The Great Item Squish (or Not) of Pandaria

[TanAxys]

heres another idea... why does it matter if fireball crits for 6000000, or a peice of armour has 60000 armour? Just leave it.

well, having a fireball critting for 6M isn't a big deal..,

having 5 fireballs, a few mind blasts and chaos bolts and a thousand auto attacks all in the neighborhood of 6 million, isn't an especially optimum situation

then on the other end... every monster, bad guy and boss doing that as incoming damage... which the fearless raiders are taking... which the fearless raid healers have to heal

and that's one raid

think about all of that with x numbers of raids going on at any one time...

all of that math is strain on the servers, not to mention everyone's computers which boosts minimum system requirements and reduces effect of eye candy and effects without computer upgrades

smaller numbers with less meaningless 0's would be better for everyone

what would be nice, would be a separate number system that shrinks itself down when fighting Skull bosses

like use the mega damage model, only when really needed... on the toughest fights with the most players involved

... also maybe in pvp when there's 80 of the highest geared players running around on a fairly small map where the action is completely unscripted

[Haaz]

Item sqish seems, to me, the only real sollution.. megadamage is a delay of the issue and nothing more, scaling it all down is a better long term sollution, some say give more new content and stop redoing old. I say sort a proper squish now in pandaria, and forget it in the next, maybe 2 expansions, how far it goes is left to see, but honestly imo, I see it going forther with a squish than with megadmg and whatnot having to be implemented.

[Rude Hero]

The squish isn't going to solve anything, only delay it, and that second graph is ridiculous. Apparently the best level 60 raid gear is going to be better than the best level 70 raid gear. I realize it's not meant to be taken literally, but it's cheating the facts to try and paint a more appealing picture.

[Trassk]

so in short there going to nerf all damage and health in the game, but make it seem to the player like there doing awesome damage with gimmicky messages onscreen to convince them its all ok.Well I've heard worse things tbh.

[Envoy1]

-- From the 2 options that Blizzard has put on the table, I would definitely side with the “squish” rather than the “MEGA DAMAGE” because it just seems like a better long term solution and the numbers won’t be so drastic.

--However, the fear that players will feel “underpowered” is a very real threat. Some players will feel underpowered and not like the new feel of the game, and so they might quit. Other players could get used to the “squish” and will continue playing just as they have been. Obviously, letting the stat inflation go this far was a mistake in the design of the tiers. First thing I compared the the chart on Fig. 5 to, was the chart of population growth over the last 400 years or so :P. Starts off slow then increases drastically by the end. Anyway, what I am trying to say is that Blizzard has realized they need to make a change because they can’t keep going with the system they currently have. Now, the choice is picking the route which will keep most players happy, because obviously not every single person is going to be happy with either choice.

--I have read both options, and like I said, I believe that the “squish” is the better choice. However, I would like to put forth some sort of new idea and see if what the community thinks. Obviously, I haven’t thought this out all the way and there may be many flaws in the system, but I will share my general idea and maybe some portions could be useful or someone else can take my thoughts one step further.

Proposed System:

--Before I start, I want to make clear that the numbers I use won’t be accurate but I am using them just as a demonstration. The numbers shouldn’t be taken literally, but the comparison between the numbers I use, should be looked at.

--The flaw that I see from expansion to expansion is the exponential growth of stats which leads to the big jumps in damage/healing. So I was thinking, if it’s possible, maybe make the jump from the end tier in one expansion to the beginning tier of the next expansion equal to the jump between one tier of raiding to the next. For example, the jump from Dragon Soul to the first tier of raiding in MoP equal to the jump from Firelands to the Dragon Soul. (By “jump” I mean stat inflation and damage/healing increase.)

--If players are doing 30k DPS in Firelands, then players will be doing 40k DPS in Dragon Soul. If players are doing about 40k DPS in Dragon Soul, they will be doing about 50k in the first tier of raids in MoP. So, if a piece of Firelands gear has 450 intellect, then a piece of Dragon Soul gear will have 500 intellect. Then if a piece of Dragon Soul gear has 500 intellect, then a piece from the first tier in MoP will have 550 intellect.

--Of course the argument here is that players will be able to complete the first tier in MoP with the gear they have acquired in Dragon Soul. So here is my solution to this problem is a stat reduction in the previous expansions gear. Not a stat decrease for everyone, but a stat decrease as you level for all the gear from the previous expansion. For example, If a piece of Dragon Soul gear has 500 intellect, as the player hits level 88, that piece of Dragon Soul gear will be reduced from 500 intellect to 350 intellect. This prevents people from be being able to complete the first tier in MoP with the gear they have acquired in Cataclysm. However this will also allow players to utilize the gear they acquired in Cataclysm to level. I proposed level 88, assuming that 3 levels of questing in MoP will provide enough gear from quest rewards to replace all their Cataclysm gear. Or the other option is slowly reducing the stats from the previous expansion as you level. For example, as you hit 86, that piece of 500 intellect will drop to 450, then as you hit 87, it will drop to 400, then as you hit 88, it drops to 350 and so on. The point is dropping these stats on the gear from the previous expansion to the point where it will be impossible to use that gear to complete the first tier of raiding in the new expansion.

--The argument to this is that as you level, the amount of stat rating (such as haste) to equal 1%, will also increase. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it takes 128 haste rating to equal 1% haste at level 85. 32.79 haste rating was equal to 1% 80. So the jump from Wotlk to Cataclysm was huge. I propose that, the amount of haste rating that it takes to get 1% haste, at level 90 is changed/selected to be higher than the one at 85. However it should not so high that you will need a huge stat increase on the gear. For example, 640 haste rating at 85 gives you 5% haste rating, so maybe at level 90, which is 128 haste rating per percentage (like mentioned above). So at level 90, make it so 160 haste rating is equal to 1%, so then 800 haste rating will be equal to 5%. I understand that my proposed numbers maybe not be rational, but the idea behind it is what counts. There are much more experienced people who can definitely come up with better numbers, but this is just an idea.

