The Great Item Squish (or Not) of Pandaria

[holybernard]

This is bullshit its not even needed.

[Baelic]

I'm a person with Aspergers Syndrome, which is within the autism spectrum and my IQ is on the high end of the scale. Your way of writing, your idiotic prejudice and your wrongful assumptions just to prove your point here shows that you're not as intelligent as you'd like to think.

For the record, it's currently being debated amongst scientists wether Asperger's Syndrome is actually a part of the Autistic Spectrum Disoders. So just a fare warning you may want to do some research next time

[Soilets]

Alrighty ! The squish idea is a go imo as we saw on the blue post its gonna get real awkward after some time (not that the difference is not awkward now ) but yeah stats are gonna look crazy if action is not taken . This whole thread reminds me of a friend of mine who quit wow a couple months ago, what he said was "Well its not wow anymore its basically a new game " he went on about the crazy health(also heard this from other people saying its ridiculously high) and how he missed the whole system where you had a green item and you would think "cool i m ok" ,when you had a blue "woohoo i m great" and when you had a purple on you (just one piece) you were considered server elite etc..

[Deleted]

Mega damage please. Disgaea does it, and it's amazing. I don't see why they can't just increase the number caps further for stuff like threat and max hp. Computational power has increased enough since 2004 or whenever this game came out, it's a shitty excuse. Use longs instead of integers.Not only do I simply love super high numbers, I'm concerned that soloing old content will become harder. Right now I can solo challenging encounters just as Kael'Thas in TK. With this compression, it probably wouldn't be possible anymore. It doesn't just feel like I got nerfed, but I actually did! Yes, I realise the stats of the enemies goes down as well, but look at the graph: the difference in % between 60 and 85 is enormous, yet almost flat in the new model.

[valknut]

Nope Nope Nope. Part of the allure of WoW is seeing your character grow in power, health, etc. All stats are increased. I don't care if at level 100 I have 1,000,000 health. I think this is a part of growing stronger. Not to nerf the numbers so the Dev's don't have as much work to do. Sorry, I want my sword to have 10,000 strength on it for the pure aesthetics. I don't care if the item squish will yield the same effect with a world-wide nerf. Keep it going the way it is, please. I'll subscribe for another 5 years.

[Deleted]

I like to say squish. Squish squish squish "giggle"
Yeah, I'd like to have them squish our stats. xD

[Amiszilla]

Sqqqqqqqqqqqqquish. i say squish us by at least 15x. Print. Done. alot of people are getting misconceptions that we wont be able to do things that we do today. that is not true, if everything, and i mean EVERYTHING is scaled down by a certain percentage (probably would be affected if there is a greater percentage of squish for higher levels) everything would be the same. you'd solo magitherions lair in the same time, same stuff done, same frequency of heals done, but just in smaller numbers. no difference was made. GO SQUISH US AND SAVE AZEROTH!

[Kael]

All of the massive, massive numbers of complaints about the squish making old content "harder" need to review figure 5. If itemlevel squish means that we take out the jumps in greens being equivalent to previous expansion epics (making the cata greens ilevel 200 instead of 280ish, before considering back-squish), that means that, at 85, your gear will be less of a huge jump than it was previously. That is true. However -- and this is the big, important part -- if your itemlevel in 85 gear is 150, there will still be exponential scaling for MoP gear. Patch 5.1 could see you in itemlevel 215, and you'd seriously outgear cata, much less BC. The massive increase in your power over previous expansions will *still* exist.

[Yellercat]

Sorry, I want my sword to have 10,000 strength on it for the pure aesthetics.

I was going to reply with a link of the Dragon ball Z guy screaming its over 9 thousand..to bad its been over done.

[Profyrion]

Since we're talking about possibly hitting a wall for processing budget, you should think about graphing item power differently from item level. The goal would be for the item power graph to look roughly like one side of a bell curve. At the lowest player levels, item power (basically stat budget) should scale slowly with level, especially since levels come faster at that end of the graph and most growth will come from base stats and new abilities. At mid player levels item power will scale drastically (nearly vertical) with each tier. Then at the highest player levels item power will scale slowly until it nearly (but not quite) levels off. This is fine, because the incremental change in relative power between item levels will be large on a human scale, but small as a percentage of overall power. Let me give you an example. Let's assume the maximum player level allowed by the engine is 255. These numbers are only for illustrative purposes. Somewhere around level 200 you pick up an ilevel 850 epic sword with 10,236 strength. The next tier comes along and you loot an ilevel 856 epic sword with 10,428 strength, gaining 192 strength in the new tier. To the player, that feels like a significant power increase. You gained 192 more strength! But 192 is only a gain of 1.875% over an item with 10,236 strength. In reality, you've only gained 1.875% in relative power for 6 item levels. That might still be too powerful for actual in-game items at that extreme end of the scale, but you get the idea. Small percentage, big increments, huge perceptual impact. This works because:

