Blizzard held a press event yesterday, sharing all sorts of juicy updates about what's to come in Mists of Pandaria. Among the deluge of news…some insight into how the Pet Battle System is shaping up.
Here are a few key updates regarding the pet battle system…
- Player involvement in pet battles is planned to be totally anonymous. Player names will not be shown, and in addition, there will be no chat – or interaction of any kind – between players.
- PvP Pet Battle losses will not be recorded – only the wins will be tracked. The intention is for PvP pet battles to feel fun and casual.
- When you challenge another player while out in the world, your interface will transition to the Pet Battle UI. When the pet battle is over, the UI will return to the normal gameplay view.
- When entering a PvP Pet Battle, players will see each other's characters across from one another, along with the player's pets lined up in front of them.
- PvP Pet Battles will feel like an NPC encounter, except in this case, the NPC will seem much more intelligent and less predictable.
- Pets will be swappable during battles – even while in the thick of it. Players will be able to tag in a new pet in the middle of a fight, with the pet even running up to the enemy pet to attack!
- There will be an estimated 100 Wild Pets scattered about Azeroth.
- Battle Pets can all be named.
- Battle Pets will be usable account-wide – across all characters.
- Pets will require leveling, and will possess stats such as: health, attack, defense and movement speed.
- Pets will have a talent system consisting of a maximum of six abilities, of which the pet can have three. These abilities may be re-talented, but only when not in battle. Pets unlock new abilities as they level.
So there ya go… the Pet Battle system is deep in development and seems to be shaping up pretty nicely, although I'm not entirely sure I like the idea of the system only tracking wins. I think for the pet battles to really catch on and become a popular WoW mini-game – there will need to be a slightly more competitive atmosphere to it.
I think a little less anonymity would be a welcome change, but I can see keeping player dialogue out of it. In my opinion, there's little at stake in this, so why not let players enjoy being a bit more casually competitive with it? As long as the trash-talking is kept out of it, why not let the top “pet battlers” attain some glory..?!
If you lose a bunch…who cares? However, if you end up being a top pet battle strategist, it'd be nice to make a name for yourself in certain circles. 😉
What do you think?
Hi, Garwulf!
This information can be interesting for you – list of all datamined pet skills and abilities!
//www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1104138-Pet-battle-companion-list!-complete-with-stats-etc.