5.2 Minipet Changes (selection of WHEE!)

[GormanGhaste]

If the minor inconveniences of pet battles are that upsetting, it might be best to concentrate on a different aspect of the game for a while.

[Taaveti]

I don't actually quite understand the logic on implementing the damage on forfeiting battles, since none of the turn-based RPG I've played have ever had a setting like that (not even pokemon). There can be fights that you cannot escape from (usually boss fights, and you would just reload the last save anyway), but never on trash fights.
Wouldn't it be better just replace forfeit with escape, which could have a chance to fail (and you would be forced to take a hit or two) instead of damaging the whole team? (which also make a lot more sense to me anyway)

As for pet tamers, I believe their lineups are fixed in order to encourage us to strategically counter their lineup with special setups, and we are basically required to do that since tamers have pets that are vastly stronger than ours. Losing a turn by having the wrong first pet can prove devastating to even a team full of lvl 25s. Not to mention we have been told by the devs they intended those dailies to be an alternative way of leveling our pets (especially after the nerf on the exp bonus on pre-Pandaria tamers and buff on the Pandaria tamers).
Players should be encouraged to be well prepared before you start the fight (making sure you have the right pet/skill setup or fulling healing your team). My suggestion would be just remove the randomness on the first and second pets on tamers, but instead make fights against tamers impossible to forfeit. You can however still leave the fight by disconnecting (since the time it takes to restart the game would be penalty enough) or when your queue pop up and you're zoning into the instance.

Regarding hunting for rares, I have my doubts on how much it would actually discourage forfeiting on that. If I am hunting for rare pets in 5.2 (since I've already got every single pets in rare quality except the Qiraji Guardian as I started playing after they became unavailable), I would just continue forfeiting, willingly take the damage on my team, one-shot the pet to open up a spot for respawn if no one else is around, and swap in some random pets when the current team is dead until I find the rare. Which then I would just lose/forfeit the fight, heal/bandage up and start the fight again (since they respawn on forfeiting anyway).

tl;dr : Replace forfeit to escape, which has a chance to fail on wild pet and is disabled on pet tamer fights. Remove the randomness of first pet on tamer fights.

[Kalliope]

All excellent points, Taaveti, especially the concept of having a possible failed escape rather than the damage penalty.

[Chimera]

We shouldn't have to. No other class has to.

No other class has to because they dont have pets -___-

Warlocks, undead death knights, frost mages all have pets.

Myzou already addressed that at least warlocks do so i was actually talking about ones like paladins, shamans, druids, etc. in mind :3

tl;dr : Replace forfeit to escape, which has a chance to fail on wild pet and is disabled on pet tamer fights. Remove the randomness of first pet on tamer fights.

I personally dont like the idea of disabling the ability to forefit in pet tamer battles, as you explained in your in-detail explanation. Its already time consuming to do the fight and its only enjoyable if your prepared for it. Removing the randomness would essentially remove the need to forefit if your prepared, but for someone who hasnt encountered that tamer before and doesnt know what pet enters the fight first, they are trapped in that fight with no way out except disconnections or rezoning and are essentially just wasting their time waiting for the tamer to kill their pets so they can redo it (or at least go down in an attempt to somehow survive and defeat the tamer).

Its a huge inconvenience and its already been mentioned that disconnecting takes a really harsh toll on some peoples computers if it happens regularly. The rezoning can take absolutely any amount of time since you always in that case need help from specific classes (warlock summon) and the additional aid of a few to several people ontop of that. If you enter a dungeon or BG to get out of a pet battle and you dont actually want to do the BG/dungeon, you get 30min debuffs if you dont stick around which essentially, if you have both, completely removes all solo escape methods and thus you need to wait the debuffs off and then redo the process of queing, waiting, then leaving and recieving them for another half hour, die in the battle, or get in touch with someone somewhere with a warlock and friends that can help you out.

[Wain]

If the minor inconveniences of pet battles are that upsetting, it might be best to concentrate on a different aspect of the game for a while.

This is my feeling as well. There are many little things I find "annoying" at times. But that's a very different thing to the feeling that Blizzard just stuck a dagger through your heart, which is the impression I get from some of the posts. :/

[Taaveti]

I personally dont like the idea of disabling the ability to forefit in pet tamer battles, as you explained in your in-detail explanation. Its already time consuming to do the fight and its only enjoyable if your prepared for it. Removing the randomness would essentially remove the need to forefit if your prepared, but for someone who hasnt encountered that tamer before and doesnt know what pet enters the fight first, they are trapped in that fight with no way out except disconnections or rezoning and are essentially just wasting their time waiting for the tamer to kill their pets so they can redo it (or at least go down in an attempt to somehow survive and defeat the tamer).

