Against new class hall pets!!

[Desi]

To have to grind 3 weapons to max on an alt one has zero interest in is excessive plain and simple.

It is. It is excessive. It is bad. It is a lazy way to stre-etch content. It is a pointless grind. I half expect to see a pet for "Infinite 50/50 on a Female Dwarf Frost Mage", for "Infinite 50/50 on a Male Dwarf Frost Mage", "Infinite 50/50 on a Male Dwarf Fire Mage", "Infinite 50/50 on a Female Troll Fury Warrior", and on down through all possible combinations of race, spec, gender.

Aye.

Pet collectors are smart enough to notice when they are being played, and this is a case of that. The reward (a re-coloured pet!) is simply not worth the effort involved, and it is lazy non-content from Blizzard.

[Drudatz]

Look at mounts, and toys, and achievements and transmog. They are tied into ALL sorts of activities. Why is it so hard to adjust to the facts that:
a) pets are going that direction too
b) there is the possibility that pets added are not exclusively put in for pet collectors

#1 and that is completly fucking WRONG!
(doing some activy is okay but fucking maxing out every dk weapon to 60 traits is WRONG)
#2 where do you see a toy looked behind such a tripple GRIND?
#3 who else beside collectors cares for pets? raiders i meat allways say they dont care for pets other then selling them for lots of money.

[Badpathing]

Look at mounts, and toys, and achievements and transmog. They are tied into ALL sorts of activities. Why is it so hard to adjust to the facts that:
a) pets are going that direction too
b) there is the possibility that pets added are not exclusively put in for pet collectors

#1 and that is completly fucking WRONG!
(doing some activy is okay but fucking maxing out every dk weapon to 60 traits is WRONG)
#2 where do you see a toy looked behind such a tripple GRIND?
#3 who else beside collectors cares for pets? raiders i meat allways say they dont care for pets other then selling them for lots of money.

clearly you did not understand the point and are incapable of objective thinking..

You think it's wrong, fine. Be upset about it. Someone else does not. There are other people playing the game.

As for the particular of toys behind a triple grind, again, put on your thinking cap here. The point was that collectable items, like toys, are gated behind different types of gameplay; questing, pve, achievements, etc. The specifics of each item and how you achieve were not important, or relevant to the comment. Lost on you, clearly.

And who else cares for pets? Indeed, thanks for backing my point. THAT point being that by crossing activity genres, you give players an opportunity to try something new and perhaps take a liking to it. I even gave a neat example for folks like you.

Also, when you meat a raider, do they return the favor? I like bacon.

[Quintessence]

b) there is the possibility that pets added are not exclusively put in for pet collectors

This is true, and it's why I posed the question directly in my response on the official PTR BNet feedback thread. "Who exactly is the target audience for these pets?" No answer so far.

So we really have no way of knowing 100% who these pets were intended for. DKs? General players? Pet collectors? It would help many collectors formulate a clearer, more objective opinion if they knew.

Unfortunately, Blizzard has been relatively dead silent about this topic and it doesn't look like we'll get any clear answer. So I'm not surprised, nor do I reject, that some collectors will create an opinion based on their point of view. It's only natural to do so.

Anyway, I stand by my suggestion to keep the current requirements to collect the pets the same, but only require level 34/35 for each weapon and NOT 43. Would be pretty fair IMO.

[Jodmos]

I don't believe having a specific class is something that should ever be required for a pet. It just penalises players for decisions they made years ago (the same thing is happening for mounts - want mount collecting acheivements - hope you have a paladin)

PVP - In a case like this, the pets should be set in such a away as you get both horde and alliance by completing the task on one faction and the pets act like the moonkin hatchlings or the recent blizzcon pets.

This may be hyperbole but I expect to never see this but it puts in perspective how I think a lot of collectors view the new pets - Let's take a hypothetical example - Let's say Blizzard add a must have item for PVP or Mythic raiding. Now let's also suggest that this wonderful item which PVPers and Mythic Raiders cannot do without requires that the said player collect 6 or 700 pets.. The outcry would be deafening, yet because a pet requires a lot of PVP or pets cannot be obtained except on a specific class (good going on picking just the right class to play 12 years ago), complaints about a heavy handed approach to introducing new pets are not valid.

