The only reason people praise Visions is that the rest of the content is horrible.

[Khaza-R]

The biggest difference between mage tower runs and visions, is mage tower was 100% optional people really did that because they wanted to. Vissions block the core item of the game besides your neck, you can't even do the end of the raid with doing a horrific vision because without your cape you go insane instantly. Locking new must have things behind grindy RNG centric content isn't good design. MaYbE iF iT iS TyPed liKe DiS you will understand.

What exactly is RNG about visions and upgrading the cloak? Time-gated and grindy, sure but there’s not much RNG involved.

[Seranthor]

Exactly. They can do anything they want to it. It's their right. It's also my right to bitch about it.

And its the right of others to point and mock. I wont do that, because I actually feel sorry for you.

[Dismayxz]

Every WoW community is full of people that praise visions. Granted, there are also many realists that see that they're in fact not all that great.

But it's still quite jarring that so many people praise this mediocre piece of content.

WoW content has been so bland, so boring and pointless for so long, that this junk seems somewhat exciting to people in comparison.

They don't have much replayability. They might be fun the first time and maybe the second time at best, but after that they're utterly boring. And with the timegates and cloak rewards, you're forced to replay this trash every week or miss out.

They make me very worried for Torghast, if the bar is this low for "good" content. Considering that's one of the only features for Shadowlands, it has me extremely worried we're in for a really weak expansion just like BfA has been.

Suh dude. Nice oppinion you got there.

Here's mine: Pepelaugh 'Realists'

and

Visions are great. Yes they are bland, welcome to most of the content that Blizzard is able to make work and has been able to make work since the company's inception, if you want to switch out your rose-tinted glasses for 'Realist' glasses, now's the time. For WoW standards Visions are a great first iteration of what Torghast probably will be. We already know both won't work the same exact way, unless they completely want to 180° their design goals for Torghast. What Visions do well, for probably the first time in a while, is offering simple in nature; semi-challenging in tuning solo content (that doesn't exclude group play either). I say that because this and the Mage Tower are fundamentally different in their goals.

Mage Tower: Cosmetic, Specc specific rewards... one. A single one. 3 of the same reward, if you want all of one class. 36 in total, if you want them all. And all of them are... a cosmetic weapon skin. Difficulty curve doesn't fucking move.
Visions: Pets, Weapon Illusion, Cloak Progress, Mini Talent-tree, Meta Achievement for Mount, Actual, relevant gear rewards. Difficulty changes depending on player (Class/Specc + Affixes Combination, personal capabilities), Masks.

Unless you completely outgear the content (Hello Mage Tower and like 90% of the Casual crowd that cleared it) and even if you do, you can still have some spicy moments in there with 4-5 Masks on (especially Daredevil & Long Night by design will give lots of people on the average player skill level some trauma).

The items that drop apparently have a slightly higher chance to Corrupt and scale all the way up to 470 (Heroic N'zoth) if you do a 5 Mask Full Clear, meaning Vision Rewards are simple and will stay relevant until the very end of the tier, simply based on the fact that even to a Mythic Raider, once that Infinite Cloak Resistance starts kicking in towards the end, a 470 base item that corrupts into something like Gushing Wounds or other VERY good low cost corruptions, will still be just as useful as the 475 from the weekly chest. Same thing early on rn. 3-5 Mask runs are great ways to get decent iLvL pieces that have decent odds to corrupt, to fill out your corruption collection. Echoing Void getting nerfed, VR getting buffed, Infinite Stars still being a must-have for pure ST like Xanesh, Shad'har, etc.

In short: One is actually boring, jarring and bland in comparison, while the other offers variety and choice. All whilst actually still offering you one relevant piece of gear per unique clear, per week.

Put into more context than "Jarring, boring, wah wah, my personal oppinion, how dare people like this", I really don't see your point.

[Kralljin]

No, they are pretty good.

Not by "if you compare to something bad it seems better" but they are okay content.
The Mask mechanic reminds me of the Yogg fight, where you could choose which keeper to not aid you, so you had choose which mechanic you needed to play around.

