Necrotoid

So I noticed all the basic ratings are on a different scale. According to wowwiki:

Hit (60/70): 10 / 15.8 rating for 1%
Crit / Spell crit: 14 / 22.1
Spell hit: 8 / 12.6
Resilience: 25 / 39.4

Why do they have 4 different arbitrary rating systems? The only explanation I could think of is each rating could then be deprecated at a different rate with level. But nope, all 4 of those scale at factor of 1.58 from 60 to 70. In effect, all four are exactly the same. So why the cosmetic difference of different numbers?

DOT and rot.
Travian: Phased Weasel, -144 | 61, Damascus.

 

• Falk

Itemization points.

Edit: To clarify, 1 rating of this == 1 rating of that in terms of item budget.

 

Kytrarewn

Being able to modulate iValue a bit more effectively. Makes it easier for the itemization designers if crit and hit, for example, were weighed evenly, though a single point of crit is almost always better than a single point of hit.

 

Necrotoid

Why don't they just fucking balance it "behind the scenes", then? 1 pt of stam does not equal 1 pt of spirit in item budget, does it? They can change the iLvl weights of 1 rating of each different type to make all 4 scales line up evenly with very little effort. They're all off from each other by just a constant proprotionality. Why make us remember 4 different systems when they can just build it into their itemization calculator?

DOT and rot.
Travian: Phased Weasel, -144 | 61, Damascus.

 

Kytrarewn

1 spirit = 1 strength = 1 crit rating = 1 hit rating = 1spellcrit = 1 spellhit.

It's not perfect, but it is elegant with the exception of stam.

 

Malan

Yah trying to remember what the ratings equate to is mind boggling. The very least they could do is put the exact conversion factor into the damn tooltip so that I don't need a website to tell me.

WoW has reached the point where Johnny QQ Casual can't play the game properly unless he trolls 5 different forums 20 hours a week and has 15 different WoW websites that he reads religously.

 

Ranalis

Get RatingBuster (http://www.wowinterface.com/download...ing_Buster.htm) and then the exact percentages are on your tooltip. Useful until Blizzard implements the same feature in 4 patches.

 

duostrike

All J.Q.C. needs to know is that more is better. He can see the effect of swapping gear on the character frame if he wants to get more involved. I do believe ratingbuster or something similar should be part of the default ui. It isn't really required though.

 

Redd

A big reason for it was to allow for different allocation of item value budgets. Before, the only way to add fractions of a crit for example, would be to add staggering levels of agility(which also came with AP for rogue/hunters). With the rating system, it allows them to make items with varying %'s of crit.

 

Sayeh

I thought it used to be that hit was more valuable? maybe it's just because I'm an affliction lock and crits aren't my top priority =p but a spell or attack has to hit before it can crit right? so isn't it better to have more hit, until you're at the max of 99% hit or whatever it is?

 

Bury

I think the point is that you could still achieve this effect by using the same rating range for each stat. e.g. 1 rating = .1% crit or hit or etc

 

Abaxial

There is a large difference in value between casters and melee.

 

◊ Quigon

Wow, when I first brought this up people said I was crazy. Its a stupid system right now, at least for end user purposes.

 

Zagzil

I don't see what you're getting it. It's definitely confusing and makes items harder to judge right off the bat, but the actual item value of the ratings aren't arbitrary nor are they "dumb." It's just a way of making ratings have different values.

 

Bibdy

Its a 1-roll system, so if you had 20% crit, +2% to hit, assuming a base miss chance of 4% and you made a billion and one attacks on your opponent you should find 20% of them are crits, 2% of them are misses and the remaining 78% are regular hits.

One thing I'm curious about is, is there still a 4% chance of a miss on a target of the same level, or has that changed, too?

There's always free cheese in the mouse traps, but the mice there ain't happy.

 

Nezralix

In this case, I think more transparency is better. It definitely helps to clarify things when I talk about itemization with people.

 

◊ Anias

The reason they don't use the same number (say 20 rating = 1%) is that as you level blizzard wants to be able to change the ratings value by stat, so eventually they'd be out of synch again, and you'd be clamoring to readjust.

