Dev Watercooler - The Great Item Squish (or Not) of Pandaria

[Dantriges]

I meant that you have to increase the itemlevel between different tiers significantly. If the levels are lower in general it probably doesn´t have to be 13 levels.

Well, what the spread is in non-new-expansion content isn't relevant, because it's *all* leveling gear anyway. It's only relevant, really, once you hit the new gear reset with the new expansion after the squish. If someone keeps a lower ilvl item for its itemization for a while, they'll still replace it when the big gear reset hits at the expansion level.

Oh I was talking about the max level gear in general not raidgear from previous content. So more or less the MoP endgame gear still has to have significant jumps in between that you notice a difference between T14 and T 15. And well it would affect the gear reset of course unless Blizzard squishes raidgear before the next Xpac on a regular basis. I don´t think that they could sell that to people so well. For Cata to MoP yeah, if t´s in line with the general reduction.

I don´t know if it was exaggerated but people were quite upset when they replaced raid gear in the first zone, going from Classic to BC.

hm quite funy that defense actually served a function there. It was annoying but it was quite hard to reach the new cap without new gear. Blizzard was actually able to make you dump itemisation points in an essential stat that returned a lower benefit once you had it.

I had a similar idea to Passionario that they could just combine their two ideas and call it mega damage or enhanced strength and stuff like that but I am not sure if people would still feel the same and think the new definitions are more or less some kind of deception and thinking the players are too stupid to see through it.

Would be a nightmare, no customer likes it if the seller tries to pull of some kind of deception.

[Darielle]

I'm not convinced that this is "bad for the game", actually.

Neither am I

If anything, it might force blizz to itemize gear better.

The only way you could force Blizzard to do that is to have every tier of gear have the same stats. Can't have crit/haste pants in one tier and crit/mastery in the next because X classes will find that not worth it. That sounds enjoyable.

Isn't that what reforging is for? I've raided with dps gear if by reforging it makes it better than the lower lvl and better itemizzed tank gear i currently own.

But that's only because the gaps are as big as now. Should gaps be smaller, you're looking at 48 STr/60Stam/40Dodge/41Mastery and your next tier is 51Str/64Stam/42Hit/44Mastery. Even after reforging Hit to Dodge, most tanks will look at that and go "Le sigh". The only way to avoid those kinds of situations would be to never have anything except the optimal gear (or never have optimal gear).

Now switch that to a dps perspective. I have a piece of gear that's 37Int/49Stam/33Haste/33Mastery as a Shadow Priest. The next tier's piece is 39Int/52Stam/36Crit/35Mastery. Reforging won't be enough to make that worthwhile unless all secondary stats of every spec in the game are basically right next to each other in value (like with Kitties now - Ranseur's being better itemised than Flamekitty staff is barely enough for a 30 dps difference).

[Crimsonheart]

"Now switch that to a dps perspective. I have a piece of gear that's 37Int/49Stam/33Haste/33Mastery as a Shadow Priest. The next tier's piece is 39Int/52Stam/36Crit/35Mastery. Reforging won't be enough to make that worthwhile unless all secondary stats of every spec in the game are basically right next to each other in value (like with Kitties now - Ranseur's being better itemised than Flamekitty staff is barely enough for a 30 dps difference)."

the point is...if they do an item squish (lets say divide everything by 10) the stat values would be worth the same... roughly because crit percent, hit percent haste etc is normalized and boss health is reduced... 10k dps against a mob with 100k heath takes the same amount of time to kill as 1k dps against a mob with 10k health. so by not taking it it is the same as it is now not going from one tier to the next.

for your shadow priest example, while losing haste is hard shadow cares about int moreso (worth a higher stat value) and they woudl still reforge off crit to haste so it would only be a 19 point haste loss for the gain for 2 intellect, 2 mastery, and 22 Crit. this still results in a dps increase. just because the numbers are smaller doesnt mean anything.

[Klaudandus]

It takes the same time to kill something with 10million HP while doing 20K dps than killing something with 1million HP while doing 2K dps.

It's only a psychological nerf, but everything is still the same. And no, you still haven't convinced me the squish is bad for the game, when the ilvl jumps is what's been bad for the game (along with blizz lack of foresight when it comes to what gear one would be wearing when stepping into the last raid) *cough SW Radiance/Chill of the Throne cough*

To be honest, what I see against the squish boils down to "I want to do MEGA damage". Not a single compelling argument other than ilvl matters psychologically or boycotting gear in the new tier because the previous one is better itemized (disregarding the fact that there's reforging to try to alleviate itemization issues in the first place)

[Flex]

It's only a psychological nerf, but everything is still the same. And no, you still haven't convinced me the squish is bad for the game, when the ilvl jumps is what's been bad for the game

Never underestimate the psychological, never ever underestimate it.

Also see mavin's post about TBC launch item levels for the reason why things are the way they are. I am still of the opinion that the only issue has been the expansion jumps and the system in place currently doesn't need an expansion jump that was present in TBC and WotLK.

[Dantriges]

Take a look a the item predictions. That´s going into the realms of silly.

We also had major DPS differences between specs at the start of Cata. I think part of it are the high itemlevels. If you have a higher base, stuff gets exaggerated and minor differences become quite major. Most RPG rule systems are designed to work between certain number and get increasingly weird results with rising numbers. At least some parts are going to behave strangely and are hardto reign in again.

So squish it and make the rises at endgame significant enough. Probably a bit smaller than now. Probably the game´s lifetime isn´t long enough that the problem will rise up again, anyways.

