Appears blizzard is repeating the Viscous Horror problem

[Ryazan]

Actually:

Droplet of Yar'Shaarj will also drop in flex mode. Note that he is tradeable as well (just like the Viscous Horror).

https://twitter.com/mumper/status/360475126023733248

[Luciandk]

Ah thats a relief, should make it much less of an annoyance to get. Cheers.

[Breehit]

I not a raider, although I understand that Blizzard places a lot of value on raiding. I also understand that raiders deserve special treatment and elite rewards. However, I do not understand why those rewards should be pets, when gear and mounts seem to be the raiders' status symbols (especially if non-pet people are just going to sell the pets anyway). For me, pet collecting has been the glue that binds me to World of Warcraft. It is extremely disincentivizing to know that these pets are only available in end game raids. I forced myself to do the retro raids for the pets....and found the drop rates so low that I returned to grinding gold for AH purchases. I only hope that Blizzard has a high enough drop rate for these raid pets to allow reasonable AH prices.

[Denverrunner]

As a raider who does normal and a little heroic raiding, I like having a pet drop that is exclusive to normal/heroic mode. (I personally disliked having to do lfr for the Living Fluid.) However, the drop rate on the Viscous Horror is too low. We have cleared Primordius every week since 5.3 arrived and have only had ONE drop. I lost the roll and ended up buying mine for a lot of gold. I hope the sha pet has a higher drop rate!

[Peanutty]

Transmog gear and mounts are also vanity items. Sometimes you can solo older content, sometimes you need to form a raid for what you want. There is no guarantee that your desired item will drop, or that you'll be the only one to roll on it.

I'm not heavily into the mogging or mount 'scene', but I don't get the impression that similar discussions to this take place there. There seems to be something about pets that makes people think differently and I have no idea what it is.

The difference between mog/mounts and pets is that the pets can be traded and sold to players who aren't in the raid group, and there's just more general interest in pets versus something like a transmog item (I've read blue posts that say 50% of players have dabbled or are active in pet battles).

[Quil2]

As a raider who does normal and a little heroic raiding, I like having a pet drop that is exclusive to normal/heroic mode. (I personally disliked having to do lfr for the Living Fluid.) However, the drop rate on the Viscous Horror is too low. We have cleared Primordius every week since 5.3 arrived and have only had ONE drop. I lost the roll and ended up buying mine for a lot of gold. I hope the sha pet has a higher drop rate!

Wow, we've done Primordius every week and not seen any drop. I'd have been highly encouraged to have seen one! Also, I've never seen one for sale on the AH either, so there are no opportunities to buy it. We've also done Ji-Kun and Horridon every single week and neither of those pets have dropped, but at least those are avail on LFR and the AH.

[Jadax]

However, I do not understand why those rewards should be pets, when gear and mounts seem to be the raiders' status symbols (especially if non-pet people are just going to sell the pets anyway).

The reason that gear and mounts are the raiders' status symbols, is because those are the rewards that high level raiding has offered in the past, along with titles.

That does not preclude new types of rewards.

[Denverrunner]

As a raider who does normal and a little heroic raiding, I like having a pet drop that is exclusive to normal/heroic mode. (I personally disliked having to do lfr for the Living Fluid.) However, the drop rate on the Viscous Horror is too low. We have cleared Primordius every week since 5.3 arrived and have only had ONE drop. I lost the roll and ended up buying mine for a lot of gold. I hope the sha pet has a higher drop rate!

Wow, we've done Primordius every week and not seen any drop. I'd have been highly encouraged to have seen one! Also, I've never seen one for sale on the AH either, so there are no opportunities to buy it. We've also done Ji-Kun and Horridon every single week and neither of those pets have dropped, but at least those are avail on LFR and the AH.

I have never seen the pet drop from Ji-Kun or Horridon either!

[Breehit]

As a marketing professional, it seems to me that Blizzard needs to analyze the "customer value" of their raiders versus their non-raider customers. What does each market segment contribute to the revenue of Blizzard in a given year? How long does each type of player retain his/her subscription...meaning, what is the lifetime customer value? Only then can the debate be resolved...should Blizzard pursue a policy to disincentivize non-raiders by making desirable pets raid-only? If non-raiders are not valuable, overall, it does not matter if those people lose interest and drop their subscriptions. However, if non-raiders contribute to the viability of Blizzard, it is not wise to make pets (which are a big draw for "casual" players) out of reach to the non-raiding segment. It seems to me that this is a simple marketing effectiveness issue.