This is what annoys me. Pets should inherently be easyish (word?) to get from other activities, such as pvp, or raiding. Kind of an enticement to try pet collecting/battling. Hard pets should come from hard pet related activities. I just see it as Blizzard know they have a captive audience with pet collectors who need to get all pets. And frankly, I can see this biting them on the butt, as I've already seen people saying they'll be unwilling to get store pets. That is a cost in real money to blizzard. Collector's mentality is generally, if I can't get all of them, why bother going out of my way for any of them. They could end up losing players whose reason for playing is pet collecting (End of the world for blizzard - NO. But money lost is money lost).

From reading the posts and online in general it appears to me that a lot of pet collectors are older and not interested in PVP. PVP is generally a game for faster reflexes so this makes sense to me. The big carrot of PVP pets has never seemed to get them involved in PVP. It's more of a 'do it until pet' then quit situation. And previous experience has shown blizzard that non-pvpers don't want to do it (the legendary cloak for example). You're just putting people in PVP situation they don't want and the PVPers suffer as well by having less focused players on their team. A loss all round.

As for pets added for non collectors. who else cares outside of pet battlers (and to me pet battlers won't care much if the is a comparable pet that's easier to get) and possible transmog folks who want a pet to match. It's the pet collectors that go to that extreme to 'catch 'em all'. Pets will always be a primarily pet collector driven endeavour in WoW. They know it as they've added pet collecting related personalities to the game. And this has gone back years when pets had to be kept in inventory.

One last thing regarding this. It's going to Vanilla levels of hardcore. Ultimately to maintain a collection is going to require more hardcore time investment than anything else in game. Now if the pets (PVP, class and otherwise) will still be obtainable after this expansion I'm fine with this as WoW has a history of players having fun with old content, be it pets, mounts, transmog or achievements so there is a precendent. I can't imagine anyone would complain about logging a character in a class hall for a couple of minutes to get 500 Honour everyday to slowly move towards the prestige pets. I just don't want this to become another Zulian Tiger (it irritates me when I see that as I was never lucky with drops - The Naxx achievement mounts are different as you have no real RNG, if you went after them you would get them.) where, through no fault of a player RNG is just against you and a pet gets removed that you could not have done more to get.

badpathing - I understand your point of view regarding this but you do come across as very antagonistic and it is detracting from your argument.


TLDR - If pets are going to be obtainable next expansion then good, if they aren't then bad

[Dolz]

This may be hyperbole but I expect to never see this but it puts in perspective how I think a lot of collectors view the new pets - Let's take a hypothetical example - Let's say Blizzard add a must have item for PVP or Mythic raiding. Now let's also suggest that this wonderful item which PVPers and Mythic Raiders cannot do without requires that the said player collect 6 or 700 pets.. The outcry would be deafening, ...

This was a well written post summing up a lot of the problems with these new pets. The part I quoted really shows how folks who don't care about pets would feel if the shoe was on the other foot. I hope the Devs read your post and think hard on this particular point.

[Badpathing]

badpathing - I understand your point of view regarding this but you do come across as very antagonistic and it is detracting from your argument.

TLDR - If pets are going to be obtainable next expansion then good, if they aren't then bad

I understand and won't deny it. I would only add that in general, I tend to return like with like. If you look at my responses (not that I expect you to honestly), you might notice that I respond respectively to posts like yours. I have a difficult time being 'civil' when posts are clearly hyperbolic, passive-aggressive or just plain stupid.

So that's on me, and I can live with my POV being of little value. It really doesn't matter since, as I have said before, I don't think Blizzard has the pet collector in mind unless it lies in line with what is best for the health of the game. I also don't think this is exclusive to pet collectors. If you take the time to look at other activity genres, I think you'll see that this is happening everywhere in the game; it just happens to be the case the pet collecting is a bit late to the show.

