PET BATTLE DUNGEONS!

[Throatslit]

Wow! They've implemented what was hinted at Blizzcon.
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/top ... 3?page=1#1

Please link any info you see on this upcoming feature, and discussion. Very interested to see how this all pans out!

[FuxieDK]

Something nefarious is going on in the world of pet battles, and it’s up to you to look into it. If you have at least one level 25 battle pet, speak to Breanni in Dalaran to get directions to this new scenario.

This is, so far, the only words on this matter.

Dungeon... Not dungeons.. A single one..
A single level 25 pet required... Celestial Tournament initially required 30, but was nerfed to 15 for release.. And that was two expansions ago..

Thoughts?

[Darkchyld]

Whoa as an avid pet collector this sounds pretty awesome. Not quite sure what to expect out of this, but hopefully they'll do something cool.

[Gilneas]

Dungeon... Not dungeons.. A single one..

Why would you have expected more than one? And why is it bad that there is only one? There was only one Celestial Tournament.

Not that this is surprising, since I'm pretty sure at Blizzcon they did not use the plural.

A single level 25 pet required... Celestial Tournament initially required 30, but was nerfed to 15 for release.. And that was two expansions ago..

Thoughts?

I don't think its feasible to expect that the requirements would continue to ramp up, even 2 expansions later. They aren't making pet content just for the people who've been doing it since the beginning. It's supposed to be accessible to new people too. New people who are likely going to be directed more towards the new pet battle content than the content from 2 expansions ago (even if in this context that means less obsolesence than normal content).

Anyway, even with no information, I'm quite interested. The fel pets of Tanaan always seemed like a weak addition to me and couldn't hold a candle to the Celestial Tournament. This feels like it could be really good.

[Gráinne]

I think it's entirely reasonable to expect that the requirements should continue to ramp up.

Getting into pet battling and gearing up by levelling pets is much, much easier now than it was in Mists, and Legion rains boosts down upon us in a deluge.

The Celestial Tournament is a bit easier now than it was then, thanks to a few new pets that can be very helpful *cough*Teroclaw*cough*, but it is still the pinnacle of battling - two expansions ago. If Siege of Orgrimmar was still the top raid, there would be blood in the streets!

The toughest achieve in Legion is Family Familiar. I one-shotted probably 90% of the fights going in blind with a standard team of 3 of a family. I had my Basic Humanoids (Imp, Idol, RLH), my Basic Flyers (Bloodbeak, Teroclaw, Pterrordax), and so on. Sometimes I had to swap in a ringer and go a second time. In only a few cases (hello, Bredda!) did a win take me more thought than that.

Don't get me wrong; it was fun, and a great idea! I'd like to see an achievement extended for doing all tamers everywhere with the same conditions. The CT would take on a whole new life.

Anyway, unlike the main game, content from Pandaria on is not obsolete. New people can still do it, and still get relevant rewards. However, given what most of the people here have achieved, we deserve a challenge appropriate to the current state of rosters, not a zerg of Deadmines.

I don't know what the pet battle dungeon will be, but I hope it has a Mythic+20 difficulty.

[Quintessence]

I wrote up a long(er) preview of the Pet Battle Dungeon on my blog and expect a version here on WarcraftPet's front page, but here's a quick summary:

• Quest starts in Dalaran (Broken Isles). Check Breanni's shop.
• Seek out an NPC near Wailing Caverns, she sends you into a scenario for the quest/dungeon.
• Initial run requires player level 110 and at least one level 25 pet.
• Total of 7 Stages in the scenario - defeat varying teams comprised of largely the same pet types (beast, flying, aquatic).
• All enemy pets have either the Elite or Boss passive.
• You can heal/revive while inside.
• Completing the quest rewards an Ultimate battlestone.
• If you have at least 3 15 level 25 pets, you'll get another quest from the same NPC after completing the initial dungeon run.
• Second run is "challenge mode" à la Celestial Tournament (no healing or reviving while inside).
• The challenge quest rewards Damp Pet Supplies (chance to drop 3 new pets).

If you plan on testing this new feature and have the time, be sure to leave constructive feedback on the Pet Battle Dungeon either here or on the Bnet forums.

[Noel]

Awesome! (seriously beggars can't be choosers and it sounds great to me!)

[Gilneas]

I think it's entirely reasonable to expect that the requirements should continue to ramp up.

Except it's not a progression, so that's not a reasonable expectation. Just like the new stuff in Draenor was designed assuming new people getting into it there, so it is with Legion. It's not Tamers -> Pandaren Tamers -> Spirit Tamers -> Beasts of Fable -> Celestial Tournament -> Menagerie -> Fel Pets -> WQ's -> This. It's simply WQs -> This. It's for everyone who is doing pet battles this expansion, new and old. Someone who starts it the day 7.2 comes out should feel that getting to it is an achievable goal.

That doesn't mean it can't be challenging, but requiring 100 level 25 pets to even do it, or something silly like that, would only serve to turn people off before they even get close to being able to do it. There can be challenge without a large solid wall in the way of the door.

