Wailing Critters - What did you think?

[Aranesh]

My choice of words might have been a bit too bleak. That was not the intention. Yes I know Blizzard relies heavily on actual numbers, not only feedback, and that is a good thing. I fear they will not be sufficient, but I, too, really really hope they will look good enough

[Peanutty]

Well I certainly didn't hate it. I just don't like the idea that I'm going to have to run it for weeks to get the pet breeds I want.

I think the concept was interesting but maybe in the interest of making this as available to as many players as possible they tuned it to be too easy. So going with the idea of this being a "dungeon," maybe it would've been cool to see both a normal mode that's meant to be easier (either the way it is now, or maybe even removing the "elite" tag from the opponent pets) and an amped up heroic mode for more hardcore players, with better rewards for heroic mode (an extra bag? guaranteed pet?) Not sure what a heroic mode would entail: maybe all the opponent pets being better quality than they are now, or you're restricted to 20, maybe 25 pets that you preselect, and can only use those during the clear? Just an idea.

Let's face it, the majority of wow players are not hardcore pet collectors. Many do dabble in it. Guildmates kept asking me over and over on the first day if I'd completed it yet, because that's what they expected me to do. I think they were waiting to see my reaction to it before they'd even consider doing it.

[FuxieDK]

I have very mixed feelings about WC..

First of all, new Pet Battle content: YAY!!!!

Difficulty: For some, too easy... For some, moderate.. For a lot, too hard.
I am NOT among those that can develop strategies and therefore I'm "forced" to use other people's strats. This means, initially, I fall in the last group, where it's too hard, but by reading strata (and having 99% of all pets in game), I can copy "the big boys" and suddenly fall in the "too easy" category..
Boy oh boy, my poor Emerald Proto Drake was used and abused...

Once I get the pet in the bag, I cannot see myself do WC anymore..

[Paladance]

Once I get the pet in the bag, I cannot see myself do WC anymore..

TBH any of the existing pet content can be treated that way. Your mileage may vary, but I haven't done CT, or BoF, or Tanaan, let alone oldschool tamers since I have achievements, pets and plenty of stones. I only collect pet charms and level pets via most accessible tamers + do FF fights + beat Crysa levelling an alt by the way because I need another breed. I can test a strat from time to time, but that's while I'm doing other stuff in the area.

As a person who kept a track on the PTR news, I've gone through all stages from hype, to realization, to snarkiness, to actually giving it a try once it's live. I may still be baffled, and my feedback includes complaints, but not without a hope. I'd refer to my two recent posts on EU forums, but I don't want to annoy you with walls of text.

For all those thinking they can get away with anything in this scenario, better to not imagine my vocabulary when I had lost my Hyjal Wisp to initial trash. (I continued, of course, despite a plan to test its performance -- I was trying to reuse old method in actual battle instead of the gimmicky way, as that one really isn't necessary. Well, there is another time.)

[Cluey]

I went in blind, all I'd heard was that there was a new pet challenge.

I'm one of the grumpy old farts who'd prefer to see no guides, but there are a few of you who probably make a little coin from putting guides up.
I think it would be good if you didn't put the guides up for X time after it's released, X being about a dozen resets.
Bonus points for keeping your strategies to yourselves and agreeing to release them on the same day!

It would be interesting to see how similar, or not, the strategies are.

As to the actual dungeon, I quite enjoyed it.
The setting was fitting for the story given, it would have felt wrong if it wasn't a damp dark cavern.

The criticisms about the random back line pets not having enough variety are valid.
The fight stages are all too similar, I guess this is done to wear your strong pets out to make you use more of your pets. However, I think, that is what's led to the comments about it being boring.

Difficulty wise it depends on a few things:
1). Collection size
2). The breeds you have (Digem mentioned that the Celesital Tournament made him learn about breeds)
3). How many fights you've done
4). How many of the fights you worked out yourself vs just looking them up (often times before even trying them)

As crazy collectors, as we -just about all - are, we have huge collections, to rank highly on this sites score system they have to be rare L25's too.
For us this should be easy, but for a less hard core player this will be a challenge. I can see people looking up strategies and then having to go and collect the correct, or more, pets.

