Item Level Squish, Kor'kron Dark Shaman, 5.4 RPPM Mechanics Change, Blue Posts, Art

[Deleted]

No everything can be scaled easily, your not thinking big picture. All the ratios can be brought closer together with the same exponential grow. They just have to stop using full percentages with their scaling.

"can" is a powerful word. They surely can but it would make the game completely ridiculous at low levels and we would get the same problem after few more expansions. That's also one of the reasons they have to get rid of exponentiality. Currently lvl 1 crits for ~50, a lvl 90 with bis gear and raidbuffs are critting like 500k-1m+ depending on loads of things. Even if they made lvl1 base to 1 damage and crit 2 it would still get rather high on next expansion.

Looks like YOU don't understand maths. Scaling down, with a multiplier, can't transform an exponential function into a linear one.

I understand math just fine. Someone just needs to practise on reading. People keep on using "scale" when they are NOT going to scale it down. Item squish is not about dividing everything with xx multiplier. They are getting rid the exponentiality which isn't done by dividing. I would suggest reading the original thread http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...29-of-Pandaria again. Just to quote using Blizzards own example pictures.

It's not a dividing downscale. GC also said they have tried downscaling and it felt really wrong. That's why giving buffs is the only way to "fix" raid soloing. It doesn't fix a plethora of other problems. There's no absolute right way to fix it or they would have done it already. No matter what it will be artificial and feel really awkward and the game will suffer because of it. As a programmer I do understand the need but what I'm saying is that it IS a serious problem that can't be easily solved.

[Shaede]

To me there is absolutely no difference between doing 10k dps against a boss with 61 million health (LK 25) and doing 150k dps against a boss with 990 million health (25 player lei shen). Stop acting like a bunch of crybabies. Seriously, it's embarrassing.

[Shudder]

I'm one of those watch the world burn kind of people. Even though I'm against the squish I'd like them to do it. Just to see the carnage. If they have the balls to piss off their playerbase when it's in the process of bleeding subs already then I have to hand it to them. I do enjoy big balls. Let it burn!

[tyrindor]

To me there is absolutely no difference between doing 10k dps against a boss with 61 million health (LK 25) and doing 150k dps against a boss with 990 million health (25 player lei shen). Stop acting like a bunch of crybabies. Seriously, it's embarrassing.

Key words "to me".

Just because other people feel differently doesn't make them crybabies. Don't be so selfish. If doing 150k DPS or 10k DPS doesn't bother you, then why would you even bother posting about the item squish? If true, you obviously wouldn't care if it happened or not.

[Unholyground]

Key words "to me".

Just because other people feel differently doesn't make them crybabies. Don't be so selfish. If doing 150k DPS or 10k DPS doesn't bother you, then why would you even bother posting about the item squish? If true, you obviously wouldn't care if it happened or not.

Or he was voicing the fact that many people do not care either way. Both are loud minorities.

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I'm one of those watch the world burn kind of people. Even though I'm against the squish I'd like them to do it. Just to see the carnage. If they have the balls to piss off their playerbase when it's in the process of bleeding subs already then I have to hand it to them. I do enjoy big balls. Let it burn!

The worst that could happen is WoW goes free to play and gets a huge chunk of player base back, and with the amount of stuff they are developing for the online store there will be no shortage of income in the end.

[tyrindor]

Or he was voicing the fact that many people do not care either way. Both are loud minorities.

Most of the people who would not like this change are casuals, which is the majority of the fanbase. They will be confused, hate the fact they feel nerfed, and quit. These players don't research the game, they just sign on and play when they can and don't like changes. The majority will not even know about this stuff until it has happened. If they go through with this, the subs will drop by a very large chunk. I would argue it'd probably be the biggest sub drop in WoW history. We'll just have to wait and see what happens?

If WoW goes F2P, it will turn into a microtransaction game and ultimately cost more to play than it does now if you wish to stay competitive. You'll end up having to buy character slots, bank space, consumables, etc. Then if it's really bad they'll add buffs items, dungeons, raids, quests, and other types of P2W items to the store like many F2P MMOs have.

