5.4 Interview

[Gilneas]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMimojASq48

The pet battles part doesn't start till 23:00 and is very brief. I think the most significant part of his answer was...

"I don't think we have to necessarily keep adding levels to pets. We don't have to add more quality..."

I.e., Yay! No epic pets!

Essentially he says they see it as content-driven feature, so they don't want to change the core of the feature. They want to add things like new pets with unique abilities and new things to do and such instead.

[Luciandk]

Interesting, I know many including myself was dreading the thought of having to level up 100+ pets again if more levels got added to them. And epic pets is completely unneeded with the whole pet battle system being balanced around rare quality pets for the players.

[Adumbledore]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMimojASq48

The pet battles part doesn't start till 23:00 and is very brief. I think the most significant part of his answer was...

"I don't think we have to necessarily keep adding levels to pets. We don't have to add more quality..."

I.e., Yay! No epic pets!

Essentially he says they see it as content-driven feature, so they don't want to change the core of the feature. They want to add things like new pets with unique abilities and new things to do and such instead.

Good. I have that giant list of pets that they can get started on. lol

[Breehit]

Thank goodness! It is enough of a grind to just level 400+ pets to 25. If Blizzard had turned the pet game into another gear race it would have been very unpleasant for those of us who use pet battles as a relaxing distraction from the more "serious work" of WoW.

[Azrile]

Agree completely. Adding epic pets would just be a nightmare no matter how it was done.

I am still on the fence regarding leveling pets to 30 next expansion. I don´t think it will be as bad as people think. If they add even 100 new pets in the new lands, that alone will give us the ability to level dozens, if not a hundred pets to 30 without any grinding, just through the natural collection of the new pets. Once we have all the new pets, then we start with the endgame tamers again and by now most of us have gotten pretty good at using npc tamers to level pet. I think going from 1-25 is a LOT different than going from 25-30. Level 25 pets will be usable against all of the new wild pets, and will be able to survive the level 95 pet tamers right away.

[Poofah]

"I don't think we have to necessarily keep adding levels to pets. We don't have to add more quality..."

I.e., Yay! No epic pets!

That's my reaction too, at least the way they were talking about implementing them (ie via epic battlestones). That would have been incredibly tedious.

But this position also has issues. Mainly, if old pets never gain new levels/new abilities, then the metagame will be completely driven by the influx of new pets. If an existing pet is bad now, it will always be bad. For example, Emerald Whelpling is my alltime favorite pet, and was my first to 25. She has a great moveset, but then Emerald Proto-Whelp came along and completely outclassed her. So now when I look at Emerald Whelpling, I think to myself 'maybe when you get your lvl 30 ability, then you'll be awesome again.' But not now.

One of the main things distinguishing pets from regular character progression is that they transcend xpacs. Pets are forever, basically. But if your old pets never receive updates, then for pet battles they effectively have a shelf-life. All but the most powerful pets we have now will be discarded for newer shinier ones next xpac.

[Tekulve2012]

I have to agree with Poofah here. I'd like to see some of the lesser used pets come into favor and maybe a lvl 30 ability would renew or create interest in them. We have to re-level characters' professions and get new levels in expansions so I expect to eventually see the same for at least some of our pets

[Gilneas]

She has a great moveset, but then Emerald Proto-Whelp came along and completely outclassed her

That's only because the EPW has more than one breed, largely. I can fit the Emerald Whelp into my air spirit team instead of the EPW (and did for a while), and had no issue. Doesn't work if you are doing something that requires Proto-Strike, but then you're looking at a different strat anyway.

One of the main things distinguishing pets from regular character progression is that they transcend xpacs. Pets are forever, basically. But if your old pets never receive updates, then for pet battles they effectively have a shelf-life. All but the most powerful pets we have now will be discarded for newer shinier ones next xpac.

It'll be fine. Most pets are useful even though people say that the 5.3 or 5.4 ones are "better." Its just not the case.

[Luciandk]

Dont forget Blizzard may still change abilities around on older pets, or updating abilities.

Example: Tiny Twister will have Sandstorm swapped with Call Lightning in 5.4

With the arrival of Blossoming Ancient, all plant pets had Shell Shield replaced with Ironbark.

[Azrile]

But what is going to be our ´gameplay´ in the next expansion? As we level our characters, we capture 100 or so new wild pets.. and then what.. we encounter NPC pet tamers and plug in our current pets just as they are now? That seems very boring to me without any progression. NPC fights will be no easier after 6 months as they are on day 1. One of the great things about the current system is as you get more and more pets to 25, the tamers become easier because you have a larger stable to choose from. If we start the new expansion with a maxed out stable, where is the progression?

Right now, pet battles to me are a bit boring because I have so many maxed out pets and the tamers are very easy because I have the perfect pets already in place to counter them. The real fun, at least for me, was when I was progressively making the pet battles against the NPCs easier as I leveled more pets.

[Poofah]

Right now, pet battles to me are a bit boring because I have so many maxed out pets and the tamers are very easy because I have the perfect pets already in place to counter them. The real fun, at least for me, was when I was progressively making the pet battles against the NPCs easier as I leveled more pets.

This is a bit of an issue in general, since they don't get a lot of novel gameplay out of the tamer design. Ie, every time they design a new tamer, we only have to figure it out once -- after that, we just choose the same team over and over.

