Well, I presumed your saying that me being unappreciative of the Mage Tower teaching someone to get better at their class implies that I did not want it to be difficult. I appreciate that, but the way it was miscommunicated has led to quite a fiasco that should really be addressed…
But it wasn’t miscommunicated. And I’m not even going to pretend I know what others are going through. I’ve seriously only completed it on fury and ele shaman. But at the same time they never said it would be time walking easy
It wasn’t miscommunicated. They said it would provide a meaningful level of difficulty. And it does.
There’s no miscommunication there.
I would suggest that you have misunderstood, and not the inverse. I’m merely listing out the views of both sides, which is important for one to consider how their communications have been perceived, and perhaps misconstrued, as opposed to what was intended, so as to correct it. They are not my grievances, nor am I suggesting any change to the Mage Tower itself, only that they communicate their design philosophy so that the community can set their expectations accordingly. That would alleviate a significant portion of these threads, as well as the clashes of opinions, which resulted from unrealistic expectations.
I will not go into challenging each point, because then it would actually become a “too hard” vs “get good” debate, which isn’t my intention, but I would like to point out that I did include provisions for the statistic to be validated as attempts, or against all existing players. It’s in parenthesis right after the bullet point. I point this out as the only source of information we have, so developers can reference their own, more accurate statistics to gauge if the difficulty is as intended based on actual completions.
Meaningful isn’t measurable, and is subject to individual interpretation, and thus is quite a useless metric.
Communication has been done implicitly, in the form of precedence via:
- Past experience in the form of legion-era (albeit later when item levels have increased) gameplay
- Expectations from PTR
- Past expectations of timewalking and time-lock events
You can reference learning and communication pedagogies as to how past experience and scaffolding affect knowledge building and expectations if you like, but you must realize “meaningful” is sales talk, which you can choose to rely on, but would likely not be well-received in the absence of proper communications, as evident by the forum clashes right now.
Reiterating my original post, difficulty expectations for Mythic raiding, Gladiator, 2500+ ratings are realistic, because of past experience and precedence. It was well communicated, hence the lack of differing views on difficulty. That is not the case here.
I doubt anyone expects that, but I would disagree that it wasn’t miscommunicated, with reference to the numerous differing views on the forums. If they exist, is that not miscommunication, considering the point made about other difficult challenges not leading to the same issue?
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The miscommunication was non-existent. Players got mad because they couldn’t defeat it within 10 attempts and took to the forums complaining “its too hard! plz nurf!” So Blizzard obliged, and they nerfed most of the fights, you guys asked for this you guys asked for the nerfs which were really actually buffs in disguise, Crusader Enchant fix? Yeah that was a nerf/buff, should have just kept quiet about it.
And yet, most people, I think, would agree the challenges provide a meaningful level of difficulty. I haven’t seen anyone seriously say that they’re easy. Seems pretty accurate to me.
So you put your stock into your own assumptions and now it’s Blizzard’s fault they didn’t meet your assumptions?
That’s not how it works. That’s not how any of this works.
The one argument that has the most merit, in my opinion, and is the one we really should discuss:
The fact that the Mage Tower is heavily timelocked. Currently, we will only see the Mage Tower 2-3 times a year — and only for a week each!
I haven’t checked it out myself due to the holidays. By the time things finally calm down, I’ll only have 5 days to check it out. I’m grateful that Blizzard gave us a few extra weeks.
Otherwise, I wouldn’t have seen it until April!
I did the Mage Tower on a couple specs back in Legion. I enjoyed it back then, and I’m looking forward to playing the challenge once again.
But oh man… it really needs to be available a LOT more.
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Of all the discussions i do agree there. It’s challenging enough that giving it some extra time wouldn’t hurt anyone involved.
Imho giving it 2 or maybe 3 weeks around legion TW is a good way of doing it
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Why is there a cry out about this but not with mythic raiding? Why are ppl not crying for mogs and the mount from a mythic raid?
Wasn’t it known that the MT was going to be a challenge? Someone look up the exact quote, if you wish, bc I’m too lazy to rn but its about “mastering your class”.
If they just nerf the mage tower to the ground and all the “casuals” (everyone views casual differently but anyway) and they get the mogs and chadbear - is that going to make the rest of the game magically better?
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How long have you been around?
As someone who is pro current MT, i think there’s two issues of note here.
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it was the casuals who really wanted the tower back, arguing for new(return?) of rewards and there’s new content for people too. It comes back and it is they who can’t finish it.
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It was indeed challenging, and meant to be a challenge, but Blizzard hasn’t communicated their vision or intent properly. Casuals probably assumed it’ll be like the antorus MT, while Blizz wanted it more like it’s release. Given it’s here forever they probably want longevity on it which is good, but it surely is a hit to casuals.
