Sunday, November 6, 2011

Squishing (WoW)


"Blizzard wants to kill our stats- Time for a revolt!"


Item squishing, ugh. That about sums up my feelings on the topic. In case you haven't read about it check out the latest Bliz Dev Watercooler post. Encrazed Crafts goes over it much more eloquently than I can, check out his post too.

Basically in this expansion [Cataclysm] stats have inflated so much that it leaves us to wonder how big they are going to get within a short amount of time. In a game that pushes out so many tiers of epic sets within each expansion, this could get out of hand. But wasn't this thought through better than-  'Oh crap, what did we do? Back up the truck and start over?' I mean they had at least a year to think this through before implementing it. Most games take years to inflate stats (over many, many expansions- Everquest for example) to the point we're at now. We've even passed EQ in hitpoints and mana, that's twelve years worth of expansions!

I think a big problem had to do with the whole 'Lets make purples special again'. Lets make epics truly epic and harder to get. They caused an inflation on top of the whole stat boost this expansion brought in. Then they lost track of that train of thought. Heroics are hard! I don't believe you anymore Mr. Ghostcrawler. Your mind changes like the wind.

My thoughts on the whole deal? I'll just copy and paste my reply to Encrazed Crafts post:

I really enjoy soloing old content at this point and would hate to see that change. That said, I think this xpac really did a huge job on inflation. Now they want to back up the truck. Why didn’t they think this over to begin with? It’s like running someone over then backing up and saying, ‘Well that wasn’t so smart, lets put him back together!” I mean the damage has been done and you’re still going to piss people off.

I think Blizzard needs to think things over before doing such dramatic changes on such a constant basis. Heroics are hard…. Heroics are not hard! Over complicating stats, combining stats…. It gets to a point where it feels like we’re dealing with one of those plastic surgery addicts… We never know what things are going to look like after going under the knife so many times. With each patch and expansion I feel like I recognize my characters less and less.

Things like running old dungeons and heroics might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it is mine. Just like raiding might be your scene, it isn't mine. I can see a lot of alternative fun stuff being snuffed out if this isn't thought out thoroughly. 

I just wish Blizzard would put down the scalpel and think about changes. I just committed to paying for a year, why oh why did he have to drop this bomb on me now. Sure things might not be so drastic, I suppose only time will tell.


4 comments:

  1. Thanky for the linkage, Mrs. Kaozz!

    While I feel your concern and can see what you mean, I'm not too bothered by this change. Again, I'm probably not as hardcore into solo raiding stuff as you are as I tend to side with with doing things that inevitably cause me to rage out like endless LFD pug grinding or the PvP variety. Now thinking about it, a better name might have been "masochism" for that warrior o' mine XD

    I completely agree with you on the "Ghostcrawler's mind changes with the wind" statement though. At first I was happy to see daily bug fixes and stat changes with Cata, but the negative part of it all was the commonly did huge gameplay-affecting stuffs.

    At the time I was leveling a pally and my bud has a good healing on so granted my memory might be skewed, but objectively speaking, there was a LOT of crap getting juggled around with Holy Pallies.

    "Pallies now have Holy Power! Holy Power no longer works with that Cone Heal! Now it does, AND it takes charges to use! Oop, never mind. Now let's nerf Becon of Light again. Hmm. Buff, or nerf? Where's that blasted coin again? Alright, call it in the air, guys..."

    I'm still ticked at how quickly they can go from one adamant position to the next. Scorned me with Warrior changes in the past, bastids >.<

    I think they are trying to fix a few things at once, namely their image after Cata deflated a lotta people, myself included. The stuff they showed at Blizzcon was amazing and that is the stuff we want more of. This idea, while necessary, is still controversial. In the end I think it will work out, but as I said before, still farm those old instances as much as you can now :P

    Mini-group Scenarios will fill the gap, pet battles will be interesting, Challenge Instances will be my draw along with some potential world pvp #might actually need to join a guild for that aspect#, so it's not like we won't have a lot of fun stuff to do. But I can still see doing solo raids being enjoyable, and with their uncertain/negative future, I agree this news is a mixed bag at the moment.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You're most welcome :)

    Aye, I do get a bit tired of things changing on each of my characters. Some have been for the better some have been for the worse but sometimes something changes and I just feel like it isn't the same character. Paladins... I do think they are (very much so) for the better but they are a far cry from my first 60 in Vanilla! They never stop changing Paladins.

    There is a lot of fun stuff to look forward to and we still have plenty of time before the expansion hits, so I'll run what I can until then, hehe.

    I would almost prefer the mega damage over the squish because really isn't that what is fun about getting higher lvls? Being more powerful, going back and smashing those who you couldn't in the past. I dunno, we'll see what happens.

    I think if they go in access of changes and are too severe it could be worse than Cata, as far as pushing people away. People get into a groove that they enjoy, after all we play games to have fun and enjoy ourselves, and pushing them out of it isn't always a good thing. You can force changes but you can't force people to like them. Only time will tell.

    On a good note, I am still happy playing and I wish 4.3 would hurry up. I really want to see the new darkmoon faire and the appearance changes!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Speaking of Dark Moon, did you check out the video on MMO-Champ? I only watched the first seven seconds or so, started to laugh (in a great way!) and turned it off to avoid spoilers.

    Don't wanna ruin anything, so I'll just say I got as far as the arrows and had to shut it off.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I hadn't seen the video yet, going to go watch it. Just checked out MMO-Champ and it looks like I'll be pretty busy the week that comes out, lol!

    ReplyDelete

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