I strongly believe that getting players out and about, mixing it up activity wise is healthy for the game. I also like for pet collecting to be more than 'easy'. I personally disagree that it's easy as you have said, but that is of course subjective.

Finally, I whole-heartedly agree with the notion that if Blizz adds difficult-to-attain content, making it persist in subsequent expansions is a good idea. I also don't want another Zulian Tiger.

I think a lot of people are being pushed out of their respective comfort zones in this expansion, and it's not welcome for them. Typically, you see the vocal minority on forum threads such as these. I honestly feel like commenting on it is an exercise in futility, but what can I say; I like to debate.

Ultimately, I think the changes are good and hope to see more. Fortunately for me, I think I fall into the meaty demographic they are targeting so I will continue to see similar evolution in the future.

[Peterc]

This is what annoys me. Pets should inherently be easyish (word?) to get from other activities, such as pvp, or raiding. Kind of an enticement to try pet collecting/battling. Hard pets should come from hard pet related activities. I just see it as Blizzard know they have a captive audience with pet collectors who need to get all pets. And frankly, I can see this biting them on the butt, as I've already seen people saying they'll be unwilling to get store pets. That is a cost in real money to blizzard. Collector's mentality is generally, if I can't get all of them, why bother going out of my way for any of them. They could end up losing players whose reason for playing is pet collecting (End of the world for blizzard - NO. But money lost is money lost).

Best post on this subject so far imo. The section I have quoted covers the only thing I can see changing Blizzards mind an impact on revenue, but I suspect the numbers involved will not high enough for them to notice.

Also, while I do not always agree with badpathing, I find he puts across his opinions better than a lot on both sides of the discussion.

Finally I do like the idea of some 'must have' mythic raiding item needing 'collect 800 pets' to get. Make it sellable and I would really love it

Peterc

[Kiella]

Pets should inherently be easyish (word?) to get from other activities, such as pvp, or raiding. Kind of an enticement to try pet collecting/battling. Hard pets should come from hard pet related activities.

I strongly disagree. Back in MoP I spent ALOT of time on "pet related" activities. Slowly leveling all my pets around Halfhill, making the daily trainer circuit, etc. Then with the introduction of so many stones and Squirt and other methods in WoD designed to make pet battling more accessible, my collection was suddenly all rare and max level and at most I now devote a half hour or so on Squirt days to leveling any new pets. This leaves me with significant time previously devoted to "pet related" activities where now none are required.

Now perhaps in an ideal world there would be 1-2 hours of content each day remaining that are "pet related," but right now there is nothing for me "progression related" (to improve my collection) that is "pet related" at all. And I'm not even sure it would be possible at this point to create 1-2 hours of pet-related content each day that would also not face an objection from the hardcore pet collecting community. There was widespread objection to adding in additional pet levels and epic battle pets, and pet breeding never got off the ground. They could add more pet battle pvp achievements, of course, but from what I've seen on the official forums, the majority of collectors would also object to any more battle pets added to these. And while things like the new pet battle dungeon are awesome, given the small number of hardcore pet collectors relative to the player base at large, I don't realistically expect Blizzard to create enough of this type of content to fill a couple hours each day.

So what am I working on? The prestige pets and leveling alts. Would I rather just be done with pet collecting until the next patch? Personally, no. I do, however, understand that some people would. I also understand that some people do not have 1-2 hours a day to play. It is difficult. It is not that I want to say, "No, you should not be able to get these pets." to these people. It is just that I personally am not raiding right now and I really do appreciate having something I can do with my playtime to "progress," and for me, it is collecting these difficult pets. I do hope that the pets remain collectable next expansion and that everyone does have a chance to get them eventually.

