State of Battle Pets in Dragonflight – Community Feedback List

Overview

Battle Pets offer some of the most expansive “evergreen” content that WoW has to offer. Often engaging and frequently complex, it was introduced in 2012 with the Mists of Pandaria expansion. At the time of publishing this there are over 1600 different Battle Pets between the 10 different creature types and a variety of activities to do; ranging from PvP to Fishing. Now I’ve heard many say things to the effect of “If you like that why not just go play Pokemon” and to that I say; “If you like WoW, why not just go play any other MMO”. The response across the board is, it’s just not the same. I enjoy the variety of ways to collect new, and wildly different creatures, the system of battle, and the fact it isn’t a Rock-Paper-Scissors, or that there’s a ‘one team beats all’ strategy. Put all of that inside a well-developed world with massive amounts of story and lore, and many people were hooked.

When it comes to the gameplay, right now a player can catch a pet from Dragonflight content, go do Mists of Pandaria pet content and it still retains its original difficulty. Rewards from Legion pet battles are still worthwhile, Warlords of Draenor has the single best way to level a pet, and so on. Pet Battle PvP content is still just as hard and intelligent as it was on launch. Meanwhile, new pet content and pets are constantly being released for the current expansion. As a player that started on Dragonflight’s launch, I fell in love with the pet battle system, and it taught me about all of Azeroth and beyond. From taking me to Icecrown Citadel to get my Boneshard or battling trainers all over Mists of Pandaria through Draenor for the An Awfully Big Adventure achievement. Pet collecting and battling got me into the WORLD of Warcraft, and not just the most recent expansion.

Of course with a system that has stayed the same for so long, there are drawbacks. Things begin to feel stale after a while. The end-game pet battle players have no rated PvP or seasonal rewards. Once you have done the celestial battle, collected the most recent patch’s new pets, completed the dungeons, etc; there isn’t anything to do except the same world quests over and over and over for a currency. Combine that with many pet battle PvP players having left once they attained the Deadly Pet Brawler achievement, which was added with patch 5.3, and you can start to see some of the issues pet battles currently face.

As the years have gone by, many players have offered suggestions for improvements to the pet battle system, so I took it upon myself to gather some of those ideas alongside mock-ups to see what they could look like. Here you will find some simple improvements as suggested over the years and some large changes that have been asked for from the pet battle community far and wide as well as some I’ve come up with myself. We recently saw massive improvements to flying and movement, and perhaps pet battles could receive some of that attention for a system that hasn’t truly been overhauled since it was created in 2013.

General System Improvements

More Frequent Balance Changes

After a pet has been implemented, it will usually not receive balance to its abilities until the end of the expansion right before the next one launches. This can lead to long bouts of imbalance in the pet meta that can often be frustrating to experience. Additionally, only a few of those pets receive any adjustments at all. More frequent rebalances are necessary to keep the state of pet battles healthy and to make adjustments to overpowered skills and broken strategies that were never the intent of the original designers.
(Imagine, if you will, that when the Death Knight class was released it did not receive any buffs/nerfs till Cataclysm’s launch! This is the current state of Pet Battles.)

Adding Gear Slots for Each Pet

Gear should be unique for the slot and not for each individual pet. Explanation: (Pet slot A can wear equipment 1 if you own an additional copy of equipment 1 then Pet slot B cannot also wear equipment 1, a different piece of equipment should be on Pet slot B.) Having visible equipable gear would be fantastic; however due to the vast amount of re-work needed to rig all of the models to the visual and ensure all the vertices align it could be a difficult technical and creative implementation. Thus we may have to accept non-visual gear for some time. (If the system of “Gear” not showing on the pets is a thematic drawback to being implemented then let it be glyphs or auras, which do not need to have a visual when equipped.)

Gear Examples

• Racial Passive – Give current pet racials (or a lesser version of them) to a pet not of that race.
• Equippable Abilities – Give a pet a new ability outside of their standard 6 choices.
• Timed Equipment – Activates an effect after a set number of turns or actions.
  Example: A goblin bomb explodes after 4 turns, taking a % of all pets’ health, or perhaps a tar- trap that detonates after 3 turns that reduces all of a certain team’s speed. Equipment could activate only once or every X turns depending on the spell effect.

