This system needs love in the next expac

Hi everyone,

I’ve noticed over the last few years that pet battles have gone into maintenance mode. AKA there are a few world quests added, wild pets added to catch, and achievements. However there is very little discourse (from blizzard) about updates or improvements to the system outside of tweaks to stones, exp, etc. etc. Functionally pet battles are almost identical to how they were when they first launched in MOP, in 2012. For core gameplay, that’s totally fine. Players like what they like and you don’t want to shake it up for those that prefer gameplay they already know. Much like you wouldn’t turn a cracker barrel into a laser tag arena right under the noses of the senior citizens visiting there for brunch.

However, that doesn’t mean the system couldn’t use some innovation to breathe some new life into it. I know people want a pet battle phone app, but they also need to focus on the in-game system and I will shout into the void until it happens. I don’t want to see pet battles go the way of archaeology or mission tables. AKA an interesting feature that was slowly put into maintenance mode until it was largely forgotten about because it’s not a direct player power progression system.

A long time ago when I was at the blizzcon that announced WoD, I approached a dev whose name I have completely forgotten and asked about pet battle updates. He brought up how they wanted to introduce a breeding system. That eventually changed to them wanting to allow us to swap stats on pets. Which then evolved into potentially adding an epic quality upgrade stone. And then…nothing. Radio silence. Adding an epic quality level to pets was hated by the pet battle community so I get why they didn’t go with it. But there needs to be SOMETHING.

Just tossing some ideas at the wall but -

We could used a phased ‘ranch’ area in the major cities where we can actually see our collected pets running around. This has existed in previous expansions in some form or another, but players inevitably outgrow expansions as soon as a new one is released so putting content like that in major cities like stormwind or orgrimmar ensures it stays accessible and relevant.

We need a new alternate battle system. Dungeons and stuff are great, but what if there were a pet battle raid boss? AKA you send out 5 of your pets to face off against some terror. The current system has all the pets stand in a line and make turn based attacks until one dies and the next one comes in and repeats the cycle. If we’re going to have turn-based battles, why not make them all out? Make it a full on RPG party with 4-5 pets that we either issue commands to or have them auto-battle. Some people may not like the idea of auto-battle content but speaking as someone who plays a ton of mobile games, it works just fine as long as there’s still an elemental (in wow’s case, family) strengths/weaknesses system. And frankly I think if you want to attract new folks to the pet battle system, having a type of fight where a bunch of pets auto-battle a big bad and colorful stuff is flying in all directions is just entertaining enough and just interactive enough to work. Don’t believe me? Go look how popular idle games are on the apple/google store.

Secondly, we need a new type of family. I want to point out how poorly balanced the current amount of pets per family is (58 dragonkin types compared to 274 beasts come on.) but this system could stand a new type of pet family to keep things interesting. My thought is something like a ‘cosmic’ family that has no strengths/weaknesses against the other families. It stands on its own as an option for people who want to use generalized pets without diving into the strength/weaknesses system. Like a bike with training wheels. Usable by people just learning the system or by people like me who are lazy. Alternatively add 2 new families that are strong/weak to each other - light and dark being the obvious choices. So cosmic and aberrations or something along those lines.

Lastly, and probably most controversially, get rid of the leveling system or add more ways for people to get pets to 25 instantly. Is the challenge in pokemon leveling the mons themselves? No. The challenge is in endgame battles against other players. The leveling system is useless filler. Do not @ me about this and say “weh but then all my effort leveling my pets…” because trust me, I leveled plenty of pets myself. I don’t care. “I did it so everyone else should have to” is not an argument. At all. How do I know? Let me just gesticulate widely and nebulously at society. The system needs to be more accessible to everyone, and having tedium content-but-not-really like leveling prevents that. People can already do battles with level 1 pets at this point. What’s the logic behind keeping the leveling in? Busywork, that’s all it is. How about we ditch the busywork and get straight into the heads-up-sevenup funtimes that are actual battles that require strategy.