[Unholyground]

Most of the people who would not like this change are casuals, which is the majority of the fanbase. They will be confused, hate the fact they feel nerfed, and quit. These players don't research the game, they just sign on and play when they can and don't like changes. The majority will not even know about this stuff until it has happened. If they go through with this, the subs will drop by a very large chunk. I would argue it'd probably be the biggest sub drop in WoW history. We'll just have to wait and see what happens?

If WoW goes F2P, it will turn into a microtransaction game and ultimately cost more to play than it does now if you wish to stay competitive. You'll end up having to buy character slots, bank space, consumables, etc. Then if it's really bad they'll add buffs items, dungeons, raids, quests, and other types of P2W items to the store like many F2P MMOs have.

No F2P would not ruin the game or cost more you still have to PAY FOR THE GAME, that is one thing that boggles my mind when people try to take it there. You pay for the battle chest and all the previous expansions beyond the chest plus the current ones, that's like 80$ going to Blizzard right there. Then on top of that they have all the vanity shit that a lot of people already buy, then xp, justice, and valor boosts. They would not ruin the game and they can still keep it to where progression is still necessary to have the best of the best shit. Pessimism will be the end of this world not optimism.

[Shaede]

Key words "to me".

Just because other people feel differently doesn't make them crybabies. Don't be so selfish. If doing 150k DPS or 10k DPS doesn't bother you, then why would you even bother posting about the item squish? If true, you obviously wouldn't care if it happened or not.

It really does tho. The damage you do only matters in relation to how much health the mobs and bosses have. You can hit for 300k dps but if the bosses have 80 billion health, you are going to look weak as shit. Crying is exactly what you are doing because the reality is the strength of the characters will still be progressing in relation to the boss' healthpool.

p.s. I hope for an item squish and when it doesn't happen because all of the complainers need to be carebeared, I will hope that blizzard makes the mobs healthpools insanely large to make you feel like weaksauce anyway. That's what I would do. Then you can see your 2 million crits flash on the screen and still have to fight for another 5 minutes to kill something. SO STRONG..SO PROGRESSED.. LOL like I said it's embarrassing.

[cherb]

I hope they build a dam for the item squish for the inevitable flood of delicious tears that will spill from the game. Also, if you are the person saying that "old content won't be soloable", please stop. You look like an idiot.

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Bullshit. Provide source.

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Exactly this. The whiny vocal minority wanted heroics to be hard and we had catacalysm mess. Now we have the whiny vocal minority wanting a squish. If they have the balls to go through with this there is going to be an insane backlash from the majority of players, the ones who don't go to the forums, when they log in that day and see how insanely nerfed they are it's going to be hilarious watching servers become ghost towns. I'm actually looking forward to the carnage.

You're pretty fucking whiny to be complaining about people whining.

[Iyarashii]

I hope they build a dam for the item squish for the inevitable flood of delicious tears that will spill from the game. Also, if you are the person saying that "old content won't be soloable", please stop. You look like an idiot.

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You're pretty fucking whiny to be complaining about people whining.

Than explain to us all how it WON'T break old content soloing oh all knowing master.

[Azrile]

To me there is absolutely no difference between doing 10k dps against a boss with 61 million health (LK 25) and doing 150k dps against a boss with 990 million health (25 player lei shen). Stop acting like a bunch of crybabies. Seriously, it's embarrassing.

I am with you, it is funny how irrational people are about a random number. Has no one realized that when you level 1-60, your main attack spell almost constantly does the same amount of damage vs the mobs in the zone you are fighting. You kill a boar in westall, your icebolt does 28% of the boars health. you kill a boar in Blasted lands, your icebolt does 28% of the health of the boar. How does not ´make you feel less powerful´..

This is definitely one of those times where GC is listening too much to the vocal crybabies who don´t understand what they are even crying about. Yeah, it will feel ackward for about the first 1 day after the switch.. then it will feel normal again. I mean, i am at the point now where bosses health make absolutely no sense, especially in cases where it is inflated due to certain mechanisms.... everything comes down to %´s anyway.. the absolute numbers don´t matter. If I told you we wiped when Mags was at 81,000,332 health, most people would not even be able to tell if we were close or not. Everyone uses %s anyway, and in the case of dps and recount.. it is all relative to other classes. If I did 80,000 dps on a boss, nobody knows crap unless I follow that up by complainign about being last, or bottom half or whatever.

