Should stables be replaced with pet tabs?

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Sigrah
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Should stables be replaced with pet tabs?

Unread post by Sigrah »

Is it time for stables to go the way of the dodo in lieu of a pet tab? With each expansion, more and more pets come out, and it's getting to the point where there's so many skins that it feels like it's more about collecting them than ever using each and every one of them, especially when you factor in rares, spirit beasts, and chellenge tames. Regardless, I feel they're going to have to at least double the current stable size to accommodate the pets that have come into existence since cataclysm (If I recall right, that was expanded to its current size of 50).
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Re: Should stables be replaced with pet tabs?

Unread post by Equeon »

I think keeping the stable system, even a stable with a ridiculous amount of pet slots, goes a long way to preserving some flavor for the hunter class as a whole. Pet slots like Guild Wars 2 just seem so impersonal.
I can understand adding 5-10 new slots to the stable per expansion so hunters can tame new pets, but even as it is now, we can tame up to 55 different pets. 55!

How many of those 55 pets do you use regularly? I'd be astounded if you said all of them, and even then, I'm sure there are a few that get a little less attention than the others. In my opinion, taming beasts should be about a hunter making a personal bond with a wild creature, not a collector running around to catch every possible rare or shiny appearance.

If you enjoy collecting pets, then do what many other Petopians have done, and create another hunter to have all the pets that won't fit in your main's stable.

Unlocking and storing hundreds of pet appearances in a sleek UI wouldn't remotely feel like you're making a meaningful choice when you tame a new beast. At that point, it's not really a pet anymore, just another resource to be collected.
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Re: Should stables be replaced with pet tabs?

Unread post by Aquillian »

I have to agree with Equeon. The way GW2 handles it does feel incredibly impersonal. I like that I have to make choices for my two hunters. I'm pretty pleased with the way stables are now honestly.
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Re: Should stables be replaced with pet tabs?

Unread post by Vephriel »

I'm in agreement with what the others have said, but I've felt this way for a while. Even the 50 slots feel impersonal as they are now. Sure I'll tame more pets if there's room for them (though I haven't filled my stable at all), but I don't feel the same connection to them as when I only had a few options. Now I don't want to go back to the days of 3-5 slots, but 50 is just...well, it's not how I like to play hunters.

I can't stress enough that this is all highly personal and subjective of course, and I'm not trying to dissuade anyone who would like more space. I just already struggle with feeling like pets are some collectible instead of a meaningful choice, and if it changed to a tab system it would become even more so (for me).
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Re: Should stables be replaced with pet tabs?

Unread post by Mozag »

I'm going to strongly have to agree with the others here. I really enjoyed the GW2 ranger class except for this one thing. My pets felt like plastic objects that I whipped out to do my bidding. None of them meant anything to me, even their names don't stick when you change them out. It was impersonal and quite awful.

I like to make choices on my hunters. None of them have their stables filled, because I don't just run after pretty skins but carefully pick and choose the animals that feel right for each hunter. I also don't tame the same exact pet more than once. I think our stable system is great as it is. Adding more slots per expansion for the collector types is just fine by me and makes sense since new looks are added each time, but to make a GW2 collection type thing would quite possibly ruin the class for me. In fact, I don't usually comment on threads much but this idea filled me with such consternation that I felt I had to get my two cents out there. :lol:
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Re: Should stables be replaced with pet tabs?

Unread post by Karathyriel »

I never had an issue with stable slots.
All the hunters I ever played had one pet by their side, from start to finish.

I'm a roleplayer and therefore the pets I have are more lke friends to the hunter than just a secondary weapon.
I've spent way to much time to farm Sambas and all he ever does is spend time in the stables.

Make it 5 Slots, make it 5000, I don't care.
I had this idea with the pet tabs in some other thread, just because I read of so many people wanting more.
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Re: Should stables be replaced with pet tabs?

Unread post by Mousecandy »

I would actually love the idea of a 'pet tab' I dont think it would make them less real to me then they are now, whats so different about running to a annoying placed stable-master and going through the stables other then having to spend the time and energy silently cursing the fact that the garrison doesn't have a stable master cus of a glitch when you have a level 3 barn but no stable. GW2 was different, its setup was different yes, and if you want to make choices, you can always /choose/ to limit yourself. As it stands now, its frustrating that hunters often get sidelined with important details, that eventually get fixed.

Ammo, ammo was horrible, no one can deny spending tons of gold on it, needing to haul around a quiver full, and panicking when you run out mid raid was fair. Feeding pets, while a great rp tool, also was an EXTRA money sink that no other class had, similar to ammo, you had to carry around a variety for all your pets, make sure you had enough, and spend gold on it, and worry when you ran out. Leveling pets, a huge time sink that no other class really dealt with, did warlocks ever have to level their summons? I can't recall. Either way, it put hunters in another position of 'this is something only I have to worry about'. Minimum range, one of the things I personally HATED, while at first it wasn't bad, there was a slow increase of more and more bosses in wrath especially that required stacking right on said boss, and that was a ton of fun sitting there banging on its head with our stat stick while mages next to us happily blasted away.

