Guild Wars 2

I walked into the tower around 2 a.m. I work night shift so most days I can’t play with my friends. I slowly made my way up the tower. Mine hurt but once I learned that, 1st lvl was easy. Then lvl 2, fighting my way up still….some idiot runs and gives me 3 vets while I’m fighting one. It seems to be the pattern with this tower. You can’t do it alone. You need a group that can kill things quickly before a patrol gives you more things to fight, kill a champion event that blocks you way (group event).

You cannot solo your way up. Ive seen 5 vets in one area. How am I suppose to solo that. I have troubles doing this tower, minus instances, because its horrific. And if that isn’t enough, people only run though because that is the only way to SOLO the tower. I wanna know how they get past the champ events and the 5 vets.

I feel scorn as a solo player. I have made it to the top twice since it released. And I’m frustrated.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/nightmare/Climbing-tips/first#post3209260

You(The players) asked for harder content.

You(The players) will now deal with what you get.

Ronah.2869:

Of course, some will go with the “solution”: join a guild and ask hep. This kind of answer strips you off your dignity as a hero and transforms you into a beggar at others mercy

Really? I’ve asked for help and my dignity is intact. You see, sometimes part of being a hero is knowing when to ask for help. Yes, heroes can and do ask for help both in game and IRL. It’s a crazy world out there and nobody can go at it alone.

To the OP I haven’t much to tell you. All circumstances are different be it server or time zone etc. And being mostly a solo player myself I can tell you from my experience that I’ve randomly encountered enough people along the way to accomplish what I wanted to. Others have helped me and I’ve helped others. My “solution” wouldn’t necessarily to be join a guild because people have their reasons for not wanting to. Although a friendly guild, of which there are plenty, can make many things much easier. What I would say is strength in numbers. If you see a small band of people race past then stop fighting that vet and race with them. Everyone is likely heading for the top and there is but one way to get there. You mustn’t socialize with anyone if you choose not to but you can use your numbers to make the tower a much more manageable encounter. Good luck and have fun.

Frosty and Frosty Law Firm.4981:

You(The players) asked for harder content.

You(The players) will now deal with what you get.

Except not all of us players asked for harder content.
Everything up till the Cutthroat Politics (namely the candidate trials, or whatever the defend gold piles thing was, when they ‘fixed’ it) was fine (at least for me). From there it went downhill. Now its get in the zergs in the beginning and crank out those achievements or don’t get to do much (or be EXTREMELY frustrated) of the new content.

You might just have to change to a beefier spec if you’re going to lone wolf, I haven’t tried it with Bers yet but as I’ve read that’s doable as well, if less forgiving.

I did it first with an Apoth/Dire stat char and then with a Rabid/Dire character, solo, including the instance at the end (not story). If you use a more glassy spec you might want to roll PVT to learn the area first.

I think what this type of content will need in the future is more of the dynamic event road blocks that they have throughout the tower. Where they are, they are very good at keeping players in one place long enough for others to catch up and participate.

The whole game needs these new road blocks! Like the old dungeons for starters! I will love it if you can’t go any further in AC without killing the first graveling burrow. People are skipping -foes just to pull more foes, sometimes 3 vets and a elite into the people ahead of them which causes tower-wide wipes. you have to get through it all without dying once or get ferried to the end dungeon at top without dying by staying at the entrance or center areas. Just like in dungeons skipping is stupid and GETS YOU KILLED!

Gnat.9405:

I think what this type of content will need in the future is more of the dynamic event road blocks that they have throughout the tower. Where they are, they are very good at keeping players in one place long enough for others to catch up and participate.

That is an excellent point. Also, I wonder if the dynamic scaling needs to happen more often. Even when alone, or in a small group, I bump into champions and packs of elites. I wonder if this is caused by zergs elsewhere, or large groups of people who have already run past.

While I applaud ANet’s effort to pump out good content at this pace, I don’t like how it becomes ‘join the zerg or skip it.’ For those on smaller servers or who play odd hours, the zerg may not be available. For others, like myself, zerging is not fun. It’s certainly rewarding —like Champ Trains, it has a good ratio of loot/ time spent. But it’s crap gameplay. Running in a group of 30 just trying to tag stuff with AoE’s is not fun in itself.

