After Mage Tower

Community General Discussion
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Some months previously, I remember Ion mentioning in the interview with Preach that they had many ideas for content like the mage tower, but were having issues finding the right rewards.

After the “experiment” of Legion mage tower that just unfolded, I wanted to share my opinion on that “statement”.

Just go full ham.

Really, after beating some of the challenges (mostly “easier” ones, with considerable number of wipes), I had ages to feel that happy/fulfilled from playing the game. I really want to see more challenging solo content like that entering the game, be it puzzle like (labyrinth maze comes to mind), or even more solo fights like the ones in the mage tower. Just let developers/designers go full ham.

As for the rewards, I think it doesn’t really matter.

There are many “retired”/“unique” rewards across the expansions that can be used as a “remake” (just as the felbear was based on the werebear), such as:

  • MoP challenge class sets

  • WoD weapon sets

  • Warlock green fire questline (obviously for other classes/themes)

  • Retired Mounts/Armors

Just a reminded, I am NOT advocating for return of REMOVED items/mounts/effects, but just implementation of new ones BASED on the removed ones (similar to the felbear scenario).

Even without those “unique” and prestigious rewards, I think simple mounts/armor sets/weapons/achievements would be enough of a reward, when the challenge is well designed/fulfilling when completed.

Lastly, I would like to see feedback from this “experiment” introduced to new challenges. For example, I really believe stat templates would make for a WAY better system, than the one we have (not my idea, but heavily circulated in this forum).

TL;DR:
I like the mage tower, please give us more in the future!

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We have those already, legion class hall sets are the recolor / remake

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They’re ugly. Nothing like the mop sets.

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Also downgraded Version…

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I totally agree with you on the part of rewards. Bringing back older rewards with new skins/appearances would be awesome.

But I totally disagree with you on the Mage Tower being fun/good.

Aye. Nothing like them at all.

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It’s ok, I get that it is not everyone’s cup of tea, since the constant wiping, punishment, and concentration it requires is massive. This type of game/activity is not catered to everyone.

Frankly I would love to see it not as a “pillar” of progression but just as an activity like pet battles/professions that you CAN participate to get some unique rewards, but can also skip it without losing anything from the rest of the game.

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Sure. But then I’d hate for UNIQUE transmog to be locked behind it.
If content like that would be a regular thing, I think that either: It should remain ingame permanently so at some point it can be overgeared so everyone has access.
Or: The rewards also need to be given through other activities (they can be different colours, to keep some uniqueness) .

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Template gear would just lead to people watching guides then complaining it’s too easy. Like what people with cheese gear are doing now. Then they’d say “content drought!”

WoW entering the difficult solo content market is like my Japanese Symphonic Metal band trying to compete in the same market as Elton John.

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Yeah, that is one of the things I meant, just like the armor sets that are recolors of available mythic sets. Unique in color, but not unique enough that people feel “forced” to play.

In the example of the werebear, I would be 100% for to have a “regular” werebear model (different from the 4 of the original mage tower) that is available through simple quests and to anyone, and then the felbear being the “prestige” reward that you need to strive for.

Btw the only thing I disagree is:

If the game content introduced like that becomes obsolete with gearing, then that means it is just “current” content. I’d prefer to have it be evergreen, so that new players or players that had not done it originally can just have the same experience that the first players that got it had (and this is why I like templates).

I mean, if the guide just tells you, WHAT to do, I do not see how it is easy to do. Take for example the archmage xylem challenge. You can see the guide to have a general “feel” of the mechanics and how to use your tools to counter them, but it takes many tries to master everything in the fight and be able to kill it with current tuning. I do not see how just guides will make it “easy”, when the guides just tell you “this is how you can play almost perfectly, so you can beat it”.

This is what I explained above, I like this activity but I understand how other do NOT. I am against making those challenges “mandatory” and providing gear or progression, apart from just cosmetics. In your example WoW would be like a “festival” that it can have an Elton John stage, but also host your Japanese Symphonic Metal band in another smaller stage.
There is space for everything.

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Fair enough.
I definitely think WoW needs more evergreen content, so I get where you’re coming from.
The only thing is… I don’t like the MT. So to me it doesn’t feel like ‘cool’ evergreen content. But each to their own.

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I’m happy for you, but the whole Mage Tower experience had the contrary effect on me: despite completing at least one of them in the end, the whole process and the elitist reactions here on the forum just utterly destoryed my enjoyment of the game and the only thing I felt after completing the challenge was relief that it was finally over.

If they do such things in the future again (I’m not against solo stuff, mind) they should remember that this isn’t a free-to-play game, but a payed casual family game; we costumers pay for the stuff in game and also want to get it. They should ignore the calls of the elitists that think others than them don’t deserve to get what we all pay for. As other games let the player chose the difficulty, WoW shoudl do the same - and give the same rewards regardless of difficulty. An achivement for doing something on “hard mode” is enough.

Mounts and transmogs belong to the character costumisation and should be available to everyone playing this game.

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The whole “git gud” spam by people on wow classic chars was annoying really annoying.

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They’ve all got the mount on their mains. It’s just “the wow forums are bugged” so they can’t swap chars!

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I kind of agree with that, although I am stuck in the middle, let me explain what I mean:

I see on both sides of the fence people that either:

  • Dislike the mage tower, but for whatever reason feel compelled to do it (either cause of transmog, mount, or even the bragging rights). Those people advocate for the removal of the difficulty, or the removal of the rewards from the content.

