The Great Item Squish (or Not) of Pandaria

[Lockula]

I am against the squish. Think about it how much work would be required to adjust each mob, item, and boss ability from roughly BC to Cata. That is if they squish that much.

[Marema]

Squish it. I could care less. My ego doesn't get inflated when I see a 'omgijujsthitsthebossfor10192394882damagelololol' Figure 5 pretty much sums up that a squish is a non issue on how "powerful" you'll be.I thought it was absurd how much of an increase from vanilla to BC was. I just got my priest to level 55 and can't even random bg since the 58's and 59's are in BC greens are just outrageous.Squish it! I play the game because its fun, not because I want to see mega numbers.

[Nerraw]

I wouldn't mind a squish at all. The stat inflation has really gotten out of hand.

[Cæli]

My main concern would be for soloing low level stuff as well... Soloing old world raids and dungeons isn't really something they should be supporting, but doing the item squish kinda throws that whole scene up in the air. Not sure I'd like that...

From what I understood, there will be no "difference of power", the power of items would be compressed, as well as the stat of creatures that drops those compressed items... you will still be able to solo old content, but your numbers will just be smaller, as well as the damage/health of npcs

is that right ?

Also, maybe they should think about lowering the amount of gold that also became imo really high
Dividing every single value of money by the same number should be quite easy

[Deleted]

This is wrong..people would stop doing old content if this happened...we would need 40 man to down molten core/bwl/AQ etc cuz 1 person wants a transmog? Good luck getting 39 other people for that.. leave old content alone! And for F sake, don't give us more Vanilla 5-mans as "new" Heroics..just leave old content alone..

[Vlinx]

If the problem is big numbers and computers not being able to handle larger and larger numbers (eventually there's a cap of what number a computer can handle based on the data type used), why not normalize the computational numbers while leaving the display numbers alone? Much like a z-score in statistics, this would reduce the computational part of the game, where your "Fireball" hits from anywhere between 1.00-1.50. A number is randomized, and output as the "display value" of 1,000,000-1,500,000 coming from a lookup table or something similar.

Blizz gets a more efficient computation, we keep our ginormous numbers. Win-win.

Computer technology advances exponentially. It has been since the 90s

[Denstrict]

I like the idea of diminishing returns on gear. This idea would also revitalize old dungeons all in one concept. Image a spectrum ranging from 0% effectiveness to 200%. Where a level 5 warrior would have 0% effectiveness against the Lich King for example but a lvl 95 character would only have a maximum of a 200% effectiveness against old bosses. This way bosses would maintain relatively the same hit points through the expansions but the characters effectiveness against that boss needs to grow through initially their level then gear until he is performing 100% or higher against the boss. Here is the equation:

If boss level is > character level then (1/(boss level – character level-1)*100) = A
If boss level is < or = character level then A = 100

Then you take a boss’ hidden diminishing return variable (DRV) versus gear:
Boss’ DRV – iLvL * -.5 = B
A + B = damage modifier against the boss.

A similar equation would apply to boss damage against the character.

1. A level 20 character (iLvL 100) fighting a lvl 80 boss (DRV 400) would be:
A = 1.69, B = -150
That character would be -148.31% effective against that boss or basically a 1,000 dps attack would do no damage

2. A level 40 character (iLvL 200) fighting a lvl 55 boss (DRV 275) would be:
A = 7.14, B = -37.5
That character would be -30.36% effective against that boss

3. A lvl 45 character (iLvL 225) fighting a lvl 48 boss (DRV 240) would be:
A = 33.3, B = -7.5
That character would be 25.8% effective against that boss – A 1,000 damage fireball would do 258 damage.

4. A lvl 60 character (iLvL 300) fighting a lvl 40 boss (DRV 200) would be:
A = 100, B = 50
That character would be 150% effective against that boss – A 1,000 damage fireball would do 1,500 damage

All of these numbers would have to be weighed out so the transition is smooth but the process is simple. The iLvLs shown would be base level for a character of that level. So in example #3 a highly geared lvl 45 character may have a iLvL of 280 instead of 225 doing instead of 25.8% damage, 53.3% damage. Obviously the numbers would need to be adjusted a bit but you see the direction this goes and the determination of the iLvL is easily determined based on the amount of damage intended. This wouldn’t be the only stat on the gear, there is still haste, crit, etc. but it becomes an important new stat that determines a players effectiveness in a fight. The key to all of this is the bosses will maintain similar hit point levels from one expansion to the next as well as the players and the damage of the spell itself doesn’t really change but the effect it has in the fight is subject to a new variable.

[Brettshock]

From what I understood, there will be no "difference of power", the power of items would be compressed, as well as the stat of creatures that drops those compressed items... you will still be able to solo old content, but your numbers will just be smaller, as well as the damage/health of npcs

is that right ?

Nope, old bosses will be just as strong as they are now, but we'll be significantly weaker than we are now.

[Xinia]

They could fix the soloing issue with letting bosses be +3 lvl of the content the boss was made for. Instead of how it currently works now, a lvl 60 boss is same lvl as a 85 boss.