Stat Inversion – Swap the stats on a pet. Exchange their Speed and Power values.
Exp increase Item- Increases the amount of experience gained on a certain pet.
Borrowed Power Items- HUGE stat buff for a turn then massive stat decrease afterwards or limits them to one move/causes other negative effects.
Battlefield Effect Buff or Protection- Limits or prevents the equipped pet from being afflicted by a battlefield effect or enhances the benefits from a battlefield effect.

• Example: A flashlight that prevents the user from suffering the effects of “Darkness”. Or green dragon’s blessing that gives increased healing under the effects of “Sunny Day”.

Species Boost- Bonus effects to the equipped creature if they are from a specific family. If equipped on a critter, hits are always critical.
Preemptive Skills – Skills triggered when the pet begins battle.

• Example: Petbox (Starts the battle with a charge of blocking the first skill cast on the equipped pet.

Counteract Racials-Prevent or nullify current racials.

• Example: When this Pet attacks prevent triggering of Failsafe Mechanisms on a mechanical pet or allow stunning of a critter.

Example of “Gear” implemented as an “Empowerments” system:

Stat-Up Use item

Currently, pets have POWER, SPEED, and HEALTH.
An item that allows you to put additional stats into each unique pet towards a cap. For instance, a pet could have 1500 Health/280 power/280 speed at level 25 naturally, then an additional allowance of 5 stat-up points to spend. (5 power/speed per point or 27 health per point). Do you want to give your pet 25 more power, 25 more speed, 135 more health, or a mix of those. You could even have 3 Iron Starlette with different Training Points applied to each for different strategies. A reset or buyback points system would also have to be implemented in case mistakes were made. This system could also lead to the pet feeling more like YOUR Bakar Companion rather than A Bakar Companion. These Training Points possibly come from a PvP vendor. This would be like farming Valor/Honor, therefore, giving a long-term reason to do PvP battles.

Elective Mode – Remove the either-or Pick for Abilities

Currently, the system in place gives you 3 ability slots and a choice between 2 abilities for each slot. Often this system renders some pet abilities less useful to the pet in their own kit. This current example shows the “Spectral Raven” which has the ability “Call Darkness” which applies the status “blinded” to the opponent and the ability “Nocturnal Strike” which has a 50% chance to miss unless the opponent is blinded. The player must make a choice between the two moves currently rather than being able to freely choose therefore taking advantage of the synergy in the pet’s kit. The more dynamic choice system rewards players who want a wider variety of gameplay options via a free selection of the 6 abilities in the 3 slots.

Pet Battler Society Reputation – Fame

(hereafter referred to as “Fame”) An honor points style reputation where gains may be acquired from weekly/daily PvE and PvP pet battle content. As a player earns fame through weekly content they would unlock rewards at various thresholds corresponding to their fame rank. Defeating content would reward a currency (similar to conquest) for specific challenges (for instance beat the spirit tamers in Pandaria with mechanical pets). For PvP battles: 50 currency for winning, 5 for defeating an opposing battle pet. Rewards could be used at a vendor to purchase pets, items, etc.

Passive Leveling from The Stable, and Summoned Companion Leveling

Add new pet functionality to the stables. Drop off pets at the stable (Similar to Storing Hunter Pets) and they collect XP while being taken care of at the rate of approximately 2 pets leveled passively a week. Additionally, having your pet out accompanying you could grant pet XP, though at a much slower rate and far less XP than battling or using the stable.

Pet/Trainer Auras

For a long time, players have asked for their pets to have visual equipment, a tophat, glasses, etc. This has been done several times but is always locked to specific pets. The most likely reason these are locked is that an artist has to specify where the head, eyes, etc are on the pet, which can make “equipment” a difficult system to implement on thousands of pets. Instead, a system similar to the visual Enchantments on a weapon could be added. Trainers or pets could have the same visual effects that weapons can have applied over them like an Aura. These auras might be the visual representation of pet empowerments, or their own unique visual effect. These could be large rewards earned from difficult PvE or PvP content. Like a Season Hero achievement for pet battle enthusiasts. A large purchase point from a PvE vendor, or some other source. (these effects would have to be tailored so as to conflict with status effect visuals in PvP)

Faster and more Dynamic Battle Animations

One of the most common complaints from spectators of a pet battle and newcomers trying out the system is that the animations for each attack feel slow, clunky, or just boring. Adding additional animations, sound effects, and other dynamic modern functions that make systems like Dragonriding feel so enjoyable could be brought into Pet Battles. Taking this one step further would be to include customizing what happens when you send out your Battle Pet, glitter falls from the sky. An eerie sound plays, etc.

