More Tweaks and Changes

Last week was quite... interesting... to say the least. Real life always knows how to be a party pooper heh. :P

Anyway, getting down to it, here are some notable changes to Pet Battles:

"We have made a few adjustments to the both the weakened by capture pets and the overall XP curve. Details below!

- Catching any pet level 15 or under retains its current level.
- Catching a level 16-20 pet will lose 1 level.
- Catching a level 21-25 pet will lose 2 levels.
- We have dramatically reduced the XP required to level for pets after level 10." - Mumper

"We have reduced the cool down to 10m in the next build." - Mumper

I can't comment on the "weakened" and experience change yet since I haven't been able to capture or play Pet Battles for the past week, but it doesn't sound too punishing. At the very least, I'm glad that there are level ranges instead of a flat and static level reduction. THAT, I think, would be pretty devastating.

Imagine capturing a level 5 wild pet only to have it be reduced to a level 1 lol. People would be screaming bloody murder if that were indeed the case. So I'm glad developers took that into consideration.

The reduction to the healing/reviving spell is a nice touch, although I think dropping it down to 7 minutes would be a better compromise for everyone. As I mentioned when I first started testing Pet Battles, I can normally run with the same team of pets for about 2 - 4 battles (with opponents of appropriate level) before they seriously need a heal, otherwise I'd be gimping my odds of winning.

But in some situations whether it's just unfavorable RNG or a bad call on my part, I might need to heal up my pets after just one battle. Most of the time I don't run into this issue one right after another, but bad luck does happen. I haven't acquired any Pet Bandages yet, so I've been reliant on the spell and/or the Stable Master.

Dropping the CD of the spell to 7 might be a good compromise since it's still a long enough cooldown so that it can't be constantly used, but it might be short enough so that players don't feel like that string of bad luck is getting in their way of fun.

Or being able to MAKE your own Pet Bandages so players feel like they have more control over the healing of their pets would be another possible solution. Heck, even being able to purchase them from a vendor might be enough too.

To strike a good balance, there needs to be an adequate amount of player control along with RNG/attrition.

I think that's what the biggest issue is here. Players feel like they're at the mercy of a CD and can't move forward unless that CD is reduced even more or removed completely. It's like a mental block that prevents any fun from being had because, let's face it, no one likes to lose. Starting out a battle with 75% health instead of 100% puts your pet team at a slight disadvantage, therefore making the odds of possibly losing that much higher. The player doesn't really have a choice, though, unless they want to take the time to travel to a Stable Master, heal up, and then fly back. Except it's pretty inconvenient doing so, especially in some zones where the NPC is out in the middle of nowhere. Plus travel time is just not fun, period.

Not to mention if a player happens to come by a very rare wild pet that they have to capture, but their team is less than ready and they're out of Pet Bandages. I know I would be heartbroken if I had to pass up that chance or take the risk of someone else coming along to snipe the wild pet while I'm off in search of a Stable Master.

At least if we could make our own bandages for our pets, the responsibility wouldn't fall on anyone's shoulders but our own if we're unprepared.

Well, we'll see. I have yet to try out Pet Battles with all the changes.

Hopefully all the RL issues will be over and done with soon enough and I can get back to what I'm passionate about: the pets! :)