should Pet battle npc trainers/tamers have loot tables?

[Nursie]

just a thought, should defeating a pet battle npc trainer/tamer drop companion pets unique to that npc? currently there seems to be 20 npc trainers/tamers if each of them was given a loot table of say 2-3 pets you would only need to add roughly 50 companion pets.

It should go something like this:

*First 3 tamers in eastern kingdoms and kalimdor drop 2 pets each with 1 being only slightly rarer.
*Last 2, the trainers (harder npc battlers to defeat) should drop 3 companions each with 1 of them being much rarer.
*Same should apply to outlands, northrend, cataclysm and pandaria npc battlers.

this could give us pet battlers a good reason to battle npc trainers/tamers multiple times, especially if they have a low % chance to drop an epic pet.

[Sikker]

I can't speak for everyone, but RNG loot in pet battles is the last thing I want to see. Do you really want to farm pet masters over and over for a pet like how people farm dungeon bosses for mounts? Do you realize some people have been farming low drop chance mounts for years without ever seeing it? If all the pet masters would get rare drop pets, even if they're not as rare as the mounts from dungeons, it will just turn into a farm again beating the same guy over and over hoping for the right pet to finally drop. Besides, we already have a reason to fight them multiple times. There's an achievement to win 5000 pet battles and one to win 5000 pvp pet battles, so it's safe to say that the former will be PvE battles. Ofcourse we don't know the exact mechanics yet, but I think it's pretty obvious that the pet masters will count as pve battles.

I think catching the wild pets will keep us busy for a while, and it should be much more interesting then RNG loot. It's a unique system with new elements, where we actually have to track the pets down and fight and capture them. Don't you think that's better then hoping for the right pet to drop after beating him for the 100th time?

[Quintessence]

Personally I don't think it would be appropriate for the trainers and tamers to "drop loot". I associate loot with a mob or NPC that I have to "kill", and to me a trainer is more of a mentor that I would learn from.

Plus I think the achievements will be enough reason for many players to go back and battle against the tamers/trainers. It's probably easier to grant rewards through the achievements rather than have a trainer/tamer drop an item too.

I'm not a huge fan of RNG, and when it comes to Pet Battles which is already somewhat RNG based, too much RNG would make it a bit too grindy (archaeology is an example of how RNG can be overwhelming and not fun) for a small chance at a pet IMO.

[Dementron]

In this case, I don't think it's so much a matter of dropping loot as a reward for beating the trainer, like how in Pokemon games you receive money when you beat a trainer and lose money if your pets are all KOd. Basically, betting on the results of the match.

I could see getting some kind of reward for beating an npc trainer, but I think they'd only have repeatable rewards (other than, perhaps, a small monetary reward, akin to an easy quest) if there were a consequence for losing, which runs counter to Blizzard's apparently pet battle design philosophy. I think I heard quite a while back that you'd get rewards the first time you beat certain trainers, such as unlocking a new battle pet slot or gaining a new ability, such as an item to use on pets in combat. That may have changed since, though.

As for pets, I really can't see the trainers giving a pet every time they were beaten, or that pet would pretty much end up vendor trash, and I really don't want to have to face yet more rng nightmares. I like the idea of getting some xp or a little bit of gold each time we beat a trainer, but when it comes to rare pets, I like the new wild pet spawn philosophy. I'd rather be rewarded for research/exploration and go catch a pet that only spawns between 5 and 7 pm when it's raining than have to fight one guy fifty times for something that may never drop.

[Sikker]

I sure wouldn't mind if pet battles became a new way of earning cash