[Adumbledore]

Personally, I was kind of hoping that they would do another "Raiding With Leashes" group again, but it seems like they went with this instead. Or if they were so adamant about doing this, at least moving some of the Timeless Isle pets over to a "Raiding With Leashes" group.

[Ackbah]

Collecting in general has changed so much in RL with the internet. What used to take years of work can now be easily accomplished with a few mouse clicks and a moderate sum of $$. I have been a collector of comics and comic art for years.

I would venture a guess that a great majority of "Pet Collectors" have not collected in RL. It used to be a labor of love, a painstaking process that when your collection was finally completed, it left you with a great sense of accomplishment..but also a sad feeling as the chase has come to an end.

I aggree with several points here, some good some bad. Anyone with a bucket of money can visit e-bay and obtain any TGC. Anyone with enough time will be rewarded in the long run with the object they desire (in this case a virtual pet). I dont mind that the Horror is hard to get, I dont raid. I used to be an "end game" content junkie and it was wrecking my life. I backed off and enjoy the game soooo much more.

I will get one eventually just like all the other pets, patience will win out.

I was #1 on my server for about 5 minutes one day...yay...now im done, im out spent and out timed. I have been collecting pets since I started playing and I still enjoy it, but I choose not to compete with RL$$ or time any more...im sleeping better for it too.

If there is anything that dismays me is that collecting used to build community, sure there was and still is a competitive edge to it, but it was so fun taking pride in your efforts and hard work as well as helping other collectors obtain that last crucial item to complete their collection. The "Horror" is the worst of it, there is a madness that can take over a collector when on the hunt, and in WoW it is so heavily used against collectors...worst of all by other "Pet Collectors"...mostly by end game raiders that may care less about pets. However when the opportunity knocks right? These are just peeps taking advantage of a market that is smokin hot. Its like finding a golden ticket in a Wonka bar!

I am better off just farming gold and buying one..I can't imagine going to a raid and seeing one drop and watching a non-collector take to to sell....aieeeeeeeeeeee.

Ack )

[Gilneas]

As a marketing professional, it seems to me that Blizzard needs to analyze the "customer value" of their raiders versus their non-raider customers. What does each market segment contribute to the revenue of Blizzard in a given year? How long does each type of player retain his/her subscription...meaning, what is the lifetime customer value? Only then can the debate be resolved...should Blizzard pursue a policy to disincentivize non-raiders by making desirable pets raid-only? If non-raiders are not valuable, overall, it does not matter if those people lose interest and drop their subscriptions.

Its not really about segmenting the population. They try to put pets in many different aspects of the game. Given that pets have had a larger role this expansion, expanding it to include pets from raids was a pretty logical step.

Personally, I was kind of hoping that they would do another "Raiding With Leashes" group again, but it seems like they went with this instead. Or if they were so adamant about doing this, at least moving some of the Timeless Isle pets over to a "Raiding With Leashes" group.

They didn't do old raid pets in 5.2 either. They're spacing them out, or they'd quickly run out of raids. Makes sense to do the old raid pets in smaller content patches, and put current raid pets in the new raids as they come out.

The next RWL achievement is the 2nd half of the BC raids, and none of the Timeless Isle ones really fit in there, as most of them are Pandaria themed. Better for them to take their time and give us some cool pets in this patch from the Timeless Isle, then in the next patch or in 6.0 or whenever, they give us some nice ones for RWL3.

