WarcraftPets Forum

It's that season. The Gnomes at Blizzard Central must be poring over schematics and spreadsheets of the battles we will be facing next expansion.

Maybe some of them will even see us talking about it, and get ideas.

So, what specific additions would you like to see next expansion? We can assume there will be new pets, with some new abilities. New tamers. There may be new dungeons. But what else, and what about the battling games and achievements themselves?

Family Familiar and Family Fighter were great successes, and Family Brawler has revitalised the queue, at least for now. We might have a PvE Family achievement in BfA. That'd be good. I imagine those are pretty hard to devise, but they are satisfying.

There are three things I would like to see:

1. PvE: Some new Tamer battles that are not fully scripted.

I want PvE battles that can't be read off from Xu-Fu's or botted with that addon. I would like PvE battles where the tamer chooses one of its pets at random to start, has some AI that reacts to your team once engaged, and has an element of RNG in its choice of moves, so that we have to think on the spot to win.


2. PvP: An element of forced variation in queued PvP teams.

Sameness is the queue-killer. There are only so many Souls, Serpents, Teroclaws we can face while retaining interest. Family Brawler has forced a break in the meta, and the queue is so much better for it. But Family Brawler has the weakness that Family teams make for too many instant mismatches and are not the natural gameplay anyhow.

A small start would be forbidding a queued team to have more than one pet of a species. Obviously that doesn't go far enough, with Darkness birds and Rabbits for example, but it would be a start. Forbidding any ability from being used twice in a team might be better.

Forcing us to play with completely random pets would go too far. Building a team's synergies and plan is part of the game.

But forcing us to choose from changing subsets of pets for PvP would keep the meta fresh, and a pleasure to face for the er-thousandth time.


3. PvP: Rewards for PvP.

Rewards for PvP have fallen far behind over the last two expansions. Quoting myself from this thread, which had a good discussion and contains some useful ideas:
https://www.warcraftpets.com/community/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=17053

The reward from the PvP Weekly is still basically a Pet Treat. Back in Mists, a Pet Treat was a BIG DEAL. You could get it only from one Celestial Tournament win, or 10 PvP wins. One per week from each of the hardest content quests. That was appropriate.

However, the Pet Treat is now much devalued. You get a Pet Treat for 10 Charms, so any WQ will get you enough to buy one, maybe 2. You don't even have to pet battle at all - put the shoulder enchant on and go kill a few murlocs and you have it. The burger is now so cheap it belongs on a McDonald's Saver Menu!

Consider how much work it takes to get one through PvP. The Weekly PvP Reward is due an update.

Family Brawler has shown that people will jump into the queue if they have a reason.

Let's give them a reason!


What are your wishes for the next expansion?

Gráinne wrote:1. PvE: Some new Tamer battles that are not fully scripted.

As refreshing as that would be as long as there is no HAL9k there wont be non-scripted npcs

Gráinne wrote:2. PvP: An element of forced variation in queued PvP teams.
Forbidding any ability from being used twice in a team might be better.

I have been saying this since mop
Time to make it happen

Gráinne wrote:Forcing us to play with completely random pets would go too far.

yes because we have to many "useless" pets in pvp.

Gráinne wrote:But forcing us to choose from changing subsets of pets for PvP would keep the meta fresh, and a pleasure to face for the er-thousandth time.

but that is the same as RNG pets isnt it?

Gráinne wrote:3. PvP: Rewards for PvP.Rewards for PvP have fallen far behind over the last two expansions.

which brings us back to the old dilema (DEJA VU anyone?)

Gráinne wrote:What are your wishes for the next expansion?

more nice looking pets like tootle and less "I dont win so I throw the game"-tottle-bugs

1 - So the issue with that is you either go scripted or you end up with stuff like the buzzard for Crysa who may cast Hawk Eye 3 times in a row. The only ways I can see to avoid this is for a team to have several different scripts that run randomly or you give the trainer more than 3 pets so you don't know which team you are facing. Either way, there would be a gnashing of teeth if you did this with all the new tamers. I'd settle for a few like that who give nice rewards.

2. Not sure how you accomplish this without forcing everyone to take 3 different families. It might be easy enough to prohibit a team from having 3 Bone Serpents because it's a unique pet. Preventing someone from using 3 rabbits may be a headache to code. I don't think there are many good options here.

