The Problem with Talking About the Pet Battle System

[Kpb321]

The problem is that parts of the CT are totally random even with the perfect setup. Most times Chi-Chi is a cakewalk. Some days Chi-Chi is an impassable wall of death who will pretty much kill your entire team before you get a chance to do anything. There is no preparation possible in pet battles that will let you win an unlucky fight. People put up with those outcomes outside the CT because they can just bandage and try again, but the CT's no-healing mechanic highlights all the bad things about pet battles.

I'd have to disagree with you there. Your team may work but it must not be the perfect team for chi-chi as I've never lost to him and can't see how I would loose even with chi-chi getting ridiculously lucky crits with the team I use. Most of the time my first two pets finish him so I've got an extra pet to finish him off if need be. If you are running into problems with any fight in there find another team because there are reliable teams for every fight in there.

[Wakamaru]

I'm sure that RNG plays a huge role in someone luck to beat a particular fight in the tournament. That said, when I decided that I was ready to tackle the tournament, I didn't run in there and try it out first. We have seen through our other daily tamers that each tamer is most efficiently won with it's own specific team tailoring to defeating them - naturally I assumed the same to be true of the tournament. So instead, I decided to do my research and start preparing teams for the tournament - as well as few backups just-in-case. I have now done the tournament three time since preparing for it, and have won it flawlessly every time - even with bad RNG in a few cases - I was able to manage without issue. When I went into it for the first time I was nervous and tense, expecting to have to reset once or twice until I got a feel for things. That never happened though, I one shot all battles and was finished much quicker than I had anticipated. (seriously - I cleared my evening!)

Having now fought all of the tamers available in the tournament, I can honestly say that I was expecting it to be much harder. I'm able to finish the tournament in 10-15 minutes and move on with my day. I realize that the ease of the tournament for me is because I did my research and carefully planned and leveled teams specifically to deal with each tamer - as well as the Celestials themselves. Does that mean that every victory from here on out will be flawless and fast? No, of course not. I may one day run into terrible RNG or perhaps try the tournament a few too many beers into my weekend It happens.

The point is, like so many others have stated... It is end-game for pet battles. With a small amount of dedicated research and consistent efforts in preparation of the >right< teams, there are no issues with the tournament. I don't feel like this is a case of poor game design. Blizzard put this feature in game with the intention and goal of people needing to prepare for the tournament in the same way that they would prepare for a new raid - and if that goal is met... Then the tournament runs as it should. If that goal isn't met or is ignored, then more effort or preparation needs to be put towards it.

That said - I love the tournament and the idea of it. I would love to see another one in the future, possibly something even harder!

With regard to Chi-Chi, I run a 3x snail (snailception!) team (spells: 1,1,1). I make sure to utilize Dive when Chi-Chi is using Ethereal, so that Ethereal is basically a wasted spell. The first night in I had horrible luck w/ my first snail missing *both* of it's Dives - so pretty much that snail was a useless meat shield. My other two were able to pick up the slack with no issues what-so-ever. The following two tournaments with Chi-Chi, the dives didn't miss. I was able to finish it w/ one snail at full HP. Even with the back luck in week one, I feel like this is a solid team that I can depend on to win against Chi-Chi.

[Shikon01]

Well said and I totally agree !! Your efforts are rewarded by what you are willing to put into it. Pet battles isn't for everyone...at least the end game. Some folks might be content just fishing all day, but NOT ME

[Hootstwo]

The problem is that parts of the CT are totally random even with the perfect setup. Most times Chi-Chi is a cakewalk. Some days Chi-Chi is an impassable wall of death who will pretty much kill your entire team before you get a chance to do anything. There is no preparation possible in pet battles that will let you win an unlucky fight. People put up with those outcomes outside the CT because they can just bandage and try again, but the CT's no-healing mechanic highlights all the bad things about pet battles.

I'd have to disagree with you there. Your team may work but it must not be the perfect team for chi-chi as I've never lost to him and can't see how I would loose even with chi-chi getting ridiculously lucky crits with the team I use. Most of the time my first two pets finish him so I've got an extra pet to finish him off if need be. If you are running into problems with any fight in there find another team because there are reliable teams for every fight in there.

The very first time I did Chi-Chi I wanted to annihilate the developer that created it. Took me a few goes to be sure. Now however. 3 Snails. NEVER EVER fails.

[Jerebear]

It's been my own experience that the amount RNG affects a particular pet battle is inversely proportional to how well I know the particular battle's mechanics. I.E. If I fully understand the mechanics of each pet, RNG has never been an issue (unless I purposely take a risky team to try and get things done quicker). That's not to say there is no RNG, but that with the right understanding of a fight's mechanics, RNG can be reduced to unnoticable (and sometimes altogether gone like with a good chi-chi team).

RNG tends to creep up on me when I don't really take the time to understand exactly how the pets work and what their synergies are. I feel like that is where the actual skill in pet battles is. Sure any random Joe can take a team from the guide on this site and blast through X tamer with no real skill involved. However, it takes some skill to really understand why that awesome team really works and even be able to modify the team or us a completely different team to address the same mechanics and win every time.

The interesting thing for me is any fight can seem insurmountable when you don't really understand why you actually died.

[Tiberria]

The problem with comparing the RNG of pet battles to the RNG of getting crits and trinket procs, etc in a raid is that there are many many times the number of events in the course of a boss pull that there is in terms of a pet battle, and the more events you have, the more swings in RNG are leveled out by deviation to the norm. Getting a crit or not on a specific ability in a raid seldom makes any meaningful difference, whereas hit vs miss on a pet ability in a pet battle is extremely noticeable and can easily change the entire course of the fight.

I'm on the side that I think the RNG of hits/misses is more frustrating than it is interesting. I would like to see most of the 90%-95% hit chance abilities/basic attacks be made 100% hit chance abilities. I think it's fine to have some abilities with low hit chances (like say Demolish) as high risk/reward plays, but I think there are too many "basic attack" type abilities that have that 90%-95% hit chance for no real good reason. Part of the reason why DPS specs are balanced around gearing to the hit cap and never missing on abilities is because of player feedback that misses are unfun/not engaging gameplay. I also wouldn't mind seeing some type of ability or attribute added to pets where you have the option of say increasing your hit chance from 90% to 100% at the cost of X% of your power/health/speed.