Pet Score bugged?

[FuxieDK]

I was at 2709, and levelled 2-3 pets to 25 and several random pets gained a few levels.. Then I was at 2712.. This seemed a bit low to me, but whatever...
I levelled Minfernal to 25, Moonkin Hatchling (H) to 23, Moonkin Hatchling (A) to 4, Mr. Grubs to 11ish... And still at 2712..

The levels are reflected in my collection... All of the pets are blue.. So why doesn't my pet score go up? IIRC, Pet Level x Quality is one of the criteria for Pet Score, or????

[Iopos]

I've noticed the same thing...my score has only had a noticeable difference when I stone a pet from grey to blue or get a new pet entirely

[FuxieDK]

Maybe you are right..

Unfortunately, I'm only missing a single Wild Pet in blue quality and a few 'hard to get' pets.. Also, stones are not easy to come by, so I can't test your theory myself..

[Pyy]

It isn't bugged, it just isn't calculated quite how you think it is. Your average pet level is used for the calculation, and so you will need to level a LOT of pets to raise this, that's why you won't notice much of a change.

2*(total unique pets)
+ 4*(avg. pet level)
+ 1*(total common pets)
+ 2*(total uncommon pets)
+ 3*(total rare pets)
+ 5*(total epic pets)
+ 10*(total legendary pets)

This is the formula from http://www.warcraftpets.com/help/#petscore

So basically, 2x your total number of pets (2 x 560 = 1120), 4x your average pet level (4 x 9.0 = 36), 2x number of uncommon pets (2 x 124 = 248), 3x number of rare pets (3 x 436 = 1308). 1120 + 36 + 248 + 1308 = 2712.

So while you get 4x the average pet level, you can only gain +100 to your pet score from levelling everything, so your best way of increasing this is to upgrade all your pets. While it won't be easy you'll get there eventually!

[FuxieDK]

Hmm.. Might have missed, that it was AVERAGE pet level and not individual pet level..

And with 560 pets, it takes quite a bit, to get +1 average pet level..

Problem solved, I guess..

[Breanni]

We're reviewing the average pet level multiplier. 4 is low, and we're considering increasing it to 10... possibly more. Expect it to get an increase at some point in the future. However, we intend to keep rarity as the central means of increasing Pet Score.

[FuxieDK]

Finally got my Red Panda and got 2 stones while doing it, and a 4 more 25s...
7 extra nerd points... HAAAAARD Work.. I need to join the 3k Club..

We're reviewing the average pet level multiplier. 4 is low, and we're considering increasing it to 10... possibly more. Expect it to get an increase at some point in the future. However, we intend to keep rarity as the central means of increasing Pet Score.

That would help quite a bit, I guess...

[Spyro]

We're reviewing the average pet level multiplier. 4 is low, and we're considering increasing it to 10... possibly more. Expect it to get an increase at some point in the future. However, we intend to keep rarity as the central means of increasing Pet Score.

10 might be a little high. I already beat many people's score who have more pets than me just with 4. Maybe that's your intention though.

[Jerebear]

NOTE: I am a big leveller, so I am biased.

I think 10 would be a good number at the least(I wouldn't complain about higher, but don't know where the right balance point is). There's a lot of time involved in levelling pets. Sure it doesn't take much time to level 1-4 pets to 25, but to get your average score up takes quite a while. I've been doing this for months and I rarely see my score go up much due to levelling (and I level a lot)...it does get discouraging sometimes.

EDIT:
Just as an example. Tonight I did around 75 pet battles (19 tamer, 56 wild) to get 14 pets up to level 25, but only increased my average pet level by 0.1 and my overall pet score by 0. It feels a bit jarring that I didn't go up even a point. It's not a huge deal...just feels weird I guess.

[Melmo]

I don't know though, 10 is a bit much. Maybe just double it to 8 if you feel like it's so unfair. I don't think you should ever reward leveling over the number of unique pets. Everyone can level, not everyone has a Mini Tyrael or Vampiric Batling in their collections. Those collections should weigh heavier in the score just because those pets are so rare

[Sarpants]

I don't know that I'd like having the multiplier for leveling pets increased. If everything as a whole were increased so that the smaller events would still make an impact on your overall score, while still keeping the relative pet scores as they are now (just larger), I wouldn't be against that. So people who level a single pet from level 1 to level 25 would see their overall Pet Score increase by 1 point, for instance.. rather than having to level 2 to 4 pets for 1 overall point.

