Menagerie Battles FAR too easy

[Cyberninja]

Anyone else slightly bummed that the menagerie battles give ZERO challenge now along with almost no XP? I can pretty much face any menagerie trainer (including Erris) with a team of basically any level 25s and mop the floor with them. I have an idea and was wondering what the rest of you think of it?

What if there were "trainer" levels based on experience, win percentage etc.? For example, I consider myself an intermediate pet battler so perhaps out of a 5-level system I would be level 3. Pro would be level 4, Expert level 5. That way the newbies (level 1's) could fight the menagerie trainer's blue pets and have a fair shot at winning. The trainer pets difficulty would go up vs. higher level player trainers.

If Blizz implemented something like this, it would be fair across the board and for those of us experienced enough to take on the "orange" pets of the trainers, maybe they could give us back our XP that they nerfed. Also, they could increase the prizes scaled with difficulty. If a level 1 "player trainer" wins the menagerie battle, they get 8 stars. Level 2=9, Level3=10, etc.

The main reason I thought of this is because when I first read about Erris, I was like "Ok, sweet, different pets with different abilities each time? Time for a challenge!" Well, since all of her pets are blue/green that I have faced so far, challenge=zero

Maybe someone with a little influence...I'm looking at you Quintessence could mention some of these concerns/suggestions to the higher ups

Anyone else have any thoughts or suggestions?

*Also I wonder how levels would apply to PVP? I have only tried to PVP once and got my tail KICKED. It would be kind of cool to be able to progress through the difficulty in the same manner as PVE. I started battling level 1s, then 5s, etc. up to this point where I can take on any PVE trainer no problem. So say I at PVP level 1 go against a PVP level 5 player with a ton of PVP experience, good night its over. But maybe I can hold my own against a level 1 or 2 gaining experience until I could go against a level 5 PVP player and actually give them a challenge.

Just some thoughts because there is SO much more they could do to make pet battling even more awesome than it already is

[Missuskisses]

I agree, and you have some pretty cool suggestions here! My thought is that maybe they can "zone" it (like the Celestial Tournament). The player can choose the difficulty (normal, heroic, mythic), and the rewards and XP would scale accordingly. That way, an expert battler can choose to be lazy on certain days, too.

[Ranok]

Actually the menagerie dailies weren't much of a challenge before to anyone who had a good collection of pets and used Wowhead. I'm guessing the nerfing of the pet battles is Blizz's attempt to be democratic and make them accessible to the casual pet collector, sort of in keeping with the rest of the garrison daily stuff that's mostly mindless but takes up time.

I like your idea of balancing the menagerie dailies based on skill levels but don't see it happening soon. With the various pet bugs that never seem to get fixed (max health when pet levels up, Anub's Sandstorm, etc.) I'd be surprised if the developers jumped on something that'd take lot of work. Never can tell, of course.

[Kpb321]

I think the real question is should the Menagerie battles be "end game" pet battle content?

Obviously, they were along that lines originally when released and for most of the people here that was nice because we were looking for something else but is that really the logical thing? You ding 100 and upgrade your Garrison. Now you've got a quest for some pet battle stuff. You've never really done much with it but now it's in your Garrison so you decide to give it a try and you get completely obliterated by them and have no idea how to beat them. Is that really a good experience?

I'd love some more "end game" pet battle content but I don't think the Menagerie is the right place for it. Maybe if they had modes like raids it could work but as your garrison is your hub for the entire expansion I feel like the content in there should be geared toward a broad audience and "end game" pet battles is not a broad audience.

The EXP nurf is a separate topic IMO and one I'm mixed on. You always need catch up mechanisms as time sinks accumulate and become overwhelming. I don't think the Menagerie battles being good exp was the appropriate catch up mechanism or was even intended to be one. IMO I think they meant for making the pet treats more accessible to be the primary battle pet catchup mechanism right now.

[Jazeel]

the nerf was essential to bring the menagerie into line with other (dare i say it) more useful buildings, once unlocked it didnt just churn out resources or wealth at the click of a mouse but made you battle a legendary level fight for a handful of tokens and the chance of a pet. I know several collectors who could beat it one day a week maybe, why? well because they had a lot of pets but few of the essential pets for those fights, the celestial tourney or the Beasts of fable.
The non hardcore collector literally doe's not do these things as it takes time away from the other parts of the game, changing the menagerie daily to a modestly difficult fight is ideal for these players. I am sure later in the xpac we will get a draenor tourney or something of similar ilk to test our collections/skills/ability to use wowhead against

[FuxieDK]

Erris/Kura battles are way too easy... The pets are level 23 on a blue/green mix.. Not once, have I switched from the random team that was active, and have one-shot it every time.

