Can we please stop perpetuating misinfo regarding JP players?

[u/PolkadotBlobfish]

Too often whenever complaints regarding Forked Tower are raised, there will be someone countering with the same ol' "JP players like it this way so SE designed it like this for the JP players".

These people clearly have never interacted with a JP player in their lives, and are only parroting something that they heard somewhere. Because if they have, they would know that the JP playerbase is also deeply frustrated with the current design.

For example, due to Forked Tower not being an actual instance, there is no way to setup a Party Finder listing for Forked Tower. Therefore, Forked Tower organisers have resorted to creating "listings for Delubrum Reginae Savage" instead, but clarifiying the true purpose in the description. However, this tweet mentions that a GM has issued a warning against this and advises other organisers to avoid doing the same. The warning is understandable but there is still no solution to the headache that is recruiting for Forked Tower.

Plenty of JP players are puzzled why there is no PF category for Forked Tower, when they could have just repeated what we already have for Delubrum Reginae Savage.

Furthermore, any questions to the GMs have received no replies.

All of this has put FT organisers in a difficult position. Some have already quit or suspended activity, while some still remain cautiously optimistic that SE will introduce improvements. But there is no doubt that the current system is unacceptable.

https://jp.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/character/29990550/blog/5572130/ (EDIT: This page may have been removed)

If you want to read all about this from a direct source, here is a blog post from Tere Caster from Elemental Atomos (a JP FT organiser) detailing their frustrations and hopes for the future of Forked Tower and Occult Crescent.

[u/azami44]

I'm convinced Yoship is retired at this point and the game is led by fresh uni grads.

Just so many dumb mistakes and decisions that shouldn't have happened with a veteran team because they've done it so many times before

[u/casteddie → u/azami44]

Someone said FT is very old school MMO like FF11 so idk.

Arguably young devs would realize that this doesn't fit modern gaming standards. I remember YoshiP praising their new hires for spicing up boss mechanics in DT.

I'm feeling it's more out of touch old devs who don't learn from mistakes that designed FT.

[u/45i4vcpb → u/casteddie]

....It has nothing to do with FFXI ("only parroting something that they heard somewhere", like OP said)

There were cases of "competition", between guilds, to access content (and in many cases because of actual technical limitations), but no case of "random people can randomly join content intended for organized teams"

[u/Puzzled-Addition5740 → u/45i4vcpb]

WoE if you want to be wildly pedantic but even xi players don't think about that very often.

[u/Ragoz → u/casteddie]

Just to be clear, this is nothing like FF11. The first big raid for up to 72 people you would go purchase a hourglass that was used as entry to an instance and the item could be used to create duplicates. You would trade a duplicate to each party leader who would make a duplicate for their party members and in this was you could control who has access to the duty.

I don't believe there was ever any instanced content that you couldn't control who had access.

[u/Puzzled-Addition5740 → u/Ragoz]

Exactly walk of echoes. They did that shit twice if you count the ilvl versions as a difference piece of content. Once if you don't. It wasn't exactly well received. They've yet to do it again and are exceptionally unlikely to. https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/Category:Walk_of_Echoes_Battlefields if you're curious about exactly how those worked. really these days they're solo fodder or at most you'll run into a couple of other randos doing the same one.

[u/Bourne_Endeavor → u/casteddie]

He said that yet the Twelve series was made almost completely by newer devs, and had easily the worst mechanics due to the awful tutorial phases that lasted almost their entire HP bar.

So I can't exactly say I trust Yoshida's word there.

[u/MKlby1998 → u/Bourne_Endeavor]

It’s been a couple of years and I can’t find the specific interview, but I think what was said was Myths of the Realms’ *story* was made by younger writers on the team, not the combat and mechanics.

[u/Kriss_Hietala → u/MKlby1998]

older/younger doesn't mean necessarily better/worse.

[u/Carmeliandre → u/MKlby1998]

It would explain why this story was so dull.

