Scaling of Tower of Nightmare needs to be readjusted now that the content is dead

[crepuscular.9047]

finally got around to do the content, went in public and there was no one around, after clearing about half way of first floor I see 2 other people.

Once we reach the first boss, they got 2 shot by it as hey ran into the room and rage quit

I ran around the room hit the boss and barely doing much damage, eventually died after i don't know how long, seem forever take the boss down to 82% and died.

after running half way to the boss i got why they rage quit, WP was stupidly far and the boss recovers all hp while you run back *sigh* *ALT + F4*

 

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

It already scales according to the number of players participating. You're expecting an 80man instance to scale down to three players, and that's just not going to happen. That said a meta comp (1 Heal/Alac/Quick, 1 DPS/Alac/Quick and 1 pure DPS) can probably clear it with some time.

 

Keep in mind an experienced player does up to 10x the DPS of a inexperienced player, meaning they're effectively equivalent to almost a dozen randoms from open-world, especially in Kessex.

Edited October 11, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

It would be nice if it could be solo'd like Forging Steel or Dragonstorm though.

[Fueki.4753]

1 hour ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

It already scales according to the number of players participating. You're expecting an 80man instance to scale down to three players, and that's just not going to happen.

As long it's necessary to progress the story, it should scale down to one player though. Or, at the very very least, killing normal enemies should progress the bar, not just events.

Alternatively, they could add a single player story instance that sees players reaching the top, so people can bypass filling the bar.

Without either of those, it's simply too much of a pain to progress that story step. And that's not even considering the achievements inside the tower.

Edited October 11, 2022 by Fueki.4753

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

1 hour ago, Fueki.4753 said:

As long it's necessary to progress the story, it should scale down to one player though. Or, at the very very least, killing normal enemies should progress the bar, not just events.

Alternatively, they could add a single player story instance that sees players reaching the top, so people can bypass filling the bar.

Without either of those, it's simply too much of a pain to progress that story step. And that's not even considering the achievements inside the tower.

The issue with doing this is it makes the content even more dead in the future. If everyone can solo it you'll never see a group formed again, which is what happened to DRMs.

 

I'm not saying I disagree, for example I've been an advocate for a long time of adding story dungeons to personal story, but at the same time I understand how that affects the long-term viability of the content. There's no benefit to doing this content as a group compared to doing it solo, so everyone would just solo it.

 

They should've made it more viable for squads to repeat, like Dragonstorm.

Edited October 11, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Fueki.4753]

14 minutes ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

The issue with doing this is it makes the content even more dead in the future. If everyone can solo it you'll never see a group formed again, which is what happened to DRMs.

Does this really matter, if hardly anyone is going to touch it anyway?

Currently, people who are late will have a very frustrating time with the tower, and very likely will leave it be, diminishing the potential amount of players doing the public version. This is literally no different from a single player version diminishing the player pool for the public version.

And DRMs deserved to be abandoned, that format was just disgusting. In hindsight, they really should have done season 5 properly until the end, instead of powering through an expansion that ended up very subpar.

[Linken.6345]

How about people start a 10 man squad and go into private instance this is a mmo after all.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

3 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

How about people start a 10 man squad and go into private instance this is a mmo after all.

Ah, yes. The solution to not having enough people to do the content, is to get people to do the content.

Brilliance.

[Linken.6345]

52 minutes ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

Ah, yes. The solution to not having enough people to do the content, is to get people to do the content.

Brilliance.

Yes because it do afew things, it shows that there is interest in the content and form the squad up before entering so you know you will have people to do it.

[Solvar.7953]

It isn't quite dead yet - you just have to play it at the right time.

I played through it last weekend one evening, and there was a big group (20-30) being led by a commander, which worked its way through the tower.

I went in a couple days later (last night) and there was maybe 10 people - started with fewer and picked some up as we went.  I tagged up to at least give some indication of where were in the tower.   At the start, I wasn't sure there was going to be enough to do it - and the problem of trying to catch up to where the head of the PUG was challenging because of the respawns.

I actually found the smaller group easier and faster to go through - with the big group, all the bosses are HP sponges that just took a long time to work down - not it any way difficult, just long.  And same was true with the mobs and other things.  With the smaller group, the length of these battles was more reasonable.

I don't know if the scaling is broken - I've heard that for other content like guild hall capture, there are ideal numbers as more players bump the monsters up a tier.   Or maybe those playing Monday night were better players, or the fact there were fewer of them meant a few good ones had more impact?

So as of now, completing this content is still possible, but you have to play at the right time.  But I certainly see that in a few weeks when people get distracted by mad king, and then other new content, some reworking may be needed here.

 

[Fueki.4753]

8 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

Yes because it do afew things, it shows that there is interest in the content and form the squad up before entering so you know you will have people to do it.