I feel however that Torghast might die on the whole "it's infinite" thing, Visions are perfectly fine that you've essentially cleared them once you're able to fully clear them with 5 Masks.
This entire "floor" thing reminds me too much of M+ Keylevel, where you could always potentially find a greater challenge but it's obvious that things start to fall apart once you apply a +300% dmg affix to certain mechanics.

I really like to say "i've cleared that on the highest difficulty" and get the best possible rewards for it and not go "well, there's technically a higher difficulty but at X it simply stopped giving better rewards, thus i stopped at X".

[Alvito]

What exactly is RNG about visions and upgrading the cloak? Time-gated and grindy, sure but there’s not much RNG involved.

The RNG side is the corruption bit which is why people are doing the entire thing.

[Guildenstern]

It really is funny. Considering we have ShadowBlands coming up, I think the notion that the time devs saved up from not doing a lot of content really went into "fixing" the game is becoming more and more laughable. But what never ceases to amaze me is some people's readiness to praise mediocre product. This attitude only makes game worse, as devs realize they have a crowd of loyal cultists, ready to buy whatever product.

[Dziubla]

The RNG side is the corruption bit which is why people are doing the entire thing.

You were talking about RNG in visions, now you're moving the goalpost to RNG in the patch itself. Corruption isn't part of the visions themselves, in any way shape or form.

[Alvito]

You were talking about RNG in visions, now you're moving the goalpost to RNG in the patch itself. Corruption isn't part of the visions themselves, in any way shape or form.

They are all connected and why it is such a shitty system.

[Dziubla]

They are all connected and why it is such a shitty system.

The only "connection" there, is that with better gear, you can push visions (or any content, really) faster, but that has been the case since forever, so not sure how is that relevant to 8.3 specifically. Sure, corruption is extremely RNG, and some pieces are way too powerful, and can make the content more or less trivial, while other pieces are pretty much useless, but again...that's kinda how gearing always worked. You either got good loot, or you didn't. Is there more RNG now? Yes. And yes, I dislike it as much as most people. And yet, in the end, I realize that unless you're in one of the top guilds, and seriously pushing mythic...it barely matters, so I'm not that bothered by it.

[ano2024]

And its the right of others to point and mock. I wont do that, because I actually feel sorry for you.

Ehh, I don't mind it. You don't spend your entire life on the internet without growing a thick skin.

[Djuntas]

Nothings exciting about visions, it's like Scenarios from MoP but with extra gates steps. The only difference is there's a whole two maps to do and they change weekly.

Thanks, finally I saw another say MOP scenarios. Nothing has changed but making it harder with more mechanics and different rewards.

[arkanon]

tHe oNlY rEaSoN pEoPlE pRaIsEd MaGe tOwEr wAs bEcAuSe tHe rEsT oF tHe cOnTeNt wAs bAd

This was actually my first thought as well - Although far from identical - and certainly scales very differently and has "dynamic" difficulty (you have some control over the difficulty - and then progression with the masks), it is "meaningful" single player progression. Are there differences? yes, absolutely, not least of which the ability to be carried (to some extent) in a group. However, overall i think they are quite a similar philosophy.

[Doffen]

OP, what if I like Visions AND 8.3?

How dare you!

[arkanon]

Nothings exciting about visions, it's like Scenarios from MoP but with extra gates steps. The only difference is there's a whole two maps to do and they change weekly.

There are FAR more differences than there are similarities - especially when you only count similarities that exclusively exist between these two forms of content.

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Thanks, finally I saw another say MOP scenarios. Nothing has changed but making it harder with more mechanics and different rewards.

See above - couldnt disagree more.

[Doffen]

I'm enjoying the mount-hunting aspects of the Assault subzones more, surprisingly enough, although the bloom will fade from that rose as I collect them..

I do enjoy it too, especially mogu and aqir since they drop the most of them(got the Ishak one) but that bolded part there, now that's bold of you :P

Getting the Shadowbarb one tomorrow. Looks really nice. Luckily there is no need to hope for the drop there!

