Why everyone is complaining about numbers ?

[Deleted]

It is strange to me and maybe you can give a reasonable explanation why every streamer is bashing that numbers became bigger. Every expansion they were getting bigger and bigger. And if you dislike bigger number you can select % display.

I personally doesn't see a difference between having 22000 hp or 22000000 hp. It is just a number and anyway we will hve to switch and adjust to seeing different numbers.

What is the good reasoning against big numbers ? But please don't use "natural" example as this is not a legit reasoning.

[lightofdawn]

people want to find something to complain about. so they do

[Nanaboostme]

After thinking about for a while, I think ultimately, it's just natural.

[Deleted]

Here is why i find them kinda annoying(i can live with them though).

Back in the day on my mage. I knew my fireball would do 1000-2000 damage(made up, i really cant remember). I knew what my biggest crit was because i had critline like all my friends.

When someone did a big crit it was cool and we discussed it on vent.

Today playing on the beta i have no frigging clue what any of my abilities do in damage numbers. I can see from my recount what does the largest% of my damage, but i couldnt tell you what ability dealt the most damage and how much it did.

It removes a small aspect of the game for me.

You may call me stupid or whatever you want, but no my brain cant fathom the numbers and as such i just ignore them instead.

I still see if i crit because the numbers are bigger, but thats it.

[Thrif]

Large numbers are more difficult to understand on the fly, so to speak. If I fight something and see myself hitting for around 537 normally and then I have special attacks that deals 2516 damage, that's pretty easy to grasp without any problem. If I hit for 5436985 on normal hits and 29467376 on special attacks, that takes a lot more effort to process just how much damage I do and how effective my special attacks/buffs/procs/whatever are.

[Ryuda]

I dunno, it's never really bothered me, I mean, a number is a number is a number. I think a lot of people simply choose to stop caring about them after an arbitrary point, and then blame it on "Not being able to tell at a glance". To a certain degree, this may be true, but generally speaking, even at a glance, and average person will catch 4-5 numbers. if Somebody sees a phone number, without formatting, briefly, and is asked to repeat it (assuming it's not a gimmicky sequence like 0505 or something), most people will be able to give the first 4 or 5 back (This is actually the reason iirc that phone numbers are formatted in 3-4 number chunks.)

To the purpose of this concern though, I just approach it the same way, for example, I know offhand that my Starfire, without cooldowns or procs crits for 221,xxx on average, the x's tend to fluctuate with the combat system's "dice-roll". This is perhaps another reason people don't like big numbers, some people do read numbers essentially from right-to-left, or rather, starting with single units, and moving left. People who do do this are likely to view big numbers as if they're having wild swings in damage, and it feel like they can't remember what their abilities are actually doing. There's also the fact that people may not like seeing a larger effect from the dice roll, in a world where my starfire crits for say, 2,21x; so a 90% squish, it seems like there is much less variance, as your spell is (probably) going to be 2,210-2,219,rather than 221,000-221,999, since the "scary decimals" are truncated or rounded by the combat engine (I don't recall offhand exactly how WoW deals with decimals in damage).

With WoW's new backend system supporting number well beyond 2.1 Billion (I think I saw a screenie of a bugged mob with roughly 900 Quadrillion HP), I think nerfing numbers every expansion/every other expansion essentially because "Big numbers are scary" is a little useless, as there are better ways to deal with it (Which were actually mentioned during development of Warlords as possible solutions to this issue. (Although they were likely dismissed due to the 2.1 Billion limit on integers at the time.) The easiest, and likely best way to accomplish this (and there are addons that actually do implement this in WoW, such as MSBT) is to abbreviate numbers at some point, for example, let's suppose we're some point in Legion now, and my Starfire (Or Lunar Strike, I suppose ;p) is critting for 2,21x,xxx. Suddenly, the amount of variation (now 4 numbers out of 7) is higher than the static amount, which does give us the illusion that it's less meaningful. but what if we dial is back and instead of writing it as 2,215,738 or 2,217,252, let's write it as 2.215M or 2.217M. Hmm, Suddenly it looks very familiar! It looks exactly like our "90% squish" example, just with an M after it, the nasty, messy "decimals" are now hidden under the M, where only the combat system need know about them.

This system isn't really new to Blizzard either, as it's used currently in Diablo 3, which deals in numbers well into the billions for damage (I don't think it's reached trillions yet? I have not played in a while.)



TL;DR cliff notes version:

-People dislike large numbers because they can't take the entire number in during the 1-2 seconds they flash up on the screen, this doesn't make them stupid, it makes them average humans.