You look at a game like pokemon where levels still exist but are tertiary to the actual gameplay. Nobody cares about leveling a pokemon because in wifi or endgame battles, the game automatically sets levels to 50 or 100 depending on the setting. What people are concerned about are movesets, IVs, EVs, and abilities. A level 70 pokemon with a type advantage, good stats, and a good ability is going to have no problem wrecking things regardless of its level.

And you look at a game like monster rancher where levels DO NOT exist and you instead spend time raising individual stats in a gain/loss system to build a competent battling mon before its lifespan is up. I’m going to go ahead and hazard a guess that a lot of pet battlers in the community have a fondness for micro-management and sim style games. That is what the pet battle system should focus on.

And monster hunter stories…levels do matter a little in the storyline, but managing the battle system and type advantages matters even more, especially in endgame. Let me tell you about how I took my nergigante into a battle with Kulve Taroth and got my hunting horn handed to me.

I have plenty of other thoughts and ideas but this thread is long enough as it is. The long and short is that WoW’s pet battle mechanic was one of the first systems of its kind added to an MMO. Games like temtem, etc. didn’t come out until much later. So it’s in a uniquely special position to pioneer new ways for people to play with a much more condensed strategic system while also experiencing it with hundreds of thousands of other players. And in a way that’s not tied to primary character power progression, leaving it as a purely casual experience that can be as shallow or in-depth as players want it to be. Systems like this are exactly what the game needs right now, so please don’t throw it away by letting it continue to stagnate.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk on pet battles. The odds of me forgetting this thread exists are high, especially with Legends Arceus coming out soon. Some people reading this may know who I am already, so you know how to find me on social media if you need to reach me. Peace, love, and corgis ya’ll.

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I’ve brought this idea up before. Like a weekly raid boss to defeat for (a) nice reward(s). And no, not the Sack of Pet Supplies :expressionless:

I’m not sure how feasible an auto-battler would be to the system in-game, but it’s certainly something to consider if (when? :pleading_face: ) they make a mobile version.

looks at the two stacks of unused Dragonkin stones in bank

I feel this imbalance in my soul.

I’m no so sure on the cosmic idea, but I’m generally someone who needs to use a system to understand it. I do like the idea of a couple new families, especially since we’re likely headed toward a Void vs Light expansion at some point…if things don’t completely implode before then. I guess the one issue in adding in just two families would make the strength/weakness system wonky. You’d probably need three families, light, void, and shadow, or something like that. That way you’d have a strength/weakness that looks something like this:

  • Light is strong versus Void, but weak against Shadow (maybe playing on shadows only exist because there is light, or something to explain why Light does weaker damage against them.)

  • Void is strong versus Shadow, but weak against Light

  • Shadow is strong against Light, but weak against Void

Or you can make one of the families Fel. Who knows? The possibilities are as limitless as the imagination.

I would love to see more pets connected to storyline-type things. I saw an image of a slime bunny on Twitter, and I thought it’d be hilarious and cool to have that pet in-game that we got from a kooky ‘oops’ quest from Merileth and Moonberry.

I’m not saying make them all this way, but I am so very tired of stacked RNG for pet drops. I have had to buy more pets recently than my bank alt cares to admit.

I would like to see this implemented. You could have some kind of trainer, you pay them X amount of charms, and after a [#] CD, it randomly assigns your pet a new breed. They could play with the charms to CD ratio. Higher charms, shorter CD and vice versa.

What I would NOT want to see with this is what we get in loot systems. I don’t want to end up getting the same breed I already have, or getting that breed again if I have to try again because I didn’t get what I want. Maybe have the trainer ask you what stat you want them to focus on?

I’m not sure if it’s been the pandemic, or what, but I’m hoping to see more in the next expansion. I’ve already given up on SLs for any new battle content, and have resigned myself to purely collecting.