As for pets added for non collectors. who else cares outside of pet battlers (and to me pet battlers won't care much if the is a comparable pet that's easier to get) and possible transmog folks who want a pet to match. It's the pet collectors that go to that extreme to 'catch 'em all'. Pets will always be a primarily pet collector driven endeavour in WoW. They know it as they've added pet collecting related personalities to the game. And this has gone back years when pets had to be kept in inventory.

It's important to remember that pet collecting is a spectrum, much like mount collecting. I do not consider myself a mount collector, but I still appreciate mount rewards and happily, for example, ground out the archaeology quest for my cool new spectral moose. Similarly, I have several friends who do not consider themselves pet collectors, are certainly not members of WCP, but yet who I still see occasionally pulling out a companion pet to match their hunter pet or to name after a lost real-life pet, or just to check out the cool new reward they got from some activity. And to them a new battle pet is a reward. It is valuable. They just don't feel any desire to "catch them all" or do pet battle pvp.

I can easily see people like these, who just happen to main a dk, being the target audience of the dk class hall pets. Of course, as Quintessence said, we don't know, but it is not necessarily the case that every pet is added just for us "hardcore" types.

[Badpathing]

I can easily see people like these, who just happen to main a dk, being the target audience of the dk class hall pets. Of course, as Quintessence said, we don't know, but it is not necessarily the case that every pet is added just for us "hardcore" types.

I have been trying to hammer this point home for days now, here on these forums.

[Jodmos]

I can easily see people like these, who just happen to main a dk, being the target audience of the dk class hall pets. Of course, as Quintessence said, we don't know, but it is not necessarily the case that every pet is added just for us "hardcore" types.

I have been trying to hammer this point home for days now, here on these forums.

I can see that and I understand that viewpoint, except for one thing. Why make it so difficult if it's aimed as reward for DK? It could just as easily have been get to Power Realized and provided the same function. Still some effort to do for three weapons but not as bad as the current version. Of course if the pets were cageable the point would be moot, as DKs who wanted to could keep the pets, otherwise make a bit of gold from non DKs. I do believe a major part of the kickback against this isn't that it happened but that it is so far above the requirements for the current class pets. (1 caveat is that I've a max, or will do in the couple of weeks, of each class so this sort of thing isn't really an issue to me given time). Also this very much depends on how the interaction of artifact knowledge changes over the expansion. It's conceivable, to me anyway, that there could be more levels added in the future above the 40 for 7.2, (not saying it's likely, just conceivable) especially as we can expect the expansion to last a year after that.

I would say I'm more annoyed at the PVP grind being require twice, but I hate PVP so doing it once is bad enough.

[Badpathing]

So. Just going to put this out there...I sincerely hope these class pets are not Legion exclusive and will NOT be removed come next expac.
No plans to remove them (Muffinus)

Blue post

[Jodmos]

Kiella

I think you've misinterpreted what I meant (or I wasn't clear). Either way, I think there is enough pet content.

I'm looking forward to the pet dungeon (not the RNG for pets in the bag though) and I would prefer it to be doable by non max level characters.

An issue with legion is that, and I've seen similar complaints, there is too much to do while not actually doing anything. Adding a new reward for doing the same thing another 100 times isn't really new content. All it does is prevent players from diversifying what they do as it has become so much harder to find time to do anything else if you are trying to keep more than 2-3 characters up to date. It's a case of overload and players are getting burnt out quicker because of it.

A prime example is the new infinite trait in 7.2. Blizzard have stated it isn't a target to complete. If that's the case I don't think blizzard pay attention to their customers. I've seen more burnout posts than any previous expansion and Blizzards solution is to add even more grinding in the hope that players will see it as an unachievable goal. Past experience tells me that there will be players that will try and then others will feel the need to to keep up and so on.

I just think Blizzard has done their usual stunt of swinging between two points. They just seem incapable of gradual change and I see the pets added in 7.2 in that light.

My main is a hunter (so no pet in 7.2 for him) and surprised I didn't think of matching hunter pet and companion pet given how often I see it (and with a mount to match as well).

