Item Squish; is it really coming?

[PBitt]

I don't really care. I don't think they will do it at this point since it will essentially make us all *feel* less powerful when we see smaller numbers, even if we aren't, which will cause lots of problems, and this is rather huge undertaking to begin with. At the same time, I don't really think it's a big deal, I think I'd prefer for things to stay as they are but at the end of the day I play to raid and enjoy my time downing the raid content and as long as I put out the best numbers I can, I don't care what they are.

[Kaleredar]

I don't really care. I don't think they will do it at this point since it will essentially make us all *feel* less powerful when we see smaller numbers, even if we aren't, which will cause lots of problems, and this is rather huge undertaking to begin with. At the same time, I don't really think it's a big deal, I think I'd prefer for things to stay as they are but at the end of the day I play to raid and enjoy my time downing the raid content and as long as I put out the best numbers I can, I don't care what they are.

We feel "less powerful" every time we start a new expansion, and the whining is kept to a minimum. It would be smart for them to do it right when an expansion drops, so people can acclimate themselves via leveling.

[Thyranne]

We feel "less powerful" every time we start a new expansion, and the whining is kept to a minimum. It would be smart for them to do it right when an expansion drops, so people can acclimate themselves via leveling.

Actually...we get stronger everytime an expansion starts. I still remember my mage at level 80 as soon as 4.0 was released.

[sp2danny]

if they dont do the item squish, they have to drop support for 32bit computers and operating systems eventually,
and they probably dont want to do that, they want their game to be playable on old cpomputers

[Kaleredar]

Actually...we get stronger everytime an expansion starts. I still remember my mage at level 80 as soon as 4.0 was released.

I meant relative to the mobs. We go from one shotting mobs to having to actually fight them.

[Ferrouswheel]

Here is the deal. The people saying this will happen live in make believe land. You are an EXTREME minority. You raid, you're whining that the numbers are too big and look ridiculous. That's the dumbest reason ever, but nevertheless you chose it. The majority of players are casual, and like doing things like soloing old content. Blizzard is a company, it's their job to make money. Remember that part it's going to be important in a couple sentences. You complaining about your numbers looking silly means nothing compared to the majority of people complaining they feel weak, and can't solo stuff they used to. Those people will cancel their subs. You, won't cancel your sub over something as dumb as numbers being too big. Now, remember that thing I said earlier that was important? How it's their job to make money? Yeah, they don't care about your whining. It's not going to happen, get over it.

[celinamuna]

if they dont do the item squish, they have to drop support for 32bit computers and operating systems eventually,
and they probably dont want to do that, they want their game to be playable on old cpomputers

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5...-bit-data-type

[Black Rider]

I hope it will happen in 6.0
Getting several million/billion DPS doesn't feel good

[celinamuna]

I hope it will happen in 6.0
Getting several million/billion DPS doesn't feel good

don't think i want to doing 100k+ to doing 1k+

[mysticx]

I hope it will happen in 6.0
Getting several million/billion DPS doesn't feel good

Yeah, hitting for 1000 damage at level 95 will totally rock! /sarcasm

"The figures look weird" is a spectacularly bad argument, computers from the past 5 years can easily manage big numbers (Older computers have bigger problems than running WoW poorly, like component failure or inability to run anything recent :P ), so we're talking about totally rebalancing the entire game with all the potential for major balance problems just because big numbers "look and feel weird", no thanks...

[Jaja]

1,000,000 dmg or 1M

I know what gets my vote, I do want to be able to see other things on my screen. I already have my combat log shortened to K or M. Item Squish won't happen they have said when they do it, it will be "MEGA DAMAGE"

[lavaalamp]

Their plan was never a 90% (or any %) reduction, but a sliding scale of nerfs. The level 1-60 experience would not change, but instead of BC content ending at 150 or so item levels, it would end at 120-ish. And WOLK content would start at 120 and end at about 200, the cataclysm start at 200. So it was just a massive nerf, basically. That being said, I believe it will be here next expansion.

