No epic pets in Legion - and for what reason?

[Thrif]

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/4...nes-in-legion/

Hi everyone!

First and foremost, thank you very much for testing pet battles in the Legion Alpha. We’ve heard your concerns and have decided not to move forward with epic pet battle stones in Legion.

To explain a bit about how we arrived at this point--

When designing rewards for the new battle pet features in Legion and the revamped pet store in Dalaran, we considered epic stones a potential direction to go. Some players are nearing the cap of max-level, all-rare pet teams, and we wanted to see if this space would satisfy their needs for a long-term future level of investment.

You have correctly identified a few of the issues that come up with this feature:

• New players now have a harder time catching up (though we could mitigate this by speeding up the early leveling process).
• Players with 600+ rare pets that felt as if they were nearing completion of their pet journal are back to having 600+ pets to level.
• Power Creep – older content is now easier, future content is harder for new players entering pet battles.

One of the things we like about pet battles is that much of the early content stays relevant through all of the expansions. Similarly, the collection aspect of battle pets works well when it’s wider (more pets to collect, more variety in abilities) rather than taller (more levels). Both of these are very good reasons to avoid adding epic pet stones.

This direction also pushes us to create content that tests max-level-pet-battlers in a way that is not purely numbers, but use of abilities, use of specific pets, and memorization of enemy strategies. The Celestial Tournament was a good example of pet battle content that rewarded a varied and filled pet stable. We have some exciting things in mind for future battles versus tamers!

It’s worth noting that this feature was not intended to replace any gameplay content. We’re working on all sorts of pet battle updates that we’d like to make in future patches.

Thanks again for all of your feedback. We really appreciate your great ideas and discussion!

Thoughts on this? I'm a bit dissapointed myself, have been wanting epic/legendary pets since I first started collecting pets. Now, it isn't the biggest deal in the world, but I honestly don't understand the reasons given to scrap it.

New players have a hard time catching up? Between the safari hat, the 200% exp weekends, the abundance of stones that gives level and quality, new players already have tons of ways to catch up that older players never had.

Power creep, old content is easier. Well, isn't that how every other aspect of the game works? And besides, pet battling has always been stupidly easy. If Blizzard really cared about PvE content being challenging they would've done something about the water spirit chrominus combo ages ago.

And seriously... if you decide to collect 600+ pets and level them to 25 and rare when the achviements ends at 50 or 75 or so, that's all up to you. That's an option. But the notion that we can't have fun additions to the game because some people "feel forced" to do something they really doesn't have to do... it amazes me, to say the least.

So, what do the rest of you say? Happy/unhappy with no epic pets in Legion?

[Therougetitan]

I'm kinda disappointed too. What I feel like what happened is the only people who gave feedback on pet battles were the people who were super into it and were extreme collectors. They got upset they had to upgrade their entire collection of rares they worked on to epic. But not everyone is a super pet battle collector like that. It's like balancing normal difficutly based off mythic hardcore raiders.

[Fawkess]

I am happy with this

They don't really offer much content and i can't imagine the grind of leveling 500+ pets to epic
The system is fine as is and does not need something like this

There are already lots of rewards for existing pet battlers to stick around (New pets, New achievements, Leveling stones,ect) that we don't need Epic stones

[Sentynel]

Disappointed. Sad they made this decision.

[Mormolyce]

Happy. The idea of having to progress my 250 or whatever max level pets makes my balls shrivel.

[Leih]

I'm kind of relieved to be honest. Letting you change every pet to epic creates a nasty grind, and only letting some pets be epic makes there very specific pets which are better than others. I'm not keen on either option.

[Super Kami Dende]

Don't really care, It just required you to grind out stones to do it, wasn't exactly any kind of needed content. I'd much rather them just add more pets rather than force people to grind out a ton of stones so their pets were relevant again.

Epic pets would've been far more Cons than Pros. Many of the better Pet battlers in the game agreed with that point and so did Blizzard from the Feedback.

[Devilyaki]

Like to keep the pet battle less complex, rather have 25 lvl max and that's it than other shit to throw on them. Should be about collecting not powering anyways.

[Sandraudiga]

So what, pet battlers don't really get anything other than a couple dozen more pets to catch? I don't pet battle much at all, but seems like its a content alot of people do like and they should get something to do in legion.

[Deleted]

So what, pet battlers don't really get anything other than a couple dozen more pets to catch? I don't pet battle much at all, but seems like its a content alot of people do like and they should get something to do in legion.

On the contrary - just slapping an epic stone on a pet is not content but a hassle if you have 720+ pets
As someone said on the wow forum we need VERTIKAL content not horizontal.....

And seriously... if you decide to collect 600+ pets and level them to 25 and rare when the achviements ends at 50 or 75 or so, that's all up to you. That's an option.