The only other thing I think would be cool, that will likely never happen because the absolute outrage we’d see, is almost a pet battle island, kind of like Timeless Isle. There’s a lot I could see being done with this, but it’d probably need its own post. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I saw that Muffinus posted an introduction in the Community Council forums, so I’m hopeful that someone from this community gets in. Not someone who just collects on the side, but this isn’t there primary focus. I’ve seen a couple of those, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Someone who knows the system, like Remte or Quintessence. I would have said Hazel, but she seems to have left pet content behind for the most part.

Needless to say, I agree with you. I really hope they don’t let this system wither and die, because honestly it’s the only thing keeping me subbed at this point.

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That scoundrel Muffinus has a forum account now? Well then he better dang well get in here before I chuck an angry corgi in his general vicinity. I hear he can be summoned if you chant “gnomes are the strongest characters in the game” 6 times in a mirror.

And yeah I agree. Quint is like my inspiration because she’s still so active with pet battles and is generally super positive on twitter where I am a sad old sack of dirty socks. A lot of us who dove into the system really hardcore when it launched and into WoD like me, Lio, and a few others fell off at different points. I won’t speak for them but for me it was a matter of doldrums. Everything was the same, just more pets different day. And I am one of those people that feels more content when I am ‘finished’ with a goal I set for myself. When I realized there was no way I could ever keep up with pet collecting at the rate pets were added, I gave up.

My hope is that at some point they embrace customizable cosmetic content. That goes along with your idea about a pet battle island. The world feels more alive when there are moments where we can pause and take it all in. And that includes putting little ‘nods’ to our characters and experiences in the game. Meaning stuff like how the garrison would have your mounts displayed in the stables, your pets would wander around, etc.

Pet battles are one of WOW’s few “I can sit down here for 15 minutes and make real progress, then go make dinner” systems. I think that’s part of its appeal to me. And I think it’s part of the appeal of games for a lot of folks in this era. Convenience is just as important as respecting people’s time. So since they already have this great system that offers exactly what some players need/want right now, it would be a crying shame if it just fizzled out.

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Just curious, but how many more do you think you need?

I have pets that aren’t level 25, certainly, but I have the stones to bring them all to level 25 without ever having them engage in a single battle. And if you don’t, I submit you need to spend far more time on WQ pet battles and pet dungeons.

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Some great ideas here and I totally agree that pet battles could use some changes. I am fairly new to it, but it seems like a lot of people that do pet battles are familiar with Pokemon, which they say is a better version of pet battles. I can’t compare because I know nothing about Pokemon, but if its a better version than maybe Blizz can look at Pokemon and say ok, what makes it better and make some adjustments accordingly to pet battles. Obviously not straight up copy it, but some type of changes. Between that and some feedback from the experienced/knowledgable people here, I am sure that something good can come of it. But like most corporate decisions, it will probably come down to money.

I actually prefer pet battles over Pokémon. To be fair, the last time I played was a couple decades ago, so I’m basing my preference on that knowledge. From what I recall of Pokémon, it was just, ‘make sure your level is higher and your attacks are strong against the enemy. GG you win.’ To me that’s boring. Yes, we do have some fights like that, but certainly not all of them. For pet battles we have to strategize, depending on the fight and/or what we’re trying to do. I vastly prefer that method over Pokémon’s.

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Like I said, I know nothing of Pokemon, I think I saw a post somewhere asking people who do both, which they thought was better. Yeah, if its like you said,then maybe Pokemon is not a good template to use.

Piggybacking off this idea, what if instead of a traditional raid, it’s like a Pet Battle World Boss? Maybe like a few different ones that rotate each week. Take your team of 3 and do as much damage to the boss in X number of turns as you can. Anyone and everyone can give it a go, and at weekly reset those that participated get a pet battle/pet collecting-related reward (similar to how players get a gear reward from the vault for completing dungeons and raids). Rewards scale depending on how much collective damage was done to the boss. Or maybe how much damage was done individually? Idk just an idea.