[Dystemper]

They suck. Boring as fuck after 2 times. Not difficult, just annoying mechanics . Rewards suck as well, should have had better loot and unique transmits. The assaults are pretty bad too. Only gear I ever get is wrists or gloves , if I get anything at all. Over all I think 7.3 worst patch ever

[Aucald]

I do enjoy it too, especially mogu and aqir since they drop the most of them(got the Ishak one) but that bolded part there, now that's bold of you :P

Getting the Shadowbarb one tomorrow. Looks really nice. Luckily there is no need to hope for the drop there!

I've gotten the Ivory Cloud Serpent, the Uldum Alpaca, and Xindao so far - still working on the Shadowbarb Drone (probably have a few days to go), Ishak, and the others.

[Beet]

tHe oNlY rEaSoN pEoPlE pRaIsEd MaGe tOwEr wAs bEcAuSe tHe rEsT oF tHe cOnTeNt wAs bAd

Anyone saying that would be wrong though. Legion had lots of fun things and new things. This patch didn't even give a god damn new zone.

Its comical to think back as far as even TBC they once would give us a raid, new zone with new quests, and a new 5 man all in one content patch. BFA thats too difficult though.

[Minikin]

Every WoW community is full of people that praise visions. Granted, there are also many realists that see that they're in fact not all that great.

But it's still quite jarring that so many people praise this mediocre piece of content.

WoW content has been so bland, so boring and pointless for so long, that this junk seems somewhat exciting to people in comparison.

They don't have much replayability. They might be fun the first time and maybe the second time at best, but after that they're utterly boring. And with the timegates and cloak rewards, you're forced to replay this trash every week or miss out.

They make me very worried for Torghast, if the bar is this low for "good" content. Considering that's one of the only features for Shadowlands, it has me extremely worried we're in for a really weak expansion just like BfA has been.

i believe there was already a thread about this. Not to mention I havent come across people praising it. It does suck for healers and tanks as compared to melee dps and a bit for casters, but people are treating it more as a prestige kind of thing.

If there is something id change without diluting it is removing the legendary tie in. Because I can empathize with someone tanking and healing for years only to have to work so much harder or respec for the same reward as a dps.

Maybe go back to the simpler model of, kill raid boss, college orange item, turn it in for cloak upgrade. Limit the cloak upgrade to the raid it is related to. As for the sanity thing in the visions. Take out the reduction per second and just make it a straight forward avoid void zones and fire thing. If you get hit by an avoidable mechanic you lose sanity. This would make it easier on said healers and tanks too.

I say this as a Havoc demonhunter main. So for me its stupid easy. But as I said, I understand how it can be frustrating for others.

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tHe oNlY rEaSoN pEoPlE pRaIsEd MaGe tOwEr wAs bEcAuSe tHe rEsT oF tHe cOnTeNt wAs bAd

eh personally i think ppl who comapre visions to mage tower are wrong from the get go, because mage tower was spec specific in many cases. There was some overlap between classes but generally there were different instances for specs, making it a bit more even.

[DemonDays]

Every WoW community is full of people that praise visions. Granted, there are also many realists that see that they're in fact not all that great.

But it's still quite jarring that so many people praise this mediocre piece of content.

WoW content has been so bland, so boring and pointless for so long, that this junk seems somewhat exciting to people in comparison.

They don't have much replayability. They might be fun the first time and maybe the second time at best, but after that they're utterly boring. And with the timegates and cloak rewards, you're forced to replay this trash every week or miss out.

They make me very worried for Torghast, if the bar is this low for "good" content. Considering that's one of the only features for Shadowlands, it has me extremely worried we're in for a really weak expansion just like BfA has been.

True statement. The rest of 8.3s content is so lacking that even something as mediocre as the Visions will be praised as the second coming of WoW Jesus.

The current WoW team just wants to develop low maintenance repeatable content.

Islands and Visions are a test for this and Torghast will be the final model.

Just imagine. One set of assets for a single tower. They never have to do any asset work. They can just add more "floors". Endlessly repeatable.

Minimal effort.