--This system that I am proposing won't make players feel "underpowered" because their output will be greater than it currently is. It changes the current exponential growth stat system to a linear growth stat system.

I have more details worked out, but this post is already pretty long and I don’t want to make it longer. It’s just a rough outline of the stat system that I propose. I understand that there are flaws in my idea, but like I said, maybe someone sees part of my idea that they like and that they can take develop it in their own way.

[Deleted]

Pokewow inc !

[Hellaciouss]

So is this going to happen with every expansion? People will feel like they aren't actually getting anywhere if gear goes from 150k hp, down to 20k hp from "squish" only to go to 150k at end of expansion...that's not progression.I think you guys should take some tips from EQ and their progression system.

[Raqubor]

I hope they go with the squish solution. Damage is starting to be come ridiculous. Players just need to get used to the new lower amount of damage/health points.

[Gron]

Your thoughts on the matter are valuable.

Ofcourse we want to make it feel valuable, however please note that we have proven in the past not to listen to forum posters, the vocal "minority" - we are the designers ofcourse, and we datamine the game, so we know much better what is good for the larger amount of playerbase.

However until you feel your thoughts are valuable, we feel the same, just make sure you know that does not mean we will ever read them.

[Vallius]

Maybe don't squish all of the previous content? Like, maybe only squish from the end of WotLK to the end of Cata? That way we can still go back and faceroll older content but the numbers could still be in line with the increase that happened between TBC and WotLK? I don't know. I'm hoping brighter minds than mine can come up with a solution that solves this. I think numbers in the thousands feels 'right', but I can't imagine numbers in the millions. That would just take up too much screen space and I don't care to crunch that much math for spreadsheets and whatnot. I don't want to feel gimped but I don't want these numbers to get out of hand, either.

[Grumm]

I would very much like to see the squish happen. I've long felt health pools and damage had gotten to ridiculous. Scale everything back to 15k health-ish I say.

[Deleted]

I'm thinking we can be okay for MoP, half the reason is precious time spending that can be used for a very full expansion(based on high level content), which we need after Cata, Cat is great don't get me wrong but for obvious reasons it wasn't like having TBC or WotLK, also I don't think the numbers are too insane yet and not that bothered even if they do start entering the m's, I enjoy the leveling process gaining lots of power at a vast rate, I don't feel like going down in numbers, I want them to keep climbing! I want to be able to kill Illidan Stormrage with 1 auto attack at some point!

[Keve]

That upcoming damage output isn't realistic even for videogames anymore!

[Slyan]

There's no reason it should affect level 50 anything. The changes shouldn't happen until TBC and beyond. Even the graph clearly shows that. The uptick at the end of vanilla to ilvl 90 items is T3 which disappeared anyway...

I didn't pay too much attention to the graph but yeah you're right. It does look like it wouldn't effect 50 and under but still, this is Bliz we're talking about so we wont know till it happens.

[eurobank]

Nice. good job

[MoFalcon]

Squish away...im not sure how many expansions we have left, but its getting crazy!My only suggestion, dont squish it any more than you need to. Lvl 80 felt pretty good. Why not make the new lvl cap feel like lvl 80, if possible. Squish it over the next couple expansions gradually. might be less of a shock to the system(ours).

[Pua]

I support the item squish and, to be fair, reckon it should have happened a while ago. The greater problem is if they intend to keep doing it every expansion, or simply see the numbers grow less throughout their current lifetime. Personally, I think TBC got it about right and that's the sort of growth I'd prefer to see throughout each tier.

[Puntar]

Every expansion is gear reset so why would "expansion squish" would be so bad?

Healers already got a "healing squish" in Cata anyway.

To get "the squish" at least somewhat right they will need to fiddle even with sub 60 lvl anyway. No one want to have their hp and mana somewhere in classic and BC range!

By the look on the picture Cata blues in next expansion will be somewhere in ilevel of 85 - 90.

No matter that squish in needed and I approved it, I really do not want to have my health and mana in 4.4/4.5 patch dropped by a factor of 15! They will need to just slight increase growth somewhere in 30 - 60 range. I am more inclined to make (BC) ilevel of 85 to become a new Level 60 standard and build upon this formula. And WITHOUT A GAP in stats between content!

[Duah]

Not really in support of the item squish. One reason I play this game is because over time your character gets stronger, more hp/mana, and such. I would understand a slight increase with the MoP expansion rather than a "Item squish". Going from 170k hp on my tank back to 19kish which was my hp back in BC will kind of be discouraging... As again our characters are supposed to be progressing not going backwards.

[Deleted]

does it really matter? are they just worried that some numb nuts wouldnt be able to tell numbers that far in advance? so what if their getting big, why change it? it works as it is else their going to have to go do a massive rehaul of everything from vanilla up, either that or keep it the same and just drastically lower the numbers from mop start like 400-404 in 1st area but then their going to seriously have to balance new bosses to only do like 20-30 extra damage from one difficulty to the next to compensate for the 80hp rise from the gear

---------- Post added 2011-11-06 at 02:39 PM ----------

or another way would be that lvling from 85-90 in the greens/blues you get just from questing in cata is a straight on progression like in tbc when you could go to atleast zangarmarsh without replacing some aq40 gear for instance was good i loved fightin around with my paladin conquerer gear or what ever it was called and the 2 handed sword of the twins that had a nature on hit chance thing