OMG…
First… the comedy here is SPECTACULAR.
Of course, not for all those who love BGs, take them seriously, and hate wasting their time. I’m so sorry for all of you.
But Imagining it happening in my head (from every player in the BG…) I honestly am laughing so hard.
I didn’t get a beta invite this time, which was fine, as I’ve been having a blast leveling alts with the exp bonuses… so was also not motivated to check out the PTR either, and had no idea this was happening.
So I’m imagining an entire group in the BG like me, who’ve no idea…
Battle starts, 3 minutes in, the entire opposing team dies instantly where they stand. And no one has a clue WHY. At least until someone reads their What Happened to ME notes.
I mean why would it even occur to anyone that a Hunter pet would retain any of its NPC talents after taming, because the TAME mechanic that changes an NPC to a Hunter Pet, removes that stuff and changes their talents. As it’s been doing for years .
Soooo… that means there’s a dev that intervened, and changed the Tame code (hilarious, but doubtful), or decided that whatever signature OP talent each of the tamable Cloud Serpents had individually would be left as a placeholder upon taming until the higher-ups decided what signature talent to give all tamable Cloud Serpents, which is smart, because those placeholders are imbedded nukes, and will act like a wild fire in Griffith Park, requiring every available fire station in the area. (Happened last night near the Observatory, and they were doing arial water drops in the dark.
)
Most likely, Blizzard eventually decided not to make Cloud Serpents an Exotic tame, then they wouldn’t have to come up with a unique talent to give them, and added the taming tome to make them feel more special.
They should have caught it, but it can’t be easy with everyone working remotely. If someone who lives alone gets COVID, they might not be well enough to give another dev enough coherent notes for them to take over coding in the middle…