Yes I agree completely! I like to solo and I also play with friends but not as often as I would like. They have different schedules. Random people can be so irritating sometimes. I prefer not to do that. I am also in a large guild but they aren’t as helpful as many would like you to believe. They will generally only do content that benefits them. New content with many of them is done within hours or days of the new content release so they are not interested in helping those who need help after they are done with what they need to do.

Where is the scaling that was advertised so heavily? It doesn’t exist in my experiences. Does it only scale up and not down? If so that would be stupid and deceitful. Does Anetnet care about the player experience if it doesn’t involve PVP or WVW (which is also PVP)?

Frosty and Frosty Law Firm.4981:

You(The players) asked for harder content.

You(The players) will now deal with what you get.

indeed and i am happy again finnally some content that can be somewhat a challenge ,yesterday the spawn was so awesome that guardians had alot of work on CC (MC, mob control) and providing loads of stability, group formed randomlly was about 8-16.

i would had some harder patrols to the tower that would try to cath party by surprise :]
gona try before WvW reset again just hope to find the tower as was yesterday.

But yes for those who like to solo (iknow its a mmo and doesnt make sense) there should be aoption for it, the tower can be used as we had the challange missions in Nightfall.

The tower simply doesn’t scale. My guess as to why it doesn’t is because that takes more time and resources, just a guess though. There have been a few content patches where things either don’t scale at all or scale horribly.

Oghier.7419:

Gnat.9405:

I think what this type of content will need in the future is more of the dynamic event road blocks that they have throughout the tower. Where they are, they are very good at keeping players in one place long enough for others to catch up and participate.

That is an excellent point. Also, I wonder if the dynamic scaling needs to happen more often. Even when alone, or in a small group, I bump into champions and packs of elites. I wonder if this is caused by zergs elsewhere, or large groups of people who have already run past.

While I applaud ANet’s effort to pump out good content at this pace, I don’t like how it becomes ‘join the zerg or skip it.’ For those on smaller servers or who play odd hours, the zerg may not be available. For others, like myself, zerging is not fun. It’s certainly rewarding —like Champ Trains, it has a good ratio of loot/ time spent. But it’s crap gameplay. Running in a group of 30 just trying to tag stuff with AoE’s is not fun in itself.

As it is right now scaling doesn’t matter much. It can only go in one direction. Once something has been scaled up it stays that way and you have to kill it to see it respawn for a different scale. At least that is the case for things that actually scales through veteran/elite/champion.

PROTIP: You can ALT+F4 out of an unwinnable fight to heal 100% on login.

If you can make it as far as a safe spot, it doesn’t matter if you can survive. ALT F4 out of the game so the enemies run back to their spawn points then log back in with 100% health and nobody’s stupid spawns on your kitten like a boss.

Yea, it’s cheesy… but so is the very basis of the entire tower’s design.

Also? To the person who said “harder” content? lulzy

The nine chambers on the way up require only that you mash your hammy fist on the keyboard to win. The tower itself, short of cheesing it up, requires a party, and the final chamber is actually easier if you DON’T group.

It’s not hard. It’s schizophrenic.

I’ve been abusing my on-call meatshield pet as a Ranger, as well as Healing Spring and Block on the GS. Lately the most fun in the tower has been going through it backwards and being that guy to rez people in hopeless situations.

If you’re on a less populated server, guest to JQ. I play odd hours (either afternoons EST or sometimes 7 a.m. EST or after midnight) and tower has been plenty populated every time I’ve been in there.

GS ranger can solo most stuff, but there’s always some idiot that runs through with four extra vets chasing them and suddenly you’ve chain stunned with five stacks of confusion bleeding and torment and it’s a repair bill plus 5 silver to get back.

Wanderer.3248:

GS ranger can solo most stuff, but there’s always some idiot that runs through with four extra vets chasing them and suddenly you’ve chain stunned with five stacks of confusion bleeding and torment and it’s a repair bill plus 5 silver to get back.

I think you mean some hapless solo player trying to make it through the tower alive. That is what this thread is about, after all. Let’s show some empathy, here.

Besides, situational awareness is your responsibility. If you’re running around by yourself, you can’t blame particle effects for blinding you to the incoming mobs. You have to be ready to escape at a moments notice. Even if it weren’t for some other player pulling mobs to you, a wandering patrol might happen upon you during one of your fights.