[Paladance]

EDIT: You didn't mention it in the summary, but this is a weekly quest. Hope the drop rate is reasonable (see also the other PTR thread).

EDIT2: Blaaaah.

[Quintessence]

Is the bonus mode repeatable? How often? Just wondering how long would it take to get these pets.

I think the challenge mode is an account-wide weekly quest.

[Gráinne]

Gilneas, I can't argue that it's not a progression. It isn't. It very isn't. It's a regression. I just wish it was a progression.

Compare the progression, as you have laid it out, within each expansion:
Tamers -> Pandaren Tamers -> Spirit Tamers -> Beasts of Fable -> Celestial Tournament
Menagerie -> Fel Pets
WQ's -> This

Getting shorter all the time.

Mists of Pandaria still has the most interesting challenges. Since we have developed, and since filling a roster is so much faster and easier now, I'd like even further progression, but as it is, I'd be happy if we just had as much challenge and progression as we had back in Mists.

The Celestial Tournament remains the pinnacle of battling.

I don't have a problem with the idea that someone who starts it the day 7.2 comes out should feel that getting to it is an achievable goal. However, all of PvE pet battling, apart from Family Familiar and Awfully Big Adventure, can be done with about 30 pets. Maybe add three or four specifically for PvP, and you're done, apart from the collecting aspect. The way Blizzard are raining pet charms and stones down on us in Legion, 30 pets is pretty trivial now. They don't even have to be levelled - nearly all can just be bought.

Good News, Everybody!

Cymre has brought us the first video of the Pet Battle Dungeon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVUUd8gVJoQ

It is as Quintessence has described, but this is a full run.

Bad Stuff is happening in Wailing Caverns.

Go through Wailing Caverns, clear the trash (= wild battles with White-quality pets), and defeat the bosses (solo Purple, or Green or Blue + back-up), and finally the end-boss (Orange Elemental with no back-up team). You are allowed to heal.

That gets you a Purple stone.

This is obviously a very very easy challenge, and apparently it's weekly? Cymre just strolled through with one team of [pet]Lil' Bling[/pet], [pet]Amber Moth[/pet], [pet]Iron Starlette[/pet], without changing anything until the very end, when it would obviously not have been a great idea to take on an Elemental with two Mechs.

Now you get a follow up quest to do it again, this time without healing or reviving. Even without healing, it's going to be very easy for anyone with a CT-capable roster. It seems harmless enough, but there's a line in the quest text about getting the Damp Supplies "if you can beat my best run", which sounds like a timed run - truly horrible. NOOOOOOOOOOO, please NO! I know I joked about having M+20, but I meant difficulty, not the destruction of enjoyment that is rushing. We'll just have to see if they follow through with the threat.

Major props to Cymre for getting a full video out quickly!

[Paladance]

What's up with these monothematical teams? I don't mean Family Familiar, but that the tamers do represent these.

It's beating a dead horse to me, or even an undead horse, especially when witnessed abilities are from that family aswell and/or known from our own pets. For example, poor Crysa is one big /yawn even with the sort-of-progressive randomity, isn't she?

On the contrary, there are other teams. First stage of CT (even Wrathion, because the attacks). Goz Banefury. Cymre Brightblade, to a certain extent. Bredda Tenderhide.

And then you realise that even these teams can be countered by similar means, be them speed or another type/attack set.
One can feel stuck if (and only if?) these conditions can't be fulfilled.

So what's the point now? It's harder and harder to come up with the surprises, unless you give NPCs arbitral, artificial stuff. And the newcomers being a target aswell don't like this -- my very neighbour can complain "WTF THEY'RE CHEATING" even with just Jeremy Feasel because he doesn't pay attention to the mechanics.

You can't satisfy anyone at once, could you?

Oh my, am I now one of these "get out, filthy casual" thing? I don't want to. My highest ilvl is merely 848 after all!

[Gráinne]

I've read Quintessence's analysis of the dungeon again, with the help of Cymre's video.

I would actually download the PTR to try this myself, but the last time I tried a PTR, my account got confused in some way and never did get working.

- I think the length is OK. 11 battles. Cymre did it in 35 minutes from the start of the first battle, and that was a first run through, without Rematch, using a single team all the way through, and without knowing what to expect. I'm sure that will be down to 25 minutes or less in a real run.

- I don't mind WC as a venue. It is a bit out of the way, but I always like a reason to visit the Barrens.

- It seems to me that the difficulty of the basic run is well suited to a beginner. Only a handful of pets are needed. Cymre used 6, changing all 3 for the last boss, but I imagine we could get that down to 4. I suspect that an EPW could pretty much handle everything up to the last boss with just a bit of support.

- From the end of Cymre's video, the start of the challenge run had the same difficulty as the basic run, though of course the no-heal condition adds a bit of difficulty of its own.