I also have toys and mount collection but not quite as serious as pets (although I reckon someone looking at my collections would disagree). Mounts in general have always been harder to get than pets. And I think that's fair. Haven't done the moose yet but intend to. I just have that completionist mentality. When I played SWTOR I went out of my way to avoid getting hooked on collecting because I knew what would happen if I really started to get pets and mounts in it.

I get way too much enjoyment from wow either way. £10 a month is nothing for the amount I play isn't really anything and, as long as the pets are obtainable in the future, I'm not really too worried about how they're added. I just think Blzzard are painting themselves into a corner with how grindy they are making the game.

[Jodmos]

So. Just going to put this out there...I sincerely hope these class pets are not Legion exclusive and will NOT be removed come next expac.
No plans to remove them (Muffinus)

Blue post

I saw that but I would say I'm more concerned with the prestige pets as we don't know if that's a legion only or a new direction for PVP in future expansions as well.

Shameless request to WCP. Get another podcast about the future of pets with Cory or Jeremy. Think the last one I listened too was during MoP.

[Desi]

An issue with legion is that, and I've seen similar complaints, there is too much to do while not actually doing anything. Adding a new reward for doing the same thing another 100 times isn't really new content. All it does is prevent players from diversifying what they do as it has become so much harder to find time to do anything else if you are trying to keep more than 2-3 characters up to date. It's a case of overload and players are getting burnt out quicker because of it.

This.

Another example is the paragon reputation thing that is also coming in next patch, that gives you the chance (rng again) of getting a mount in your emissary bag, if you are 20k above exalted rep. Now, this level of rep is probably not going to start being earned until next patch. So while many of us would already be at that level of rep (had the counter been in place prior to the patch), we will probably have to start at exalted and earn our 20k rep, then play the rng game to earn the mount for each reputation. So no new content, just more grinding.

[Minivivi]

This may be hyperbole but I expect to never see this but it puts in perspective how I think a lot of collectors view the new pets - Let's take a hypothetical example - Let's say Blizzard add a must have item for PVP or Mythic raiding. Now let's also suggest that this wonderful item which PVPers and Mythic Raiders cannot do without requires that the said player collect 6 or 700 pets.. The outcry would be deafening, ...

This was a well written post summing up a lot of the problems with these new pets. The part I quoted really shows how folks who don't care about pets would feel if the shoe was on the other foot. I hope the Devs read your post and think hard on this particular point.

Bloody, blazing, brilliant comparison. We should all quote this fabulous perspective on every site that devs might read. Might I suggest two additional requirements? Not only collect 600/700 pets but upgrade them to rare and level each one to 25.

[Uduwudu]

...
So..let me get this straight. Blizzard attempts to introduce pet content in a different way and they are stupid for it. Meaning, we want all content to be the same right? Right.
...

I do not think that at all. The issue is more like the ideas and implementation HAS to fit the current engine and processes. If it does not and have details that do not fit, they will break other things in the process ... that is one of my concerns, although it is very specific to programming ... the ideas are limited to what can be done inside that "block" ... only.

...
Also, and this is like beating a dead horse at this point, there are other people in this game. I KNOW! I KNOW! INSANITY! Other people who like the variety, appreciate the challenge, and love the collecting.

I am not sure that it is beating a dead horse, but somethings would have to be re-written to make some new things work, and that is the problem on a game so large ... you can not have that many re-writes, and never be able to find where the breaks are that cause issues, for example. Thus, "new ideas", have to be within the ability of the current design ... and that is something that we are not exactly clear on, and aware of, when we think we want this or that.

It's not that they are beating a dead horse ... sometimes it's like Dr. Frankenstein ... how to bring the dead horse alive ... if we can use a literary allusion. I believe they try ... and sometimes what they say makes sense to them within the context that they know, but I'm not sure that us players have that know, to be able to come up with ideas that actually work.

It makes things harder still, IF, the folks programming it today, are not the same as the ones that did it a year or two years ago. Seems like programming is not exactly a very secure job for anyone, and that means that different outlooks on Pet Battles and its content will come up ... that we do not get, sometimes.