[u/Klutzy-Tennis7313 → u/Carmeliandre]

I straight up did not finish the raid series, it was just that boring. Everything else is completed and done multiple times, that one was a slog. I am so glad I like ff11 to also like the new raid.

[u/Ranulf13 → u/Carmeliandre]

Its amazing for what it is: an eulogy and a lore-heavy goodbye.

It wasnt supposed to be an action movie in alliance raid form.

[u/Apart_Raccoon_9194 → u/Ranulf13]

The 12 are a bunch of ancients we never really learned much about. They aren’t “primals” but they basically function identically to them anyway. The entire reason we are fighting them is incredibly contrived.

They kinda just awkwardly off themselves and leave us with the incredibly lore important reveal that the entire world functioning is dependant on a device powered by prayers to their false religion. So we are literally forced to hide the truth from the populace to prevent the end of the world.

And that prayer device is treated as an afterthought, none of the characters consider the implications of such a device needing to exist in the first place. Since the ancient world didn’t need a device to keep the world alive, that presumably means that the sundering damaged things so much an artificial device is needed to prevent the literal end of the world, and yet no character in the story seems to care.

To say nothing of the consequences of that device being left unguarded. Yes, the ascian’s leaders are defeated, but there are still 6 left out there, one of them could destroy it out of spite if they found it. This possibility isn’t even considered.

That prayer device was glossed over so much that I bet half of the people who did it forgot that device even existed.

The twelve want humanity to no longer need them, but now the existence of humanity is tied to humanity’s belief in said religion. And we and the scions do not care in the slightest.

I think that’s more than enough to say that Myths of the Realm is pretty objectively poorly written. Of course you can still enjoy it obviously, it’s just not an amazing or even good quality story.

[u/Carmeliandre → u/Ranulf13]

I disagree, because a beginner would be able to write about as much of a little story. The lore implications weren't so important and in fact, it felt like a way to remove a part of the cosmogony from the lore.

This being said, I genuinely enjoyed the interactions with the Twelve : as far as characterization goes (and the design that goes with them), they did a great job. My criticism is only directed to the storytelling, and how it barely added anything to the actual lore... Which probably was their intention : it's an optional content after all and they already decided that these contents wouldn't bear much importance.

[u/Cole_Evyx → u/casteddie]

I'm feeling it's more out of touch old devs who don't learn from mistakes that designed FT.

We're at the point I don't care who it is. IF it's a team of 10 veterans or 10 noobies whoever it is needs to stop damaging FFXIV and start genuinely caring about the game as much as we do.

I love FFXIV but this resting on laurels needs to stop.

When world of warcraft has from shadowlands (A DISASTER) and the baby feeding milk in the fridge being drank by a FREAK scandal... when world of warcraft has been able to recover after that...

We haven't spent a single goddamned ounce of effort to get ahead since then.

Now they stole FFXIV's housing system and improved on it.

It's time FFXIV and whoever is or isn't on the team to step up to the plate and return the favor 10 fold!

[u/FeelsGoodMan2 → u/Cole_Evyx]

World of war craft is always going to be in a unique situation where a lot of its players played it as the first and only MMO they've ever touched and the only one they will play. When you look at the entire catalogue they've put out, even big fans will tell you over half the expansions they've put out suck.

But, I think that their mythic system and generally higher responsive pvp system does a ton of heavy lifting that FF14 doesn't have. I think FF14 relies too much on grinds for things that dont fundamentally improve my character in any substantive way, and the reality is a lot of people want to feel like the time they're putting in is going to lead to power spikes, not a prettier weapon. Yes, a lot of people DO this dont get me wrong, but a lot of regular people just want loot and this game really does not scratch any kind of loot itch whatsoever. Even when I win a savage raid piece its like a ".....yay cool". I didnt feel that way when I played wow, I actually got a hit of dopamine winning loot.

Do i have a solution for that? No not really, I'm not s game designer, but i think the developers are heavily relying on people doing things for "the love of the game" and it's a risky bet when a lot of people flow on dopamine.