- None of the battles were interesting. This is my biggest concern. Each of the CT battles was interesting in itself, with 12 different good battles rotating in groups of 4, plus the 4 celestials. The dungeon battles are as plain as a battle can be. After 11 very dull and easy battles, we will be bored in the second week. If the later battles in the challenge version were spiced up a bit, or even varied, that would add something to look forward to.

- I agree with Quintessence about the rewards. On the basic run, a Purple stone is not interesting to an experienced battler; I wish Blizzard would make them BoA and stack, for easier storage. Still, it is exactly what a newcomer wants. On the challenge run, new pets are interesting to everyone, but with only three, and the fact that RNG is already so overdone this expansion, I fear that we may end too many boring runs with frustration.

- Perhaps Blizzard could let people who have completed the basic version skip that each week, and go straight to the challenge version.

- I do hope this is not going to be timed.

[Quintessence]

- Perhaps Blizzard could let people who have completed the basic version skip that each week, and go straight to the challenge version.

- I do hope this is not going to be timed.

It's currently unclear if we'll have to redo the Normal dungeon every single time we want to access the Challenge dungeon. I'm hoping that you only need to clear Normal once, and after that you can jump straight into Challenge in following weeks.

As for a timed event, the Normal and Challenge mode were both un-timed (which makes me scratch my head at the Challenge-quest text). If Challenge is supposed to be timed, maybe that mechanic hasn't been added in yet. It's still very early in the PTR cycle.

[Beardydan]

Is there realy no short cut to the dungeon provided by the quest?
Seems kinda crappy that its gonna take longer to get there than to run if for Alliance.

[Quintessence]

Is there realy no short cut to the dungeon provided by the quest?
Seems kinda crappy that its gonna take longer to get there than to run if for Alliance.

No shortcut from the NPCs or quest itself, but [url=https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20752845126#post-17]this Bnet forum comment[/url] notes that you can get to Ratchet from Shrine of Two Moons/Shrine of Seven Stars (Pandaria) via transporter (doesn't require engineering, costs 10 gold to use).

[Gilneas]

Gilneas, I can't argue that it's not a progression. It isn't. It very isn't. It's a regression. I just wish it was a progression.

Compare the progression, as you have laid it out, within each expansion:
Tamers -> Pandaren Tamers -> Spirit Tamers -> Beasts of Fable -> Celestial Tournament
Menagerie -> Fel Pets
WQ's -> This

Getting shorter all the time.

First off, remember that we're not done with Legion yet. And I was not exactly being detailed or exhaustive in that list (for full accuracy, remember there's padding there on Mists in the form of the tamers for the older continents, and the fact that the spirit tamers are a whopping 4 fights; while there are 37 WQ's before even considering Family Familiar).

Secondly, you weren't talking about amount of content, you were saying that the barrier to entry should scale pointlessly higher. There's no reason for it. It's just artificial, and since it's not meant to be a one-after-the-other thing, it serves no purpose. One could debate whether or not the Celestial Tournament is the "pinnacle" or pet battle content all day, but ultimately if that were true, it wouldn't be because you need 15 level 25 pets to get in the door (a number less than you may ultimately need to actually complete this dungeon).

Thirdly, they provide some more advanced challenges as well, even though they are not a direct continuation from the progression path of the previous expansion. The Trunks achievement and Family Familiar were certainly worthy challenges, despite having no hard barrier to entry at all. The "hard" mode of the dungeon would seem to be something similar.

Winding back around to the point. We now know some more about it, and it seems like it has some potential. Certainly enough that I could see them doing more of this sort of thing in later patches if it works out (I would be surprised if they weren't mapping that sort of thing out alongside developing this one). Whether it succeeds or fails to be fun and challenging though, is going to have absolutely nothing to do with how many level 25 pets you arbitrarily need to get your foot in the door. The "number of pets" someone has or needs isn't ultimately relevant.

[Neuropathy]

I was easily able to beat normal mode with the 6 random pets I have on the ptr, a beefier team will be needed challenge.

You can see what pets drops by searching 'damp' in the journal; Cavern Moccasin, Everliving Spore, Young Venomfang

[Paladance]

I feel silly. Each day I have a bit different approach because of figuring out more news.

The hype was great, but I wouldn't have considered it very realistic from the beginning, even though myself I liked that burst of imagination. A patch =! an expansion, after all.

And now I am… surprisingly calm. I can accept that I or my buddies are not the target. Maybe it is because I started with WQs very late and still have to wait a lot to complete FF? Hehe.

Still, one has right to be curious or concerned about some things.
If we gathered together three guys that have started in Pandaria, in WoD and in Legion, each would have different approaches and visions. Perhaps there would even start a little "hardcore vs. casual" war… or the balancing diversity would bring a really interesting outcome.
And I'm sure this community can still cope with it without building any walls, at least in comparison to other sides of WoW.

*** Is it true that forfeiting some encounters brings the HP penalty because they are technically normal battles? Now that's interesting (in comparison to the CT at least). ***