One step, instant, permenant fix for sub-cap balance

[Apollet]

So I had an idea that came to mind today that I think would revolutionize the way the entire game, from creation to cap, is balanced.

Right now, changes are made to max level without any regard to old content or low level balance. This isn't necessarily the developer's fault. They need to balance max level and can't iron out 100's of spells for 90 levels every time they make a change. But 7 years of this mentality has lead to 4 expansions of increasingly unbalanced and outdated content.

Here's the solution I propose:

All spells will be based on a ratio of base spell damage/healing to base health at max level and this ratio will be multiplied by the base health at any given level to give the base damage at that level. The spell power/ attack power coefficients remain unchanged.

Here's the process from a simple stand point:
- Spell X does 10,000 base damage at 90. Divide this by base health at 90 (~166,000) and you get ~0.06. Now you multiply this by the base health of your character at any given level and that's its base damage. So at 70, where base health of a priest is ~5,000, the spell would now do 600 base damage.

I'll put this in perspective of some abilities that are horrendously overpowered right now:

Shield Slam:

At level 90, it averages out at about 16500 base damage, or about 10% of base health. At level 70, it has a base damage of around 7000, which makes it roughly 17 times more powerful than at 90 (relative). If you multiply base health for a warrior (6200) by .1, you get 620 base damage. So before, a prot warrior with 1500 AP would have a base shield slam hit of 7000+1.5*1500 = 9250, a ludicrous amount at that level. Under the new simple base health - based damage, his shield slam hits for 620+1.5*1500 = 2800, which is far more reasonable (considering this is before armor reductions).

Rejuvenation:

At 90, 4500 base heal per 3 sec, 39.2% SP coefficient. This is about 2.6% of base health per tick. Extrapolate this to level 70, and you now have a heal over time that does 5200*.026 = 135 base healing + 39.2% of ~1k SP for a 70 druid, or ~500 per tick, instead of the 6k+ crits that you see now.

The amazing thing about this is that once they attach a base health coefficient to every spell, they never have to touch low level balance, EVER. Every time a balance change is made at level cap, all levels lower will automatically change and keep a much more continuous level of balance throughout the game.

Other huge bonuses:
- Low level content instantly gets a nice boost. Healing/damage become under control at the appropriate levels and most, if not all content, gets a nice boost in difficulty.
- Players get a more continuous experience leveling. They don't hit a wall of frustration when they go from God-Mode at 80 to dying from 2 mobs at 87.
- This sort of technology can be attached to the level-reducing system that was in development. Now, all that needs to be implemented is a way for your base health to be reduced to that of a level 60, say, for molten core. They can already reduce your gear's ilevel to 65-70 for MC, why not have all your spells instantly scale appropriately because all they had to do was nerf your health to the appropriate level?

This sort of idea has very wide implications and could really inject some life back into the older parts of the game. What are your thoughts on this?

[Dazzy]

So I had an idea that came to mind today that I think would revolutionize the way the entire game, from creation to cap, is balanced.

Right now, changes are made to max level without any regard to old content or low level balance. This isn't necessarily the developer's fault. They need to balance max level and can't iron out 100's of spells for 90 levels every time they make a change. But 7 years of this mentality has lead to 4 expansions of increasingly unbalanced and outdated content.

Here's the solution I propose:

All spells will be based on a ratio of base spell damage/healing to base health at max level and this ratio will be multiplied by the base health at any given level to give the base damage at that level. The spell power/ attack power coefficients remain unchanged.

Here's the process from a simple stand point:
- Spell X does 10,000 base damage at 90. Divide this by base health at 90 (~166,000) and you get ~0.06. Now you multiply this by the base health of your character at any given level and that's its base damage. So at 70, where base health of a priest is ~5,000, the spell would now do 600 base damage.

I'll put this in perspective of some abilities that are horrendously overpowered right now:

Shield Slam:

At level 90, it averages out at about 16500 base damage, or about 10% of base health. At level 70, it has a base damage of around 7000, which makes it roughly 17 times more powerful than at 90 (relative). If you multiply base health for a warrior (6200) by .1, you get 620 base damage. So before, a prot warrior with 1500 AP would have a base shield slam hit of 7000+1.5*1500 = 9250, a ludicrous amount at that level. Under the new simple base health - based damage, his shield slam hits for 620+1.5*1500 = 2800, which is far more reasonable (considering this is before armor reductions).

Rejuvenation:

At 90, 4500 base heal per 3 sec, 39.2% SP coefficient. This is about 2.6% of base health per tick. Extrapolate this to level 70, and you now have a heal over time that does 5200*.026 = 135 base healing + 39.2% of ~1k SP for a 70 druid, or ~500 per tick, instead of the 6k+ crits that you see now.

The amazing thing about this is that once they attach a base health coefficient to every spell, they never have to touch low level balance, EVER. Every time a balance change is made at level cap, all levels lower will automatically change and keep a much more continuous level of balance throughout the game.

Other huge bonuses:
- Low level content instantly gets a nice boost. Healing/damage become under control at the appropriate levels and most, if not all content, gets a nice boost in difficulty.
- Players get a more continuous experience leveling. They don't hit a wall of frustration when they go from God-Mode at 80 to dying from 2 mobs at 87.
- This sort of technology can be attached to the level-reducing system that was in development. Now, all that needs to be implemented is a way for your base health to be reduced to that of a level 60, say, for molten core. They can already reduce your gear's ilevel to 65-70 for MC, why not have all your spells instantly scale appropriately because all they had to do was nerf your health to the appropriate level?

This sort of idea has very wide implications and could really inject some life back into the older parts of the game. What are your thoughts on this?

Old content isn't balanced around a base coefficient of a players health. Some people do content 5 levels below it, some do it 4 levels over. Everything old would still need to be retuned, albeit maybe only once, ever. But it would still need to be done, and not worth it in blizzards eyes for something that a handful of people actually utilize.

[Apollet]

This isn't a targetted solution focused on making twinks balanced, or making leveling hard. it's about making a one time institutional change that removes all future need for fine tuning of the low level game. it's kind of like scenarios: few people find them to be the highlight of their day. Most do them a few times & pass by, but they are still given development time because a large portion pass through. Leveling is similar: even if you don't care about level to level balance, this small change in code (relative to balancing every spell individually) improves the quality of the entire game.

[Cyrops]

After 'working hard' to get to the point where I am today, I will be severely pissed if my damage gets nerfed by ludicrous amounts and things take longer to kill.
I'm sure more people will agree on this with me.