WarcraftPets Forum

Both Family Familiar and Family Fighter have been great additions, and maintained some life in PvE.

I was just struck by the difference in pacing and gating, and I'd like to hear how others view it.

Family Familiar can be broken into two categories for pacing purposes.

Initially, with Family Familiar-1, we could battle a tamer only when RNG allowed it to appear, but when it was there, we could battle it as many times as we liked on one character to complete different families for the same tamer.

Then Blizzard changed the rules, for what I am calling Family Familiar-2, when we could battle a tamer only when RNG allowed it to appear, and only once per character per appearance. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that this led to a lot of frustration from people waiting for Durian or Varenne to appear for the 7th, 8th.... time.

Now, with Family Fighter, gating is removed entirely, and we can do anything at any time.

My first thought when I heard this was "Oh no! Now I'm going to be overwhelmed with things that need doing, and in my first days in Argus, when I'm going to want to focus on the new zone."

Well, in one way luckily but mostly sadly, Argus didn't work out like that for me. I don't want to be there, it contains nothing I find interesting, and worse, my beloved mage has been so trashed by the changed animations and sounds that I truly don't want to log into her. It almost makes me cry when I see how much has been senselessly destroyed.

So Argus is no counter-attraction.

But still, I initially felt that, since I was in a position to blitz through the achievement, I should.

But I knew that blitzing through it would just make me annoyed.

So I made myself stop. I gated myself. If I come across one of the new pets on Argus (on one of my other characters, not my mage, whom I still can't face), I have a mental agreement with myself to do 3 or4 families with it, and move on.

It shows me that a complete removal of all gating can be a bad thing.

But as long as I log in rarely, and avoid spoilers for the strats, I can stretch out the content a bit, and enjoy it more.

Honestly, I don't know what the ideal form of pacing/gating is for this type of achievement.

Any thoughts?

Personally I like the fact that we can do it at our own pace, whether it be fast or slow.

The way I've been doing it so far is I pick a "boss" and work on getting all the families through it before moving to the next pet boss. I don't do it every day. Some days I have time to do one and start on another. And I'm bouncing ideas off other people whenever I get stuck, though I really try to avoid reading successful strategies unless I just can't figure it out myself.

It'll probably take me a month to finish. I think that's a pretty achievable goal for me. And best part is I don't have to wait in agony for Flummox and Durian to pop or race to level yet another toon just for the purpose of getting another Family Familiar battle out of the way.

I much prefer the 'go at your own pace' system.

With Family Familiar, there was always a sense of urgency/anxiety that made it more stressful than it should have been. A trainer is up? Can't miss it because who knows when the next time it will pop up, so put everything else on hold to get this done. Level up additional characters and unlock WQs ASAP for additional progress. RNG hell.

I've found that with Family Fighter, I'm not worrying at all about if/when XYZ NPC will spawn. Because I don't have to put everything on hold for the achievement, I'm not rushing to complete it. I've had a much more enjoyable time doing activities that I *want* to prioritize (RWLV, collecting Argus battle pets, etc.). The NPCs will be there waiting for me, and I'll complete the achievement when I'm ready/have time. I can take my time and enjoy the challenge.

Right now, I feel pressure about catching daily all the rares that drop pets and mounts and feel relaxed about family fighter, so yes I prefer a lack of gating. I'll probably finish it by the end of the month (...or maybe next month).

But I have a different POV, not being a strategist. For me, the fun part of these achievements is the opportunity to increase the number of useful breeds I have on hand.

I have not really started Family Fighter yet precisely because I do not have to, which I really like. I like that when I am ready I can sit down with some coffee and just work on it. I don't have to read posted strats because I need to run as many characters through this tamer as i can because, "Reset is coming!". Now I will have time to play around and make my own mistakes, etc.

So, even though I have not started it, I'm already enjoying it more.

Also, I know this is not a big deal to a lot of people, but I really dislike logging in a bunch of characters to do the same activity. The process of logging out and logging back in (and traveling if needed) is easy and doesn't take THAT long, but it gets like wearing an itchy sweater or something to me. So, that is another plus for me with the no gating design.

I sympathize with the animations point, though. When I first saw the new animation for wild growth on my female NE druid, my inital reaction was, "Oh, hell no. Need new main!". But when I showed it to people so that they could agree with me about how horrible it is, they really liked it. That actually took some of the edge off for me. I still don't like that it looks like she is squatting, but oh well. For the first time in ages, I think I like my female tauren druid better now. Also, it helps that when I'm running around on Argus, I don't cast a lot of wild growth, typically. But...I digress.

I like the "do it whenever you want"-style, but right now, it feels much more like a chore than it has to be. Among those 180 battles you do, there are MAYBE 20 in there that are interesting. Everything else just takes time rather than skill. I feel like they're currently increasing the numbers to see what we're willing to go through. The Plushie achievement was really fun, but the Familiar achievement already got kinda tedious (I skipped phase 1 completely because i was busy with the new content.) Now, with 180 battles, i think we finally hit the point where i'm actively not spending time on it even though i have the time. If they just had the hard battles without you having to spam another 160 mindless battles in between, i'd have much more fun.