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Most of the people who would not like this change are casuals, which is the majority of the fanbase. They will be confused, hate the fact they feel nerfed, and quit. These players don't research the game, they just sign on and play when they can and don't like changes. The majority will not even know about this stuff until it has happened. If they go through with this, the subs will drop by a very large chunk. I would argue it'd probably be the biggest sub drop in WoW history. We'll just have to wait and see what happens?

If WoW goes F2P, it will turn into a microtransaction game and ultimately cost more to play than it does now if you wish to stay competitive. You'll end up having to buy character slots, bank space, consumables, etc. Then if it's really bad they'll add buffs items, dungeons, raids, quests, and other types of P2W items to the store like many F2P MMOs have.

No, casual players will shoot three icebolts at a boar and watch it die, same as always. You do not feel nerfed because of the numbers that fly up, you feel nerfed if suddenly you had to cast 5 icebolts for a boar to die. The people crying are the people with recount installed, who like to brag about thier 1M crits every 5 mins over vent.

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No F2P would not ruin the game or cost more you still have to PAY FOR THE GAME, that is one thing that boggles my mind when people try to take it there. You pay for the battle chest and all the previous expansions beyond the chest plus the current ones, that's like 80$ going to Blizzard right there. Then on top of that they have all the vanity shit that a lot of people already buy, then xp, justice, and valor boosts. They would not ruin the game and they can still keep it to where progression is still necessary to have the best of the best shit. Pessimism will be the end of this world not optimism.

what boggles my mind is the people who do not even know the basics of the game, yet talk about it. All of the old expansions are included in the original battlechest. You do not have to buy old expansions separate, and it is very easy to buy the battlechest for $5.

But the biggest question about F2P is ´why?´ If people could read finiancial statements they would realize that revenues are great. The lost subscribers were almost all the very cheap ones fro China. WOW is earning as much money now as it ever has. So... WHY would the devs spend months of dev time breaking up the game to make it ready for f2p.. WHY? would blizzard mess with it´s cash cow and risk losing that 1B per year? You are wasting a lot of dev time, and risking a huge cash cow to go f2p which has very limited upside.

And finally. SWTOR, AOC, EQ2, LOTRO... EVERY major game that died as a subscription model is also dying as free2play. Free2play is not some magic bullet. In fact. DDO online is the ONLY game that ever announced it was making more money after going f2p, and that is because it was the first AAA game to make the switch. SWTOR, EQ2 and AOC certainly haven´t magically recovered.

People need to stop thinking of f2p as the ´modern´ way to go. No, it was a last grasp of breath for DDO, that worked, and then for a bunch of other games where it didn´t work. When EQ2 or SWTOR start announcing 1B per year in cashshop sales, then you can think it is right for WOW.

Simply no way Blizzard is going to risk what they have now, even if they were making half as much as they have now. It is solid, stable money.. you simply don´t risk that for some crazy system that hasn´t worked for any other MMO except 1.

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Than explain to us all how it WON'T break old content soloing oh all knowing master.

Wow... can you read? check out the blue text above that you are replying to.

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I understand the idea of an item/stat squish but personally I don't see the need for it. If I crit for 500,000 or 50,000 why would most people find one more confusing than the other? Higher numbers are not more difficult to understand imo. What I do believe though is that seeing my numbers go DOWN because suddenly we have all been squished will feel very meh to a lot of people (myself included). Yes we would still have the same power in relation to mobs/bosses as we have now, and in most cases it probably will not make low level content harder to solo (some exceptions could be as you get to previous expac to current maybe), but it would still FEEL like we are less powerful. That to me would feel very disappointing. If it happens, then after a few months we probably wont feel that way anymore but I still don't want to have my characters go through a phase in their "lives" where they went though a strange world event whereby everyone/thing turned into a weakling.

I think the reason for it is 2 things. First, it is a display issue. For combat logs, and on our screens, there is just too many numbers flying around and it is too fast. it makes it unreadable. the second is a performance issue... the more digits in a number, the more bits it requires.