Yeah, you're right, the disabling bit probably isn't a good idea.
From how I see it, whatever changes the devs are implementing, they are almost always to try to provide more convenience to us players. The damage might just be minimal (<1%) after-all and we have just been looking too much into it.

[Meggers]

If the minor inconveniences of pet battles are that upsetting, it might be best to concentrate on a different aspect of the game for a while.

This is my feeling as well. There are many little things I find "annoying" at times. But that's a very different thing to the feeling that Blizzard just stuck a dagger through your heart, which is the impression I get from some of the posts. :/

Some people are just more passionate about different topics. I see no difference from major gripes in pet battles v major gripes with pet taming (hunter pets).

[GormanGhaste]

I would give a similar statement about pet taming

[Kalliope]

I would give a similar statement about pet taming

Yeah, so would I.

[Maizou]

Yea... my reaction is much more tame than some people's reactions to pets being made untameable, pets being tameable, etc.

Anyway, pet battle things from twitter:

Q: @mumper Are the new 5.2 raid pets going to revive more older raids or is it just for the new content - more pets is always exciting!

A: @Proffessor_Oak New raid content for 5.2, we hope to continue them in classic raids for 5.3.

This... actually pisses me off. You should not gate pets you can obtain behind current expansion (let alone current tier) raids. Unless they can drop in LFR for you specifically. I hope they can, so here's hoping. But until we have confirmation, I'm going to assume they just drop from the boss in normal/heroic. Though, the same guy responded asking if it's part of the whole "making LFR more rewarding," which would make sense.

Q: @mumper Is the issue with Mechanical and Undead pets sometimes not proccing their rez a known issue, or a misunderstood mechanic?

A: @AlexZiebart Could very wellness a bug, we will check it out.

This is great. I really wish they'd have people on the Pet Battles forums though. We've known this since it launched, and been reporting it on the bug report forums, etc.

And an answer to some of my issues with the forfeiting, (no, I'm not Professor_Oak. He just has the same thought pattern as me on tamers, like Kalliope )

Q: @mumper Just read 5.2 notes. Does fleeing from pet battles damage only apply to wild pet battles and not tamers? And how much damage?

A: @Proffessor_Oak Just wild battles most likely.

I still don't agree with taking damage, but this is better. As long as I don't end up killing my pet because Aki chooses to open with her dragon 10 times in a row or something.

[Teigan]

Well, the penalty for fleeing is kinda annoying. But, I look at it this way. Every battle has a chance for a flawless battlestone. Granted the chance is MUCH higher with high level pets. So, if you fight the battle, you have more chances for stones. If I'm farming low level pets, I keep a 25 on my team to eat them if I don't want them. If I'm farming high level pets, more exp for unleveled pets and more chances at a stone. So...kinda annoying, but with a silver lining. The only issue will be the tamers, but, they can still be beaten even if they send the "wrong" pet first, as long as your team is made up to exploit their weaknesses.

[Kalliope]

And an answer to some of my issues with the forfeiting, (no, I'm not Professor_Oak. He just has the same thought pattern as me on tamers, like Kalliope )

Q: @mumper Just read 5.2 notes. Does fleeing from pet battles damage only apply to wild pet battles and not tamers? And how much damage?

A: @Proffessor_Oak Just wild battles most likely.

I still don't agree with taking damage, but this is better. As long as I don't end up killing my pet because Aki chooses to open with her dragon 10 times in a row or something.

Ah, see, that makes sense then! Order doesn't matter for wild battles, since you're choosing your opponent and KNOW who you're facing first. I'm definitely still good with this.

Well, the penalty for fleeing is kinda annoying. But, I look at it this way. Every battle has a chance for a flawless battlestone. Granted the chance is MUCH higher with high level pets. So, if you fight the battle, you have more chances for stones. If I'm farming low level pets, I keep a 25 on my team to eat them if I don't want them. If I'm farming high level pets, more exp for unleveled pets and more chances at a stone. So...kinda annoying, but with a silver lining.

This is absolutely the best reason to actually do the trash fights. In fact, unless I'm in a hurry, I've been doing them for just this reason.