[Azrile]

As a marketing professional, it seems to me that Blizzard needs to analyze the "customer value" of their raiders versus their non-raider customers. What does each market segment contribute to the revenue of Blizzard in a given year? How long does each type of player retain his/her subscription...meaning, what is the lifetime customer value? Only then can the debate be resolved...should Blizzard pursue a policy to disincentivize non-raiders by making desirable pets raid-only? If non-raiders are not valuable, overall, it does not matter if those people lose interest and drop their subscriptions. However, if non-raiders contribute to the viability of Blizzard, it is not wise to make pets (which are a big draw for "casual" players) out of reach to the non-raiding segment. It seems to me that this is a simple marketing effectiveness issue.

that is waaaay over-thinking this. ´by making desirable pets raid-only´... The ONLY reason they are desirable is BECAUSE they are raid only. They are not sticking a really cool, unique pet on raid bosses, they are sticking very boring looking pets with very boring abilities on raid bosses. It is the rarity and the OCD of some people that makes them desirable, not the actual pet themselves. They did not stick undead Valkrie ( a cool looking pet with unique abilities) on a boss raid, they left that for wild taming.... they stuck a few slimes that I never see anyone have out, or use in pvp on raid bosses. These pets are a simple +1 that people can´t afford, that is the only reason they are being talked about... not the actual pet themselves.

And to think this one boring pet has anything to do with player retention is laughable. Blizzard store pets would be 1000% more likely to cause that type of resentment compared to a slime from a raid boss.

[Azrile]

Personally, I was kind of hoping that they would do another "Raiding With Leashes" group again, but it seems like they went with this instead. Or if they were so adamant about doing this, at least moving some of the Timeless Isle pets over to a "Raiding With Leashes" group.

I think they had to skip raiding with leashes this patch because the ´next´ set of raids that would be included are not at all easy to solo with our current characters. Even Lady Vash in SSC is fairly difficult for many players, and twice they had to nerf chess event because of RWL. I think if they had done a raiding with leashes this patch, they knew they also would have had to go back and really change a lot of the late TBC raids because now there is an assumption that we should be able to solo them. They probably decided to just leave the raids as they are, and add RWL when we are lvl 95 and can solo them.

[Adumbledore]

They didn't do old raid pets in 5.2 either. They're spacing them out, or they'd quickly run out of raids. Makes sense to do the old raid pets in smaller content patches, and put current raid pets in the new raids as they come out.

The next RWL achievement is the 2nd half of the BC raids, and none of the Timeless Isle ones really fit in there, as most of them are Pandaria themed. Better for them to take their time and give us some cool pets in this patch from the Timeless Isle, then in the next patch or in 6.0 or whenever, they give us some nice ones for RWL3.

I hope so. I've been pretty pleased with what they've given us so far in the RWLs, so here's to hoping they keep it up. Especially since there are so many cool bosses in those raids.

Personally, I'd like:

Archimonde, Anetheron, and Azgalor from Mt. Hyjal (Rage Winterchill would be cool too, but there are already 2 liches)
Kil'Jaeden, Entropius, and Felmyst from Sunwell (Brutallus would be better than Azgalor, but I don't want to put too many from 1 raid)
Najentus, Reliquary of Souls, Mother Shahraz, and Illidan from Black Temple

I'd actually like more than that, but they've been keeping it between 10 and 12, so I can't get everything I want.

I think they had to skip raiding with leashes this patch because the ´next´ set of raids that would be included are not at all easy to solo with our current characters. Even Lady Vash in SSC is fairly difficult for many players, and twice they had to nerf chess event because of RWL. I think if they had done a raiding with leashes this patch, they knew they also would have had to go back and really change a lot of the late TBC raids because now there is an assumption that we should be able to solo them. They probably decided to just leave the raids as they are, and add RWL when we are lvl 95 and can solo them.

Probably. A lot of people complained during the first RWL about Razorgore and Viscidus, so they got nerfed. Now during this most recent RWL, people complain about the chess event and Vashj. I guess they want to avoid the complaints as much as possible and I can't say that I blame them.

[Reapersbeast]

IMO the more pets the merrier! BUT I want a variety!! I know blizzard has done Many Stupid things in the past 8+ years in WoW, but I just can't understand when you have a raid of 4, 8, hell 12, different bosses why would you give one boss 2 pets instead of spreading it out! I don't want 2 Primous pets but I'd love to have a little Lei-shen running along beside me!! I know it goes back to how lazy they are when it comes to designing, but it really makes no sense to give the same boss 2 pets! Even if one is lfr and ones regular! A Lot of players don't or can't raid in regular raids especially since So many players have quit and ruined alot of raid groups! So all you're really doing is making casual players suffer by not being able to get certain pets!!! And I know these developers have to be smart enough to see that! But then again thats Blizzard for ya!