No its not an option cause as a serious pet battler you want DIVERSITY as much as possible so ofc you end up epic'ing all 800+ pets you will have in legion...

And yes outside of pet battling everything gets easier and easier but as these forum have shown over and over again this is not something everyone wants (ie threads like make all of wow scale to you...)
And I for myself am VERY HAPPY this doesnt make it into legion and I hope Blizzard now sits down and thinks about REAL pet battling content which just slapping another stone on 800+ pets would NOT have been...

[l33t]

Thoughts on this? I'm a bit dissapointed myself, have been wanting epic/legendary pets since I first started collecting pets. Now, it isn't the biggest deal in the world, but I honestly don't understand the reasons given to scrap it.

I don't care, but I guess thanks Blizzard for not creating one more huge, pointless grind.

I'd prefer a new version of Celestial tournament, tbh.

[Deleted]

I'm with Blizzard, though I enjoyed the prospect of epic pets. Upgrading 700+ pets was going to be a pain the the arse, however. I don't think removing epic pets is to any content detriment, just merely the nicety of having the Professor Plums.

Theyre spending development time adding a new tournament among things, I dont think we have to worry too much.

[llubtoille]

Makes sense, it would instantly and irreversibly nerf all of the past pet-battle content, which is evidently something they don't want to do.
The rest (imo) are filler reasons, they hold little weight.
Personally I find most npc pet trainers to be too strong to begin with, to the point that I often end up using guides to beat them (which goes against their usually stated policy...), so indirectly nerfing them would be a good thing in my eyes, but that's not really relevant.

[Kalerender]

Epic stones giving skins/animations/auras etc to a pet would be nifty - especially if you were capped on #'s so you had to pick your favourites to look pretty (because I don't choose pretty to fight). Just a power buff would nerf MOP/WoD pet content which isn't really necessary.

[SoLoR1]

Idea of leveling 700+ pets to epic... im happy that i wont need to do it.

[Deleted]

I have 7 characters full mythic equiped. I don't want to level them to 110 again and equip in the new raids. You know, it is a very long grind, and there is people out there who have more than 30 chars... Even more, new gear will make WoD content trivial and it is bad because HFC should last forever. Even more, new players will have to play through 10 more levels before being able to mythic raiding, which is a great disadvantage, because max lvl now is 100.

Bullshit right? So this...

[Deleted]

Bullshit right? So this...

IF you have to use raid analogy it would be better to say: first you have to raid mythic every week on all your toons to upgrade them to full bs. after you done that you have to raid with all seven of them mythic every week to get items to upgrade every slot by 3 item levels. you can only level one slot per week by 3 ilevels and it takes 20 weeks to level one slot to max. after you don that only then you can start the quest to get flying. and only after THAT you can start your quest for your artifact. and ONLY after you got every trait THEN you can enter the room of the last mythic boss.

[Pua]

I'd prefer a new version of Celestial tournament, tbh.

I expect that’s the route they’ll take.

It’s undoubtedly a design quandary for Blizzard. Players with big collections likely want further progression for their pets, but vertical progression just makes the end point look extremely unappealing for newer players who might want to build up their pet army. I don’t think more pets really scratches the same itch, and I’m not sure a new family really would (Demonic?), so it makes the design of more progression for those already owning big collections really tough.

Each patch bringing a new tournament would, however, probably just about manage it for Legion. I still like the idea of a pet-breeding system, but it’s hard to nail down how that’d work.

[Leih]

Maybe they should take some kind of Pokemon route with things and the concept of mega-evolution. What if we got an epic quest chain to unlock the ability to "Epicify" one pet in our team, but it's like a temporary buff like a Held item or something like that, and you can only have one... but you can move it freely between pets.

It adds another layer of strategy, because you can pick which pet in your team of 3 is going to be extra strong, but only the one pet. No grind, you don't have to level all pets to epic or grind 700 upgrade stones. It could be accompanied by a cool visual glow effect or something on the battle pet with the stone to make it shinier.

[l33t]

I expect that’s the route they’ll take.

It’s undoubtedly a design quandary for Blizzard. Players with big collections likely want further progression for their pets, but vertical progression just makes the end point look extremely unappealing for newer players who might want to build up their pet army. I don’t think more pets really scratches the same itch, and I’m not sure a new family really would (Demonic?), so it makes the design of more progression for those already owning big collections really tough.

Each patch bringing a new tournament would, however, probably just about manage it for Legion. I still like the idea of a pet-breeding system, but it’s hard to nail down how that’d work.

They can add a lot of things without adding more plain stats.
Like, three abilities per tier instead of two - that's a plain example. Or a cross-breeding system where you can assign certain abilities to certain pet types by yourself.

Adding extra plain stats is nothing but a lazy boring design, which generates way more problems that it solves.