Worried the squish won't affect much

[Grubjuice]

I wanted a 1M hp hunter because yes. Am i an idiot for that? Or do i have the right to have an opinion?

you are not an idiot for wanting it
you would only be an idiot if you threw whiny temper tantrum that you'd never get it, instead of just accepting it like an adult.
Adults can want things and not get them.

[Morendo]

People just don't get it. Every number in the game is being reduced by a percentage, so that in future expansions, you can continue to see higher numbers. They are at the programming limit of what numbers can be, so ALL numbers are being scaled down equally. All of your characters, whether level 90, 60, 23 will be scaled down proportionately. All mobs and bosses, no matter if they are from level 60 content, level 90 content, or Stormwind stockades, will be scaled down proportionately. A level 2 character will still be more powerful than a level 1 character, a 90 will still be more powerful than a 60. Everything will still be bigger, badder, and have more dps/do more damage as your characters progress - just as they do now.

It's like the UI scale in your interface - everything scales down at the same rate, the only thing different is the range of numbers, which are all scaled down at the same rate. And this is done, again, so that you can continue to see bigger numbers as we forge through WoD and future expansions.

Though it hasn't been specifically mentioned, I suspect XP gains and XP required to level will ALSO be scaled down - because at some point in the future, as long as expansions keep coming out, you'll need more than 2 billion XP to gain a level. Best to do it now, while everything else is being scaled.

[Thyranne]

People just don't get it. Every number in the game is being reduced by a percentage, so that in future expansions, you can continue to see higher numbers. They are at the programming limit of what numbers can be, so ALL numbers are being scaled down equally. All of your characters, whether level 90, 60, 23 will be scaled down proportionately. All mobs and bosses, no matter if they are from level 60 content, level 90 content, or Stormwind stockades, will be scaled down proportionately. A level 2 character will still be more powerful than a level 1 character, a 90 will still be more powerful than a 60. Everything will still be bigger, badder, and have more dps/do more damage as your characters progress - just as they do now.

It's like the UI scale in your interface - everything scales down at the same rate, the only thing different is the range of numbers, which are all scaled down at the same rate. And this is done, again, so that you can continue to see bigger numbers as we forge through WoD and future expansions.

Though it hasn't been specifically mentioned, I suspect XP gains and XP required to level will ALSO be scaled down - because at some point in the future, as long as expansions keep coming out, you'll need more than 2 billion XP to gain a level. Best to do it now, while everything else is being scaled.

A few things that people don't understand:

*1-59 will remain unchanged.

*The item squish will keep happening every 2-3 expansions (and if their plan of releasing expansions faster it'll happen every 3-4 years).

*Ilvl will keep growing exponentially.

[Grubjuice]

People just don't get it. Every number in the game is being reduced by a percentage, so that in future expansions, you can continue to see higher numbers.

that is not what happening, they are also removing the stat jumps that occur at the transition from each old expansion to the one following it.
and they will have to smooth out that jump every expansion in the future when the last boundry becomes an old boundry.

[Thyranne]

Yeah, no. It was actually the best idea to ever come to a level-based MMO and the vast majority of people who played it (even if they don't currently) agree. God I should have known better than to try interacting with WoW's drooling playerbase.

Whats the point of lvling up then?

[SL1200]

The game will be horrible post squish. I wish they didn't do it. BliZzzzzards developers are a bunch of jerks.

[Asmekiel]

People just don't get it. Every number in the game is being reduced by a percentage, so that in future expansions, you can continue to see higher numbers. They are at the programming limit of what numbers can be, so ALL numbers are being scaled down equally. All of your characters, whether level 90, 60, 23 will be scaled down proportionately. All mobs and bosses, no matter if they are from level 60 content, level 90 content, or Stormwind stockades, will be scaled down proportionately. A level 2 character will still be more powerful than a level 1 character, a 90 will still be more powerful than a 60. Everything will still be bigger, badder, and have more dps/do more damage as your characters progress - just as they do now.

It's like the UI scale in your interface - everything scales down at the same rate, the only thing different is the range of numbers, which are all scaled down at the same rate. And this is done, again, so that you can continue to see bigger numbers as we forge through WoD and future expansions.

Though it hasn't been specifically mentioned, I suspect XP gains and XP required to level will ALSO be scaled down - because at some point in the future, as long as expansions keep coming out, you'll need more than 2 billion XP to gain a level. Best to do it now, while everything else is being scaled.

While everything gets scaled down, you can't scale down lvl 60 gear by the same 95% as lvl 90 gear. That would leave MC gear with 1-2 stats. Either you'd have to remove stats from almost all gear before 60 or that gear would be near equal. This would also leave a level 1 with only a few HP and doing less than 1 damage per hit.

[Shamanberry]

Seriously, anyone who is opposed to the squish is an idiot. My fear is actually that they won't take it far enough. Think about it - how much more awesome would the game be if suddenly all of the content from previous expansions became available to do without being completely trivialized by you being so stupidly OP that you can one-shot everything and never even take damage?

It would be so much fun to go back and duo Kara, for example, while retaining some semblance of challenge. Or to organize a small group of 3 or 4 friends to go take out Icecrown.

It would be fun, but they actually have the tech to do just that - it's entirely possible to scale your gear back even further the way it's scaled back now in challenge mode dungeons, for example.

