Forging Steel (Living Story)

[mindcircus.1506]

@"misterman.1530" said:So, been away for several months. So bear with me if this topic has already been brought up.

Thought I would catch up on the Living Story. Got up to Forging Steel - and was unpleasantly surprised I had to run a "strike mission" and couldn't just solo this story.

Is this for real? Or is there some other way to get through this without having to search for a group of people who know what they are doing?

It appeared that, even though I had been away, the 3-4 people with me had no concept of what to do. Got up to the Forgemaster and, I assume, you are supposed to use the tank and the grappling spear-thing. No one else seemed to know that though. Never got the thing down below 90%.

Do I have to do that? Or is there another way to finish that part of the LS?This mission scales.Meaning if you go in with one person it will be set at the appropriate challenge for one player.

[DoctorOverlord.8620]

@costepj.5120 said:

Bad news for you; Forged Steel is trivial compared with some of the recent group content required for the story :)/cower Great, looking forward to that.

I don't really mind story missions taking place in the open world and using groups to run them. Sure I prefer instance missions which make the story feel more personal but I get that open world story content is a way to get players active in the zones and it also saves effort/resources. For example, the open world Drakkar dynamic event is fine because there were alternative ways to advance your story progress (destroying idols, stopping rituals) if there wasn't a squad doing the big event. I even ended up doing the Drakkar event after I progressed past that story point just out of curiosity.

Grothmar Valley also managed to use that mechanic well, but then Grothmar did pretty much everything well from what I've seen. Entertaining and diverse dynamic events, really beautiful scenery and great ambient story development by exploring and listening to NPCs. Also the amazing Metal Legion concert. I guess I was hoping that was going to be the design of the story content going forward, then being hit by a tediously drawn-out escort mission was a bad shock.

I really wish there was an alternative to the tank escort mission that let players to do separate dynamic events or tasks (and thus save their progress a bit at a time), just like the Drakkar section of the storyline.

@maddoctor.2738 said:I think they are talking about the length here. Forging Steel is the longest story instance in the game, because technically it's not a story instance at all.

Exactly right. The length of that mission and the fact there was no way to stop mid-way without losing all your progress was probably the main reason it was so onerous. The lack of warning that it was such long, drawn-out mission without any way to save progress was another issue. The need to look up on the wiki in the middle of the mission to research what the kitten you're supposed to do was another.

[Fueki.4753]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@costepj.5120 said:

@DoctorOverlord.8620 said:I really think the right choice is not putting any missions like this as obstacles to the story ever again.

Bad news for you; Forged Steel is trivial compared with some of the recent group content required for the story :)And it can be a lot more frustrating with larger numbers in the squad, especially if they don't understand the mechanic for the boss fight and simply scale the numbers of adds.

I think they are talking about the length here. Forging Steel is the longest story instance in the game, because technically it's not a story instance at all.

Is Forging Steel actually longer than Victory or Death?On its own, without the Darkrime Delves instance, it never felt as long as Victory or Death to me.

[mindcircus.1506]

@DoctorOverlord.8620 said:Grothmar Valley also managed to use that mechanic well, but then Grothmar did pretty much everything well from what I've seen. Entertaining and diverse dynamic events, really beautiful scenery and great ambient story development by exploring and listening to NPCs. Also the amazing Metal Legion concert.

Zero ambient threat rather than some devourers.Frequently bugging events.Massive occlusion problems in many areas.At least three different spots where a Skyscale can be used to map break and go out of world.Far less ambient world building than in any LWs4 map.A grind-heavy design without any decent content to back it up.

Grothmar is an AWFUL map. Easily the worst, lowest-quality piece of open world we have seen since Bloodstone Fen.People praise it because it's easy.

[mindcircus.1506]

@Fueki.4753 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@costepj.5120 said:

@DoctorOverlord.8620 said:I really think the right choice is not putting any missions like this as obstacles to the story ever again.

Bad news for you; Forged Steel is trivial compared with some of the recent group content required for the story :)And it can be a lot more frustrating with larger numbers in the squad, especially if they don't understand the mechanic for the boss fight and simply scale the numbers of adds.

I think they are talking about the length here. Forging Steel is the longest story instance in the game, because technically it's not a story instance at all.

Is Forging Steel actually longer than Victory or Death?On its own, without the Darkrime Delves instance, it never felt as long as Victory or Death to me.No. Forging steel is actually shorter than Lw4.6's final instance and shorter than Victory or Death by a good half.

[Mahou.3924]

@"DoctorOverlord.8620" said:Grothmar Valley also managed to use that mechanic well, but then Grothmar did pretty much everything well from what I've seen. Entertaining and diverse dynamic events, really beautiful scenery and great ambient story development by exploring and listening to NPCs. Also the amazing Metal Legion concert. I guess I was hoping that was going to be the design of the story content going forward, then being hit by a tediously drawn-out escort mission was a bad shock.

I can't agree completely here. While Grothmar Valley as a zone itself was nice in my eyes, I thought the actual "act" of filling the progression bar was rather a slog. Maybe it was because of the time when I was on the map, but (big) events had only been occuring sporadically.

I don't remember much of Forging Steel, just that it was me and one other player lol. The last boss dragged on for a bit, partly my fault as I'm really bad with this battle system. As for DRMs? Some were okay, some not too enjoyable. Especially after returning from a break and having no clue how to play anymore ;). 20 mins solo isn't spectacular but within the range of what I'm used to from doing story group content with NPCs in FFXIV (the trust system. With real players, it's quite faster, ignoring queue times, as the NPCs don't use AoE skills); so I'm actually not complaining.

[DoctorOverlord.8620]

@mindcircus.1506 said:>Grothmar is an AWFUL map. Easily the worst, lowest-quality piece of open world we have seen since Bloodstone Fen.People praise it because it's easy.

Well, we clearly have differing opinions. I enjoyed Bloodstone Fen because it finally made the act gliding fun after the pointlessly confusing and annoying design of the Heart of Thorns zones.

I can't speak to the other issues, I haven't seen any bugged events so far and I very much disagree on the world building in the zone. I also find that excessive ambient trash mobs feel like a left-over mechanic from MMOs when people needed dense, open world mobs because that was the only way to grind levels. Zones like Orr with excessive trash mobs inhibiting player movement just don't add anything to the game for me and feel like they are just timesinks.

But to each their own.

[ugrakarma.9416]

Forging Steel is extremy easy content,

• dont have wipe mechanics unless u active tank escort mechanic.
• scale well with numbers of players.

i have done several runs to complete achievments, i put a LFG, and go do something else til it fill with 4~5 players, then go back, start mission the LFG will fill the rest meanwhile.

notice that achievment that require complete challenges(imperator i guess) is a bit misleading, DONT NEED all challenges active at same time, if u need run challenges for achievment, run one by one, and will be very smooth.