Remember not everyone is like you/us and people have different amounts of free time.
The top raiders think the raids, which people still wipe to on LFR, are easy.

Blizzard have a fairly fine line to walk on difficulty, if they make it hard they please a few of us looking for a challenge but if it's too hard it will/might discourage people from trying to beat it.
On that point I have to express my disappointment at how quickly people give up these days, I remember spending months trying to beat text based adventure games when I was a young teenager!


Kudos FuxieDK for admitting you can't work them out yourself, not many people admit things like that.
How long would/do you try to work it out yourself?
How long would you wait for guides to be released?

[FuxieDK]

@ Cluey

For a single fight (e.g. one trainer for FF) where I was missing a strategy, I might try 5-10 times before givingnip/wait for someone to post a working strategy.
For content like CT and WC, I would never even begin to devise strategies, as the task is simply too big and difficult (for me).
For unique fights (e.g. Algalon), finding a critter that does undead damage, while taking less damage from flying and have selfhealing (made up example, but I trust you get the idea), I don't even try..... Until I find a working strategy..

I cannot even remember the basic "weak/strong against" table.. Remembering individual pets, when having 800+ is waaaaaay above my level..

[Paladance]

Myself, I read guides mostly to compare them to what I'd put myself or to arbitrarily calculated BiSes. Sometimes I use them indeed, when I fail several times or there's a server reset soon, and I don't see anything wrong in that.
The only thing I'd regret is that you can't meet with Algalon again.
Moreover, there's almost always some RNG hidden over there as at least one ability deals dynamic damage and critical strikes may happen. Some people can react to this accordingly, some not. And that' should be enough for a ready check.

Warning: you may feel it as passive aggresive, and I'm not going to deny it was at some point:
I also love how easily one can be baited into a particular approach by using single words as triggers.
(I know this myself IRL for more serious reasons, and it's really uncomfortable. Maybe it has even happened right now.)
"Dungeon", "challenge", "guide" (and for another topic "artifact power", "keystone", "legendaries")… come on.
I'm really starting to think that had Watcher during Blizzcon Q&A not said "Pet Battle Dungeon", and had the promotional materials not followed it, some would have been way less underwhelmed.
And note that I was daydreaming the most, but only before it became clear it's a 7.2 feature.

---

About the whole "let's see if they like it". I guess that the amount of people getting the achievement and pets is taken into consideration aswell as the opinions. Can you recall how April Fool's patch notes aren't really taken out of nowhere? This year, one of jokes is a separate set of achievements for LFR that "surprisingly" show that there's always something to remember about, and that there *are* people running them, no matter how many forum posts state that this feature should be eradicated. I think it may sound a bit familiar.
Also, I believe that those who are supposed to analyse the feedback can tell the difference between a genuine concern and sticking to the bandwagon.

I should stop absorbing the others' snarkiness, for Khaz'goroth's sake!

[Nagini]

I went in blind on the first run (the trial where you can heal). I had intended to try and use unique pets for each battle, making it a true trial run for the challenge version. However, because alot of the fights were the same, and it was quite lenghty, I eventually put two strong mechanicals up front and beat the rest with that. Skorn gave me some trouble, but after about 5 attempts i had a failsafe strategy that worked for my challenge run too.
I think it was a nice experiment overall,
I am a little worried about the overall time investment for what is a -chance- at a battle pet. Ive got no clue what the droprate is, but i feel like it should be reasonably high. Without guides and with my 800+ pets, it took me about half an hour. I can imagine that if you are a beginner and dont use a strategy guide, or have a small amount of high level pets (god forbid running out and having to start over D:) the investment may easily become not worth it. Additional items from the satchel (AP?) might help migitate the "doing something X times and getting nothing" feeling.
I would have liked a little more variety. I don't mind the gloomy dungeon, but it was just the instance copypasted with some pets placed in. The guy at the end was amusing, though. Maybe add something like have the pets randomly approach you as you go, like a "Wild Deviant hatchling appeared!" tongue in cheek pokemon thing? Just to spice up the random fights. Caves count as tall grass, after all ^_^.

