Let me make this clear: this is a terrible idea. Sure, it has some fringe benefits regarding inflation, but the main impact of it is negative: punishing success.
The true problem is idiots who make stupid assumptions. The main stupid assumption being that everything is relative, so that item levels must show relative gains rather than absolute gains. Wrong. Economic relativity is a myth used to justify the greediness of lazy people.
Let's try some basic facts.
1) Item level has increased since vanilla
2) Raiding participation has increased since vanilla.
Hm...
Let's try a basic labor supply model.
As we can see here, the Demand for raiders is at 100%, meaning that Blizzard wants everyone to raid. Since it is vertical, it indicates that Blizzard wants everyone to raid, no matter how many epics or item levels it takes to get them. The horizontal lines are essentially "price ceilings": Blizzard's determination of how many epics players can get. This is the wage rate. Now look at the Supply line, which clearly shows that as the available epics increase, there will be more raiders. This perfectly fits the trend, at least until Cataclysm, when Blizzard screwed up the market for epic raiders by trying to make us wear blues.
Note that when there are enough epics, players will give 110%. This explains the success of heroic raids.
So what does the squish do on this graph? Obviously it sets a new "epic ceiling" somewhere above the vanilla level but below the cataclysm level. This will reduce the number of raiders, harming the epic economy.
In other words, the "squish" will kill raiding, not save it.
2 comments:
The squish will only affect ilvl jumps for older expansions. In terms of your labor supply model, it's equivalent to nerfing the minimum wages for town criers, blacksmiths, ox wagon drivers and candlestick makers.
The flattening is of the old tiers, but if previous tiers don't rise as much, the current tiers will fall to match it. That's the whole point, to reduce the current tier inflation.
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