I agree with you about the brief adjustment phase, but I think people would get over it fast. In questing, you basically know how many spells kill a quest mob... the numbers aren´t that important.. if you miss, you know you will need another one, if you crit maybe one less.. but in most cases.. 5-7 spells kill a quest mob. In dungeons.. you are doing your rotation regardless.. and most people have bosses on %´s... the actual numbers are very unimportant except for epeen.

[BrerBear]

Than explain to us all how it WON'T break old content soloing oh all knowing master.

Until they explain it in detail, I'm in your camp. Something will be lost.
If we're getting a buff, will it be permanent when we wander around the world? Only in instances?
Details are needed.

[Blur4stuff]

I support a squish. Once numbers start getting too big they lose meaning. It just doesn't seem like a big deal and can be silly. I can remember being a lot happier about that first 1k hit or 1k dps than 100k.

[MrKnubbles]

You didn't really answer his question though, why exactly does this bother you? It makes the game feel rewarding. If people are raiding 8-16 hours/week, or even more, they want to feel rewarded. That's why we see large gear upgrades in raids over the course of an expansion, and also why new characters going into a new expansion see massive upgrades. I *love* getting to a new expansion on alts and seeing these massive upgrades, it makes leveling more fun and rewarding.

Why would people want to spend 8-16 hours a week raiding for minor stat upgrades that don't really make all that big of a difference? The gear gaps are there because they are a large part of the game being fun, at the current ilvl, if we were only getting +10 main stat upgrades per piece of gear, it wouldn't even be noticeable with a full set of new tier gear. There would be no real reason to put tons of effort into raiding for most people, and many people would quit because their basically "gear capped" already. There are other MMOs out there, like GW2, that allow you to spend hours and hours doing dungeons and raids for virtually no stat difference in gear. The #1 complaint I see on GW2's forums is the fact there is nothing to do because there's no gear worth getting.

I don't think you understand. This is to normalize previous gear and streamline the transition of old gear to current content. Raid gear will continue to increase in power at the same rate that it has in the past. You're not losing any power.

You may like getting huge upgrades from one expansion to another but I feel that it makes the game much easier. I'm under powered if I don't take the new upgrades but I'm over powered with them. By normalizing the stats, we would be, well, normal powered.

[tyrindor]

I don't think you understand. This is to normalize previous gear and streamline the transition of old gear to current content. Raid gear will continue to increase in power at the same rate that it has in the past. You're not losing any power.

You may like getting huge upgrades from one expansion to another but I feel that it makes the game much easier. I'm under powered if I don't take the new upgrades but I'm over powered with them. By normalizing the stats, we would be, well, normal powered.

I understand what this is doing perfectly, it's going to give 1-94 gear a linear gear curve, then a steep gear curve for level 95s. He was making it sound like he wanted ALL gear to be a very steady linear curve, which would result in an unrewarding raid experience. The values at 95 would still be a very small fraction of what they are now at level 90. We would go from getting 250-350k crits to 5k crits, and that is a power loss in my eyes. I don't care if it's relative or not. To me, it feels weaker and it is weaker, and it ruins my immersion and nostalgia from previous expansions. I totally get why some people don't have this mindset, but many of us do feel this way.

As for solo content, it will definitely impact it. You are going from multiple steep curves, to a linear steady curve. The difference from a raid in classic and a raid in BC would be very small in terms of numbers. Our ilevels would be much closer to old content too, and that is why GC said in order to make it so we can still solo they'd give level 95 characters a stat buff when in old raids. This is a bad design and makes everything feel fake.

I think i'm done discussing this for the time being though. It's either going to happen or not going to happen. If it does happen, I expect heavy sub loss especially from the casual community. Hopefully I am wrong. I'm still holding hope that they don't do it.

[Cassidin]

Yes, you would see your damage decrease but the amount of time it takes to kill enemies wouldn't be any greater because the enemies would be scaled back as well.

I've got this great new idea to make F1 racing safer. Make it a requirement for the teams to make cars that cannot go faster than 60MPH and shorten the tracks so the race still takes about the same length of time. It will make the race so much safer and because all the cars will have the same kind of limitation and the track so much shorter it will still be just as exciting I'm sure. Um.... Ok, maybe not...