What I’m saying is, if you’re going to play solo, it comes down to you to watch out for other people, and to be ready to escape when things get too hot.

I believe one of the things Anet set out to do was make a game where people felt like they could embrace the community.

It’s not about shoving solo play aside or shunning it. It’s about creating an environment that encourages you to make friendships and be social.

The real issue, which ironically nullifies the above point, is how Anet is treating rewards and achievements. They made it so that players feel a sense of necessity to get rewards so they can feel “special” or not feel left out. This just leads to everyone being greedy and sort of regressing back to solo play over team effort.

i’ve been trying to get into it, but those instant deaths are just weird, it’s not even frustrating anymore – just plain “why am I doing this ?” lol – I managed to get to the end of the first level once and I saw a golem, clicked his choice, – it sent me back to beginning and I’ve been instantly dying since. – getting tired of complaining so I’m not going to but seems like everywhere I try to have fun there is some crazy issue – either with crafting, wvw , and even pve – not sure who they made this game for, but I’m starting to feel it’s just not for me as I find myself playing less and less. :/ I pretty much log on now to do dailies and try to finish them up as fast as possible because it’s feeling more like work than fun lol.

Not complaining though, just seems like it’s not worth doing that either.

skullmount.1758:

Frosty and Frosty Law Firm.4981:

You(The players) asked for harder content.

You(The players) will now deal with what you get.

Except not all of us players asked for harder content.

I did not. I have been asking that the storylines not be gated behind content scaled for groups to allow the entire playerbase to easily see the story. The Tower puts a solo-able instance behind mobs that require a zerg to access which is pretty much the opposite.

I suppose I cannot argue the instance was soloable since I did do it solo, but it was certainly not what I would call entertaining. Getting there with a solo character was far more irritating than fun but at least I found a zerg. In the instance, needless add spawns eliminated any entertainment I might have gotten out of the bosses and their mechanics.

At least ArenaNet had the good sense to make the NPCs useful and even amazing resilient (an astonishing change from the suicidal, lobotimzed, monkey NPCs of GW1). But the last boss fight just deteriorated into annoying and tedious by the end. I would rather have the choice to kill the thing quick and get less rewards so I can get on to doing something fun in the game.

I constantly wonder why GW2 doesn’t offer difficulty level choices for things like this. They have a scaling system. They know it’s important or they wouldn’t have bothering making Story and Explorer mode dungeons.

The upshot is that I have no urge to do that instance again. That bar in the upper right can stay in place forever for all I care.

Frosty and Frosty Law Firm.4981:

You(The players) asked for harder content.

You(The players) will now deal with what you get.

I am fairly sure I never asked for harder content, judging by the forums most people are fine with the difficulty of regular Guild Wars 2 content, a good portion even wanted it toned down.

Case in point;

Arena Net release SAB world 2, the whole forum erupts into complaints about it being too difficult, the developers admit the issues and even tone it down slightly. (A handful complain that it was too easy)

Liadri, a lot of people liked it but more did not. I remember many many posts about that fight being unfair and forcing players to run specific builds.

Tequatil, many cheers about the great new mechanics and countless topics complaining about the difficulty, specifically the quantity of players needed and the arbitrary time limit.

A handful of forum posters asking for harder content does not equal the entire player base. `You´ are a player and part of the very same community Frosty, blaming the community for Arena Nets ill informed decisions is not constructive or helpful.

Ronah.2869:

Of course, some will go with the “solution”: join a guild and ask hep. This kind of answer strips you off your dignity as a hero and transforms you into a beggar at others mercy

This. GW2 is missing the sense of making you a lone hero trying to save the world. You’re not special. Just another one of the masses. Which is why I now only play hotjoin where I can feel special by killing people without depending on others.

A-Net should understand why the people prefer to do the Champion trains (in Queesndale)
- it gives decent amount of experience, karma and money
- it does not require special skills, traits, builds or weapons
- it is easy to understand the mechanics without needing a brainstorming session on tactics
- it givers decent loot

People need some brainless activity to relax in their free time because they do enough thinking at work or school.
if someone wants a challenge they will play PvP games or single player games not MMOs

Ronah.2869:

A-Net should understand why the people prefer to do the Champion trains (in Queesndale)
- it gives decent amount of experience, karma and money
- it does not require special skills, traits, builds or weapons
- it is easy to understand the mechanics without needing a brainstorming session on tactics
- it givers decent loot

People need some brainless activity to relax in their free time because they do enough thinking at work or school.
if someone wants a challenge they will play PvP games or single player games not MMOs

Tapping #1 button and rushing from one spot to the other isn’t relaxing to me. It’s merely frustrating and extremely boring. I spent all my time in WvW as a small scale roamer.