I think they will be reasonable on the Class Hall Pets. And they are probably looking to see what is do'able or not, by suggesting the 3 this and that for almost every class ... but it may even end up with something like ... you can only have 3 or 4 Class Hall pets, and you take your main and 3 Alt's ... and I think we would be happy ... not sure I would want to play all 12 classes ... I can't seem to handle a Paladin or a Rogue a whole lot!

[Digem]

See he came out in favor of this and now no matter what he will defend it and shout down and insult any opposing idea. How this way of collecting pets completely different than anyway before is good is beyond me? I don't mind grinds as to the fact I have 860 plus unique pets all rare and all level 25, I have 300 toys and 300 plus mounts. As you can see I am a collector and a grinder. The difference is I could do all that before on one toon. My main the one I choose to play on. If I needed an alt it was easy to no grind at all like the druid,warlock shaman pets etc... or could be bought.
He fails to see that difference intentionally or not. To have to grind 3 weapons to max on an alt one has zero interest in is excessive plain and simple. Guess what I will do it. But I also see the big picture he claims to "see" and know this is a turn off for most and will hurt the pet scene over all but he will "claim" it is good for "reasons".

As if you are doing any differently

And the difference between you and me (well, let's be honest...ONE of the differences), is that I acknowledge that this game is not tailored specifically for me or my habits. You erroneously think I "fail to see the difference", which is .. well, stupid. I clearly see the difference. The only failure is your ability to see that I accept change, and you do not.

I hate the dual prestige grind, but guess what; I'll do it if they don't change things. You are going out of your way to target me for not agreeing with you, and that's fine. In the end I'll most likely be happy with the game because of my position, and you will not.

And the pvp one is wrong too. You claim to "see" the big picture yet you clearly don't. I will do this and the pvp pet ones too but I can see they are both wrong. Yes an obsessive collector like me will do it but it can and has turned off the casual collectors. I have heard many in my guild say so and that is what is wrong with it. Adding pet collecting to things outside of the pet collecting norm should be easy and quick to get. This way some noncollector might stumble across it and get the pet collecting or battling bug. Hard to get pets should actually be locked behind actual pet collecting , like obtaining certain amounts, pve pet battling, like celestial tournament and new pet dungeons , and finally pvp pet battling. Wish you could see this but much better I guess to claim you are right and insult others. Have fun


P.s.

Take a look and see some of the top MYTHIC raid teams have called it quits due to the facts that it is too hard to level up Alts and to max out thier weapons. Heck they have claimed it is too hard to switch specs on a main and get its other specs weapons to max. But because you said so it is fine for the rest of us to max out three weapons of a dk and to max out a monks weapon. Mythic raiders have said it is but you say it isn't I wonder whom I will believe?

[Digem]

So. Just going to put this out there...I sincerely hope these class pets are not Legion exclusive and will NOT be removed come next expac.
No plans to remove them (Muffinus)

Blue post

Yet they have stated the hidden weapon skins will be unobtainable after this expansion.
The weapons in design are like the legendary cloak and ring can one get those now?
No, so I would not be shocked if the weapons can't be maxed next expansion and thus the pets unobtainable.

[Gráinne]

Just another, possibly irrelevant, observation.

Looking at https://realmpop.com/eu.html and selecting Level 110s only, I see the lowest population for classes, in order, is:

Monk
Warlock
Rogue
Priest
DK
Shaman

A second, unrelated, observation.

Time invested per pet, by class, assuming you have to level anew:

Druid: 50 hours to 100 + 8 hours beyond that, incl. RNG for the plots = 58 hours for 2 pets = 29 hrs/pet

Shaman: 50 hours to 100 + 1 hour = 51 hrs/pet

DK: 50 hours to 100 + 15 to 110 + 3 * 17 for AP = 112 hours for 3 pets = 37 hrs/pet

Monk: 50 hours to 100 + 15 to 110 + 17 for AP = 82 hrs/pet