More Music in the Battles

Vast upgrades to the fidelity of the soundtracks have come in the last 10 years since pet battles were introduced. A few new songs, or improving the quality of the existing songs could enhance the experience.
Current Pet Battle music:

Dragonflight Soundtrack:

Let Color Variants Feel More Exciting

Some Battle Pets (mostly wild catch pets) have color variants with some having less than a 2% chance to be in a different color. A system where they feel rare and rewarded for having obtained the color variant could entice many including myself into recatching some pets just to have a shimmering collection. These could be achieved by giving them a border in your inventory, having them shine when they are summoned or viewed, or by giving them a sound effect when summoned. Anything that makes them known to be rare and “cooler”.

Show Skins/Color Variants on the AH

Knowing if the pet is a rare color variant allows the seller to charge appropriately, the buyer to know what they are purchasing, and the auction house to have a fresh injection of excitement. A simple tag near the name or other similar effect would be all that is needed.

Make Parts of the Add-on Rematch Part of the Default UI

For more information on Rematch please see this guide.

Rematch allows saved teams, viewing of pet breeds, better search functionality, and a slew of other features. If some of the features were to be standard and Blizzard supported this could improve the overall experience as a good number of people do not play with add-ons or are unaware of their benefits.

Experience as a Secondary Way to Increase Rarity

Reach higher rarities by gaining experience similar to the system followers had in previous expansion’s mission tables. When you hit 25 on an uncommon pet you begin leveling towards rare and then towards epic. This system exists alongside the rarity leveling stone.

Ground Mounts set as a “background”

Ground mounts are cool! Let’s get that out there first. A Battle Pet trainer must travel all around Azeroth and beyond for the fights. Being able to display your favorite ground mount as a background behind or alongside the player allows a unique feature for ground mounts. (Why no flying mounts? Because pets feel they will get eaten!)
*See PvP #4 for another effect similar to this.

Allow Flying/Underwater Captures

If you’ve ever seen a rare pet either at the bottom of a Kul Tiras lake or flying high above in the skies of Revendreth you know that some pets cannot be caught due to not being able to start the encounter. Swimming or flying captures should be possible. Either by toys or other means granting this possibility. Deep sea iron boots allow underwater captures. Pet plane platform allows flying captures. Etc.

Example of a possible item fix:

Incentives for Same-Type Teams

Having a full team of the same species activates a bonus cultured to that family for all battles. Existing very strong families may have weaker family bonuses for more fair balancing. This system could encourage typed teams as a benefit and make achievements like ‘Beast Brawler’ less strenuous.
Examples: Dragonkin Family bonus activates +3% damage for the team. Humanoid Family bonus activates +1% Speed for the team.

Rebalance the Racials

Some racials, are great, some are not so well loved. For instance, the two pet types Mechanical and Undead both have a passive that prevents 1 shot kill damage and lets those pets execute their abilities after an automatic revive. Magic-type pets have a weaker but different version of the passive that prevents 1-shot kill damage but does not automatically revive them.

PVE Content

Battle Tower or Tournament

Each opponent can be RNG or set weekly. A sort of endless-mode version of the Celestial Tournament. In these visual examples, a player would queue up into an instance and fight the next trainer in their series; taking opponents from a pool of all the current existing trainers in the game. Inside the tournament, it would remember the pets you’ve used so far that week and healing would not be allowed with the exception of 1 single target use heal item rewarded at the end of the win. A vault-style reward tailored for pet battles could be awarded at the end or simple currencies. Resets Weekly.