Menagerie is boring now.. They didn't just nerf legendary pets; they skipped epic entirely and made them rare..

[Ril]

We need another celestial tournament.

[Graven]

To be honest, no, I'm not bummed. If it barely gives any xp I don't see why it should be at all challenging. If I want "challenge" I can queue for pvp battles. As something which just needs to be "farmed" on multiple characters, I'm perfectly ok with it being easy and predictable.

[Cyberninja]

Part of my point was maybe if they added something like "player trainer levels" maybe we would get the XP back if battling at a higher level. Also, good luck with your PVP challenge when you want to test a certain pet against specific abilities. When PVP'ing you do not know the makeup of the team beforehand like in PVE battles. One of the reasons I was bummed with the difficulty nerf is that it is hard to test the strength of a pet's abilities against the ridiculously weak menagerie pets now.

[Cyberninja]

In response to Ril:

I was thinking the same thing. It would be awesome to have another Celestial type tournament with new pets and new prizes. Or along the level theme, once you defeat the Celestial Tournament for the week, if your "player trainer level" is high enough you could go on to "round 2" etc. I am by no means an expert but once you have the menagerie mastered and the tournament down what is the motivation to keep going? A couple achievement titles? I would rather have a couple new rare pets (maybe the "epic" quality pets I keep hearing rumors about) awarded for say something like winning the 5th and final round of the Celestial Tournament as a level 5 trainer.

Also, it would be sweet if they had actual in game PVP pet battle tournaments. Correct me if I am wrong but I do not believe we have this capability correct? I took a 2-year break from WoW and have been back for just over a year so all the pet battling stuff was completely new to me.

[Graven]

Also, good luck with your PVP challenge when you want to test a certain pet against specific abilities.

Dude, you asked a question, I answered it. Sorry it wasn't the answer you were obviously expecting.

[Awq]

I like the Menagerie changes!
The type of content and the location did not match.

The trainer pets difficulty would go up vs. higher level player trainers.

I agree, although I do not agree with your intentions.
I do believe that the Garrison should have adjustable content. It however should be catered to people who are new to pet battles. So if you only have level 1 pets, you fight an opponent with level 1-2 pets. If you have a stable of lvl 25 pets, you fight level 23-25 pets.

*Also I wonder how levels would apply to PVP? I have only tried to PVP once and got my tail KICKED. It would be kind of cool to be able to progress through the difficulty in the same manner as PVE. I started battling level 1s, then 5s, etc. up to this point where I can take on any PVE trainer no problem. So say I at PVP level 1 go against a PVP level 5 player with a ton of PVP experience, good night its over. But maybe I can hold my own against a level 1 or 2 gaining experience until I could go against a level 5 PVP player and actually give them a challenge.

I like having a short queue. Increased queue time would be a huge concern!

I am not sure how I feel about MMR for pet battles. I would ONLY like it when it is implemented well. It could be nice, as long as it records the MMR for every individual pet (teams MMR becomes the average of your three pets).
Else it would reduce my fun. Performance is team dependent. I do better with a Fragment of Anger than with a Cheetah Cub for example.

I was thinking the same thing. It would be awesome to have another Celestial type tournament with new pets and new prizes. Or along the level theme, once you defeat the Celestial Tournament for the week, if your "player trainer level" is high enough you could go on to "round 2" etc.

I would appreciate a new Celestial Tournament! I also like the idea of a multi-staged (maybe through a few weeks) Celestial Tournament. I find "player trainer level" a confusing metric. I would prefer: "You have defeated Stage 1; Now you are good enough for Stage 2".

One of the reasons I was bummed with the difficulty nerf is that it is hard to test the strength of a pet's abilities against the ridiculously weak menagerie pets now.

Why don't you test this at the Celestial Tournament, MoP trainers, WoD trainers, the Timeless Island Trainer or the Darkmoon Faire?
That's what I have done when I wanted to test a strategy.

Also, it would be sweet if they had actual in game PVP pet battle tournaments.

I really enjoy pet PvP tournaments. I've participated in quite a few. They have been fun!
I however doubt that pet battles would be suited for a competitive format, like an official Blizzard tournament.
I prefer it when players organize this type of content.

[Beanie]

As someone new to collecting and battles I enjoyed the challenge in the garrison but even I think they killed it. They made it boring and easy so now im unable to use it to trial different strategies and pets against the same teams as they just roll over and die.

I now use it to farm stones ready for upgrading my celestial team when I figure out what that is going to be :p

Edit as Awq beat me to the post

Why don't you use the Celestial Tournament, MoP trainers, WoD trainers, the Timeless Island Trainer or the Darkmoon Faire to test this?

