Idea for new pet battling content for future expansion/patch

[Hobbitpolitics]

Since pet battling is loosely based on the Pokémon franchise, why have we never seen the "Rival" type pet trainer. A trainer that would grow in power every time you fought him. This would be capped at 3x legendary pets perhaps, maybe once or twice he would swap between pets/abilities based on him "catching new pets" since the last time you saw him. It could be based around a story line throughout an expansion, where you would meet him early in the expansion and start a long quest line spanning the whole expansion (new encounters with each patch). I'm not sure about the appropriate rewards for this, maybe you get a better reward every stage you beat him on, starting with just pet charms or gold and then new pets and toys as you go on.

I don't think it's too far fetched considering they are already implementing a whole plot with the pet dungeons. Thoughts?

[Paladance]

I like your willingness and don't mind that you've described that in a very general manner. IMO many cool ideas (not only on battle pets) were destined to flop as soon as they appeared because they were tied to existing expansion where the concept was almost closed. You seem to have avoided this issue.

I sense they had tried to do something like this with Erris/Kura, but it ended as it ended because of their stationary character.

Could you tell me more how do you perceive difficulty of the encounters? What beyond rarity could be cared about to establish a smooth but visible progress?

And on a more flavour side, how do you see a disposition of that tamer, how does he or she see a player character? A predatory rivalry and bantering or a casual exchange between two veterans? A mix, perhaps? Would that change as you go further?

Sorry for that question barrage, I hope it doesn't end in an excessive pulling!

[Hobbitpolitics]

I like your willingness and don't mind that you've described that in a very general manner. IMO many cool ideas (not only on battle pets) were destined to flop as soon as they appeared because they were tied to existing expansion where the concept was almost closed. You seem to have avoided this issue.

I sense they had tried to do something like this with Erris/Kura, but it ended as it ended because of their stationary character.

Could you tell me more how do you perceive difficulty of the encounters? What beyond rarity could be cared about to establish a smooth but visible progress?

And on a more flavour side, how do you see a disposition of that tamer, how does he or she see a player character? A predatory rivalry and bantering or a casual exchange between two veterans? A mix, perhaps? Would that change as you go further?

Sorry for that question barrage, I hope it doesn't end in an excessive pulling!

Firstly, it's great that you wrote a long text to continue the discussion .

What pet battling is missing since the Celestial tournament is difficulty, you can argue that CT wasn't difficult but for the players who don't want to use guides on everything it really did come as a challenge, this goes for the Family Familiar as well, I spent hours trying to figure out how to beat some of the encounters because of my arrogance to not look at guides. The difficulty would Increase per meeting with the NPC. For example, he would meet you the first time and show off (by battle) some not so impressive pets (White Squirrel, Crab and a Bird) the next time you meet he will explain that he found more impressive pets and replaced them with some more diverse and exciting pets. This would happen every time you met him.

For the rival idea I thought of it as a way to add flavor and story throughout the expansion for pet battlers. The character in question wouldn't necessarily be the "cocky" character from the Pokémon series but rather a tamer you see first as someone learning the ropes and as the expansion goes on ( your leveling and endgame content) you will meet him perhaps once each zone and he will report to you on his adventures and where he tamed the new pet he has. This story line might tie into other pet battling/collecting content in the expansion. Each time you beat him he will give you a clue to where he is going to explore next along with a reward of some sort.

You might think what's the point then? Why fight all these useless easy fights, for maybe 2-3 hard fights at the end and then nothing. I had the idea that the end game of it all would start with him calling on you (through some pet hub, or through mail) telling you he had something incredible to show you, leading up to a meeting where he has caught some immense legendary pets he found. You will fight him of course, from there on, maybe he could become a weekly daily quest where he would use either a variety of good pets, or a fixed strategy every time who knows. This could also be the tamer that would introduce "Weekly Challenges" a challenge that changes every week on a rotation (Beat tamer with only this type of pet, beat tamer with only 2 pets etc.).

I think something similar to this could spark some interest to get new people into pet battling, I mean they keep asking the pet battling community about what we think could bring more people into it. The whole idea of story and progress is what WoW is all about and this is a little taste of that I think. I might write it all myself, the whole story, the pets, the abilities, the character model, the theme, I just don't think anybody would find it interesting to read. Sorry for long post

[Nagini]

I actually really liked the idea, but not for the difficulty. I think the new dungeons already begin catering to the crowd that wants a "challenge". Ofcourse, with guides, some of that is lost, and after doing it a few times you probebly have it on farm. Its just hard for blizz to make something a challenge for someone with a 500+ pet stable without making it completely inaccessible to the rest of the general population.

I would love to see a pokémon homage, though. Maybe have you pick a starter battlepet; aquatic, dragon or elemental. Ofcourse, he'll pick one of the pets your pet is weak to, and proceed to try and beat you. Maybe he scales your pets down to 1, maybe his scale up with yours... And as time goes on his pet levels up and changes appearance? Like evolution, or maybe three different pets that are clearly the same theme but progressively "tougher" looking? The same for your own pet could also be nice rewards from the questline for the players. i also like the idea of a weekly where he continues to challenge you. Maybe a dreanei named G'ari? =p

[Uduwudu]

The idea is crazy/funny/great!

The doing of it, is probably next to difficult and impossible, as it would require a set of programmers that will stick to a plan. Since, and here is the problem, most of those folks that hire programmers are not exactly a like'able set of folks, in the end, that industry is one of the worst when it comes to employment security and something that would require time, and continuous development.

With the change in people every day, next month or next year, the thinking changes and the chances that your idea can survive in a decent shape, will get swapped out for an easy to replicate/duplicate type of idea that is already used in the game.

This kinda reminds me of a comment way back when by one of the folks at EQ (Everquest) when he stupidly said that they needed new content without changing the old one, because it was too difficult to adapt everything together into a cohesive whole. What he was saying was, that they (at least him) had defined a part/point of the game that would no longer accept changes ... and that was that ... and all the changes would be like the clothing you can get at Sears ... the same everywhere else! Cheap as they come!

There is a difficulty level that is probably one of the issues in this game, and the reason why they pretty much have closed off a lot of interaction with the old/vanilla world of the game. What happens there, now, is just a simple quest that the older engine can support, although I was just in Un'goro, and the big (BIG) raptors, now ARE your LEVEL and they hit like it ... so if you are farming something over there, that is one harsh raptor ... an Elite on your level, meaning that he is about 2 levels further up or so.

I like the idea of things changing like that, however, the randomness of it, could be a serious issue, and will cut down the ability to succeed in those fights, and that is not a good idea to a group of people that play a game because they know they can beat it ... something like it. If you couldn't, you would get disappointed and leave sooner or later. Thus, all the fights have to be win'able by the players.

And, that is where the cleverness needs to be, I think.