Mad Kings Tower - under-tuned

[Glacial.9516]

@Deihnyx.6318 said:I agree with all of that, however OP seems to suggest that this would be an optional mode (2nd post).Ah, good point I didn't notice that sentence. Fair enough! Options are always a good thing as far as I'm concerned, whether they be easy modes, hard modes or tear your hair out and cry yourself to sleep so you can try again tomorrow modes.

[Ashantara.8731]

@Nutshel.7264 said:As title says I think the tower is under-tuned - I can grab all 3 boxes on the way and sill have solid 10-15 sec at the top. There really is no feel of urgency or danger. It is not challenging and since it doesn't change year after year it gets super boring. I suggest increasing speed of "lava" and preferably doubling or tripling the height of the tower. Could use some new gimmick in it as well.

Sorry, but I'm having trouble to understand what on earth you are talking about.

• What three boxes?
• What 10-15 seconds at the top?
• What lava? (Do you mean the toxic fumes with the grasping hands?)

[Sartharina.3542]

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@Nutshel.7264 said:As title says I think the tower is under-tuned - I can grab all 3 boxes on the way and sill have solid 10-15 sec at the top. There really is no feel of urgency or danger. It is not challenging and since it doesn't change year after year it gets super boring. I suggest increasing speed of "lava" and preferably doubling or tripling the height of the tower. Could use some new gimmick in it as well.

Sorry, but I'm having trouble to understand what on earth you are talking about.

• What three boxes?
• What 10-15 seconds at the top?
• What lava? (Do you mean the toxic fumes with the grasping hands?)

1. The bonus chests
2. It usually takes 10-15 seconds before the clock breaks after reaching the top.
3. Yes.

[Irreverent.3594]

Yes make tower 10x higher and make Risen Abominations randomly spawn every few steps!You stream and i get popcorn.

[Carighan.6758]

@"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:Almost laughed at this joke topic.Almost.It's not funny.

Yeah I know a lot of people find this very difficult, but then for others this is a "do it first try, been doing this for 4 years every Halloween now" muscle memory thing.

I think what should happen is that the overall difficulty is kept, but the specific placement of the debris changes each year. Forcing everyone to relearn it and hence putting us on equal footing.

[Ashantara.8731]

@Sartharina.3542 said:

1. The bonus chests

What three bonus chests? There is only one chest on the way up, and then there is the final chest. I am confused.

[Shikigami.4013]

@Ashantara.8731 said:>What three bonus chests? There is only one chest on the way up, and then there is the final chest. I am confused.

You don't only fail to see the chests, you seem to also be unable to see the posts in this very thread where people already talked about where the three chests are. It must be a conspiracy, the chests must hate you :)

at 33 seconds for the first chest, at 41 seconds for the second one and at 51 seconds for the third one (which will be reached at the jump down at 1:06 in the video).

[CharterforGw.3149]

it takes so long for the clock to break, since it can be just a second difference when you'd try to jumo, that you'd miss it

[Kiza.5630]

Replace green goo with Labyrinthine Horror. There, tuned. :)

As with every JP, they get easy once you've mastered them. I can run through the Chalice of Tears in half-awake mode. Doesn't mean it wasn't quite a challenge the first time. Same with the Clock Tower. I'd rather have a new JP than over tuning existing ones.

[Zaltys.7649]

@Shikigami.4013 said:

at 33 seconds for the first chest, at 41 seconds for the second one and at 51 seconds for the third one (which will be reached at the jump down at 1:06 in the video)....So that's where the second chest is. I have no idea how I've managed to overlook it, must've always been too focused on the jumps. Thanks.

[Batelle.1680]

The way I see it, the wait at the end is part of the challenge. I know I've blanked out while I'm up there waiting and jumped too early- I can only imagine how many people ran it blind, then threw themselves at the clock face ASAP only to find themselves respawning sans rewards. A very Mad King touch, I think.

Also, the gas can't rise any faster because the platform you drop down to would be covered in it before you could ever hope to reach it.

