Has relative power between Fully Geared vs Ungeared been higher than this before?

[Thyranne]

Ghostcrawler did a blog post on this back in 2011 already where he described the internal discussions about how weird it felt having these big numbers and what methods they were discussing on how to solve it.

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/blog/9995063/

And yes, they have commented on the numbers going to get too big to compile aswell. Again, more than one reason but nevertheless the change is needed.

Problem is, what is silly? 100?200?3000?4000?40000?

Also as I said the idea of the squish is nothing but an endless delay.

[ypolt]

Problem is, what is silly? 100?200?3000?4000?40000?

Also as I said the idea of the squish is nothing but an endless delay.

That's a good question and I'm guessing the designers are struggling with it aswell.
I would at the very least say that when you see a big crit flash and five seconds later you can't really say what it was because there was just too many numbers on the screen then that would, to me atleast, seem quite silly.

[zorkuus]

3) just being delayed. Nothing else.

Those are some reasons that I think that squish is a stupid idea.

How is that a stupid idea? By not doing anything there would be major consequences. If your computer can't handle the numbers then it can't handle the numbers, simple as that, it doesn't stop being a problem by thinking it's not a problem.

[Lumineus]

By absolute value, no, there has never been such a disparity between blues and end tier epics.

Percentage-wise, it kind of pales before Wrath of the Lich King, though. LK had four tiers, and hadn't yet diluted the stats by adding Mastery. You were looking at something like an 800-900% spread. People with 80% crit. It was insane.

[Thyranne]

How is that a stupid idea? By not doing anything there would be major consequences. If your computer can't handle the numbers then it can't handle the numbers, it doens't stop being a problem by thinking it's not a problem.

First, computers CAN handle those numbers. It's just that Blizzard refuses to update WoW.

Second, delaying an obvious issue over and over is, by my definition, stupid.

[zorkuus]

Second, delaying an obvious issue over and over is, by my definition, stupid.

As opposed to not doing anything?

[Thyranne]

As opposed to not doing anything?

As opposed to not fixing it definitly.

[zorkuus]

As opposed to not fixing it definitly.

And how do you suppose they do that? Squish it even more and make it completely linear? Some people are already up in arms about the squish we are getting.

[Thyranne]

And how do you suppose they do that? Squish it even more and make it completely linear? Some people are already up in arms about the squish we are getting.

No, the solution would be change it to 64bit.

[ypolt]

First, computers CAN handle those numbers. It's just that Blizzard refuses to update WoW.

Second, delaying an obvious issue over and over is, by my definition, stupid.

Well, computers can but a majority of the systems out there still runs 32-bit operating systems and one of blizzards outspoken goals is to always allow as many players as possible to be able to play their games.

Saying the problem is just being delayed is kind of moot. You'ld be delaying it even if you just increased the stats by one point for every expansion.
The question is whether or not delaying it serves a purpose.
Say you delay it by another 5 years, would most people use 64-bit systems by then? Would you be able to re-do the game design for future expansions compared to past ones so that you didn't inflate at the same rate and the next squish wouldn't have to happen for another 10 years instead?
Could you come up with a better idea to the "9 MEGA DAMAGE" so that you didn't have to do the squish at all?

[zorkuus]

No, the solution would be change it to 64bit.

And alianate even more players? That's a great plan.

[Haven]

We've long since crossed the line when your character is a moving rack that delivers the might of his items into combat, but this time, the geometric progression has gotten out of hand. Need squish. Now.

[Thyranne]

Well, computers can but a majority of the systems out there still runs 32-bit operating systems and one of blizzards outspoken goals is to always allow as many players as possible to be able to play their games.

32bit can use 64bit variable.

Saying the problem is just being delayed is kind of moot. You'ld be delaying it even if you just increased the stats by one point for every expansion.
The question is whether or not delaying it serves a purpose.
Say you delay it by another 5 years, would most people use 64-bit systems by then? Would you be able to re-do the game design for future expansions compared to past ones so that you didn't inflate at the same rate and the next squish wouldn't have to happen for another 10 years instead?
Could you come up with a better idea to the "9 MEGA DAMAGE" so that you didn't have to do the squish at all?