I'm at a loss at how anything gets worse as numbers get bigger to be honest.

the bigger the numbers the more there are, which means More balance issues. because they have to tweak things alot more then normal

---------- Post added 2013-02-28 at 11:15 AM ----------

Their plan was never a 90% (or any %) reduction, but a sliding scale of nerfs. The level 1-60 experience would not change, but instead of BC content ending at 150 or so item levels, it would end at 120-ish. And WOLK content would start at 120 and end at about 200, the cataclysm start at 200. So it was just a massive nerf, basically. That being said, I believe it will be here next expansion.

1,000,000 dmg or 1M

I know what gets my vote, I do want to be able to see other things on my screen. I already have my combat log shortened to K or M. Item Squish won't happen they have said when they do it, it will be "MEGA DAMAGE"

No they didn't that was 1 of the options they came up with.

[Pua]

I find the item squish to merely be one facet of a larger issue; namely, that a game based around level cap content has to decide on what it wants player levels to effectively do until you get to said level cap.

If you believe that levelling up should be meaningful (as Ghostcrawler himself reputedly does), the rise to 90 is unpalatable because it would mean that each and every level would have to take long enough to be meaningful. If you don’t believe levelling up should be meaningful, any number could be put in and it wouldn’t matter much.

There are some interesting facts:

1) The discussion about the item squish itself. Clearly, this implies Blizzard think rising item level is a problem.

2) Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria increased the level cap by 5, implying Blizzard think the number is too high.

3) The number of abilities is too high; an across the board cut is almost mandatory at this point.

Now, I’m not trying to say these facts in and of themselves prove that anything’s going to happen. This is just circumstantial evidence of Blizzard considerations, and there is just as much evidence that suggests Blizzard will continue with the rise quite happily. But for me, I honestly think a level squish is what’s required and that an item squish would be part and parcel of doing this. Say, for example, the game put the level cap back to 60 for the next expansion (and dropped capped players to, say, 55), they could deal with item bloat, make levels meaningful again without making the grind interminable, and deal with the silly number of abilities in the game right now.

Will it happen? I’ve no idea, it depends on how big a risk the designers think it is. But I’ve still not seen one side of the squish argument disprove the other; it’s almost entirely down to preference.

Item squish will never happen. They'd lose way too many subs. I'd be one of them.

Why?

[lavaalamp]

Why peoples care soo much? isn't it more realistic that the more you advance in the game the biggest the hp pools and numbers get? I still prefer fighting a 10trillion hp Sargeras that give me the idea he was a fallen god than a 1million hp sargeras that feel like mob101 in ton long.

if the do this item level squish every player and piece of gear would be lowered which in turn looking in the point of view of your character it was like he never was able to pull 120k dps and 300k burst, but more 12k dps and 30k burst. understand what i mean?

[Deleted]

if the do this item level squish every player and piece of gear would be lowered which in turn looking in the point of view of your character it was like he never was able to pull 120k dps and 300k burst, but more 12k dps and 30k burst. understand what I mean?

I think he's more saying that it wouldn't feel as epic seeing the final Villain of wow have less health than a random mob in town long once had, even if we do less damage at that stage..

The only way to get round the feeling of is being less epic would be to lose all recollection of the numbers before the item squish

[Katchii]

Item squish needs to happen eventually not because of the aesthetics of the super ginormous numbers, but because of the processing limitations and the fact that there is a hard cap on how big the numbers can get....Blizzard systems simply won't allow the numbers to get any bigger. It's not a human making the decision, it's the software/ hardware limitations.

[Blackmist]

It won't happen. There are so many interconnecting systems in WoW that something as trivial as tweaking an animation in one place in the game can break it in another.

Can you imagine how many things a mass update on every item, spell and NPC in the game has the potential to break? I suspect GC knows exactly how many things are likely to end up broken or exploitable, and that's exactly why they won't do it. Just because they've somehow managed to convince the general playerbase that testing buggy code is a privilege rather than a job, the testing process is still not cheap, and neither is the army of coders that would still need to fix everything.

We can put this feature in the big "pile of things to think about when developing new games, but are way too late for WoW".

Item squish needs to happen eventually not because of the aesthetics of the super ginormous numbers, but because of the processing limitations and the fact that there is a hard cap on how big the numbers can get....Blizzard systems simply won't allow the numbers to get any bigger. It's not a human making the decision, it's the software/ hardware limitations.

9,223,372,036,854,775,807.

That's the limit on a signed 64 bit integer. There's plenty of room yet.