I feel that collecting unique pets, especially the rare ones, deserve to be the heaviest weight in the score.

[Jerebear]

I think the issue for me with that is that the points aren't just for the rare ones, they are for all pets in the collection. You get the same number of points for having the vampiric batling as you do for a Kun-Lai Runt. I've always been more of a fan of reward more for time investment vs being able to pay or be in the right place at the right time.

All other things equal, I would prefer that people who levelled all their pets to 25 get more points than the person who bought all the CE and went to all the blizzcons and bought all the store pets but only level the ones they liked. EDIT: Person A has collection C all levelled to 25 vs Person B who has collection C + extra pets but only levelling the ones they liked.

The reason I like 10 is that is a point for every 0.1 average levels. At most you still only get 250 points max for average level, which is worth about 50 rare pets (2 points for being unique, 3 for being rare). I think that is a fair crossover point and it feels very evenish. Also, increasing the points per levelling is still a possible benefit that is evenly available to everyone. People who have murkalot and vampiric batling can still level theirs to 25 AND have more points than those who don't.

[Dargno]

The pet level indeed doesn't do much for score currently. I would prefer the formula to include something like:

5 x rares + 4 x uncommon + 3 x common + 2 x gray + 0.1 x av. level x amount of pets

or otherwise stated :

5 x rares + 4x uncommon + 3x common + 2 x gray + 0.1 x total pet level

(I've added the score for amount of pets to the individual qualities for easier calculation)

That way your pet score cannot decrease if you would get extra pets at level 1...

For example you have 5 rare pets at lvl 25... and you get one new gray one...

5 x 5 + 0.1 x 25 x 5 = 25 (for rarity and collection) + 12.5 (for levels) = 37.5

With the extra lvl 1 gray it would get to 27 (for rarity and collection) + 12.6 (for levels) = 39.6

Of course the 0.1 multiplier can be adjusted depending on importance of pet levels (maybe to 0.04 for example so each lvl 1->25 is about 1 point, the same as one rarity level)

[Melmo]

Jerebear you do have a point and I understand it. I just feel like making the act of leveling pets so important kind of takes the point away from "pet collecting" and makes it into "pet leveling"... is this not a pet *collection* site? I mean, the collection itself should matter most, not which entire collections are leveled to 25. Not everyone can invest hours upon hours into leveling 600 pets to 25, but having started WoW in 2010 I'm pretty proud of still being able to get the pets I do have. No Baby Blizz Bear or Vampiric Batling for me I dunno, I guess I'm somewhat biased because I don't get to play WoW as much as most people and it took LOTS of work to get my collection as it is, lol.

[Jerebear]

I'm not sure this site is only about collecting. This site is about all facets of warcraft companion pets: collecting, levelling, battling, trading, etc. Theres guides on all facets and forums for a lot of them as well. That said, is there room for the argument that each pet's individual parameters can be considered as a means of distinguishing the collection from otherd? Everything from breed, to level, to color (some have multiple colors), to quality, to quanity, etc.? I think of a collection as more than just having the pets, but what state they are in. Do I have the [S/S] Gilnean Raven or just the [B/B]? As a collector all of those things matter to me to some extent. As a battler, having as many pets at 25 in my collection as possible matters to me as well.

I'm not saying pet levelling should totally or even mostly eclipse number of pets, but considering there are 615 pets available, I don't see 10 points per average level (worth around 50 pets worth of points) even coming close to doing that. That's worth around 8% of the entire collection.

Another way to put into perspective: I'm at a point where all I have left are things you either buy for real money, 40+k gold on my server (TGC card pets), or are unavailable. Even if the 10 points per level happened, which is worth around 50 pets, I still wouldn't be as high in points as I would if I had all the remaining pets available instead. So collecting all those pets would still net me more points than levelling. I don't know if that is true for everyone, but something to consider.