Raid-style Battle or Multiplayer

Battles taking inspiration from the Forbidden Reach rare pet battles. In the Forbidden Reach, there are four pets to catch. In order to do so one must battle nearby weaker creatures to decrease the legendary creature’s stats. If other players battle the lesser versions this also weakens the boss. This mechanic could be expanded to multiplayer PVE pet battles happening in certain zones on a timer or raid-style encounters where players could queue together performing a sort of baton pass or relay race or battles.

Questlines or Dailies from Pets

In Legion, you can obtain 4 different pets that have rather expansive storylines that involve raising them up and teaching them everything about the world. More quest lines originating from the pet itself or even pets that can initiate small dailies are often requested.
Examples where this has been used: Shadowbarb Hatchling/Drone from 8.3 Uldum. Bloodgazer Hatchling from 7.1 Azsuna.

Glimmerogg Snail Racing Pets Showcase

In Zaralek Cavern, you will find the Glimmerogg Snail Racers, they request to see every kind of companion pet with a snail model that exists in the game. Many found themselves hunting down some of the rarest glimmering gastropods around! It would be very enjoyable for many to see this exhibition pet system return in the future.

A New Celestial Tournament or New Contenders

On its release, people LOVED the celestial tournament and it’s still an end-game activity for pet battles today. Maybe it’s time the tournament got some new contenders? Perhaps some students have become masters and are now ready to take on the player!

Better Weeklies

Pet Battle content weeklies could use updating to keep that segment of players feeling engaged. Also bringing them more into the visible world locations. Examples:

• Certain number of PvE trainers defeated.
• Defeat X, Y, and Z, trainers in a certain amount of time.
• Catch a rare alternate color pet
• Defeat the celestial battle with pets from BFA and Dragonflight only.

New Cages

Every new release there are new pets to capture in the world. But we’re stuck to using the same ol’ cage every time! New cages could be a purchasable item from any previous system or reward. Cages could either have effects like “increases the chance to be a color variant” or just be skins the player is able to choose from.

Incentives to Battle Trainers

in short, make it easier to fight NPC trainers in dailies and world quests. Or find a way to take out the travel times.
If you are a collector of Polished or Shiny Pet Charms you will spend the entire day flying from point to point on every continent to collect your currency each day. There are a few possible ways this can be remedied.

• Limit rewards available per week
• Give a proxy hall where the Pet Battler Society has access to all pets and the trainer sends their team. If a daily is up you can battle the “proxy trainer” for rewards. (these shortcuts could be unlocked by defeating the original trainer a set number of times or with different teams, similar to being rewarded with a Dungeon Teleport by timing a 20 Mythic Key)
• Battle that WQ trainer from a Temporal Anomaly Battle Book which teleports you to that location for the battle only. (no actual teleports)

New Pet Incentivized Battles

Every time you complete the battles with a certain pet they are marked and can no longer gain the rewards obtained from this system nor can additional copies of the same pet, regardless of breed.
Example: Johnny Awesome completes the pet tournament with Rat, Iron Starlette, and Ikky. Johnny is rewarded with exclusive currency. Johnny can do the same tournament for rewards again but any team with Rat, Iron Starlette, or Ikky is not eligible for rewards. * Ghastly Rat or any other unique ID Battle Pets that are not “Rat” are still eligible for rewards until they have obtained the rewards. *

Recapture Wild Pets for Additional Rewards

After your first capture of a wild pet, there usually isn’t much reason to go for a second or even engage with that creature again. A system where an NPC takes a copy of “wild” caught pets for rewards incentivizes repeated capturing of additional pets. With a weekly cap on the number of creatures able to be turned in, some very rare Wild pets like perhaps offer more rewards. Daily or weekly quests could be offered for specific pets as well. Examples of quests they could offer that target specific pets: Catch water elementals to douse a fire. Catch felines for pest control. This would be an evergreen system going forward that could have a relevant NPC in the major town of the current expansion. Two possible scenarios under which this system could fit in are Mylune saving the tiny creatures or Noggenfogger building a creature zoo.

Lore Book

An expanded lore compendium that unlocks data and lore as you obtain relevant pets. “What can you learn from having caught an Azeroth creature but also owning a similar creature from Draenor, you might see that much like the orcs, this beast is also not originally native to Azeroth.” New panels could unlock when a relevant new pet is released. Unlocking a certain number of nodes could lead to a quest or other features.