-People dislike large numbers because more of the "hidden" diceroll, that usually occurs after the decimal line is now visable, giving the appearance that spells and abilities vary drastically in damage without any outside influence (i.e. Trinket Procs, Cooldowns)

-These concerns are actually valid, as numbers are written now, anything over the 1 million mark (which we will almost certainly hit in Legion, some encounters/classes even hit it now.) becomes very difficult to digest at a glance.

-WoW has recently increased supported integers from 2.1 billion to over 900 quadrillion, an effort wasted if we just keep squishing things to be under a million.

-There are better ways to solve this!

-if we truncate a number over a million (or billion, trillion, etc.) to 2-3 decimal places, we preserve the same ease of reading that we have now, but still show more powerful numbers, unlike a squish, which causes your character to suddenly appear much weaker for no reason.

[heinz0r]

Large numbers are more difficult to understand on the fly, so to speak. If I fight something and see myself hitting for around 537 normally and then I have special attacks that deals 2516 damage, that's pretty easy to grasp without any problem. If I hit for 5436985 on normal hits and 29467376 on special attacks, that takes a lot more effort to process just how much damage I do and how effective my special attacks/buffs/procs/whatever are.

Yep, thats the perfect example. To be honest, on the fly reading your post and without spending a bit of effort I wouldnt even have seen which was the bigger number of the two large ones you gave. I actually had to take the time now to count the digits of both.

They have caved in to the general notion of bigger = better, thats the only reason they can possibly have for letting this get so out of hand.

I have already turned off the numbers display since wod started. It is alot more relaxing to focus on the bar declining and look at other things than a massive amount of text popping up all over the place, especially on AOE.

[PaladinBash]

I don't really care and never complain about it but it feels more engaging to play, say, League of Legends and nail someone with a 1k crit which is pretty awesome against someone with like 2k health. Yeah the comparative amounts are the same but it feels bigger the smaller it is which is really quite ironic now I think about it.

[Super Kami Dende]

Because people love to complain about inane shit.

[Konteil]

i dont know why they still care anyway. no one uses the stock UI and for numbers they just use recount anyhow. and with that you can see whst abilities are the top damage producers. personally i use recount and turn off all scrolling battle text. actually improved my latency and FPS when i did it too.

[Deleted]

Personally, I have no issue with huge numbers, Blizzard can do several things to help the smaller brains understand them.

My biggest issue is just how quickly numbers have risen and continue to do so. TBC>WoTLK wasn't a massive jump. But then after WoTLK, the numbers just grew wildly. Pointlessly so.

If your lage brain dont have any issues with large numbers then why the fuck do you care if they grow larger rapidly?

BS called

[Freedom]

At this point, I don't even look at my damage, besides at fight's end with recount. To me, satisfaction from doing good damage comes from seeing the enemy health bar drop substantially, or knowing that I just executed a tight "cluster" of abilities and followed my attack priority very, very closely. Like, getting a Killing Machine or Sudden Death proc and going from using Obliterate to Frost Strike, or Raging Blow to Execute in under 0.1sec even though I was about to use Obliterate/Raging Blow.

Of course, it's been 3 years since my last real raid, so this may not be worth that much.

[huth]

-These concerns are actually valid, as numbers are written now, anything over the 1 million mark (which we will almost certainly hit in Legion, some encounters/classes even hit it now.) becomes very difficult to digest at a glance.

They would be valid if there was any actual reason to do so.

[Okacz]

Here is why i find them kinda annoying(i can live with them though).

Back in the day on my mage. I knew my fireball would do 1000-2000 damage(made up, i really cant remember). I knew what my biggest crit was because i had critline like all my friends.

When someone did a big crit it was cool and we discussed it on vent.

Today playing on the beta i have no frigging clue what any of my abilities do in damage numbers. I can see from my recount what does the largest% of my damage, but i couldnt tell you what ability dealt the most damage and how much it did.

It removes a small aspect of the game for me.

You may call me stupid or whatever you want, but no my brain cant fathom the numbers and as such i just ignore them instead.

I still see if i crit because the numbers are bigger, but thats it.

You might be talking about something entirely different. In Vanilla or BC, Mages were pretty much doing 1 thing - casting Frostbolt/Fireball, depending on spec. The only thing you saw as damage on screen were the steady numbers of your Fireballs doing 700 damage, or 1k on Crit. This is why it was easy to compare those. Same ocurred later with some specs, people were measuring their dicks with Aimed Shot or Arcane Blast crits in Cata.

Right now every spec is a giant mix of various sources of damage. There are dots rolling, procs, different abilities doing cleaves etc. You don't really feel like you are nurturing this one source of damage, since the only real number you can comprehend is their sum, which shows up on recount. And while in Vanilla comparing Fireball crit was the measure of DPS, right now it's just not.

