalled the game, and left every FFXIV Discord I was in. I’m done.

You’ve lost a paying customer and someone who genuinely cared. And before anyone assumes this is just a rage post: I won’t be reading replies. I’m not coming back to the forums. I won’t follow content, check patch notes, or wait for changes. I’m fully disconnected.

You let this happen. You let the game rot from the inside.

And now I’m gone.

– A Former Player

[Jeeqbit]

I have a job. I need to eat and sleep. I don’t have endless hours like streamers — yet that’s what this system now expects.

Forked Tower isn’t even available through Duty Finder or Raid Finder. There’s no official tool to support 48-man content with high failure potential.

I suppose that aside from a normal mode, large-scale raids could have better support in the game itself:

• Queue for it.
• Automatically get matched with people that have reached a similar HP%/prog point with everyone alive.
• Make the raids not instant to wipe due to a single person's mistake, maybe 6 should mess up at once before that happens.
• Allow cleared people to queue for any prog point in exchange for special rewards for helping out.
• With the upcoming raidplan feature this would all help.

I’ve stuck with this game for a long time. I’m 4 cards short — 2 from the tournaments plagued by win trading

You can get Platinum packs by just getting a significant amount of points. Although it can take a year, those Platinum packs eventually give all the tournament cards (this is how I got them). You can also get Platinum packs from open tournaments, although it's extremely rare (like a 1% or 2% droprate similar to extreme mounts or dungeon minions) so not really worth doing those.

[Themarvin]

He is right about most of above and SE and the FFXIV team really need to address it and fix things like there is no tomorrow.

[All_Nonsense]

He just said what thousands of others don't. They just silently uninstall and unsubscribe and disappear without letting the dev's know an inkling of why. This should be considered a valuable perspective for the dev's because he's one of the very few who actually say something. Respect.

Unless you're a dev. You gotta earn that respect back (you won't)

[Vanguail]

This is where I am at with this game. My subscription runs out next month and if I don't see any meaningful changes to OC or FT in 7.3 I am not bothering to come back. An alliance raid and a deep dungeon is not worth the subscription cost. There is other content sure, but nothing worth it for me.

There are so many games available to play now. Really good games with great gameplay and social features. FFXIV isn't some special unicorn. If the devs want to keep players engaged they need to respect peoples' time. Expecting players to flock to Discord in order to play your game is nonsense. There is no excuse not to have an easily accessible mode in the game for everything outside of Ultimates. Having a harder version of stuff for the players that want it, and want to take the time needed to engage with it, is fine. It also gives players who want to move on to harder content something to grow into. But the devs can't expect to keep subscriptions when making content like FT and Chaotic. Sure plenty on Japanese servers did Chaotic, but NA servers were pretty sad. I tried to join a few PF groups for it and they ended up being toxic and falling apart. Waste of my time. The worst thing a video game can do is make a player feel like they just wasted their time.

MMO players are an aging player base. Many of us have careers and families but still want to support the game. To me it feels like the devs are catering too much to the streamer style of gamer. Nothing against them, but I don't see how some of their design decisions make sense otherwise. Although I can't wrap my head around many of the design decisions in OC.

[Raikai]

After the "fix", and a couple of phantom jobs leveled, I was all up for FT's difficulty. But once I realized that the Party Finder had no actual groups, but just a reference to Discord servers, and the fact that I'd have to reinstall Discord (I'm detoxing from it), then join a server and a queue of people wanting to get in, being analyzed for what I can bring and potentially be benched due to factors... I just lost motivation. Not worth the trouble, really.

And by not being able/wanting to partake into the FT as it is, the whole Occult Crescent experience is nearly pointless aside farming silver/gold for glamours.

They literally made the Forked Tower with the worst of every PVE world. Ironically it also seems the case of the Chaotic Raid, which I didn't experience because I was unsubbed back then, and right now there's not a lot of people wanting to do it.

Do CBU3 need to outsource professional to have an actual workshop on content and target audiences?

[Kirutsuki]

Funnily enough Eureka, & Bozja faced much the same issues where people were rather dissatisfied with them in the beginning. Eureka especially, but even Bozja was mixed.
I was not expecting anything to be any different in the new zones and I have not even gone there cause I knew the devs would screw it up, cause they always do when they add something "new".

Island Sanctuary was mediocre, V&C was a mixed bag. The only thing that works to relative success is Deep Dungeons, but thats due to how incredibly formulaic it is so it would be incredibly difficult to mess it up.
But that also has the downside where things become TOO formulaic and people have started to notice a trend there as well. Dongeons are ok, but formulaic etc.