[Ayumi Spender.1082]

First time doing it I sat there wondering "What the hell am I supposed to do?"Then I saw the clock break and of course I had no time to react to something I didn't know was going to happen so I thought I'll just get it on the next rotation.

Cue calling every vulgar name in the book towards Arenanet during that time.

[extremexhero.9178]

Spent about an hour and 40 on this yesterday, I got 2 of those chests as the 3rd one was not an option for me I just wanted that big one at the end. Much fun was had 10/10 never again.

[nosleepdemon.1368]

Yes it is a little easy. I had it on farm a few years ago, it only took me a couple of retries to remember all the little tricks to it. The start is trickiest as the lava is right at your feet, but as you progress toward the top and begin making better time it becomes trivial. An SAB type tribulation mode would be welcome, and possibly increasing the cooldown period between attempts or even adding a small cost for each run, say 50 silver? That would give you four tries for free if you did your daily which is more than enough for anyone even moderately good at the game.

[DebraKadabra.5278]

It is most definitely NOT undertuned. That was one of the hardest fought JP completions I've ever gotten (took 4 years of trying). The only way I'd accept the solution OP offered is it if was optional.

[Carighan.6758]

An alternative idea for those of us who believe they're truly good at the clock tower:

• At the end, when you reach the chest, you can instead walk out through a "gamble" door if you haven't looted the chest.
• If you do so, you get placed back in the waiting area, there's an icon above your head and a voice line comments on this.
• If you manage to do it again, you get more reards.
• If you fail even once, you immediately lose all reward and since you in theory already got the chest today, you're now "out".
• You can chain the gamble, which will change the icon above your head, too.
• Of course the Mad King mocks you for losing your wager if it was high (say, 5+ consecutive runs).

[nosleepdemon.1368]

@Carighan.6758 said:An alternative idea for those of us who believe they're truly good at the clock tower:

• At the end, when you reach the chest, you can instead walk out through a "gamble" door if you haven't looted the chest.
• If you do so, you get placed back in the waiting area, there's an icon above your head and a voice line comments on this.
• If you manage to do it again, you get more reards.
• If you fail even once, you immediately lose all reward and since you in theory already got the chest today, you're now "out".
• You can chain the gamble, which will change the icon above your head, too.
• Of course the Mad King mocks you for losing your wager if it was high (say, 5+ consecutive runs).

Oh God. This is absolutely fantastic. Make the cap something ridiculous like 25 runs and give it a title. Watch as every JP'er melts down trying to achieve it.

[Kal Spiro.9745]

@Nutshel.7264 said:

@Ayakaru.6583 said:I thought it should be impossible to grab a chest as it makes othes platforms ghostly(Aka you'll fall through them)

Not sure what you mean. But I can grab all 3 chests on the way just fine.

This is not joke topic though. JPs are not for everybody and they shouldn't be either. Just like rest of the game got activities that some like some not. You don't see me crying for fractals nerf just because I can do max lvl 16 (if that). Why should these that like difficult JP be denied that? Sure leave this ez mode version for these that can't deal with more difficult ones. But give the rest of us some challange!

It's super cool that you're so skilled that you have no issues with the tower every time. Personally I just manage to get all three chests in a single go for the first time this year. That feat, in and of itself is upper echelon, even if you don't believe it, for this puzzle. I regularly run the tower and rarely see anyone else complete it even once, let alone do it so thoroughly that it might seem to be generally cake.

Seriously, do you not see everyone else you run with struggling? I don't get how you can fly through it, but see everyone fail over and over and not get the sense that you're the outlier, rather that the other way around.

[Despond.2174]

Too obvious, 1/10.

[nosleepdemon.1368]

@Kal Spiro.9745 said:

@Nutshel.7264 said:

@Ayakaru.6583 said:I thought it should be impossible to grab a chest as it makes othes platforms ghostly(Aka you'll fall through them)

Not sure what you mean. But I can grab all 3 chests on the way just fine.