And what about times when there are NOT enough players interested in doing it, which this thread is about?

Forming a squad doesn't help, when it literally can't fill up.

This is not just a public instance and achievements, there is a part of the story involved, too. And as the tower functions now, that part of the story literally can't be done with insufficient amounts of players (not counting the 0,1% top of the crust players, who might be able to solo it all).

Edited October 12, 2022 by Fueki.4753

[crepuscular.9047]

1 hour ago, Solvar.7953 said:

It isn't quite dead yet - you just have to play it at the right time.

I played through it last weekend one evening, and there was a big group (20-30) being led by a commander, which worked its way through the tower.

having to play at the "ideal time" is just bad for the future of content it hasnt been that long since ToN came out, and will continue to get worse as time goes on.

players progress at different rate and different time, this would be a very bad experience for those new to GW2, they would become gated out of pve content just because there isn't enough player population to get it going.

 

12 hours ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

It already scales according to the number of players participating.

not sure about that, Forgal's Whirling Axe, hits like a truck, instant deleted my ranger pet

 

20 hours ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

You're expecting an 80man instance to scale down to three players, and that's just not going to happen.

not says we have to need a story instance, Forging Steel would be a very good example of not a story instance that scaled very well.

 

13 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

Yes because it do afew things, it shows that there is interest in the content and form the squad up before entering so you know you will have people to do it.

it's only gonna get harder and harder since it's not even closed to being rewarding with the loot, anet needs to sort out not only this but others like Serpent, Aspenwood, DRMs, etc. I think the only way Anet can funnel players into these less played meta and instanced content is to bait players with either a massive weekly reward or put into core daily rotations like Maws of Torment

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

16 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

Yes because it do afew things, it shows that there is interest in the content and form the squad up before entering so you know you will have people to do it.

You rather miss the point.

Firstly, since it's mandatory for story progress, which is otherwise 100% soloable, you shouldn't need other players to progress this. Victory or Death / Arah story mode dungeon was once a 5-man instance, with a bare minimum of 2 because of mechanics, and ArenaNet changed it for the very same reason that people are complaining about this - all the rest of story is soloable, so why is this one thing not? At least for that it made sense given that it was the finale of the main story.

Secondly, if there's nobody interested in the content (while you're playing), then you can't gather people to do the content. Which means you can't squad up with people before entering. You can't just magic people into existence.

3 hours ago, crepuscular.9047 said:

not sure about that, Forgal's Whirling Axe, hits like a truck, instant deleted my ranger pet

It does scale. At least, the health of NPCs does - I've seen cases where myself and 1-3 other people can melt the bosses like Sieran and Trahearne, but once the zerg gets into the room, it takes 5x longer to kill them.

The damage they do seems to be truck-worthy regardless of scaling though. If they can just reduce the amount of damage the enemies do with few players in the area, then the scaling issue would probably be solved.

[Warscythes.9307]

There's also another easy way to get players to do it, buff the rewards. Why is dragonstorm so popular? Because you can literally afk through the event and get at least 3g for 15 minutes of gameplay. Is also not uncommon for private squad to form just to do it quickly for the reward and it is more engaging.

 

Tower of nightmare as a 5men semi meta squad took me and my friends about 20 minutes, granted we did mess around a bit and grabbing notes and whatnot. But the effort is definitely way more than DS for much less rewards. That's why we didn't bother with it after getting the cheevos. So the suggestion is simply make it on par with DS, if not better due to the difficulty and length of it.

[Linken.6345]

12 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

And what about times when there are NOT enough players interested in doing it, which this thread is about?

Forming a squad doesn't help, when it literally can't fill up.

This is not just a public instance and achievements, there is a part of the story involved, too. And as the tower functions now, that part of the story literally can't be done with insufficient amounts of players (not counting the 0,1% top of the crust players, who might be able to solo it all).

Then you do other stuff untill it fills or try again next play session this thread was about going into public and praying to see other people not gather them before.

[Farohna.6247]

3 hours ago, Warscythes.9307 said:

There's also another easy way to get players to do it, buff the rewards. Why is dragonstorm so popular? Because you can literally afk through the event and get at least 3g for 15 minutes of gameplay. Is also not uncommon for private squad to form just to do it quickly for the reward and it is more engaging.

 

Tower of nightmare as a 5men semi meta squad took me and my friends about 20 minutes, granted we did mess around a bit and grabbing notes and whatnot. But the effort is definitely way more than DS for much less rewards. That's why we didn't bother with it after getting the cheevos. So the suggestion is simply make it on par with DS, if not better due to the difficulty and length of it.

I agree with this.  The rewards really are uninteresting.  That would be a simple way to keep it more lively.  I finished the achievements and haven't touched it since, for the time involved it's not worth it.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

1 hour ago, Linken.6345 said:

Then you do other stuff untill it fills or try again next play session this thread was about going into public and praying to see other people not gather them before.