If i got to change one thing though, I was very confused about what to do at the end. The drop down is quite far (I actually died once) and isn't in the same place as where you usually jump down in the dungeon. The tauren also tells you to go back up when you drop down. In retrospect, i realise you probbely select leave the dungeon, but it wasn't very clear to me.

[Guest]

I went in blind. I had fun, but thought it was a little too long/had a little too much filler. I would have preferred a more tailored set of battles, with pets two and three in the enemy team all being something more specific with some personality, instead of just random alligator or random flying snake. I definitely will be doing it again to try for the random drop pets, but that seems to be in line with Bliz's mentality of "for good or ill, let's keep people subscribed for as long as possible" right now... so if the drops from the Weekly bag are disappointing, I don't know if I'll keep at it. All in all I think it's a decent start, and I hope to see more pet dungeons.

[Averalorax]

I have not, yet, done the non-heal dungeon. But I did do the introductory version. While I will admit that I found the atmosphere a bit boring, I didn't find the battles all that difficult. Admittedly I cheated. I didn't have the patience or the time to do each battle numerous times. so looked at wowhead for each boss and then at the top 1 or two comments. I am planning on doing the full experience sometime this week when I have the time.

My biggest annoyance is the same one that I have when I go raid crawling for the pets - travel time to get there. but I also tend to often do things the hard way. But the fact that I have to "go out of my way" to go and do this is what will probably keep me from doing it too often. I still don't have all of the pets from on of the earlier RwL and I haven't really done any of the newest RwL.

But I am a contrary beast. I complain about travel time when I spent an hour last night trying to locate a pet in Aszuna (successfully) and over an hour trying to locate a pet in Suramar (unsuccessfully). It really all depends on my current patience level. (and one day I will do the Celestial Tournament)

[Peanutty]

If i got to change one thing though, I was very confused about what to do at the end. The drop down is quite far (I actually died once) and isn't in the same place as where you usually jump down in the dungeon. The tauren also tells you to go back up when you drop down. In retrospect, i realise you probbely select leave the dungeon, but it wasn't very clear to me.

Actually the developers seemed to have assumed that everyone had done Wailing Caverns, at least somewhat recently. Obviously the entire dungeon is based off the mobs and bosses you'd find in there. So with that assumption, then they figured you'd know where to go and know to jump over the gap and to do a double drop down to avoid fatal fall damage. I had no problem navigating... had more problem trying to figure out if it was okay to accept the port out of the dungeon after I was finished, I was really paranoid that I had left something incomplete and would lose quest credit if I left.

[Mirith]

My concern is that this will get old quickly. I've done it once, I am perfectly happy to have done it once. Then I did it again, no-heal. Since I had done it the first time, I didn't really want to do it the second time. If I have to do it twice each week, I'm not going to be thrilled about it. I'm hoping I can just choose the no-heal mode and get both the leveling stone and the bag in one go. Putting 3 or 4 of these on a weekly rotation at once probably would have made this a lot more appealing, since it is a larger variety of content.

I honestly was hoping when they announced this that this was going to be some group battle thing with multiple people working towards the same goal. Similar to real dungeons.

[Gráinne]

had more problem trying to figure out if it was okay to accept the port out of the dungeon after I was finished, I was really paranoid that I had left something incomplete and would lose quest credit if I left.

There was an offer of a port??

I finished, but didn't see any indication I was finished. So after looking around a bit I just did Leave Instance Group, and handed in.

I'm hoping I can just choose the no-heal mode and get both the leveling stone and the bag in one go.

You can get the no-heal Challenge mode on its own every week. It's only on your first attempt that you have to do the intro. However, I think the Challenge mode rewards the bag but not the purple stone.
http://www.wowhead.com/quest=45539/pet- ... s#comments

I honestly was hoping when they announced this that this was going to be some group battle thing with multiple people working towards the same goal. Similar to real dungeons.

I think that would have been a nightmare. LFM WC 4/6 @Hiss Petscore 5K+ link Curve

[Peanutty]

had more problem trying to figure out if it was okay to accept the port out of the dungeon after I was finished, I was really paranoid that I had left something incomplete and would lose quest credit if I left.

