Not looking forward to this...

[Multibocks]

Item Level Squish
The second solution actually involves compressing item levels, which is why we call it the “item level squish solution.” If we can lower stats on items, then we can lower every other number in the game as well, such as how much damage a Fireball does or how much health a gronn has. If you look at the item level curves, you can see that most of the growth occurs at the maximum character levels for the various expansions. This is because we keep rewarding more and more powerful gear to make the new raid tier and PvP season in an expansion reward significantly better gear than the previous one. However, those huge item level jumps don’t accomplish a lot once the character level has increased again. Very few players notice or care how much of an upgrade the Black Temple loot is over the Serpentshrine Cavern loot when their characters are level 80.

With that in mind, we could go back and compress the big item level increases that occur at level 60, 70, 80 and 85. The Mists of Pandaria gear would still grow exponentially from patch to patch, but the baselines would be a lot lower. Health could go from 150,000 back down to something like 20,000. The big risk of this approach is that players will log into the new expansion and feel nerfed… even if all the other numbers are compressed as well.

In other words, your Fireball will still do the same percentage damage to a player or a creature that it does today, but the number would be smaller. Logically, this seems like it would work, and it does. But it feels weird. When we tried this internally, everyone agreed that it just felt off throwing a spell for hundreds of damage when you are used to it doing thousands of damage.

I came up with an analogy -- even though I know logically that people drive on the left side of the street in the UK (we drive on the right side of the street in the US) and wouldn’t be surprised to see it, it would still feel really disorienting if I was driving in the UK and had to make a right-hand turn.

If they nerf us back to 20k health so I can fireball something for 800 damage this will prevent me from buying MoP. I like to feel powerful and soloing bosses is something I enjoy doing. I realize that this is only one of the proposed methods of fixing stat scaling, but I'm not looking forward to their decision. I have a bad feeling that this is they way they will go. Like I said, when I get new gear I want to feel like a badass, not imperceptibly better. Where is the fun in that? I wouldn't even bother upgrading from t15 to t16 if I knew that I had to pay out 10kg in enchanting costs for +10 int set total.

/rant off

[Lyonheart]

The bottom line is players like to "feel" like they are getting more powerful for their effort. It does not matter if the numbers get bigger over time.. its feels good. One day we could see " I just crit that guy for 1,000,000 Damage!" and so what?.. thats what you expect down the road.

[jstanthr]

if all numbers are reduced all across the board, your 1mil crit would do the same effective damage as your 800crit as it would take away the same overall % of the health of the mob, (the mob health would be reduced by the same curve) at least that is the way i understand it.

[Lyonheart]

if all numbers are reduced all across the board, your 1mil crit would do the same effective damage as your 800crit as it would take away the same overall % of the health of the mob, (the mob health would be reduced by the same curve) at least that is the way i understand it.

I know how the math works.. I'm talking about the perception that players have... players WANT to feel MORE powerful as they advance in the game..from level to level..gear upgrade to gear upgrade..expansion to expansion. Its all in the mind, I know.. but it FEELS better as you level and upgrade to see your damage do higher numbers and your heals heal for more.. PERIOD! Thats why its a bad idea to squelch the numbers IMHO!

[valkry]

I know how the math works.. I'm talking about the perception that players have... players WANT to feel MORE powerful as they advance in the game..from level to level..gear upgrade to gear upgrade..expansion to expansion. Its all in the mind, I know.. but it FEELS better as you level and upgrade to see your damage do higher numbers and your heals heal for more.. PERIOD! Thats why its a bad idea to squelch the numbers IMHO!

Give it two months and after a while, you will go from 800 crits to 900 crits and will feel HUGE!!

You have so much faith in blizzard it's cute. Despite what you say, difficulty will change. Thats the thing with exponential explosion, you have much more health right now than was designed for a boss from BC. If they normalize health you bet your ass difficulty is going to change. It possible it may even become easier.

The bosses stats/dmg and hp will also go down though. It will still take the boss 4 hits to kill you and you 3 heals to get to full. Only the number's size will change, not the effectiveness.

Bagging someone for having faith in blizzard, yet you play their game too... cute.

[Multibocks]

Give it two months and after a while, you will go from 800 crits to 900 crits and will feel HUGE!!


The bosses stats/dmg and hp will also go down though. It will still take the boss 4 hits to kill you and you 3 heals to get to full. Only the number's size will change, not the effectiveness.

Bagging someone for having faith in blizzard, yet you play their game too... cute.

What does having faith to do with playing their game? That's fucking moronic.

You clearly don't understand the complexities of the combat system. What about armor? And no a % change does not work in time to live. Its not as simple as "reduce all the numbers" and even blizzard knows that. There are always unintended consequences when you make sweeping changes. I bet you any amount of money they will Fuck it up. The question is: if it doesn't affect current raid content, will they bother to fix it? I'm guessing no.

In MoP you're going to be 6 - 9 tiers above what a BC boss would be. I'm pretty sure you're still going to
have no problem downing old raids with much less people than originally intended.

Then, what's the problem? You're threatening to quit when you're not even sure if it's going to be harder
or easier.

No I said I'm not looking forward to it. Yes if its screwed up then I will quit. If its better then game on Garth. I'm also saying its a bad idea, they should just continue with the current stats and the leveling to 90 should be a marginal increase in stats. Each tier in MoP should be linear increase in stats. with some balancing changes it should be problem solved.

And then those players will come crawling back lol, like they always do. WoW is STILL the biggest MMO. Those we lose wont be missed

And this is why you don't run a game the size of WoW. Your view of screw them is short sighted and a good way top disenfranchise your player base.

[EaTCarbS]

And this is why you don't run a game the size of WoW. Your view of screw them is short sighted and a good way top disenfranchise your player base.

You don't either.

Blizzard has a history of putting a lot of forethought into their products. Sure, there are always unintended consequences, but that's just life.

They will test the number changes. They will tweak things if needed. Its what they've been doing since 2004.

[zipzip]

[...] I'm also saying its a bad idea, they should just continue with the current stats and the leveling to 90 should be a marginal increase in stats. Each tier in MoP should be linear increase in stats. with some balancing changes it should be problem solved.
[...]

I don't think you've fully understood the problem. There are limits to how big numbers (integers & floating point numbers) can be. They simply CAN'T keep increasing the numbers from expansion to expansion.

Also, by reducing the numbers the game performs better for everyone, since smaller numbers can crunch faster than larger numbers.

[Multibocks]

yeah but I dont want to hit for 800, not interested thanks.

edit: I want to be clear that I understand the principle of %health per spell. I am actually looking forward to seeing my tank hit 500k health or whatever, that is cool to me.

[valkry]

Could someone just make an addon to add a zero or two to each number in game if they do this change lol?

And TWINKS care about the difference between BT and SSC loot!! FFS!!