  • People that like the mage tower and its reward structure, and deflect feedback that they disagree with, with personal attacks aimed at people criticizing the mage tower.

While I completely disagree with looking “down” on people that respond with the “git gud” way of thinking, I also feel “threatened” by the feedback of people finding the mage tower too difficult/demanding for them and wanted it nerfed.

In the end, I like the current difficulty/tuning (needing several dozens/hundred wipes to learn the fights), and the unique rewards that it gives to people that beat it. I do not particularly find it weird that some unique rewards are locked behind it, considering other rewards being in the game (looking at mythic mounts/tier sets, gladiator mounts/tier sets, collection achievements, ect).

Sorry but I respectfully disagree here. While you might play it that way, the game has a wide variety of people that it is catered toward. From casual RPers, pvpers, solo players questing/exploring, normal/hc raiders, to even top ranking pvpers and mythic raiders. By that logic every “hard”/demanding content should not have been in the game, or not given any rewards (gear, mounts, transmogs, achievements).

Again, while I respect your opinion of you “wanting” wow to go that way, I do not believe that it is fair to make this statement, as it is against the way blizzard has designed the game.
At the moment, blizzard is using those kind of cosmetics as “rewards” for doing content, with MANY of them being locked behind hard content. So I cannot agree with your statement that they “should” be available to everyone playing this game.

p.s. I understand that everyone is a paying customer, but we are paying for the “entrance fee” to the theme park. Giving away all “rewards” for free with having content without, would just lead to a game without any form of progression.

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Thing is, it’s not the same difficulty for certain specs/classes and for those with certain gear pieces, consumables, enchants, etc. It’s also not the same difficulty going in on a level 50 vs 60 because you get ability upgrades on your way to 60. Not to mention the stamina buffs you get from renown that seem to work in there.

I don’t mind content like Mage Tower but the way Blizzard handles scaling and changing stuff like buffing tons of bosses before they go to live is pretty awful.

It’s very clear Blizzard doesn’t fine-tune enough to do scaling and therefore anything involving scaling is going to be a ‘poor version’ of what it could be IMO. Mage tower should’ve been a template with your choice of which secondary stats you want, which consumes to use, and to scale you down to how classes/specs played back then. Even being able to use the old artifact trees and stuff would’ve been nice.

“Difficult” Content is fine. But there’s a problem when there’s difficult content like this that but it’s only around for a certain time period, by the time Legion ended quite a few people had done and even on release for many specs/classes was easier than it is now.

It’s also interesting to me those that claim they ‘enjoy the challenge’ will also do everything in their power to make the ‘challenge’ easier for themselves. Full enchants, full consumes, etc.

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Oh yeah, absolutely. As I said above, I am 100% in favor of a “template” system, so that the difficulties will remain evergreen for years to come, without a change in their difficulty.

I am also 100% in favor of letting it either always up, or providing it way more regularly (let’s say being available every first week of the month).

To be fair, because I am one of those persons, I like entering in the challenge “blind” and as problems arise, search for a way to combat them. While I did not spend more than 20-30k in a single challenge (no chance i buy the bis gear/gems/consumables), I ran some old content transmog runs to equip low ilvl gear, mainly to skip on repair bills.

Frankly what you are asking for, is legit feedback I agree 99% with, that will make the mage tower a better experience.

Only part I kind of disagree with is:

The bosses were buffed after ptr testing mainly they were too easy, as people that had an idea of the mechanics were just one/two shotting them. I believe that the tuning would have been fine if they had made templates.

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Well it’s true. There’s threads about it on the first page. I assume you’re referring to my reply to you from yesterday. You still haven’t given me an answer as to why seeing my retail char would make a difference.
Profile page broken? - Community / General Discussion - World of Warcraft Forums (blizzard.com)

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I’m more than happy to share my retail main char name, it’s Deveon and I’m 6/7 since yesterday /happynoises

On topic: I 100% agree with the OP. But yeah they need to tune the encounters a bit so that the damage req is the same on each char, oh and some bosses have wayyy too much HP. I completed Tugor yesterday on a BM hunter and the fight took me 11 minutes… That is just too long. With average dps I might add.

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I hate this desire to recycle old content, if the Mage Tower shows anything it’s that you can’t recreate what once was. Scaling is a horrible way to do this, it’s never the same.

We can’t go back in time and have the same abilities, player power, systems, gearing, gameplay etc.

I would prefer Blizzard worked on new stuff instead of trying to recycle the old. It’s probably a lot cheaper to just recycle old stuff and try to mash it into a form that kind of works.

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I know. It would just be so easy to actually please all of them, if it was possible to chose the difficulty of the encounters or give a “determination” buff for each failed attempt, so even the worst player could at some point do it.

For those who like the challenge, this buff could just be turned off, and beating a challenge without the buff would give an achivement, so there is still a way to show: “wow, I’m so good at the game, I could beat the content on very hard”.

Oh no, that’s not what I’m saying. Content can get as hard as it wants to please the top players, but it should be possible for “bad players” to get the exact same cosmetics from a lower difficulty. Hard content can reward high stats gear, but that shouldn’t look different from the “LFR version”. That’s what I’d suggest. :slight_smile:

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I would really like to see new SOLO challenges or even 2 man challenges such as doing some medium sized dungeon for mount/title, or doing gauntlet challenge on your own class or facing new boss that has seveveral mechanics in.

Bring that ploax!