You say you don't want pets to feel impersonal, then don't make them. Its how /you/ treat your pet that makes them full of life, if you want to limit yourself then do so, only use 5 pets for a given week, but myself? as a raider, gimme full access, let me have that part of my class that's PRICELESS TO MY PLAY, let me be able to summon exactly which pet I need for a given situation, maybe break them apart, have the 5 main pets that you can swap in combat, and then the full stable pet tab that lets you swap out of combat.

the harsh reality is our pets are like a piece of gear in many ways, they effect our dps, without them out we suffer for it, so why not allow us access to them like any other person can carry around gear in their bags? yes I know it sucks thinking of them like this, I agree, I adore my pets, they have personality and flavor and LIFe, but thats no reason to not also see what they are in terms of game-play.

its how you handle your pets that gives them life and reason for being, not how the game stores them.
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Re: Should stables be replaced with pet tabs?

Unread post by Sukurachi »

I become very attached to certain pets on my hunters (I have many hunters).
Each one tends to run with pretty much always the same pet at his/her side.

however, I also always have with me "utility" pets, such as my quilen (rez), spirit beast (heal), and strider (water walking).

those three alone only leaves me room for two "special pets", the ones I feel closest to.
but it's not always useful to have the same pets... sometimes, if members of my guild decide to do a bunch of stuff in tanaan or some dungeon or other, we can show up with 5 hunters. I try, as much as possible, to not duplicate the stat buffs of other hunters' pets... with only 5 slots, this means I have to run and try to find a stablemaster somewhere (I don't have stables in any of my garrisons).

I could certainly use a couple of extra pet slots on me, to avoid needing a stablemaster.
I'd be just as happy with either extra pet slots, or an heirloom-style interface. Either way, I'd still end up with the same pet at my side.
And who knows, maybe having rapid access to other pets I've tamed might actually build up new relationships with those.

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Re: Should stables be replaced with pet tabs?

Unread post by Bangeall »

While I'm not hugely opposed to the idea, the idea of my pets just being like mounts and mini pets does bother me a bit. I have over 400 mini-pets and nearly 200 mounts, so many that I honestly forget I have half of them and only use a few favourites. But it's ok because I like to collect them. But I don't think of taming pets as "collecting". I personally think that a hunter pet should not be something you tame and then forget about. No one is ever, ever going to use 100 pets. I'm fairly sure most people don't use all 55 of the current pets. Maybe increasing the slots on our hunters could be a good idea? One problem I had with Draenor was that there seemed to be so few stable masters.
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Re: Should stables be replaced with pet tabs?

Unread post by Makoes »

I find myself keeping the same 5 pets with me, only altering a few now and then (my fire/thunder turtle, Loque/Karoma) But really only use one pet all the time (unless I need heals,hero, rez or instant tank). I did like the old "call stable" ability, it was handy when for whatever reason a buff was missing...but since that is rarely an issue with buffs anymore, I don't think we really need it.

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Re: Should stables be replaced with pet tabs?

Unread post by Bristlenose »

I understand both sides of the argument. I have two hunters with 50+ pets and only 2-3 spots open (and a third with 25+). I remember the days of only having 3-5 pets and it sucked when you wanted/needed to tame another and had to let one go. At the same time, having 50 pets means you don't use them all very often (or some not at all). And part of that is just ease of access. At least for me.

You can carry 5 pets on hand although personally I try to keep at least one slot open on me so if I see something I'd like to tame I won't have to fly/hearth or hunt down a nearby stable master just to go back and tame the beast. So that means I can keep 4 with me. I tend to have a spirit beast for solo questing/grinding and then a tanking pet to deal with tougher elites and then there are utility pets like battle rez or some kind of stat buff for dungeons and raids.

A mobile stable option would be good to have. It is a major pain in the butt to go and find a stable master just to switch out a pet. Garrisons don't even have a stable master by default. That means sacrificing a plot just to put a barn or stable in instead of something else I might have wanted or needed to do instead.

Expanding the stables was initially what I was thinking but after considering the discussion in here I think making the stables easier to access and manage is a better solution.

The mobile stable doesn't even have to have an immediate access. Give it a 30 minute cooldown or an hour. Something not unreasonable. The stables are still an important part of being a hunter but it should not mean having to go out of your way to rotate your pets.