There is a vocal group on the forums that asks for more difficult content, usually followed by the statement that everything in PvE is laughably easy. I fear that this will lead to a more toxic community focused on min-maxing and cheesy tactics, demanding that everyone commit every boss tell to memory to avoid being labeled as “bad”.

I really hope LS will not cater to this group of players, but that Anet instead places more difficult content in areas where you actively need to go for that kind of challenge. LS is meant to be for everyone. When I’m fighting my third veteran solo and the fourth spawns right next to me, it’s clear that it’s just too difficult to be fun for solo players.

I think the idea of content being both soloable and available for groups is the right way to go, but it’s very hard to balance. The difficulty of the tower is fine when in a group, but not everyone plays on high population servers, and not everyone plays at peak hours.

Since LS is a major selling point for the game, it seems to me that content should be accessible to every player and that they should be able to complete it without too much frustration, grouped up or not. The really challenging stuff should not be in LS.

That being said, the few times I’ve been in a group the tower has been a blast. But then I’m level 80 with 1000+ hours on this character…

If this would have been a huge solo instance that would have been nice…. but in it’s current state not, you need a group…

I think the big problem is because its a zone everyone just parks a toon at the top and never bothers to climb anymore. I find an easy 30-40+ players up there at peek times.

Chaotic Storm.2815:

I think the big problem is because its a zone everyone just parks a toon at the top and never bothers to climb anymore. I find an easy 30-40+ players up there at peek times.

Staying at the top is pointless.

I’ve got one big problem with this tower. It’s made for a zerg. Simple as that. But, people are selfish and only want to go from A to B a.s.a.p. and run through everything. Remove half the foes there, only spawn elites when there is a zerg, despawn the elites after 5 minutes so the small group isn’t punished by the selfishness of the zerg (they spawn the elites, but won’t kill them because they don’t give a “reward”) and it might start to get fun.

i had to solo floor three tonight. I want to hear no complaints it wasn’t hard at all.
The scaling made it very easy unlike when you run with a group of 5-1+.

Honestly… All These alt+F4 tips and stuff are wrong… Just as wrong as all the others that rush their way through the Tower, pull the Mobs into you, which make you die, while they die three Corners further. Then they run again and do the same.

If you search for a Group for Clearing (which isn’t THAT much of a time Investment compard to dying 5 or more times and having to start over) and even STATE that the Group should stick together and look out for each other… you fail too…
The first one who gets the opportunity will run with their own egoism, if someone dies, they let them, because there is ONE Veteran they’d have to fight… one vet for 3 or 4 People… if that is too much… Why are they playing a MMO? It doesn’t take longer than 5 minutes and the Group is seperated and then dismissed.

Even smaller Zergs just run and don’t fight! The best Thing is parking an alt at the chest, and transfering the keys to him via WvW. Trying to climb up every day is a) time consuming and b) kitten frustrating… I can’t Count how many times I died because I tried to help and then found myself dead too, to start all over again.

I made my way up 3 times now.

1st day, 1 hour after patch release… 1st floor was almost clean, second floor not, and there were a lot of Events spread. There was a Zerg… even another but the second one didn’t even clear the way anymore. I tried to follow them, then fell behind because of that nasty toxic spore effects or being feared off one of the wooden ways… Not to mention all the knockbacks, rooting and whatever that reaches an annoying number there. Using 3(!) Revival pearls while my mate had to start over saved it for me, I could die my way to the top. Very funny Content, yeah… That’s the way I like it. /irony off

Second time… Used my Necro too, there were Groups of 5-8 People who… guess what? Just ran instead of fighting, pulling Mobs into others, dying like stupid Lemings over and over again. It took me 2 hours and some VERY CLEAR words (not to say ALMOST flaming) to find 3 People for an organized Group. A handful of others who where Standing around while I ranted followed us. And guess what? They finally CLEARED the way, the even looked out for others. If someone got feared down, they jumped, fought the Mobs and made their way up again, all together, no one was left behind. We even rescued a few who followed us. Took us no tine to climb up toghether.
Why can’t People just do so all the time? What’s so hard about it here?