PVP Content

PvP Queue Button Highlight

Bringing the PvP button to the group content menu under its own tab or of the existing PvP tab would go very far for pet battles visibility.

PvP Communication

Let players decide whether to hide their sprite or disable chat during battle via new opt-in incognito toggles. World of Warcraft is an online game. Other players exist in the world and numerous report/ban/block features exist in the game to discourage negative gameplay. Removing the ability to see or chat with your opponent, or to even congratulate them on a well-earned victory, removes community engagement and prevents any possibility of making new friends.

PvP Queue Failsafe

There are hundreds of PvE opponents in the game. A nice failsafe for long queue time would be to include the possibility of fighting one of those trainers instead if your queue time is over a 10-minute wait. These NPCs could be chosen from the more balanced trainers in the open world that do not require specific strategies in order to defeat(I’m looking at you Ardenweald’s Faryl!) Perhaps even options of improved A.I. *like not necessarily swapping pets every time they are stunned*

Weekly of “Kill 30 Opposing Pets in PvP” instead of “Win 10 Matches”

For most players in the PVP system, the ability to play matches forever in an attempt to get the weekly done and achieve no progress feels terrible. This would be in addition to putting a pet battle weekly NPC in the PVP area of the current zone.

Customize Battle Animations

Battle animations are your and your character’s interpretation of the battle. Adding an option to set your specific battle animations for the different events that occur allows for personalization of self and interactivity. New animations could be rewarded with various activities.

Battlefield Standard

A skin that would be applied to the ground under the player that is only on their side of the battlefield. Can be rewards from other various systems or achievements. This effect could be a PvP-exclusive effect or only on the player side of a PvE match.

Pick/Ban System for PvP Matches/Ranked PvP matches

Pick/ban systems seem commonplace in today’s competitive games and even more casual PvP games.

How they could work in Pet Battles
Once Player 1 and Player 2 have been matched for the battle, both players are brought to the Pick and Ban menu. Each player gets to ban a few pets and then pick from their list of owned pets before engaging in battle. Example:

1. Player 1 goes First and chooses from the list of all available pets to ban Anomalus from being playable for the match.
2. Player 2 goes Second and chooses from the list of all available pets to ban Ikky from being playable for the match.
3. Player 1 now goes and chooses from the list of all pets that the player owns to select and have Ohuna Companion be on their team of three pets.
4. Player 2 now goes and chooses from the list of all pets that the player owns to select and have Bakar Companion be on their team of three pets.
5. Player 1 now goes and chooses from the list of all available pets to ban Anubisath Idol from being playable for the match.
6. Player 2 now goes and chooses from the list of all available pets to ban Father Winter’s Helper from being playable for the match.
7. Player 1 now goes and chooses from the list of all pets that the player owns to select and have Chrominius be on their team of three pets.
8. Player 2 is now choosing their pick for their second pet.
9. Continue until each player has selected 3 pets for battle.

This benefits players by allowing them to have a strategy and not blindly walk into a guaranteed loss. Casual players don’t feel at a loss from dying to the same pet over and over. More skill-based players find a game inside the pick/ban time to plan or push their opponent into picking counters. Additionally, if skill/pet tuning does come at a slower pace, this system prevents the more unbalanced Pets or abilities from being the only choice for 6 years straight. Simply queue up and do a short pick-ban system before the match to make sure that one pet that always ruins your day spends the next few minutes snacking on its favorite treat instead of you!

Pet Battle Mobile App

Pet battles are a great way to tie in and still feel like you’re playing WoW when on the go. Just queue up for a quick match. Do some PvP matches or PvE dailies. You collect, train, and level everything in the main game, but are able to get a few quick matches in while waiting for your lunch order. Of all the features requested by players I found in my research, this may be one of the most frequently asked for.

Ladder Tracking

Many games like Hearthstone and even WoW have PvP have a ladder system. Simply put, win a few matches and you’ll increase your rank and go up to the next rung of the ladder. Win a few more and you’ve climbed a little higher. Certain rewards can be obtained from achieving ranks. A few leveling stones at the lowest rarity, a title at a little higher, and so on.

What do you think of these improvements to Battle Pets? Do you have other suggestions to add? Let us know in the comments below!