[Maizou]

As I said, I consider the chance at the stone and the damage I'll take from battling worth more than helping someone else get a rare and taking the same, if not more damage. >_>

There's not enough incentive to help someone with the system they're introducing, plain and simple.

[Kalliope]

As I said, I consider the chance at the stone and the damage I'll take from battling worth more than helping someone else get a rare and taking the same, if not more damage. >_>

There's not enough incentive to help someone with the system they're introducing, plain and simple.

Depends on your perspective. I personally don't find it a big deal to do a friend a favor since random pet battles can be found anywhere. I don't find my pets taking some damage to be a deterrent.

But hey, as stated earlier, if you don't want to, you don't have to. No one is making you do nice things for others.

[Kurasu]

The way I see it, in my bags as we speak, I have 8 *full* stacks of bandages, as well as one extra, and have vendored many more of them because of just plain not needing them (and the 1g being worth it). With there being a deterrent on escaping from battles, I won't be doing as many escapes, other than two reasons: my pets are dying and it's an inevitable loss, *or* I want to save a rare for someone else. If it's the first, then I'll be healing my pets anyway. If it's the second, whatever small amount of damage I take can be given an extra bandage or can be worried about when my pet healing comes off cooldown.

The fact it no longer despawns the enemy means that running from something that's not a rare leaves spawns up for people who want them and have never gotten one before. It also means that people will find it harder to jump on a mass respawn and 'abandon' their way through the whole pack, since they have to remember which ones they did and which ones they didn't. Sadly, this may lead toward people manually killing spawns, but IMO it's still a step in the right direction to make extremely rare pets a little less so.

[Dialga]

I don't think taking damage for fleeing is the right move. It's inconvenient and basically forces you to stock up on bandages -- which I dislike, having limited bag space.

You know what's going to happen if I exit the battle and it's not a rare -- and may I add a rare with the base stats I want? They differ.

I'll shoot it out of the battle. I'll shoot it so that I can get a better eventual respawn.

It doesn't help people trying to farm for the pets at all. People will still get rid of the poors-uncommons manually if they have to. And you can say 'well I won't' but others, and real rare farmers will.

In addition, this is utterly horrible for end-level pandaria tamer fights. I usually have to flee a battle multiple times before I can get Aki to lead with Chirrup or Earth Spirit to lead with Oily? Chirrup's stampede is ASTOUNDINGLY punishing if it goes off during a Lightning Storm, so having her lead with Stormlash is never a good idea -- am I supposed to just suck up the bandages I could be using elsewhere until I get the combo I need? Going into one of those battles with damaged pets and expecting to win is laughable. And although the repair bill is meager compared to the winning pot, it's still a waste of time to fly back and forth and back and forth.

[Syleye]

I am perfectly fine with the damage penalty. I am in the process on getting all rares, or as many as I can, I go through a ton of badages and have to watch my heal cd as well as hope I am in a zone with a stable master near. Personally the Aki battle is not that far from the stable masters and the damage to get the right order seriously isn't that big of a deal. Kind of reminds me of the people in Org who feel they have to get on a flying mount to go from the AH to the bank


BTW I have been known to be one of "those" people.

[Teigan]

Well, when you battle Aki and all the Pandaria and other grand masters (some of which are not near stable masters) every day, wandering off to find a stable master each time you loose turns an hour long task into a much longer one, if you don't have enough bandages (or bag space for them). I usually win the first time, but, if I'm having an off day or just plain bad luck, that's not always the case.
Usually, I'll fight them anyway if they send out the "wrong" pet first. And usually I'll lose. But then, my ancestors charged a tank battalion on horseback. I guess I get the "I will fight to death against impossible odds" thing flare up now and then But, it would be alot more efficient to forfeit and do it the right way. The penalty, for trying to fight the "endgame" tamers right is a bit of a PITA.

[Syleye]

Well luckily it looks like it will be only wild pets, fingers crossed, but eh so I have to fly 15sec in the vale to heal, the pet battles are for fun anyways so I try not to let any of it stress me too much...Oh and I totally undestand the fight to the end mentality...lol, someday I may learn to accept that I'm in a no win situation but probably not anytime soon

[Myrrmi]

But then, my ancestors charged a tank battalion on horseback.

May it be that you are, uhm, Polish?

I'm a bit upset at this change, too, but just a bit. I suppose it might be getting closer to driving me mad on one of those days when the trainers just plain refuse to start with the pet that is not the absolute worst you can get as an opener, and I have very limited playtime.
But oh well, it's just a mini-game within a game, and a fairly casual one