I’m a person that has been gaming for a long while and I’m certainly no stranger to challenging games. Heck, I actively seek them out and enjoy them. I’ve played WC3 campaigns on insane difficulty, played Dark Souls 1, 2 and Bloodborne, played Cuphead, playing Hardcore in Season of Mastery etc. I’m not saying any of this to brag, but to dissuade anyone from instantly thinking “git gud snowflake”.
When there is a challenging game, it generally has a specific difficulty curve and a vision in mind. In Dark Souls games, for example, although you can do challenges like SL1 or no damage etc, the creator has a vision in mind, guiding towards a certain path, in which you will be at a level range that the challenge will be appropriate for (yes I know you can take different and harder routes).
What is the Mage Tower creators’ vision for the appropriate gear? Note that “appropriate” doesn’t mean optimal. For example, I am in my Sanctum of Domination gear and the helm has a domination socket, which prevents it from getting any other socket. Is this considered appropriate or is it gimping myself if I don’t change my helmet? Current expansion’s flask gives 19 agility in mage tower, the previous expansion’s flask gives 38 agility. Are we supposed to use the previous one, seeing as it hasn’t been touched, does that mean it is considered the appropriate way to do this “challenge”? Was the challenge tuned for using drums?
You might see these as weird questions. After all, who cares, just do what gets you the boss kill. But we are being constantly told that this is a skill challenge and we should just “git gud”. Which is completely fine, I’m doing much better in the challenge from where I started. However… how on earth do I know that the bump in damage or survivability that I need is from skill/playstyle and not gear? Who decided to make this “challenge” to not have templates, but this bizzare mishmash of gimped current gear, removed borrowed powers and overbuffed older gear?
Edit: I want to add that I would (and I know that many more would) rather earn the kill instead of do older raids, use old crafted gear, pimp yourself up with tons of sockets etc. Most people who like a chalenge would like to improve themselves don’t care about the times they wipe, either. I don’t even care about the clothing. I just want a challenge that I know is well-designed with a vision in my mind, instead of something that I am not even sure I’m banging my head against with improper tools.