Players are both fed up with formulaic content, but also when they make something less formulaic it always has some major issues.
And here's the kicker, it takes TOO LONG to fix. Forked Tower would probably have been better received IF the devs just applied a hotfix to it within a week of it's release.

But no, they're so set on their ways of formulaic update cycles that they can't provide a hotfix unless it's RMT related.

[ThreeBeastSmile]

Very concisely put. Very very concisely put. And I concur; only I'm a lot more stupid and have decided to see how this plays out 'til slightly post 8.0 to see if anything improves, but to otherwise quit on a slightly more positive note when it comes to the gameplay... as community wise it's just not it. It's just not. Right now I only do some pvp, but seeing my composure slipping there too is unsettling.

So I empathize particularly strongly with the shadiness aspect you so vividly portray. Seeing how I brought up pvp, there was one discord server that didn't hold up the vain pretence of openness, it actually was pleasant. One. And it disbanded suddenly with not much forewarning as to why. Hmm. Others failed expectations, e.g. "Yeah I'll join, will you be running a secure sync though?" (the mode got canned and came back and there still hasn't been one, only one mini one I missed in three or whatever years lul.)

I also agree when it comes to the dearth of pick-up-and-play functionality that isn't a solo venture. It's pretty damn irksome, but then again this game is designed to appeal to typical JP group dynamics. Just sayin' it's effin' sad that the last real positive experience I've had in a group since coming back was some random PotD grinds at the tail end of StB wherein there were some silly but enjoyable moments of chitchat, that had me come away with some fresh acquaintances. We then did some stuff in Eureka, just shootin' the breeze mainly. Yeah, that was cool. Then came ShB and not that far into it they mostly quit, and was met with more disappointment with whatever followed after that with my choice to stay. Cue the current day.

You won't be reading this, but thanks for the feedback. It's nice seeing stuff that isn't squealing about the latest mishap in glamour designs, or whatever, while entire blocks of content remain unattended to for 5 years. Ahem. Astralagos. Guess it don't matter when that'll be mired in the realm of discord servers anyhow, just to make matches happen (or these dumb mogtome "events".)

[Jeeqbit]

MMO players are an aging player base. Many of us have careers and families but still want to support the game.

There are a lot of older players and people with families, going right into the 50s at this point for really old MMO players. And I met people in their 60s playing occasionally long ago, but that was rare, probably gonna get increasingly common though.

But older players and people with families have always played MMOs. It's always been a good way for partners to bond fighting fantastical bosses together. Real life isn't quite as exciting as that, after all. And people have always met partners through MMOs too, as much as journalists only "discover" it as if it's new thing every so often.

I know from my frequent use of discord that lots of 18-22 years olds play this game or are getting into this game though. It's not as if MMOs (or at least this game) is exclusive to older players in their 30s-50s. That's a myth. We are just at a point where MMO populations have a very diverse range of ages and where 50 year olds in general have a higher chance of being gamers than in the 90s.

To me it feels like the devs are catering too much to the streamer style of gamer.

Doubtful. I think they just wanted to make more large-scale content so that the game feels alive, after how socially isolated and solo-oriented Endwalker was. The problem is just how the body checks make things a little too punishing than they seem to be intending. It happened with Chaotic, and now Forked Tower, both of which overshot their goals for difficulty.

Nothing against them, but I don't see how some of their design decisions make sense otherwise. Although I can't wrap my head around many of the design decisions in OC.

They've admitted even they didn't understand their own design decisions and just slapped things together without thinking about things like the entry properly.

The irony is they have all these procedures that are meant to make design robust and considered, and all those procedures tripped them up to the point where the opposite happened.

Players are both fed up with formulaic content

Formulas are fine, but obviously there needs to be a certain degree of difference and variety in that formulaic content, and sometimes there isn't quite enough. For example, a routine "field operation" is fine, but doing something considerably different with it is nice - for example, having us dive underwater and battle enemies under the sea and find treasure in shells and amongst seaweed, then having special actions that take advantage of the fact we are surrounded by water and make use of the physics that come with that.

they're so set on their ways of formulaic update cycles that they can't provide a hotfix unless it's RMT related.

The main issue with it is that they want it to go through their QA process, which can take 1-2 weeks at minimum, and that doesn't take into account if they find a bug that is challenging to fix and takes time to figure out how to solve. Although rare, there can be sneaky bugs that are complex and difficult to identify the root of. Given it's a large-scale game with people's player data on the line, they don't want anything to wreck their character data, so that's why it will need to take some time.

It will also relate to how they manage their branches, since they've said they have one for each patch.

[Stormfur]

I'm not even going to bother with Forked Tower, because I don't want to have to use a million tools (I'm on console anyway and can't) to do something the game should've made accessible from the start.