[Klaudandus]

It's only a psychological nerf, but everything is still the same. And no, you still haven't convinced me the squish is bad for the game, when the ilvl jumps is what's been bad for the game

Never underestimate the psychological, never ever underestimate it.

Also see mavin's post about TBC launch item levels for the reason why things are the way they are. I am still of the opinion that the only issue has been the expansion jumps and the system in place currently doesn't need an expansion jump that was present in TBC and WotLK.

I understand the psychology behind people being flustered by a raiding epic with a lower ilvl than a blue. I am not discounting that.

However... did you really need 3 ilvl jumps in ToC, or in ICC? Did we really need Naxx 10 to be 200 and ICC25 Heroic to be 277? Half a jump shoulda been fine between 10 and 25s, and a between 25s and heroics.

[Klaudandus]

Take a look a the item predictions. That´s going into the realms of silly.

We also had major DPS differences between specs at the start of Cata. I think part of it are the high itemlevels. If you have a higher base, stuff gets exaggerated and minor differences become quite major. Most RPG rule systems are designed to work between certain number and get increasingly weird results with rising numbers. At least some parts are going to behave strangely and are hardto reign in again.

So squish it and make the rises at endgame significant enough. Probably a bit smaller than now. Probably the game´s lifetime isn´t long enough that the problem will rise up again, anyways.

This. The higher the numbers, the bigger the deviations on a graph.

They could just divide everything by 10, and let you use decimal numbers for ratings, like crit, haste, mastery...

[Flex]

I understand the psychology behind people being flustered by a raiding epic with a lower ilvl than a blue. I am not discounting that.

It wasn't that they were lower it was that they were worse to at best a side grade over the blues from 5 man heroics. So in general the power of the new/hard needs to be measurably higher than the power of the old/easy.

However... did you really need 3 ilvl jumps in ToC, or in ICC? Did we really need Naxx 10 to be 200 and ICC25 Heroic to be 277? Half a jump shoulda been fine between 10 and 25s, and a between 25s and heroics.

For that time period, yes. 10s were designed to be easier than 25s and 25s were designed to be the "real" raiding experience.

This. The higher the numbers, the bigger the deviations on a graph.

And? If 5% is their accepted deviation what does it matter if the baseline is 4,000 DPS or 40,000 DPS? That is a purely psychological reason to squish item levels.

[Klaudandus]

Ok, but did we need to have heroics dungeons be 346, t11 to be 359, and HM T11 be 371? The answer is NO. Hardcore raiders clamoring for their huge ilvls is just to increase their measure of their epeens and does not accomplish anything else really.

Yes, the increase has to be measurable, but not excessive. Through Wrath and Cata, the jumps have been excessive and lead to chill of the throne... I'm glad we didnt get Heat exhaustion, but we coulda have been hit with that. Yes, lack of foresight on Blizz part, but also because they knew people were crybabies about ilvls, and that's something that needs to change.

And the point is to smooth out the graph. It's easier to smooth out the graph with smaller numbers than with bigger numbers. That is not psychological; that is just a function of the equation you're graphing and the value of the variables. Growth, for it to be manageable is supposed to be as closer as linear as possible, rather than exponential.

[Flex]

Ok, but did we need to have heroics dungeons be 346, t11 to be 359, and HM T11 be 371? The answer is NO. Hardcore raiders clamoring for their huge ilvls is just to increase their measure of their epeens and does not accomplish anything else really.

Why not? 13 ilvl between tiers is pretty standard. T4: 115->T5: 128->T6: 141->T6.5: 154

I am just not buying that the during the expansion tier increase is an issue at all when the biggest power jump has always been the expansion jump. Level 57 heirloom sword is 40 DPS, a level 58 heirloom sword is 50 DPS. 67 is 65 DPS and level 68 is 91 DPS.

Yes, the increase has to be measurable, but not excessive. Through Wrath and Cata, the jumps have been excessive and lead to chill of the throne…

Cataclysm is no more excessive than any other expansion and with a lot of other changes is probably the smoothest increase of any expansion.

And the point is to smooth out the graph. It's easier to smooth out the graph with smaller numbers than with bigger numbers. That is not psychological; that is just a function of the equation you're graphing and the value of the variables. Growth, for it to be manageable is supposed to be as closer as linear as possible, rather than exponential.

And thingss like "increases damage while wielding a 2H weapon by x%" means it is rather easy to tune.

[Klaudandus]

Just because its standard, does not mean its optimal or sustainable. Which was the whole point in GC's blog.

[Dantriges]

And thingss like "increases damage while wielding a 2H weapon by x%" means it is rather easy to tune.

No. Or Blizzard is too dumb to turn a knob. We had specs that deal double the amount than others and 10k+ DPS differences.

It´s probably not only of the fault of the high numbers. there are quite a lot of factors interconnected. One turn here can lead to unexpected consequences elsewhere whih are exaggerated by the high numbers.

You can balance it, but it gets very delicate.

Seen it in so many games, in my own design , too and have to say it looks a bit counterintuitive but yeah, higher numbers, higer amount of balance problems. WoW has it a bit better because they can ignore the levels before max more easily.

[Milius]

http://wowinterface.com/downloads/info2 ... amage.html

just sayin this is awesome

[Tev]

http://wowinterface.com/downloads/info20481-MegaDamage.html

just sayin this is awesome

Haha, I'm going to have to give that a try on my mage.