3rd time… I used my Ranger, who seemed to do a lot better than my Necro. I made my way through the whole Tower. 1rd floor was pretty easy, even with one or 2 solo fighters. There ARE some Mobs that could surely kill you if you’re alone and do NOT run.
Well second floor.. there were Events… and guess what? Everyone was running and running trying to avoid killing everything and then dying somewhere in the eventspot… Sadly, the Event MUST HAVE BEEN DONE to open the way… Nobody dared. I died, and then started over again. I came to the same spot, saw all the dead People until FINALLY 5 People came who revived and did the Event because they had to. Off course I joined them. They actually fought about half the Mobs in the way but not everything. Those who got feared or stuck or whatever were left behind. That happend to me too, because almost every mob can root you… -.- Yeah well I died and had to wait for the next Group of People that actually cared… and it took time.

The last Group that came along HAD to fight because a Boss blocked the way… Finally I made my way up there, and my Ranger is staying there for good! I’ll NEVER and I mean that: NEVER climb up that stupid Tower again. For NOBODY and for no Gold in the world!

Next time it should be completely instanced for five People or easy enough to satisfy the egoistic runners (as they wouldn’t fight anyway) AND those who try to make their way up on their own.

All that zerging that actually doesn’t even get zerged anymore is pretty annoying and no funny game experience. That doesn’t reflect the taste of anyone. Even those who cry for harder Content just rush through, leave everyone else behind and laugh at how easy it was while those who actually PLAY the Content (and try to fight) suffer under their behaviour. And that is… KITTEN (you wouldn’t want to know which swear word I intended to use… coughes)

Well… so far, my 2 Cents….

I’ve spend the last days farming inside the tower, mostly on level 3 to be honest since not many players are capable of getting there. T6 mats drop there more often than anywhere else and the key’s aren’t bad either However I did notice that at crowd time I have to move to level 2, since the so called maniac zerk groups try running through level 3 and get killed every time they walk through the front door. I do understand a lot of players want to play the way they want, but common if you died 80 times at the same spot, don’t you think it’s time to adjust a bit? lol

In general if there’s nobody in the tower then it’s pretty easy to farm and even doing the events in there due to the scaling of the content, however the moment zerk groups try to get through it gets horrible.

agreed, – i’m not really interested in rushing through – but with everyone just trying to run through and these constant non stop spawns and instant deaths – there really is never a group to work with to go up levels – unless you want to get stuck farming the same areas for hours until maybe a few people stop to help clear the way. The game would be much more fun if people didn’t try to sprint their way to the last areas – which is the common pve headset. there really isn’t any rpg value in it, just a bunch of players who want loot, they don’t want a fun gaming adventure – just bragging rights. like i said, it’s not even worth complaining about when half the problem is the actual players.

I sprint because of the spawn system. If i didn’t i would never get anywhere, because mobs spawn on top of mobs on top of mobs. Like trying to stop the tide with a bucket.

I think this was poorly planned content. It is designed for massive groups of players , which isn’t feasible for any type of content.

The massive groups last for the first day or two, then dwindle.

The content scaling doesn’t work effectively.

I really wish they would implement feedback In-Game instead of relying on forum feedback.

Black Regent.5897:

It’s not hard. It’s schizophrenic.

At least it fits the theme.

lol!! – i was saying the same thing with wvw – someone is not playing with a full deck…

“make the servers competitive and form completely unbalanced leagues….They will LOVE it!!” -twitch-

“insta-kills for no apparent reason, yeah…that’s hot!!”

skullmount.1758:

Frosty and Frosty Law Firm.4981:

You(The players) asked for harder content.

You(The players) will now deal with what you get.

Except not all of us players asked for harder content.
Everything up till the Cutthroat Politics (namely the candidate trials, or whatever the defend gold piles thing was, when they ‘fixed’ it) was fine (at least for me). From there it went downhill. Now its get in the zergs in the beginning and crank out those achievements or don’t get to do much (or be EXTREMELY frustrated) of the new content.