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People can’t interrupt Kroke’s very long, very dangerous channeled AoE to save their lives. Does MT really need to be this hard?
I’m 36/36 (or w/e the # is) in the vanilla MT. I just haven’t bothered with this one - I already slogged through it once, and this time it sounds much worse. Recycled content should be a bit easier IMO… go for nostalgia, rather than hardcore DarkSouls flexing.
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“While it was difficult on release.” is part of that original quote. Usually when someone says “While this is…” they mean something is about to change. So then we get to the weasel words of “meaningful difficulty”. Toss in the fact these were stealth buffed before release and the PTR versions while challenging, we’re more lenient, you get what we have here.
Normal people assumed : “While the originals were difficult, these will be a bit more lenient while still having some bite”.
Blizzard released : “While the originals were difficult, you ain’t seen nothing yet suckers”.
Mix in the fact that some are grossly easy (VDH, Fury Warrior for example) while others are literally insane (Holy Priest RNG Granny gets 2 shot) and people are actually confused what it’s supposed to be.
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see, this is a problem because imo it “Felt” a lot easier than when i did it in legion.
and there a number of factors that might add into that. better optimized gear. more experience. all of legion’s practice and a whole list of strategies vs figuring it out as you go.
and to top it all off, the number of attempts you can make are unrestricted when compared to Legion’s limited currency cost to get in and thus fewer attempts.
and yes, because gear can’t be so easily made to main stat brute force it like before, the kill window/ dps check was over tuned. perfect play only gets you so far. and it while technically doable, the margin for error was too close to a Mythic Final Raid Boss.
the resulting nerfs that they did *at least in the Guardian Mage tower, brought down that dps check to a more sane level. you can have a number of errors and still succeed with enough practice.
so, maybe its actually easier now since the number of viable tools are wider.
there are videos of lesser geared players (no time walking sets) clearing it.
certainly, every advantage makes it further easier but baseline possible without it means that the tuning is prob very close to where it should be now.
part of the problem with difficult content is limited times attempts can be made. to correct this issue so that difficulty isn’t the problem is to have it up EVERY TIME there is a Timewalking event. not just legion. that would mean it would be up every 3 weeks vs 1-2 times a year.
and for now, its the most content Shadowlands has on offer, it would make a lot of sense to extend its up time until 9.2 drops.
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Can confirm. No timewalking gear when I did mine. It was painful (250+ attempts) but it’s done!
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No matter how clearly you explain the motive “that class of people” will never accept/ understand it 
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There is also the fact that M+ is a group activity. You dont do an M+ dungeon alone. The MT is a single player challenge that is almost entirely based around the core principle of player skill.
This figure is unproveable. The only people who know the true statistics are Blizzard and they have not yet released that figure and wouldn’t until it was closed.
A quick search indicated one or more sets of tuning done to the MT fights since that post.
Or perhaps they had the encounters weakened for the sole purpose of testing the mechanics. To ensure they worked right with all the changes that have been done to the classes since Legion. Once those tests were completed they adjusted the numbers to make them an appropriate challenge, since it’s called a mage tower challenge, not a mage tower facerolling cakewalk
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Explain VDH then. Fury Warrior. Heck, explain the disparity in damage intake of Arms vs Demon Hunter.
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I have addressed all those points, and I shall not regurgitate, but there are a few posts above, and mostly in the original where I explicitly pointed out the complaints, the statistic, and recent tunings.
Yes, perhaps, but because of the mixed messages as per the post, expectations were mismanaged as a result. You could be right, but that’s not really the point of the post.
That was a point made in the original post.
That’s the point of contention, and what should be clarified. Some might think it was clear, but this isn’t decided by individuals. Going by forum posts, we know that communication has not been wholly successful, and I’m merely advocating for clarification.
Not what the post is asking for…
If I have to put it in simpler terms, meaningful is subjective. Some might view meaningful as moderately challenging, some might view is as extremely challenging. Some might view meaningful as getting output in the form of rewards. To each his own. The term meaningful is this useless as a measurable metric. You seem to be more interested in being a contrarian for the sake of it.
Again, I’m pointing out what I have observed from the many threads. Even if we take your premise as correct, communication has still failed if a large number of people misread your intention. Again, you can reference learning and communication pedagogies. These concepts are literally described in behavioral psychology, but okay, your source: trust me bro.
It would seem some people neglected to read the post, or fully understand what is being advocated before going commenting. To clarify, I’m not asking for nerfs… I understand the sense of pride, and defensiveness of your achievements, but really, relax.
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