[Marema]

lol at ppl who say you won't be able to solo old content. Apparently you don't know how to read graphs.L2graph.

[daggereye]

oh god I hope they don't use the MEGA solution, just freaking squish it, I'm sick of numbers going up each expansion by a huge amount. I know they'll use the mega solution cause everybody will cry, why do I have so little health, bla bla bla, oh but old content should still be soloable .

[Crashdummy]

I get the impression that they like the current exponential growth model within the CURRENT expansion. I mean, look at that Cata curve on the end of the 2nd proposed graph. It's just been slid down and is relatively unchanged otherwise. It's just that when you start stacking exponential growth on top of exponential growth again and again things start to fly away on you which is what we're experiencing now.

Also, for everyone who's all worried about MoP and how this is terrible. I wouldn't anticipate a squish or anything being put through any time soon. A squish would be a seriously tremendous undertaking and I don't think is likely to come about in 5.X at all. Stats on gear don't seem to be QUITE at that level just yet, but I feel it's an issue that's very quickly coming and I think that's kind of the point of the post itself. Still a bit to go before the boiling point.

But if they keep the explnential growth they will have to squish it again in two expacs? That would just be stupid. Or woujld they squish the numbers after each expansion from now on? That would also be stupid.

[Thunderpants]

I dont think it would take long to adjust to the squish solution.Numbers are too big already imo.

[SupaCoolDudeGuy]

I hope they nerf item levels and everything down, it is easily the best solution. Will it seem weird at first? Yeah, but it'll essentially be the same thing as it is now percentage wise. Soloing old content would most likely still be possible, you'd still be in the same spot DPS wise (Theoretically) the numbers would just not be so outrageous. I've had this idea in my head since Zarhym hinted at some ideas to address stat inflation, and it really seems to be the best and most elegant solution. "Mega Damage"? "Put k's and m's on it"? For one, making it say "101k Strength" and having your ability to 1,039k damage is the same as having a piece of equipment with 101 strength and damage doing 1,039 damage. The difference is in the display. It makes it look ugly as well. And all the people saying that nerfing all item levels, stats, bosses, etc. would be too much work do not realize that it would seriously be worth it. Stats are getting WAY out of control. The only other solution I could think of was on top of the item squish, is make lower item level items give you less stats the higher your level is the same way stat ratings work so that you don't have to make huge item level increases every expansion and it doesn't get out of control again.

[Tricsun]

Nope, old bosses will be just as strong as they are now, but we'll be significantly weaker than we are now.

Wrong, everything will be "squished" down, mob HP, mob Damage, everything. It said right in the post, you'll still be doing the same % of damage to a mob, so their stats will be reduced by roughly the same amount as player stats would.

[Opheliac666]

Hell no, fuck that man, keep the Mega Damage, I LOVE seeing those big numbers. Item Squish is fuckin stupid

[Goatfish]

And so it comes..the final nail in the coffin for my WoW gaming. I was looking forward to having insane amounts of HP in MoP compared to older content, and doing crazy damage compared to other content...with squishing and whatnot, they're basically gonna put us back at level 80 again with 30k being a lot of health and 7k being a rather mighty crit?I don't want that..especially not since I was hoping to solo even greater WOTLK content and TBC raids come MoP.

Good, please leave if they do this. This is one of the things they can do to get me to come back to the game since it felt like absolute crap trying to get used to having 150k health when my entire previous raiding career was between 8 and 20k health.

Gear progression should happen through the levels, but they have had it at a rate far far higher than it needed to be. Going from the top tier of one expansion to the top tier of the next should be around a 2x-2.5x increase in stats, and they kept that up right until cataclysm. Where they decided "durr we are going to try to balance the game around pvp even though that has never worked in the past and always screws something up" and gave us a 5x-7x increase in stats. I personally wouldn't even mind numbers being crunched as far as they say even though I think it might be a bit much, because these people holding onto these ridiculously bloated numbers need a reminder of the past.

[Kryos]

I don't see the problem except too long numbers that are hard to read. Solution. Remove 3 Zeros and add a k, remove 6 zeros and add a m. We did that with memory in computers already and all are fine. You guys really want to log in and do 92 fireball damage when before the patch you did 85000?

[Deleted]

I say they should do the squish the last Cataclysm patch. I think if they can't decide what to do and wait to 5.X, somewhere after MoP has been released and most people are 90, it would feel a bit disappointing. However, if the lower numbers are presented at 85, you get some time to get used to it and then get to level from 85-90 feeling your power rise and everything's cool.

[DiabloCanyonOne]

I'm in favor of the item squish, but it could make soloing old content more difficult. For example if the numbers worked out like so: Currently: BC Raid - ilvl 125 Cata Raid - ilvl 350 Difference - Cata 280% higher Post Squish: BC Raid - ilvl 75 Cata Raid - ilvl 125 Difference - Cata 166% higher So you'd have less of an advantage after the squish.