Similiarly, while the number of people wondering about "what's the difference between 5 crit rating and 5 hit rating" might be signifigant, the amount of time they spend worrying about it is pretty minimal. On the other hand, the designers for new itemization have to be able to systematicly roll out new stuff every x months. Changing to your "magic in the code to make it work" system would be a pita for them to design another 10000 items (a low estimate for an expansion) every year, and it's much easier just to make the formula (on their end) for design as simple as possible.

This is good for us (the players) because it cuts down on travesties of itemization due to mistakes. (and just leaves human judgement errors)

1 rating = 1 non-stam stat = 1.5 stam.

That's pretty easy, and given that you trust their itemization formula generally, you can wear items with higher numbers without having to weight stuff too much.

Grab rating buster if you want to see the actual percentage - but honestly the number of people who do the math on each percentage point (or even know the break points) is so trivially low, that I doubt it's a huge concern.

JQC just wants bigger numbers. He'll get them. It's convenient that the current system makes that behavior (close-to) correct.

 

Apate

Haven't people been doing conversions for Int and Agi all along?

See you, auntie.

 

Malan

It's more than that though. Johnny Casual needs to know a frigging HEAP of information about the underlying combat mechanics that are not provided anywhere officially by Blizzard.

Think about all the people you laugh at because they took some trinket or item that *sounded* cool but has the lowest proc rate imaginable, or they took a weapon that is just totally wrong for their class... how the hell is someone supposed to figure this shit out? Read the non-existant manual? Remember when you bought Neverwinter Nights or Baldur's Gate, and the manual was like 2 inches thick? That was good. Blizzard is not helping things by hiding all the mechanics of the game.

Edit - hell, if blizzard actually *provided* information about how the game functions, something like 50% of the threads on this forum would never have been created. It takes thousands of people across the country to figure this shit out.

 

◊ Quigon

Best solution would be to show both?

 

Nite_Moogle

The fact that the game is playable WITHOUT that information is why WoW has such a colossal subscriber base. Less is more, if the player wants to know more the capacity is there for it but it isn't required. Trying to play Baldur's Gate without knowing anything about D&D would have been nightmarish.

 

Sayeh

ah, I never realized it was a 1 roll system. I learned something today. =p

back to the topic, god knows why they don't include RatingsBuster or whatever in the default UI. the ratings are pretty meaningless to the average end user without it...

 

Necrotoid

Exactly. When I'm trying to decide between 3 trinkets, one with 32 crit, one with 20 hit, and one with 20 dmg, I'd like not to have to take out my calculator, or at LEAST be able to read "rating to 1%" conversion automatically, which is NOT the case with 4+ conversions.

DOT and rot.
Travian: Phased Weasel, -144 | 61, Damascus.

 

Malan

I'm not sure that Baldur's Gate was really any more complicated than WoW at entry level. Play both games for a week or so through the learning curve and in both cases you'll be able to monkey your way through the content, hitting some semblance of correct buttons when they light up. My point though is that if you want to know more than just how to login, type in chat, turn in a quest... you can do that in Baldur's Gate in the encyclopedia of a manual they provide. In WoW though, there is no official source. You get to just stumble around the internet reading shit like Thottbot.

And yah, as Quigon said, providing a simple tooltip and a more advanced tooltip for every stat would be ideal.

Perhaps an example of what I'm talking about - Intellect. Nowhere in the game can you find out how much Crit one point of intellect provides you unless you equip/unequip some items and watch your character sheet and do some math. (not to mention it varies by class) This sort of info should be provided to the player in-game or at least on the official website.

 

• frmorrison

I agree, the tooltips could be more informative (like say how much rating gives 1% to do whatever, but ratingbuster does that now).

The int to spell crit was given on the offical forum over a year ago (for level 60s), but it would be nice to have a webpage with numbers for a level 70.


However, having more complicated tooltips can confuse a causal user and having web pages full of numbers could possibiliy frighten a causal user (WoW at its core is a very simple game - kill stuff/do objectives to complete quests and having more of a number is better), but I know some people desire to understand the foundation, but I believe most players don't care.