I do understand your concerns though and I hope you don't think me too argumentative about this. It's just something I really am passionate about and enjoy. I might be in the minority though.

EDIT: and if I had a 2nd vampiric batling and if it was tradeable, I would make an alt on your server and pass it along!

[Bwana]

BTW, wrote this before seeing Dargno's post above (basically the same method stated slightly different)

I think part of the problem is that the number IS a multiplier of an average. As Blizz adds pets, that number (and the hours spent leveling) has less and less impact on your score. For instance, if there were only 100 pets in the game, and you had all of them, it would take a total of 25 pet levels to gain one point. With 500, it takes 125.

Perhaps a better method would be to use Total Pet Level / 25 (or *.04). This way, no matter how many pets Blizz adds, you can always get a point by gaining 25 levels and the hours spent leveling pets always contributes the same amount to your score similar to the way a battle stone always contributes points.

This would be the same as avg level * 4 @ 100 total pets

Each individual level 25 pet would contribute an additional .96 points over a level 1 pet (.04), similar to the way a rare contributes 1 point more than an uncommon pet.

This would give current players with 500 pets a boost of up to 400pts (realistically more like 240), while taking away slightly from those with < 100, but allowing them to gain points evenly as they level new pets.

You could of course adjust the multiplier of .04 to make leveling (or capturing higher level pets) more significant to the overall score. Say .08

[Breanni]

Perhaps a better method would be to use Total Pet Level / 25 (or *.04).

An interesting idea. When you say "Total Pet Level", what do you mean by that? I'm not sure I understand your math. Can you write out the entire formula and provide an example?

Thanks!

[Bwana]

Certainly, currently I have 508 pets with an average level of 14.5. So, my total pet level is about 508 * 14.5 = 7366 or the sum of the levels of each of my unique pets.

Currently I receive 14.5 * 4 = 58 points for the level portion of my score. If I had 20 pets or 20,000 pets, this would not change.

Using the new method, I would get 7366 * .04 = 294.6
You could also state this as 7366 / 25 = 294.6

The added advantage to this method is it makes the formula easier to explain. A rare level 25 pet is always worth 6 points regardless of how many pets you have (2 for being a unique pet, 3 for being rare, and 1 for being level 25). I might argue that 2 points for being 25 is better, that would mean using .08 rather than .04 (or level/25*2)

-------------
2*(total unique pets)
+ .04*(sum of pet levels)
+ 1*(total common pets)
+ 2*(total uncommon pets)
+ 3*(total rare pets)
+ 5*(total epic pets)
+ 10*(total legendary pets)

[Kpb321]

I'd definitely like to see the value of pet leveling increased in the formula altho I may be a bit biased with an average pet level of 21.5 currently. When you look at it leveling pets has a really really really small impact on your total score. With a Max score of around 3100 currently 100 of that could come from pet leveling (25 * 4 = 100 points). Of those 100 points 40 or 50 are probably automatic as you'll end up with an average pet level of higher than 1 from just capturing wild pets so the difference between someone who has spent a lot of time leveling pets and no time at all leveling pets is 50-60 points out of over 3k.

Changing it to * 10 instead of 4 would push that up to 250 points total out of ~3250 with 125-150 points available from maxing out your collection. My problem with average pet level * something is that it will constantly have to be tweaked as more pets are added because the total points available from collecting pets will continue to go up shrinking the relative value of leveling them. 1 point per unique level 25 rare pet might be a little much because that would be going from 100 points available for leveling to ~600 points available which would be a pretty big change. I do think that what ever change is made needs to scale with the number of pets so that it doesn't need to be tweaked to keep it relevant as more pets are added.

[Bwana]

I almost completely agree with you. The exception being that 1 point for 25 levels seems high.

At around 400 pets I start thinking of my score in terms of hours spent for each point. I can go out and find a rare wild pet to replace the uncommon one I have and in many cases that will take about an hour (1 point). I can do the Pandaria dailies which usually net me one stone which I use on an uncommon pet (1 point). That usually takes about an hour. I can level a newly acquired rare from 1-25. That usually takes me about an hour (.25 points with diminishing returns). My average is low because currently I would have to level about 5 pets from 1-25 to get a single point, and it's not worth it to me relative to other activities.