I’m 100% a pet collector first, so I’m not as invested in seeing Pet Battles evolve/change. But if innovation is a way to get people interested then I say go for it. Scaling up sounds like a challenge, though. Be it increasing the pet level cap, pet rarity quality, or even changing stats on battle pets – it could be a balancing nightmare. Not to mention a collectors’/completionist’s nightmare. But like I said before, I’m for it if it means retaining player interest and adding game development attention.

Speaking of stat changes, I had this idea of a consumable that temporarily increases battle pet stats (like a pet treat buff). Not usable in PetPVP, of course. But idk, it’s an alternative to flat out giving us the epic pet quality. Increased pet stats might come in handy for especially tough PVE encounters.

I’m pretty sure there has been more thought and brainstorming about pet battles in this thread alone than at Blizzard Development in the last 2 years.

Not to rain on your parades, but it’s the Fall of Rome at WoW Retail, it’s all damage control and pet battles must be extremely low on the list of priorities.

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Ah, you underestimate how painfully annoying I can be, friend. But I totally understand your sentiment. The fact that it’s gone this long without an update shows it’s not a priority like it was in MOP and WOD, sadly.

I don’t want to see this system die, though. It means a lot to a lot of players, so if it comes to me having to beg and embarrass myself to get some updates…I’ll throw corgi memes at the devs until it happens.

With regards to pokemon comparisons, I think it only comes up frequently because pokemon is the pet battle sim. It’s the largest game franchise in the world, so it’s hard for people to escape it. But WoW’s system is fairly unique compared to it. Most pet games bring something unique to the table (pokemon is one of the originals, monster hunter stories lets you ride every single monster you tame and they do unique things, monster rancher is more of a stat sim race against time, dragon quest monsters uuuh…I forget, and digimon focuses on trying to figure out evolution trees to maximize their potential) and WoW’s is no exception. WoW has a lot of focus on predicting enemy moves and proper setup for strategies to pay off. Plus…it’s a system in one of the largest MMOs in history, ha.

So while I do compare between WoW and other pet games, it’s less so a “do it the way pokemon does” and moreso “this is how another series handles this, which shows that other options can be successful.” I also just? Really like talking about pet games apparently. Sad.

I like the idea of stat boosts. And it seems like a running theme between all of us is the idea of some form of boss fights that aren’t just “fight slightly large pet with a damage reduction buff.”

People can freely toss tomatoes at me for this but I also think a system associated with pets that is luck based (beyond drop rates from bosses) might be fun, provided it is only cosmetically beneficial. Maybe even as a way to clear out super common pets that we all get so many duplicates of, and then we have to delete them from our bags and feel really guilty about it.

So like say you took one of your thousands of moth pets, tossed it into some kind of combiner with one of your thousands of snake pets, and added in some form of catalyst item like a pet family stone or something and out comes a different pet with a unique color variant. So you have like, 60% odds of getting a common color, 30% chance of an uncommon, and 10% chance of a rare color. People have talked about adding the shiny system into WoW’s pet battles but I hate the idea of doing 5k random encounters for a chance at a rare pet skin. I like luck being factor, but I prefer to have more impact on it with higher odds, if that makes sense. Like playing the lotto is only fun if you have a decent shot of winning.

But I am loving the discourse, feedback, and ideas in this thread. I think we can also all agree that petPVP needs help too, but I don’t even know how to begin addressing that. Keep your feedback coming, ya’ll. They need to know we’re here.

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I don’t do pet PvP, but I know one of the big issues for that system is weather. Weather abilities are wreaking havoc on that aspect of pet battles, and making it beyond painful for people to do pet pvp with regular teams, let alone Brawler ones.

I think having a system that can get you new appearances for your pets would be really neat. There are so many ‘skins’ in nature to take inspiration from, let alone what the designers could come up for themselves.

It’d also be fun to have a pet battle mission table–one of my ideas for the pet battle island, or maybe just another tab in the journal?–that you can send pets out on missions, maybe that auto battler style you were speaking about. You could use it to get rewards, and who knows? Special tokens for pet mission pets, or maybe expansion themed ones to get pets that might otherwise not be available anymore. (Please just give me a better way than the BMAH to get certain pets :sob: :joy:)

For the island idea, I would love to see a revamp of the older tamers, who have been training their teams to get revenge. They can be on a rotation like in the garrison.