To get the kind of gameplay you're wanting, I think it would be great if they'd implement heroic versions of the existing tamers. Basically, we could choose to fight a tamer on heroic mode for an extra reward, and this would bump their pets up to lvl 25 legendary. There's currently 30+ tamers that nobody visits any more because they're too low level -- this would make them relevant again, and give us a lot more use for our leveled up pets.

For even more content recycling, maybe we could choose 'challenge mode': each time we beat the tamer, we get to fight it again with another +10% to their stats (and for additional reward). Then you'd have an opportunity to really use all your pets to optimize your teams.

[Waflob]

I have this weird hope that blizz will continue to come up with new pets having new abilities etc and that at one point, someone will realise that the perfect counter to one of these will be an older pet that everyone had forgotten about.

[Beana]

For making Tamers more interesting... As opposed to having us fight the same 3 pets over and over... Why not make it so each tamer gets a different Radom 3? It would be like pvp a little but it would solve the "grinding" feel.

[Azrile]

I have this weird hope that blizz will continue to come up with new pets having new abilities etc and that at one point, someone will realise that the perfect counter to one of these will be an older pet that everyone had forgotten about.

For pvp, this is going to happen in 5.4 The whole change with mechanicals is going to shift things around a lot. I also think the one change to frog´s kiss ability is going to make them more useful in pvp. An ability that does above average damage (once you build it up) that also has a 25% stun on a pet that has a big heal?

I really wish they would nerf direhorns more. The problem with direhorns is that they indirectly make Undead stronger because people are fearful of using critters.

But from previous patches, it never seems to work out that way. The new pets are usually the OP ones, which further push the older pets away.

[Azrile]

[quote="Poofah"
This is a bit of an issue in general, since they don't get a lot of novel gameplay out of the tamer design. Ie, every time they design a new tamer, we only have to figure it out once -- after that, we just choose the same team over and over.
[/quote]

But that is why I am advocating raising the pet cap to 30. What you describe only happens once you figure out how to beat the tamer AND YOU have the pets available to plug into that tamer. If we get 15 new tamers in the next expansion with lvl 30 pets.. that gives a lot of gameplay to get to a point where you can beat them all as you level up pets. But beyond that, comes the next step where you can beat them so well that you can use them to level up your other pets. To me, that is what gives the NPC tamers longevity is that I am always trying to find a better pet to fight, so I can use a lower level pet in the 3rd slot.

Phase 1 - You can´t beat the tamer because you don´t have the right pets to 30
Phase 2 - You level up the right pets, and without bad RNG can beat the tamers
Phase 3 - You can easily beat the tamers every time
Phase 4 - You can plug in a non-30 pet into your team for exp.
Phase 5 - You can plug in a very low level pet for exp.

That is a lot of gameplay for even static NPC tamers. All of that is completely lost if we aren¿´t going to 30 next expansion. Instead what we get will be very similar to what the timeless island will be.. like you described... by the 2nd week, we have our teams set that win all the time.

[Drudatz]

And my money is still on the fact that Blizzard will say at next xpac that
pet battles like the farm are a thing of pandaria and all they will do is add a pet from time to time...

remember how we where supposed to level guilds to 30?

[Restofarian]

For those who want new skills on current pets one nice solution would be the breeding Mumper mentioned while ago.

Regarding the 30 level cap. No! Just no. Too much grind. No one need to level dozens of crickets or rabbits again. I prefer the breeding solution in a way to improve lets say a S/S rabbit and leave the other ones no one will ever use alone.

Just think how fun would be if we could breed dragons in a way to merge their moveset?

[Azrile]

Just think how fun would be if we could breed dragons in a way to merge their moveset?

It is very doubtful that will happen, it would create too many gamebreaking imbalances for pvp. Look at what they are doing with the darkmoon Zepplin. It will probably only affect breeds S/B/H. I mean, could you imagine getting turrets on a pet with lightning storm... drool (come on, bring me your 3x direhorn team now!!) .... But I think if they did that, players would be waaaaay to intelligent with it and it would destroy pvp.

I think breeding would just be a way to get breeds that aren´t possible now.

[Azrile]

Regarding the 30 level cap. No! Just no. Too much grind. No one need to level dozens of crickets or rabbits again.

But why would you? Leveling up useless pets is... well... useless.... You level up the pets you need to tame wild pets. Then you level up pets needed to beat the new tamers.. then you level up stuff that might be useful for pvp. You would probably only need less than 75 pets leveled up to 30.. and then at the end of the next expanion, you take all those crickets and bunnies and plug them into your tamer teams and level them up with doing your daily quests. But between capturing wild pets, and doing tamer dailies, you should get well over 100 lvl 30pets very quickly.

Sorry, I hate when people use their own OCD as a reason something shouldn´t be added. If your major concern for having lvl 30 pets is that you don´t want to level 20 crickets to level 30.. well that is your issue, not a gameplay issue. There is no reason you must have all those crickets at level 30, especially the ones with duplicate movesets.

[Restofarian]

I have a different opinion and I dont hate the fact people are different.

When I mentioned pet breeding I was just speculating and I wouldnt dare breed a dragon to a robot. That would be... non sense.

If this ever happens, the breeding I mean, it will be much more strict than that.