Kalliope wrote:Splitting exotics from their exotic abilities
There is ABSOLUTELY no difference between exotic pets and regular pets, save the secondary ability and a bunch of different looks, since their non-exotic abilities are standard. Blizzard most likely wants to keep the ability to tame exotics linked with the exotic ability of the pets because they wouldn't be exotic otherwise. This is actually a fair reasoning, since earning the right to tame exotics wouldn't mean quite as much were that the case. So even though on paper, I like the idea of splitting exotic pets from their exotic ability, just to allow for them to be tamed at a lower level, I can understand why Blizzard hasn't already done that.
Is the exclusivity of the pet families a draw for anyone, though? For me, it's just an irritant-- I love scorpids, and I love worms, but if my spec's wrong I only get to play with one. And this scarcity doesn't make my quality time with my worm any better, it just makes me go "gee, I wish I could just use the pet I want whenever I want."
I could see an argument made for keeping spirit beasts exclusive-- between the winning "mystical ghost thing" + "overloved charismatic megafauna" combo and the Pokemon aspect of the family, people seem madly obsessed with what I like to refer to as "those @#$% moonfire cats"-- but for the rest of them... do people like having a Devilsaur because it says "I am a Beast Master, neener neener" or because
it means they have a pet t-rex? I'd assume it's the latter, which would put no value in preserving a scarcity.
Taluwen wrote:I'll restate again....if they dont get their ability, then you might as well tame a normal pet cause thats what an exotic would be without that secondary ability.
Why would putting Exotics and non-Exotic families on the same footing be
bad? I like my pets being more awesome, I assure you. But I don't see why, when I spec to be a Beast Master, I should be given an incentive to ditch all my old pets in the stables and let them gather dust until I swap to a new spec.
Beast Mastery is all about the pets, right? So why does my keystone talent impose a penalty on me for wanting to be loyal to my old pets? Unless you approach this with an "out with the old, in with the new" assumption, it's frankly a pretty ludicrous idea.
That, and I don't see any solid argument* against giving ALL the families a special deep-BM-only second ability, the way all the Exotic families get now. Would you need to rebalance everything? Yup. Would it require a little creativity and more time to implement? Yup. Do I expect them to drop everything and do this right now? Nope. Do I think that's an excuse for them to leave the current Exotic system in place indefinitely? Nope.
*You could pull the "but they only have so much time/money/manpower to go around!" argument, but they have to put all their time, money, and manpower into
something-- no reason it couldn't be this.