Ghostcrawler Interview

[threads]

Glad to see an item squish. Scaling is getting out of control this xpac.

[Darsithis]

I'm so mixed on the item squish. On one hand I was excited to hit 1.2m health this expansion with VB up. On the other hand I'm worried 'bout the inflation and the affect it has on the engine. People say a "number is just a number" until they learn how much harder it can be for an older processor to crunch large numbers.

[Heenk]

Looks like the next expac will be my first expansion. I'm going for item squish.

[SL1200]

Might as well erase everything we've done in the last 5 years. I'm so mad after reading this. I'll hold out hope they change their minds again i guess.

[Anufis]

Marco Koegler: These experience items are designed to make convenience for players to leveling their alts. As for the Lesser Charms of Good Fortune, we want to make convenience for those who don't have time to do daily quests, but also want to get items via Lesser Charms of Good Fortune to catch up their friends(Ghostcrawler added: For example, I don't have time due to the business trip to China this week). That is to say, these items are designed to save players' time, but items that increase players stats will not appear in the store forever.

You know, even beeing blizzard fanboy, after this words my trust in Bli$$ard is starting to shake.

[Millennía]

Even though I am not currently playing the item squish does make me very happy and it can also open doors to allow for the old raid scaling since the numbers won't be so drastically different.

[the9tail]

I want to see how leveling a supporter turn out

Same way as levelling as a healer - if you wanna go faster use a different spec.

[Wildtree]

What's the source of the interview?

The credibility of the thread creator..

[KBWarriors]

Tencent: How will you deal with bigger and bigger numbers in the next expansion？ I think it is time to do something with it.
Ghostcrawler: We have considered this problem and we will reduce players' stats in the next expansion.

NOOOOOO

Please, don't do this!

[Amerissis]

Might as well erase everything we've done in the last 5 years. I'm so mad after reading this. I'll hold out hope they change their minds again i guess.

What, are they going to remove your achievements, mounts, gear, statistics on kills, anything at all? No, they aren't erasing anything. Lowering the numbers so they make sense again, is not going to nullify anything you did. I can't even care for gear upgrades any more, going from 2000 to 2010 AGI is a lot less exciting then going from 12 to 16. I welcome the squish!

I also would love a 4th char type, but I do hope it will be a (physical ranged) dps/heal/support class and not just dps/support or anything with a tanking spec. Bard sounds perfect for ranged physical, healing and support. My second favourite new class behind the Tinker

[Killadrix]

Item squish and supporter?

Good news.

[Synstir]

Personally I don't believe that item squish will change nothing. I think it will be a huge change for most players.... even if we can't see it beforehand.
I always believed they should not do it and they said themselves that it felt odd and now they're going ahead with it? I am curious as to how this will affect players.

[Toran1994]

Ghostcrawler recently tweeted, that it's unlikely they do a 4th role besides damage, heal and tank, but if they had to do it would be a support role.

[Millennía]

I will never understand why people think we need an item squish. It's an RPG, my character is meant to get stronger and stronger when defeating bigger and badder enemies. Isn't that kind of the point to an RPG? Or have I been playing them incorrectly for the last 20 years? All Blizzard need to do is reduce the amount each expansion jumps ahead. Not exactly difficult.

But if they severely reduce the amount of power you get from each expansion then it still won't feel right because you can go from lvl 95 to level 100 and not see much of a power increase and then you are back to the same problem of "I thought I was supposed to get stronger and stronger as I increase my level"

[Keltas]

I will never understand why people think we need an item squish. It's an RPG, my character is meant to get stronger and stronger when defeating bigger and badder enemies. Isn't that kind of the point to an RPG? Or have I been playing them incorrectly for the last 20 years? All Blizzard need to do is reduce the amount each expansion jumps ahead. Not exactly difficult.

It's not because of the numbers that appear. It's because of the exponential scaling it causes over time and how next expansion, we will be able to solo the previous raid tier in the next ones gear. Look at the dps spikes from full t14H gear to full t15H gear. it's over double. We've had people solo sha of fear, solo a few of the msv bosses, and it will only get worse the more expansions we hold it off.

Edit:
You will still scale roughly the same from MoP to the next expansion as you have in previous ones. This will affect anything lower than current max level content. Anything after that will keep scaling with an exponential curve, although hopefully a slightlylower curve than we've had in the past.

[Katharine]

Might as well do a level squish instead of the item squish. Both are equally terrible ideas.

[Amerissis]

But if they severely reduce the amount of power you get from each expansion then it still won't feel right because you can go from lvl 95 to level 100 and not see much of a power increase and then you are back to the same problem of "I thought I was supposed to get stronger and stronger as I increase my level"

Will going from 10 (stat or dps) to 10.000 not feel like a power increase? Why does it have to be from 10 to 100.000? Next expansion we'll do 500.000 dps if we continue like this. Going from 10 to 500k in a mere 95/100 levels is just ludicrous. You'll feel plenty powerful going from 10 to 10.000 in that time.

[smokii]

interesting....

blizzcon is 3 months away... should have the trademark application for the next expansion soon™

[Nerraw]

i also like the fact that he quite categorically states that stat enhancing items will never be available in the cash shop. Hopefully that will quieten some of the doomsayers, but somehow I doubt it.

Well, those people usually believe Blizzard are lying through their teeth anyway.

[SL1200]

Why not just delete our characters and make us start over?