There was an offer of a port??

I finished, but didn't see any indication I was finished. So after looking around a bit I just did Leave Instance Group, and handed in.

If you run back to the "entrance" and talk to the tauren she gives you the option to leave - I didn't catch the exact wording but if you select it it pops up a warning asking if you're sure you want to leave, since you can't come back and continue.

I honestly was hoping when they announced this that this was going to be some group battle thing with multiple people working towards the same goal. Similar to real dungeons.

I think that would have been a nightmare. LFM WC 4/6 @Hiss Petscore 5K+ link Curve

When they first announced it that was what popped into my head. My raid team asked if that meant I was going to lead the pet dungeon group and I said I was going to armory to check if everyone had their S/S Death Adder Hatchling at 25.

[Paladance]

@Peanutty I can agree that unclear return is annoying. Maybe not that particular jumping, or relying on UI, but no distinct ending that would show an outcome of your participation -- at the simplest just thanks from Muyani on her own. A cinematic is perhaps too bold but seeing a change in the scenery as you've just made the Caverns a little quieter and brighter wouldn't hurt either.
I believe that the warning is merely a purely technical part of default scenario interface?

I honestly was hoping when they announced this that this was going to be some group battle thing with multiple people working towards the same goal. Similar to real dungeons.

I think that would have been a nightmare. LFM WC 4/6 @Hiss Petscore 5K+ link Curve

When they first announced it that was what popped into my head. My raid team asked if that meant I was going to lead the pet dungeon group and I said I was going to armory to check if everyone had their S/S Death Adder Hatchling at 25.

Could be a Rose Taipan instead?

[Mirith]

@Peanutty I can agree that unclear return is annoying. Maybe not that particular jumping, or relying on UI, but no distinct ending that would show an outcome of your participation -- at the simplest just thanks from Muyani on her own. A cinematic is perhaps too bold but seeing a change in the scenery as you've just made the Caverns a little quieter and brighter wouldn't hurt either.
I believe that the warning is merely a purely technical part of default scenario interface?

I eventually found Muyani on the second run but the first one I just scratched my head for a bit and then left instance group.
Maybe I'm confusing FF14 and this, but a giant SCENARIO COMPLETE would be really helpful to know, hey, you are done, get out. I thought they used to do that for some of the scenarios.

[Peanutty]

So I screen shot the exit "conversation" yesterday, the wording when you talk to Muyani is: (clickable player conversation bubble) "I would like to leave the Wailing Caverns."

The pop up warning window is a default window: "Progress will be reset if you leave this instance. Are you sure you want to leave?"

Muyani at no point changes her dialogue nor confirms that you've completed the task. Only confirmation is your quest tracker that default pops up on right side of UI saying: "Return to Muyani in the Wailing Caverns in Northern Barrens."

So there you go. I find that very confusing as if you do what the quest tracker says (returning to her in the Wailing Cavern) the "progress will be reset" message makes you think that if you leave you'll lose credit.

When they first announced it that was what popped into my head. My raid team asked if that meant I was going to lead the pet dungeon group and I said I was going to armory to check if everyone had their S/S Death Adder Hatchling at 25.

Could be a Rose Taipan instead?

As a generous and benevolent raid leader I'd find that acceptable. I bet at least one person would try to sneak in under the radar with an uncommon quality one though!

[Minet]

I went in tonight and did Wailing Critters for a second time. This time I had more fun with it. Since the actual fights are not that demanding (white level mobs in many instances), I dug into rematch and pulled out pets that I have not used in a while and didn't worry about making a team that could do several of the fights or anything like that.

It didn't hurt that I got two pets in the Damp Pet Supplies--the Cavern Moccasin (stand up snake with Squeeze) and the Everliving Spore (adorable swamp man thing with Evolution).

It was a nice break from the Broken Shore. I look forward to more!

[Dalandius]

Nice but a little slow not that hard, largely a disappointment. Largest complaint did the pets have be chance from the bag.
At least in CT you could earn the pet, run it 9 times and you had the the pets, this time it is in the hand of the /RNG gods do who know how many times :/