You could give teams a debuff if they queue the same one over and over again. But then you'll just get slight variations on a basic team or players will just forfeit with a different team so they can queue with their preferred team. Maybe you give players a bonus win for winning battles with 10 different teams? 30 unique pets? I'm know zero about coding, so I don't even know if that's possible.

3. PVP suffers from a couple of things. When they introduce an OP pet (like Graves was for too long), it discourages queueing. The other thing is not being able to queue from Argus which was just dumb.

I would like to see an interim reward between 1000 wins and 5000 wins. The gap is just too large and the reward is basically just getting there. To me it's like New Years resolutions vs Lent. Resolutions are often abandoned because there is no end in sight. I can give up most anything for Lent since it's a decent amount of time. Not too short or too long.

A 2500 win award that's given retroactively to anyone who has already passed it. And maybe an award beyond 5000 to keep some veterans interested. Tabard, title, transmoggable cloak - anything we can show off would be nice. Of course a bad@@@ pet would be nice too

The other thing is reworking family traits. Some are kind of lame. I also wouldn't mind if they added some new pet families. Something like Light and Shadow or Fel. Might give them an opportunity to shake up some strong vs weak matchups. But that's probably a bad idea.

All good points.

I don't know how much logic they might be willing to write into tamer battles. Any amount would get us out of the degenerate situation we're in, where botting tamers is considered normal. I'd like to see tamers that at least choose a first pet at random, and swap sometimes when they recognise an opportunity.

Tamers were intended to be a challenge at first, then a ladder we could use to level pets. We have plenty of levelling battles as it is; we have none that give us a regular puzzle.

Harpooha, it should be very easy to forbid entering the queue with two pets of the same species, though that does leave the Rabbit problem. It should also be very easy to forbid entering the queue with a team that has the same ability slotted more than once. It would certainly be possible to code a requirement for a quest to win 10 battles with 30 different pet species; that has a bit of storage requirement as well, but it would be possible.

Drudatz, limited subsets as I thought of them are not the same as RNG pets. For example, the player-run tournaments typically specify limited subsets like "wild pets from Kalimdor only". The Brawler achievement specified limited subsets by family, and that has been interesting, but has obvious problems. I'd be happy with "Today's list is species that begin with M", though obviously that brings us into trouble with languages. Based on Species-ID numbers perhaps? I love the idea of Brawler, but I'd like to see it without the Family fault-lines.

Both of you, yeah, I think we all agree some form of reward or progression path in PvP would be welcome.

I've been sticking to more direct communication recently, but it doesn't mean I lost the ability to produce TLDRs.
Some things I've already described in @Rosqo's thread on official forums, these will be a bit shorter
PvE:

• I agree with a need to differentiate the battles, although not though randomness as @Harpooha pointed out. As much as I refuse to explore TDScript, it has shown how to become a "tamer" yourself, sometimes even trumping the NPCs in the complexity. That would suggest that there is place for input leading to an improvement in the teambuilding.
• Making pet dungeon stories less self-contained and more with an actual goal to accomplish. I don't mean +10 to the health of Lady Azeroth (though I wish) but something cool to see just around like at the end of Emerald Nightmare.
• Avoiding the Elite/Boss passive. Some individual "affixes", except damage and healing over time, could be appreciated instead.
• Not sure what to do about it, but I start to be anxious about Pet Charms. If there were "bring back Mists" people, Pet Charms could be their pet peeve. I appreciate the freedom that comes with an ability to spend them as we like, including converting them to yellow AH points, but some utility prices are off to me, especially the purple stone one. I'd like an opinion of someone yet to get first 500 pets levelled though.
• An actual pet hub, perhaps alpha screenshots from Zandalar hint at this. I'd like it to be about research and not just some competition. But I guess "this is BfA lol"
• A mount reward that has a stable master. They may be not used anymore, but that is what we call vanity.