I also don't like the idea of one hunter being the "hoarder" alt who has all the pets but rarely gets to use them and a "main" hunter who only uses some utility or favorites but can't access all the others on the alt. I have multiple hunters and each is a different race, on a different server, and each is their own individual. I don't want or need identical pets across all my hunters but there are a handful of "must haves" that I try to keep on them all. There is a lot of variety now and even more on the way.
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Re: Should stables be replaced with pet tabs?

Unread post by Mousecandy »

agreed with above, I want more access to the pets I have already, I could certainly use another 5 slots in the stable, but I dont /need/ it as much as access to the pets I already have, I don't want them to be account wide, or 'collectibles' but I do want to be able to use them, they are part of me, part of my class, maybe edit the 'pet' tab in the character panel to allow access to the stables from there, rather then treating them as an item but instead as an extension of our character, but one we should by all right be able to have open access to
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Re: Should stables be replaced with pet tabs?

Unread post by Xota »

My biggest, if not only, problem with stables is finding a stable master when I need one. I'm a general, one of the leaders of the alliance expedition to Draenor, and I can't convince a stable master to join my garrison without building a mount stable or a cloth/leather factory? What other class has to switch cities just to do basic class set-up?

A mount-like pet tab would probably mean I would lose some "no longer tamable" or special effects tames. Mobile access to the current stable interface would be fine by me. In fact, there used to be a spell that did that. In WotLK, "Call Stabled Pet". It had a cooldown (30 min originally, 5 min in a patch), and you could swap out a pet from your stable to one of the five you could summon.
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Re: Should stables be replaced with pet tabs?

Unread post by Rhyela »

I think just adding a few more "Call Pet" slots (maybe five more?) would help. Someone mentioned above that with all the various buffs our pets give us, it sucks when you're doing random heroics and happen to bring pets whose buffs are already covered. Extra Call Pet slots would give us a little more wiggle room in the wild without having to constantly run to a stable master, while still keeping the flavor of the stable itself. Yay or nay?

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Re: Should stables be replaced with pet tabs?

Unread post by Castile »

People play this game for different reasons and I can see why the pet tab idea has alot of appeal. I like collecting and even though I have 50+ pets they all hold some significance to me. The same with my 280 odd mounts - obviously I don't use every single one but i like having easy access to them. So i think this pet tab is a great idea. I don't see why it would be impersonal if you use only one main pet anyway - all it gives you is easy access to the others you have if you so choose. It doesn't stop you from forming a bond with your starting area wolf or what not. It would be so ideal for raiding when you need a certain buff and dont have to hearth, find a stable master and swap someone out for fluffy.

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Re: Should stables be replaced with pet tabs?

Unread post by Equeon »

With raid buffs gone in Legion, the need to swap out a particular pet at a moment's notice is lessened even more. I really hope the stable stays the way it is.
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Re: Should stables be replaced with pet tabs?

Unread post by Rhyela »

Equeon wrote:With raid buffs gone in Legion, the need to swap out a particular pet at a moment's notice is lessened even more. I really hope the stable stays the way it is.
Huh? I missed something here. Could you point me to what you're talking about? (Not that I don't believe you, I do. I just obviously missed a pertinent bit of info and would like to read more.)

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Re: Should stables be replaced with pet tabs?

Unread post by Bendak »

Rhyela wrote:
Equeon wrote:With raid buffs gone in Legion, the need to swap out a particular pet at a moment's notice is lessened even more. I really hope the stable stays the way it is.
Huh? I missed something here. Could you point me to what you're talking about? (Not that I don't believe you, I do. I just obviously missed a pertinent bit of info and would like to read more.)
All raid buffs are gone in Legion. Not just from pets. Right now we don't know what's going to happen to the pets who only had a buff. Pets with non-buff abilities still have them on the alpha.
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Re: Should stables be replaced with pet tabs?

Unread post by Kalliope »

Bendak wrote:
Rhyela wrote:
Equeon wrote:With raid buffs gone in Legion, the need to swap out a particular pet at a moment's notice is lessened even more. I really hope the stable stays the way it is.
Huh? I missed something here. Could you point me to what you're talking about? (Not that I don't believe you, I do. I just obviously missed a pertinent bit of info and would like to read more.)
All raid buffs are gone in Legion. Not just from pets. Right now we don't know what's going to happen to the pets who only had a buff. Pets with non-buff abilities still have them on the alpha.
I imagine that there's going to be a huge pass on pets to give all of them non-buff abilities.

My hat's off to whoever on the team has been responsible for making all of these sweeping pet changes expansion after expansion. They had to distribute all the buffs, then juggle them, then juggle them again, and now they have to take them all away.... It's complicated enough to do that for all the player classes, but there are so many pet families...geez.

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Re: Should stables be replaced with pet tabs?

Unread post by Slickrock »

as far as the stable goes, just fix up the interface. not sure it makes sense to add it to the mount/battlepet tab though
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