This is not joke topic though. JPs are not for everybody and they shouldn't be either. Just like rest of the game got activities that some like some not. You don't see me crying for fractals nerf just because I can do max lvl 16 (if that). Why should these that like difficult JP be denied that? Sure leave this ez mode version for these that can't deal with more difficult ones. But give the rest of us some challange!

It's super cool that you're so skilled that you have no issues with the tower every time. Personally I just manage to get all three chests in a single go for the first time this year. That feat, in and of itself is upper echelon, even if you don't believe it, for this puzzle. I regularly run the tower and rarely see anyone else complete it even once, let alone do it so thoroughly that it might seem to be generally cake.

Seriously, do you not see everyone else you run with struggling? I don't get how you can fly through it, but see everyone fail over and over and not get the sense that you're the outlier, rather that the other way around.

Why would you wish to reward, let alone associate with mediocrity?

[sorudo.9054]

remove the goo and you have me happy, make it faster and it makes you happy.see the problem here, i absolutely hate it since it is a race not a JP, you love it but think it's to easy.consider 2 sides, not just your own.

[Nutshel.7264]

@sorudo.9054 said:remove the goo and you have me happy, make it faster and it makes you happy.see the problem here, i absolutely hate it since it is a race not a JP, you love it but think it's to easy.consider 2 sides, not just your own.

It is jumping puzzle with race component - that's what makes it fun. There used to be another JP of similar nature but ane,t for no good reason, nerfed it to the ground - rendering race component pointless. I'm talking about Griffonrook Run - that used to be the best JP in game. It was designed in such way that you always were racing against the literal clock. There were tricks to make it easier/equalish between classes but no matter what it always was challenge. The issue with Mad kings tower is that it isn't really race after certain point. If you make it to the 3rd chest in time you would have to stop moving for good while for the lava to become factor again - that takes away whole point of the lava thing.

Consider that not everything have to have difficulty level such that everybody can do it. Everybody should have equal chance/opportunity to finish part of content but the content and it's quality should never be compromised just so everybody can finish it. So yes increasing difficulty or introducing new challenges of higher difficulty would in the long run benefit the game. Making things too easy would only spoil the player base and render them lazy which is big problem in todays online games.

[Rashagar.8349]

Making completing it arbitrarily more difficult just for the sake of it would be stupid, but

@Carighan.6758 said:An alternative idea for those of us who believe they're truly good at the clock tower:

• At the end, when you reach the chest, you can instead walk out through a "gamble" door if you haven't looted the chest.
• If you do so, you get placed back in the waiting area, there's an icon above your head and a voice line comments on this.
• If you manage to do it again, you get more reards.
• If you fail even once, you immediately lose all reward and since you in theory already got the chest today, you're now "out".
• You can chain the gamble, which will change the icon above your head, too.
• Of course the Mad King mocks you for losing your wager if it was high (say, 5+ consecutive runs).

This would be genius

[STIHL.2489]

@Rashagar.8349 said:Making completing it arbitrarily more difficult just for the sake of it would be stupid,

And yet that is exactly what the OP suggested.

In fact Adding arbitrary difficulty for the sake of it sums up every single suggestion to make things more a "Challenging"

Good to know I am not the only one that thinks its stupid.

[STIHL.2489]

@TexZero.7910 said:

@Larenc.1269 said:Honestly They need to slow it down big time. Servers are in terrible shape right now. The groups i've been with most cant make the starting jump due to how bad the instance is delayed.

This literally never happens when i do the puzzle, are you absolutely sure its a server thing and not a group of 5 people bad at jumping ?

Happens to me a lot where at the first large gear, you wait for the wall to pop out, sometimes it will delay between fully coming out, and have a few seconds at the half pop -out point, others times I have had it not come fully out at all. Super annoying.

Had quite a few times where by the time I finished logging in the Mist (goo/laval) was already waist high.

So yah.. the latency is real.