I don’t know how I feel about getting rid of pet levels. As a person that does not do pvp content, leveling pets is a part of progression for me. Changes could be made to tamers so all of them give pet charms, it is not like they get any easier going from one xpac to the next. More pet charms will make it easier for people to buy stones to level their pets. Blizzard also make it so all abilities are unlocked from level 1. Levels would just increase the power of the pet.

Personally I would like to see some crazy things done with pets. Like the ability to combine pets to make different pets. Just a crazy NPC call the Pet Alchemist that would take your pet and other items to make a new pet. Pet quest where there is the option to turn a pet into a mount or piece of cosmetic gear.

I don’t really have any problems with the pet leveling system as is. And I don’t really have an issue.

Some things I would like to see: Scholomance as our next pet dungeon. Lillian Voss as a pet tamer. That talking skull would make an interesting pet, even if it’s the non-combatant kind, like the Wondrous Wisdomball or Uuna. Maybe even a special quest for another pet can be built around it, like Uuna.

I guess what’s most disappointing is the fact that there’s no more real challenge in PvE pet battles. There are certain combinations of pets that can pretty much take down all content. Like Boneshard/Unborn Valkyr combined with Ikky. Or three Timeless Mechanical Dragonlings, three Nexus Whelplings.

I’ll repeat what I said earlier. When you consider all the ways we have of acquiring stones to level and raise the quality of our pets, I think it’s absurd to insist we need more ways to level our pets. I think the reason that World Quests were nerfed so that they provide almost no experience is because the Devs recognized that leveling pets was too easy as it was.

In between paragraphs of writing this reply, I acquired six critter leveling stones and a rare quality stone on two of my characters.

I mean, come on. We have to work for something.

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Personally I don’t mind leveling the pets all that much, because I find the WoD pet battle trainers to be great for leveling my characters. I do 5 WoD trainers along with the fishing and cooking dailies on my leveling chars until they get to about 56 or 57. Then I do the SL Intro and immediately pick Threads of Fate.

5 pet battle trainers with war mode on, is a nice chunk of exp for not much effort. (More if you do the ones out side of Stormwind and work your way down to Booty Bay.)

Guess, that was kind of off topic… lol

Nice writeup. I’m not really a battler. More of a collector. Like you I hope they put some effort into pets next expansion. It would be a shame to see things wither away like Arch… :frowning:

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I’m happy to hear opinions, even if they differ from mine as long as people are passionate about it because it keeps the discussion going and every voice counts. So keep’em coming.

Are there any other ideas you guys have? Like anything super wild?

It seems like a mechanic to get rid of many duplicates of pets is needed. So I think a pet combination mechanic is a really good option.

I’m not sure what you mean by this. Are you suggesting that pets that are basically redundant should be removed from the game, hence our collections?

Or perhaps did you mean no strategies that allow two or three of the same pet?

“Getting rid of duplicates” could mean taking 3 of a kind and transmuting/transforming it into something else/new/different. Not necessarily just removing them.

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What Quintessence said.

Basically if I already have 3 of a pet and get another one (this happens a lot when I’m questing on alts) I’d like a way to get a use out of the additional duplicate pet that benefits me rather than having to destroy it. There’s always selling on the AH but if the pet is that easy to get, there’s probably already like 5000 of them listed.

So I’d like another option. Transmuting, trading it in for stones, etc. because it feels really bad and wasteful to have to keep destroying them for bag space since you can’t learn more than 3 of them.

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Agreed, battle pets feel a little stale but still I love them so. Forget PvP pet battles; that’s pretty much crickets on my server. I would play the hell out of a mobile app, along the lines of Hearth Stone, but synced with my in-game pet collection. Oooh, or maybe Microsoft can make that for Xbox. Hey, a person can always dream!

Any content would be appreciated. It feels like Pet Battles have been all but abandoned.