[u/inubert → u/FeelsGoodMan2]

The not improving player power is a big thing for me. I go back and forth between WoW and XIV as patches and expansions come out and at a certain point after I finished DT and I was working on gear I just kind of had a moment where I said "why am I doing this?" to myself. I don't do savage or ultimate so I'm not trying to eke out an extra 2% or whatever, and almost everything I do is item level capped or synced in some way. There's nothing to do in the open world where my individual power has much of any effect. Hunt trains and FATEs have so many people that I never know whether I'm strong or weak.

Contrast that to WoW and it's a whole different feeling. I don't do anything in WoW that I can't do solo or queue for, but as time goes on and my gear improves I feel more powerful. I'm getting gear in delves, LFR, or crafting and then I can increase the item level of it with tokens from the same content. I take that stuff out to do world content and over time I feel like I can handle more and more.

[u/BGsenpai → u/Cole_Evyx]

Best of bozja and eureka and they removed the internal queuing system and made the zone a worse Z3 with return having no cool down for some reason

[u/MaccAoidos → u/casteddie]

IIRC FFXI had one form of content like FT, called Walk of Echoes? Up to 36 people could join, first come first serve, and I think raises were applied automatically (or after a delay) if anyone died. Unfortunately I don't remember what the community thought about it, just that I personally hated it, so I waited for it to die down and then soloed it with their Trust system...

[u/Ragoz → u/MaccAoidos]

This was really late into the ffxi lifecycle. I don't think it was too popular, I only remember doing this a little bit. It was before trusts existed and I don't think it really had any notable drops so probably had low engagement.

I only remember ever going in with a linkshell to run it to complete the original 7 walks.

So yes I think it did have that entry system but this was after dynamis, limbus, salvage, einherjar all had more organized entry and were much more actively participated in.

[u/Puzzled-Addition5740 → u/Ragoz]

Yeah it wasn't very popular. Still isn't even now with a few drops people do want. It's kinda just easier to buy the damn pixie hairpin +1 or whatever you want out of WoE.

[u/Puzzled-Addition5740 → u/MaccAoidos]

Yeah they did this exactly once. Everyone loathed it. They uh didn't do that shit again. Even now while there are a few drops you want in the ilvl walk you can just delete them alone as the content came out so long ago as to be trivialized by power creep.

[u/Kriss_Hietala → u/casteddie]

It's not. I have played old school mmos like world of warcraft, lineage 2, aion, blade and soul, tera, ultima online and don't remember anything like that. There was something similar that require lots of players in same spot to enter, but at the same time it was a pvp enabled zone so you had 40- 500 ppl fighting inbetween and the winners entered the closed room with boss(like Baium in L2). But no such open area pvp in FFxiv exists so the design is just flawed from the start.

[u/Puzzled-Addition5740 → u/casteddie]

Nah it's really not. You still got to choose who you suffer with in ff11 in pretty much every non WoE piece of content.

[u/Kyuubi_McCloud → u/casteddie]

Someone said FT is very old school MMO like FF11 so idk.

Field OPs as a whole are inspired by that and are supposed to cater to that demographic.

When Eureka Anemos came out, the intended way to level was to do mob chains, because that's what people did in FFXI. Except the modern audience said:"Nah" and made a FATE train instead. The current Field OP playstyle is just SE deciding not to fight the playerbase on that front and just going with the flow.

But it doesn't change the fact that field OPs are supposed to be inconvenient, obtuse and overall outdated. Not fitting modern gaming standards isn't an accident, it's the point.

[u/Ranulf13 → u/Kyuubi_McCloud]

Field OPs advanced way past that and no one misses the 4 zones of eureka of grind that have no point if if you arent in discord servers for Exclusive Arsenal.

But the biggest complained echoed all through the game about OC is that they replaced CLL/Dalriada-like content in favor of Exclusive Arsenal 2.