So your solution to being able to complete the main story is... To not do the main story.

[Ashen.2907]

I tried this for the first time a week or two ago and had a blast. I went in solo and ran into one other player. We stuck together and fought our way through. VERY tough, but an absolute blast. Ive done it a few times since as well (varying group sizes) and had fun. Still, the rewards are not stellar for the time investment and I can see this making the content ever more difficult to find groups for. 

I personally would rather see rewards improved to incentivize continued group play rather than refocus the content on solo play. 

[Astralporing.1957]

On 10/12/2022 at 4:57 PM, Warscythes.9307 said:

There's also another easy way to get players to do it, buff the rewards. Why is dragonstorm so popular? Because you can literally afk through the event and get at least 3g for 15 minutes of gameplay. Is also not uncommon for private squad to form just to do it quickly for the reward and it is more engaging.

 

Tower of nightmare as a 5men semi meta squad took me and my friends about 20 minutes, granted we did mess around a bit and grabbing notes and whatnot. But the effort is definitely way more than DS for much less rewards. That's why we didn't bother with it after getting the cheevos.

You know what else Dragonstorm has? Good scaling. You can easily do it with a really low number of players - and no, you do not have to be a "semi-meta squad" for that. Average OW players will do too.

On 10/12/2022 at 4:57 PM, Warscythes.9307 said:

So the suggestion is simply make it on par with DS, if not better due to the difficulty and length of it.

Frankly, to be on par with DS, it would need to have much, much better rewards than it. I do not see this happening.

[Warscythes.9307]

3 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

You know what else Dragonstorm has? Good scaling. You can easily do it with a really low number of players - and no, you do not have to be a "semi-meta squad" for that. Average OW players will do too.

Frankly, to be on par with DS, it would need to have much, much better rewards than it. I do not see this happening.

I actually think it has awful scaling with higher number of players. You literally have people afk and people still beat it without any issues. Low men scaling is good, high is awful.

 

No I don't see them buffing the tower reward to DS tier, but if DS is going to stay then literally every event will get compared to it as more of a baseline due to is braindead nature and good rewards. If it deviates too much from it then is not worth it.

[MashMash.1645]

On 10/12/2022 at 5:28 AM, Fueki.4753 said:

Does this really matter, if hardly anyone is going to touch it anyway?

Currently, people who are late will have a very frustrating time with the tower, and very likely will leave it be, diminishing the potential amount of players doing the public version. This is literally no different from a single player version diminishing the player pool for the public version.

And DRMs deserved to be abandoned, that format was just disgusting. In hindsight, they really should have done season 5 properly until the end, instead of powering through an expansion that ended up very subpar.

 

You can solo all the DRM, even with all challenge modes on. Just about finished the 5 runs / all challenges cheevos. Then make the weapons. It's pretty dull, but ap eh? lol.

[Fueki.4753]

6 hours ago, MashMash.1645 said:

 

You can solo all the DRM, even with all challenge modes on. Just about finished the 5 runs / all challenges cheevos. Then make the weapons. It's pretty dull, but ap eh? lol.

I'm not arguing against being able to solo DRMs, but their content format just is bad.

DRMs are simply demotivating. In that way, DRMs are equivalent to the idea of going into the Tower of Nightmare and being all alone.

[Cyninja.2954]

I'll go with the "story should be solo-able" crowd here.

 

While I do favor extensive and good group content, I do agree that story at its core should be solo possible. 

 

Add flavor and additional content on top, as is with strikes or DE meta, as group content, but let players experience the story at their own pace.

 

Even the Forging Steel "strike" is solo able thanks to good scaling. In case of tower of nightmares, either improve the scaling (this won't be run outside of story or achievements any way, let's not kid ourselves) or give players a way to skip it.

[Hapmuhr.2781]

Bumping this topic as well since it's still impossible to progress your personal story because this content is dead. Just a version that works for solo players without any rewards would do. Nobody cares about rewards when your progress is blocked because the content is old and abandoned.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

21 hours ago, Hapmuhr.2781 said:

Bumping this topic as well since it's still impossible to progress your personal story because this content is dead. Just a version that works for solo players without any rewards would do. Nobody cares about rewards when your progress is blocked because the content is old and abandoned.

It actually is possible, as despite common belief you do not need to complete the group instance. You just need to do x amount of events in it.
This means that if you're stuck solo, you just destroy that first toxic stalk, maybe do the two follow-up events before the Nightmare Chamber, leave the instance, open a new one, destroy that first toxic stalk again, rinse and repeat until the bar fills.
Similar with BfLA if you're solo - capture the camps and do what mob events you can until the bar fills.

This, however, is not a suitable act of play, and does need fixing. But since it's not a hardlock issue... I don't see it being addressed anytime soon.