PvP:

• I do have some ideas for rewards! Improving the Brawler's Pet Supplies could be the first thing to do obviously, it's so behind, but some of the examples should be provided outside it:
  • A consumable item that causes your next battle to display background of a specific place. They could be ranked between an uncommon, rare and epic version, two of which could provide places not possible to get otherwise, such as dungeons/raids/invasion point templates, and for most fierce competitors -- Ring of Blood, Brawl'gar Arena or actual battlegrounds!
  • A consumable item (and through other means, a toy) that displays a pet family's symbol over your head for 5 or 10 minutes. This one doesn't have to be merely from PvP though.
  • Consumables from rare sources such as Drudge Fluid or Buffing Creme.
  • A cosmetic version of Safari Hat, so it can be transmogged.
  • A toy like Sternfathom Pet's Journal, with a tamer resembling old metas that gives you a weekly to both defeat him and to play PvP battles in a specific manner, maybe one of those the Lady mentioned. ^^
• I want to tell a mandatory Brawl mode (e.g. no weather changes) once upon a time (for max three days), but I can imagine confusion it could lead to.

Oh, can I write about abilities here? Not existing ones. New ones.

@Harpooha, I'd love 12 families instead of 10 (Floral and Aberrant) and replace some least intuitive dependencies, but rebuilding them could put on a bench many renowned pets, and basically cause an equivalent of Cataclysm. As you said, let's take care of existing racials, preferably first.

Great set of wishes there, Paladance! How could I have forgotten to mention affixes? And I LOVE the idea of a Stable Master Mount, though it's probably redundant for anyone who could earn it.

Biscuit wrote:Smarter (or even erratic) AI would definitely help bridge the gap and soften the mental blow of jumping into the queue as a beginner.

Yes, this is my thinking too. The gap between PvE and PvP is just too wide at the moment. These super-tamers could even have the timer mechanism and bar from PvP.

I want everything listed under the "Battle Pet Ideas" subheading here. It's mostly PvE stuff, since I don't do pet PvP, but it's still stuff I want. Oh and it's not much, so don't think I'm crazy for wanting it or anything.

https://petpersuasion.wordpress.com/

Man do I know how to kill a thread or no?

Biscuit wrote:Crazy idea here...what if every pet family had a small hub/headquarters somewhere and you could gain reputation with them. Family-specific tabards, quests, tamers, etc.

I saw an idea for epic pets for each family that are barred from pvp battles that you earn from family fighter-esque achievements and quest lines. They might limit team building options for tamers and such though, if they were too strong. Maybe just unique pets for each family would suffice.


What do you guys think about adding a Dinosaur family as well? With all of the new additions that are sure to come in BfA, the beast family will just continue to get larger and larger than all the others. Critters and Elementals could also use a new family to divide some pets into.

Nurasu wrote:

Biscuit wrote:Crazy idea here...what if every pet family had a small hub/headquarters somewhere and you could gain reputation with them. Family-specific tabards, quests, tamers, etc.

I saw an idea for epic pets for each family that are barred from pvp battles that you earn from family fighter-esque achievements and quest lines. They might limit team building options for tamers and such though, if they were too strong. Maybe just unique pets for each family would suffice.


What do you guys think about adding a Dinosaur family as well? With all of the new additions that are sure to come in BfA, the beast family will just continue to get larger and larger than all the others. Critters and Elementals could also use a new family to divide some pets into.

A Dinosaur family would be very interesting. We've had the same pet families for 3 expansions now with no changes. It's starting to get stagnant and could use something to spice it up a bit.

Harpooha wrote:2. Not sure how you accomplish this without forcing everyone to take 3 different families. It might be easy enough to prohibit a team from having 3 Bone Serpents because it's a unique pet. Preventing someone from using 3 rabbits may be a headache to code. I don't think there are many good options here.

No, its not a headache to code if its all rabbits are with the same abilities and you code it this way that every pet ability is only allowed once per team

Adumbledore wrote:It's starting to get stagnant and could use something to spice it up a bit.

I doubt we see a new family ever/soon - Blizzard is just to lazy because for that you had to rethink the meta.

Drudatz wrote:

Harpooha wrote:2. Not sure how you accomplish this without forcing everyone to take 3 different families. It might be easy enough to prohibit a team from having 3 Bone Serpents because it's a unique pet. Preventing someone from using 3 rabbits may be a headache to code. I don't think there are many good options here.

No, its not a headache to code if its all rabbits are with the same abilities and you code it this way that every pet ability is only allowed once per team

Adumbledore wrote:It's starting to get stagnant and could use something to spice it up a bit.

I doubt we see a new family ever/soon - Blizzard is just to lazy because for that you had to rethink the meta.

*shrug* Doesn't hurt to wish, does it?