[tyrindor]

I've got this great new idea to make F1 racing safer. Make it a requirement for the teams to make cars that cannot go faster than 60MPH and shorten the tracks so the race still takes about the same length of time. It will make the race so much safer and because all the cars will have the same kind of limitation and the track so much shorter it will still be just as exciting I'm sure. Um.... Ok, maybe not...

Excellent example.

I understand why some people don't feel that number size matters... but a good chunk fanbase does feel strongly about it. Most of the people pro-squish really don't care if it happens or not. On the other side, the anti-squish people feel like their game will be ruined and i've seen multiple comments the last fews day where people say they would quit when/if it happens. I've not seen anyone say they will quit if the squish doesn't happen.

[Cassidin]

I think the reason for it is 2 things. First, it is a display issue. For combat logs, and on our screens, there is just too many numbers flying around and it is too fast. it makes it unreadable. the second is a performance issue... the more digits in a number, the more bits it requires.

I agree with you about the brief adjustment phase, but I think people would get over it fast. In questing, you basically know how many spells kill a quest mob... the numbers aren´t that important.. if you miss, you know you will need another one, if you crit maybe one less.. but in most cases.. 5-7 spells kill a quest mob. In dungeons.. you are doing your rotation regardless.. and most people have bosses on %´s... the actual numbers are very unimportant except for epeen.

I can't really comment about the "too many numbers on the screen" issue as I just don't personally find that an issue. Maybe some do, so ok. As for the number of bits required - sure it will take a few more ns to calculate how to update the screen on the client - similarly on the server. Overall I cant see it making more than about 0.01fps difference to gameplay. I CAN see it freeing up a few bytes of a very old game that has a lot of stuff very hard coded (remember how they had to remove the keyring to free up the bytes required for something else?) for them to utilise for something else so maybe that is a concern for them.

I also personally think you are mistaken as to how quickly people will get over seeing themselves as nerfed. You are totally correct about general questing and just knowing how many attacks it takes to kill something and that's the important part.... However I know myself and from what others say to me that together with this I just like to see my character getting more powerful and this ISNT just down to how fast I can kill something. Imagine I can kill a strong tiger in 10 hits. Then someone nerfs me hard. At the same time they declaw the tiger so it cant damage me as much. Am I going to feel just as strong? No, I know I can maybe kill the tiger as fast but I know I can do this because it too is nerfed. We are both weaker and we know it. The actual numbers ARE unimportant theoretically, just like the colour quality of the items. It wouldnt MATTER if all items were suddenly white quality. Somehow I don't imagine many end game raiders would be particularly happy to be rewarded with white gear (however many people on here claim they wouldn't care - I personally do not believe that would be the real majority view). Perception is 9/10 of reality so the saying goes......

[grandpapeckinpah]

Most of the people who would not like this change are casuals, which is the majority of the fanbase. They will be confused, hate the fact they feel nerfed, and quit.

Seriously? First you tear into someone for voicing their opinions on the matter, then go on to make assumptions on behalf of "the majority" of the fanbase? Well as a casual player you can take that assumption and stick it up your ass. In no way to I want someone with your questionable reasoning skills speaking on my behalf.

As for myself, I really don't care about the squish as long as they are committed to keeping the old raids soloable, which as of right now it appears they are.

[Cassidin]

I support a squish. Once numbers start getting too big they lose meaning. It just doesn't seem like a big deal and can be silly. I can remember being a lot happier about that first 1k hit or 1k dps than 100k.

So was I...... In fact it was more like... "WOW I killed something yay! I think I'm going to like this game!" It's called being a new game and an exciting new experience. I have made MANY alts over the years and I can honestly tell you I do not at ALL thinking ANYTHING about the numbers I achieve in the first few levels of the game - its just a blur to get up to a higher level. The lower levels of the game now - after all these years - is no longer "gameplay" to me. I still enjoy it, but the enjoyment of levelling now is the challenge to myself to level as fast as I can. What I actually DO while leveling isnt any longer important to me.