Yeah, the smug self righteous crowd this one is part of can’t seem to grasp that we all didn’t ask for this. Hell, didn’t ask for LS at kittening all. DID buy a game that was about fighting a war against the Elder Dragons, a concept that has been ignored for the better part of a year, and completely with this so-called ‘story’.

This event just awful. Elites running everywhere. God, forbid you fall behind the zerg! I am going to find better things to do.

Heaven forbid you can’t rush through it solo on zerker gear.

You’ll need reasonable defensive stats, good healing, a speed boost, and a stun break or two. That’s it.

A lot of the time there’s a group event blocking progress where you’ll catch up to, or have to wait for, a group of players to beat it anyway. Don’t need more than about 5 for any of them.

The Tower of Nightmares is an open-world map designed to challenge even the hardiest of groups. Fighting side by side, players will need to rely on each other to survive.

It clearly says “GROUPS”. Not “SOLO-PLAYERS”.

Ben K.6238:

a speed boost

Seems to be the big one, so that you can outrange those mobs.

Other than that, i have been running with a mix of soldier and magi for the whole week, and found it anything but fun.

sephard.2470:

The Tower of Nightmares is an open-world map designed to challenge even the hardiest of groups. Fighting side by side, players will need to rely on each other to survive.

It clearly says “GROUPS”. Not “SOLO-PLAYERS”.

And then they go on to talk about solo instances, with the end result being mixed signaling.

Frosty and Frosty Law Firm.4981:

You(The players) asked for harder content.

You(The players) will now deal with what you get.

As such we shall continue the cycle for now we (The players) ask for easy content for then we shall moan how fast it was over for then we shall ask for harder content.

Fun aside, while “accidental training” happens, as soon as other players are present, why would I not play with them? I only ever experience a great comraderie of helping others. My only “complaint” would be that sometimes the respawn rate is so high you kinda want to move forward and not fight another vet/silver at the same spot.

I’d ordinarily tend to agree that this content is designed for a zerg, however there are specific achievements included in “The Nightmare Within” that are designed for non zerg play. Tower Explorer and Tower of Nightmare Survivor are two such examples.

If those achievements earned the larger number of achievement points, instead of the ones made simple in a zerg, then players would approach the Living Story with a different perspective.

If achievement points scaled with group size (more players present equals less achievement points) that would drive players wishing more difficult content to attempt smaller groups and still allow players wishing less difficult content to zerg up.

The combination of changing how achievement points are awarded per task, and scaling achievement points per number of players present, would be awesome in my humble opinion.

I get the tower is a group thing, but you bring 1 other person along for the (stated solo-able, and actually are easily soloed) instances and the scaling jumps beyond ridiculous. I’m not wearing ‘blue’ armor/weapons, not even ‘green’ or only ‘yellow’, but still can’t seem to make a dent in some of the spawns in those instances if I have a single friend with me once there’s four or five veterans wandering around. I can see dying a few times, but each time the two of us fell we should have been able to take down at least one vet instead of being lucky to kill a minion. ALSO, with ‘heavy’ unbroken armor no vet should be one hitting me like they were.

I know people complained it was too easy, but this release, and all since I started again with the Aetherblades are just aggravating. But that was their fix. Instead of making the scaling grade sharper they upped the baseline. It’s kinda forcing casual players to the way side. Which is sad, because I liked the game until this started happening. Maybe, if another event or two goes by and these issues aren’t addressed, I’ll just shelve the game and leave MMOs entirely since CoH was shut down last year. More people leave games because they’re hard and consistently frustrating instead of fun than because they’re boring (look at WoW for instance, they even made it easier which seemed impossible to me).

Rainshine.5493:

If you’re on a less populated server, guest to JQ. I play odd hours (either afternoons EST or sometimes 7 a.m. EST or after midnight) and tower has been plenty populated every time I’ve been in there.

As a fellow JQ’er, I was going to say the same thing. Because I’ve been pinning up during NA to Zerg the tower a floor at a time. We should have pins in the tower often actually.

If you don’t see one, take the initiative and ask for a zerg in map chat. What I do is set a 5 minute countdown until running the floor. Every minute I call it out in map chat, “Running the 3rd floor in 5 minutes” for example. About the 2 min mark I put down a try of food. By the time I get to 0, there’s enough people to Zerg the floor.

Another hint is to wait for that initial first floor event. When it ends, there’s usually a good number of people grouped up that are going to run the tower.