They just don't have it implemented because they need to do 2 more little things:
- Make it also scale character level back (otherwise your base stats make you too powerful. A level 90 character trying to do deadmines in level 10 gear would still roll through the place because their base stats are 100x what you have in level 10 gear at level 10.
- Give you some reason to do it. Right now they have no reward structure for it. While they COULD just implement it and say it's for fun only, they probably want to release it in such a way that people will be generally excited about it and have a reason to do it. If they just released it "for fun", people would largely ignore it, and it would be forgotten until they implemented it properly - only the excitement level would be lower when they did because it was already there.

Sooner or later, they'll implement it, particularly if people remain interested in the possibility. But the ilevel squish isn't the way to do that, and in the short-term it's more important that they do the opposite - make it possible for people to still solo old content for transmog gear/pets/etc.

[Morendo]

Thyranne - I'm intrigued by your reply, as that is not how I understood this would happen - mostly regarding 1-59 not scaling, and their plan to repeat the item squish. (And I admit I may have missed these details). Do you, or anyone else have any links to official posts regarding this?

It seems odd to me that Blizzard would intentionally re-create (multiple times) the original problem that required them to even do an item squish.

Black Pearl: The scale wouldn't necessarily need to be completely linear, since current gear scaling over each expansion has definitely not been linear. But hopefully the result does bring things into more of a linear scaling.

My apologies to all for being incorrect.

[Splatter]

Whats the point of lvling up then?

In GW2 there really wasnt one. You got bumped to max lvl for pvp and given a full set of gear, pve was the same stuff everywhere. Go to heart on map, complete "dynamic" event until heart is solid, go to next heart. Scaling levels down in GW2 was an awful feature and made it feel like you never made any progress with your character, I hope wow makes it optional if they implement it.

OT: the item squish is really needed, the balance of power between players at different levels is just far too big. There is no defence against higher level players anymore, you have next to no chance of beating someone higher than you by a significant amount in world pvp, gone are the days of lvl 40's fighting back and killing the 60 trying to gank them.

[Cirque]

The people who still don't get how the scaling works, honestly, I start wishing that they don't scale old content for the first day, so that next expansion when you step in you get oneshot to punish you for months upon months of stupidity.



There's item squish, and then there's timetravel-instances where you can do old content while you get scaled down to that level. I think that pretty much makes both camps happy.

- - - Updated - - -

In GW2 there really wasnt one. You got bumped to max lvl for pvp and given a full set of gear, pve was the same stuff everywhere. Go to heart on map, complete "dynamic" event until heart is solid, go to next heart. Scaling levels down in GW2 was an awful feature and made it feel like you never made any progress with your character, I hope wow makes it optional if they implement it.

You only got scaled up for pvp, not for pve. The point of leveling up is to progress to higher level zones. You get scaled down if you go to lower level ones though, but you're still way more powerful because of spells and your gear.

I for one loved the scaling down and being able to quest wherever the hell I feel like instead of being shoe-horned into zone a/b->c/d->e/f like is prevalent in almost any other mmo.

[Katharine]

The squish will make progression pointless. They might as well shut down WoW and make a Warcraft 4.

[Daffan]

If they're going to do it with intent of there being a semblance of challenge, I'd rather they just went all the way with it and allow you to set a flag to scale your gear down to Kara's (or whatever raid) item level/character level/stats/etc., and if not you just steamroll it like it is now.

Perhaps you get a better chance at the pet drops if you do it "scaled down" or some sort of incentive for that sort of "cosmetic" reward type thing.

Yup it would need incentive. A good one too.

[Kraenen]

Whats the point of lvling up then?

what's the point of anything? there'll just be another expac aftewards.

- - - Updated - - -

The squish will make progression pointless. They might as well shut down WoW and make a Warcraft 4.

You don't understand the squish then.

[Lime]

While everything gets scaled down, you can't scale down lvl 60 gear by the same 95% as lvl 90 gear. That would leave MC gear with 1-2 stats. Either you'd have to remove stats from almost all gear before 60 or that gear would be near equal. This would also leave a level 1 with only a few HP and doing less than 1 damage per hit.

I never even thought about that. If 1-59 is unaffected, then that would create a problem.

[Splatter]

I never even thought about that. If 1-59 is unaffected, then that would create a problem.

how will it create a problem?


All the squish is doing is smoothing out the gearing curve so that growth between expansions is still there just not as absurdly large as it has been.

[kenn9530]

it doesnt matter if you doing 1000 dps or 100000 dps, mobs will die at the same interval, if you are that fussed with massive numbers then just quit the game, the game is just something to pass the time and enjoy.

[Nitrax]

They can make it more linear and squish old content "less" (relatively) if they just change a few mechanics such as hit and crit. They only need to bother with ability to solo content at max level, which means that they can just change around a few things and change a few boss abilities and hey presto.

[Lime]

how will it create a problem?

If it's a 94% decrease across the board, then Onslaught Girdle (a level 60 item) will have worse stats than The Plaguebringer's Girdle (a level 55 item) . So there's no way it could be a flat out 94% decrease to everything.

[Asmekiel]

If it's a 94% decrease across the board, then http://www.wowhead.com/item=19137 will have worse stats than http://www.wowhead.com/item=38668 . So there's no way it could be a flat out 94% decrease to everything.

If you'd follow that chart, you'd see that MC gear is untouched. BWL gear would be reduced by 1 stat or so. T6 gear would be around T3 (3 down), while T10 gear goes down to T4(6 down) and then the last one, T13 goes down to T6(7 down).
As you can see the lower level gear is almost the same as it was before the squish, while later gear gets reduced much more.

-edit- These aren't the real numbers, just to illustrate what's happening.