Free and easy pet heals from Lio ! means you can run it time and again without having to wait/use bandages

[Awq]

As someone new to collecting and battles I enjoyed the challenge in the garrison but even I think they killed it. They made it boring and easy so now im unable to use it to trial different strategies and pets against the same teams as they just roll over and die.

I now use it to farm stones ready for upgrading my celestial team when I figure out what that is going to be :p

And that's how it should be in my opinion.
This is the Garrison! I consider it a huge design error that they released the 2nd most difficult WoD pet content at this location.

I personally would have changed the location of the quest giver, and created new content. But I see why they wanted the Garrison quests to stay where they were.

[Awq]

Free and easy pet heals from Lio ! means you can run it time and again without having to wait/use bandages

This did not cross my mind.
So your main problem is that the other trainers won't allow you to heal? Makes sense. I see your point.

I personally would like to see something like this:
-Master Trainer X-
Opponent can be fought repeatedly (infinite times)
Defeating Trainer X only rewards experience once a day.
Trainer X can be used as a stable.

[Sazalla]

I came in ready to post 'Darn right!" then I saw Kpb's post and it brings up a great point. The Menagerie might indeed be a jumping off spot for a lot of new pet battlers and to throw them into the deep end right off the bat does seem a little harsh. I've noticed a lot of new folk trying out pet battling around Feathermoon/Scarlet Crusade so it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that some of that enthusiasm is indeed coming from the menagerie.

But I'll join in the call for a new celestial tournament type thing for us hardcores. That would be fun

I always thought of the exp in the menagerie as gravy, and since you can get levelling stones pretty easily.... it's not as vital at least to me. Your mileage may vary of course.

Sazalla - Feathermoon

[Cyberninja]

That is precisely why I thought of the idea of "player trainer levels": that newbies would have a hard time with the Menagerie trainers whereas experienced players had them down. Newbie level 1 would get the easier, blue pets and moderate XP gain. Level 3 would get harder pets, a little more XP, and say, Level 5's would face the epic/orange pets for a decent of amount of XP. That way "in the garrison" battles would still be interesting/challenging for any level of player and maybe they wouldn't have had to nerf our XP. Any extra XP is golden in my book as I work 55 hours a week so I don't have a ton of time to level my critters Really wish they didn't nerf the XP. I'm going to be 100 years old by the time I get them all to 25...lol

As far as newbies go, I've only been at these pet battles for a year. Were the Beasts of Fable challenging? You bet. Did I cuss out Dos-Ryga more times than that poor fish deserved? You bet. Did I cry? Ye-well almost, but not quite...lol Anyway, that's what I LIKE about the pet battles-the strategy and the challenge. It took me a couple million times, but now I can beat them all no problem.

[Drudatz]

Anyone else slightly bummed that the menagerie battles give ZERO challenge now

Yes but i dont give a frog about the xp nerv. Playing Menagerie on 5 toons each day gives you enough leveling stones
you dont level any other way anymore

What if there were "trainer" levels based on experience, win percentage etc.?

So, your saying punish the nubie cause its his first match while you done 1000 allready? yeah, blizzard will never do that

If Blizz implemented something like this, it would be fair across the board and for those of us experienced enough to take on the "orange" pets of the trainers, maybe they could give us back our XP that they nerfed.

If you care about pet xp anymore at this stage something is wrong with you.

The main reason I thought of this is because when I first read about Erris, I was like "Ok, sweet, different pets with different abilities each time? Time for a challenge!" Well, since all of her pets are blue/green that I have faced so far, challenge=zero

Same here but you gotta see that she is for the people who got only ONE ^^ level-one-pet-to-25-stone

*Also I wonder how levels would apply to PVP? I have only tried to PVP once and got my tail KICKED.
It would be kind of cool to be able to progress through the difficulty in the same manner as PVE. I started battling level 1s, then 5s, etc. up to this point where I can take on any PVE trainer no problem.

nope, that doesnt work on PVP because the key to winning in pvp is NOT the pets but the PLAYER. So there is no way you can say that dude is a level 5 pvper and that one is a level 1 pvper...

So say I at PVP level 1 go against a PVP level 5 player with a ton of PVP experience, good night its over. But maybe I can hold my own against a level 1 or 2 gaining experience until I could go against a level 5 PVP player and actually give them a challenge.

the key to pvp is simple experience just like with go or chess. In pvp pet battles you start like this: loose, go again, loose, adapt, go again, loose, read up etc...
you will never be able to compare pve to pvp cause no matter how much rng involved pve is allways scripted and thus 99% predictable. humans are not

Just some thoughts because there is SO much more they could do to make pet battling even more awesome than it already is

[/quote]Sorry to dissappoint but as discussed in another thread blizzard has reached pretty much the end of the line and dont seem to wanna invest much thoughts into it anymore.