So the problem of yours comes from the huge array of abilities, not the size of numbers. In Vanilla your Fireball did 700 damage? If the spec remained unchanged, in Legion it would do, say, 7M damage. And crit would do 10M. Those would be the numbers you could compare with others. They don't really seem that scary.

[Deleted]

You might be talking about something entirely different. In Vanilla or BC, Mages were pretty much doing 1 thing - casting Frostbolt/Fireball, depending on spec. The only thing you saw as damage on screen were the steady numbers of your Fireballs doing 700 damage, or 1k on Crit. This is why it was easy to compare those. Same ocurred later with some specs, people were measuring their dicks with Aimed Shot or Arcane Blast crits in Cata.

Right now every spec is a giant mix of various sources of damage. There are dots rolling, procs, different abilities doing cleaves etc. You don't really feel like you are nurturing this one source of damage, since the only real number you can comprehend is their sum, which shows up on recount. And while in Vanilla comparing Fireball crit was the measure of DPS, right now it's just not.

So the problem of yours comes from the huge array of abilities, not the size of numbers. In Vanilla your Fireball did 700 damage? If the spec remained unchanged, in Legion it would do, say, 7M damage. And crit would do 10M. Those would be the numbers you could compare with others. They don't really seem that scary.

I get your point but i dont agree. I also knew what my fury warrior was critting for in white hits.

THere are plenty of people in this thread being assholes about it. But the fact is you can ask anyone in beta what their abilities does in damage and they would have to go check it out first.

I'm not saying its the end of the world. But its the end of something that i personally liked.

With every single whiner on these forums feeling the need to obsessively whine about how stupid people are or how bad their class has gotten since their 1 button spam in vanilla, i think this is at least as valid

[Tock20]

I would like to see them so something similar to what they did with the numbers in Diablo 3 last season. Or maybe someone has an addon that does that.

[Cwimge]

Here is why i find them kinda annoying(i can live with them though).

Back in the day on my mage. I knew my fireball would do 1000-2000 damage(made up, i really cant remember). I knew what my biggest crit was because i had critline like all my friends.

When someone did a big crit it was cool and we discussed it on vent.

Today playing on the beta i have no frigging clue what any of my abilities do in damage numbers. I can see from my recount what does the largest% of my damage, but i couldnt tell you what ability dealt the most damage and how much it did.

It removes a small aspect of the game for me.

You may call me stupid or whatever you want, but no my brain cant fathom the numbers and as such i just ignore them instead.

I still see if i crit because the numbers are bigger, but thats it.

I remember feeling stunned and awed when I got a one in a million 3mil crit on a chaos bolt during my siege days. Today it's all so much salad dressing

[Okacz]

I get your point but i dont agree. I also knew what my fury warrior was critting for in white hits.

THere are plenty of people in this thread being assholes about it. But the fact is you can ask anyone in beta what their abilities does in damage and they would have to go check it out first.

I'm not saying its the end of the world. But its the end of something that i personally liked.

With every single whiner on these forums feeling the need to obsessively whine about how stupid people are or how bad their class has gotten since their 1 button spam in vanilla, i think this is at least as valid

It still seems tied to the "damage clutter". Warriors in the past could measure this just as well, since their abilities were few, and most of them just dealt weapon damage +something. So you simply measured your white hits, and those happened in a steady pace every few seconds. Right now Fury can't reliably do that, with all the many procs, passives and abilities. Getting a big white hit is not a result of your character being amazing, just a result of stars aligning in your favour.

And well, I still feel measuring ability damage will be a thing, even with the RNG part of it. It's cool to play a hunter, score a large Headshot, and compare it with another hunter. Sure, it's probably like 1.5B damage, but this is just a number, like 150 or 15k was.

[Pull My Finger]

At a certain point, big numbers become less relatable and more abstract. The spontaneous and visceral measuring ability suffers, resulting in a "whatever" perception of stats and values in the game. It's also very unelegant. Some people however, unsurprisingly, are completely blunt towards things like that.

[Deleted]

It still seems tied to the "damage clutter". Warriors in the past could measure this just as well, since their abilities were few, and most of them just dealt weapon damage +something. So you simply measured your white hits, and those happened in a steady pace every few seconds. Right now Fury can't reliably do that, with all the many procs, passives and abilities. Getting a big white hit is not a result of your character being amazing, just a result of stars aligning in your favour.

And well, I still feel measuring ability damage will be a thing, even with the RNG part of it. It's cool to play a hunter, score a large Headshot, and compare it with another hunter. Sure, it's probably like 1.5B damage, but this is just a number, like 150 or 15k was.

The thing is you wont process it as being 1,5billion if its just passing your screen while raiding. You will process it as 15+x zeroes. Thats pretty meaningless.

Not even talking about going from 1100 damage on fireball to 1200 is much more meaningful impact then 1,5billion to 1,7billion