Signed int can go up to −9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to 9,223,372,036,854,775,807.

Lets say that the boss with most HP has 2.1b HP. If we keep a 500% increase every expansion (which is not even close of what we have now) it'd take 7-8 expansions til we hit the 64 signed integer cap which is what?20 years?

And alianate even more players? That's a great plan.

Which part of you can use 64bit variables in 32bit processors you failed to understand?

[Lumineus]

They could change the 32-bit client to treat all numbers as CStrings, all it does is display data anyway, it doesn't actually handle it. It's not like they trust the client to do any sort of combat math, because of exploiters. The deeper issue is that the server side of the software is coded as 32-bit, and they don't want to remake all of the custom scripts running on it.

[Zka]

32bit can use 64bit variable.

Any computer can handle any number that fits into the memory.
But if you handle numbers that are wider than the default word size of the processor, you need to use multiple instructions per each operation. That could be a real problem if they are using a development environment that is not capable to compile such code automatically. Also, it's a performance loss.
I swear (but cannot dig up) that some of the Blizz guys told this Blizzcon that their main technical problem is storage. They are using some very specialized database to store their stuff and they find it way too risky to restructure it to hold 64bit values.

[Thyranne]

Any computer can handle any number that fits into the memory.
But if you handle numbers that are wider than the default word size of the processor, you need to use multiple instructions per each operation. That could be a real problem if they are using a development environment that is not capable to compile such code automatically. Also, it's a performance loss.

It is slower sure but how much calculation is done client side? Only graphical and addons.

Keep in mind that there is a big chance that next expansion 32bit computers won't be able to run WoW. Many of those already have a hard time doing it and it'll only get worse.

[ypolt]

32bit can use 64bit variable.



Signed int can go up to −9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to 9,223,372,036,854,775,807.

Lets say that the boss with most HP has 2.1b HP. If we keep a 500% increase every expansion (which is not even close of what we have now) it'd take 7-8 expansions til we hit the 64 signed integer cap which is what?20 years?



Which part of you can use 64bit variables in 32bit processors you failed to understand?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but having a 64bit variable on a 32bit architecture doesn't actually use one 64bit integer but rather an unsigned long long would just use two dwords. You could do a 128bit number with this or however large you want, but it has a negative impact on performance.

And either way, would you want to see an enemy with 9,223,372,036,854,775,807hp on his portrait?

[Zka]

It is slower sure but how much calculation is done client side? Only graphical and addons.

Keep in mind that there is a big chance that next expansion 32bit computers won't be able to run WoW. Many of those already have a hard time doing it and it'll only get worse.

I think the computational bottleneck is on the server side. Coding/compilation problems can be present both in the client and the server. WoW client never had any performance problems with anything else but graphic rendering, which is not related to this problem.

[Thyranne]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but having a 64bit variable on a 32bit architecture doesn't actually use one 64bit integer but rather an unsigned long long would just use two dwords. You could do a 128bit number with this or however large you want, but it has a negative impact on performance.

If I'm not mistaken MASM allows you to use DT (10 bytes). It's slower yes but how much is calculated client side? Close to nothing which would make this change not affect performance (of course it'll affect but it's really really tiny).

And either way, would you want to see an enemy with 9,223,372,036,854,775,807hp on his portrait?

We can always use 9223T.

I think the computational bottleneck is on the server side. Coding/compilation problems can be present both in the client and the server.

I really don't know what you mean.

[ypolt]

We can always use 9223T.

Why is it better to add a letter telling you that the number is actually huge rather than having a similar small number without the trailing letter?
Lets say the change happend right now and you hit for 300'000 damage. Why would it feel better to hit for "300K" than to hit for "300"?