• It allows you to set a maximum theoretical limit on item power (or stat budget) in the engine (based on processing budget) and scale everything DOWN (backwards) from there to item level 1 following the shape of the curve. This essentially becomes your roadmap for item power up to the maximum player level, even if the game never actually goes that high.
• You can then adjust player and NPC health pools to match the intended difficulty. Follow with abilities and spells.
• It gives players at all levels the sense of growth and accomplishment they need and have come to expect from each step in progression.

Some form of item crunch or inflation will still take place depending on where you set the bar. You could say that we're "in the middle" now and not have to deviate too far from the existing system. Simply start the deceleration end of the curve after level 100 or so (depending on your predicted cap). Also, you can still do each new tier with item level increases of 6 (like players are used to), but you have to disassociate item level from stat budget a little at both ends of the spectrum. Six points won't mean the same percentage difference in stat budget across the entire graph. Basically, at the "end of the game" player growth will be small, but still feel significant on the surface, because of human scales. If you continue to scale item power on a roughly linear path like you're doing now, then at the highest conceivable player levels you wind up with health pools and damage numbers displayed as powers of ten and everyone's Recount reads in scientific notation. The Mega Damage bit was funny though.

[Creptius]

Squishing the stats looks like the best option. Read some of the comments on the wow forums and i don't think they understand. The game isn't going to get any harder or more difficult if the stats go down. They're going down by a flat percentage (i would assume) so everything is going to be lower. As an example, instead of hitting 10,000 you'll be hitting 1,000. This changes nothing but the numbers.

[Isilbêth]

This inflation of the numbers and its consequences is a very serious problem. Blizzard must be cautious. If Item Level Squish frustrates the players, who won't be able to solo any more old raid content for instance, it could lead to a very severe decline of WoW, and a big loss of profit for the company. The best solution will not be easy to find.

[Aedail]

surely everyone uses miks scrolling battle text anyway so there's no problem?..

There IS a problem, because while your Mik's can condense the numbers as a display, behind the scenes the computer/game are still computing based off the big ones. Eventually, it will slow down, and further eventually, we'll hit a cap of what the data type can even handle.

[Gorlakand]

6 million dmg! WTF!?! Are where gonna have like 30 million hp?

[Seref]

I vote for MEGA DAMAGE!

If they "squish" it, a level 90 wouldn't even be able to solo AQ40... >_<
So it'd still feel like a nerf, since 80s and 85s could solo it. And achievement hunting IS a part of the game for some people...

I only play to solo old content, do achievements, dailies, quests/lore, pvp, and collect vanity items...

I don't want to not be able to solo Ragnaros at level 90 <_<

[Exotath]

WTB ADDON FOR MEGA DAMAGE POP UP ON CRITS. Srsly.


Anyways, I support the item squish.

[dragon171]

Big numbers please, really don't want to climb up and up from each expansion, only for it to now just plumit to the ground with tiny numbers...

[Seregon]

I vote for MEGA DAMAGE!

If they "squish" it, a level 90 wouldn't even be able to solo AQ40... >_<
So it'd still feel like a nerf, since 80s and 85s could solo it. And achievement hunting IS a part of the game for some people...

I only play to solo old content, do achievements, dailies, quests/lore, pvp, and collect vanity items...

I don't want to not be able to solo Ragnaros at level 90 <_<

My main concern would be for soloing low level stuff as well... Soloing old world raids and dungeons isn't really something they should be supporting, but doing the item squish kinda throws that whole scene up in the air. Not sure I'd like that...

[laxbrah]

i had this question cross my mind several times but was never ever able to come up with a real "solution" except for the fact of blizzards idea of the Item level squish. yes i know we all want to see big numbers blah blah blah along with big crits. If it is still the same % damage you are doing now, then who cares. people [i feel] shouldn't thrive off of BIG numbers and a crit for 80k, yeah its sweet but with the way everything is going and potentially growing to the point where our computers and their servers are not going to be able to handle everything all at once. with stat reduction it makes it feel "not right" but i mean, its not about us, its about what works as a whole. and in my opinion, i think item level squish would suffice the problem that they are running into.

[Penguirrel]

i'll be fine if this still allows me to solo older content stuff as I can today with my incoming health drop