Friday, April 22, 2016

Legion Alpha: Pet Battle World Quest Updates

Alpha received an update yesterday (build 21531) and so did the Pet Battle World Quests (initial overview can be found here).

Here's a list of changes.
  • Pet Battle quest is NOT available in all 6 six zones on a daily basis anymore. Yesterday there were only 2 quests up, and today there's only 1 Pet Battle quest available (second quest was hiding in Suramar; thanks to @SerrinneWoW for pointing it out XD). (see this post where I track the available quests each day)
  • Pet Battle encounters are phased out unless they are the quest(s) of the day.
  • You cannot re-enter the battle once you've completed the quest.
  • Players sub-level 110 cannot battle the World Quest pets.
  • New type of quest: Find and defeat or capture X wild pets.
  • New achievement related to Pet Battle World Quests: Pet Battles > Battle > Battle on the Broken Isle (Complete 30 different Pet Battle World Quests - no reward (yet?))

Keep in mind that all of the above is still subject to change!

I'm a little sad to see that not all zones have Pet Battle World Quests available each day anymore. This greatly limits the amount of Pet Battle PVE content we'll have (initially) in Legion.

However a concern was brought up that the Pet Battle quests may take the spot of another type of activity, even though Pet Battling isn't as common a style of gameplay as questing, killing elites, etc. While I don't know if this reduction in the number of pet quests each day was made because of this concern, the change does seem to address it.

More testing will have to be done; it's not clear just how many Pet Battle World Quests are supposed to be available each quest rotation. One? Two? Enough to satisfy at least one objective in each of the emissary quests?

Personally, I'd like to see at least 3 up each day (half of total number of zones). Maybe 4. I think that would be a fair compromise. Depending on the randomization of quests each day, it would also still take at least a week+ to complete the new achievement.

Also, there was a new type of Pet Battle World Quest the other day - defeat or capture 3 different wild pets in the zone. One would think that that's pretty easy right? I mean, there's no legendary or elite/boss pet encounter to complete. However, I actually found this a bit more challenging purely due to travel time and time constraints.

Unlike the static PVE encounters, your objectives are spread out all over the zone. The challenge isn't in the battle, it's simply FINDING the battle.

For my quest, I had to defeat or capture a Vale Flitter, Shimmering Aquafly, and Spring Strider. The first one was easiest to find, but the last two were a lot harder since I wasn't very familiar with the zone yet.

On top of that, there was only ~20 minutes left on the quest duration before the World Quests changed for the day. That added even more pressure.

Some unknowns: Are the quest objectives static or will they change? Does each zone have a similar "fight 3 different wild pets" quest? Since I didn't have much time, I was unable to test if secondary pets counted towards completion. The Vale Flitter and Shimmering Aquafly were both primary pets, and I never found a Spring Strider.

So I'm not sure I like that type of quest. Maybe once I'm more familiar with the area and know where to find each wild pet, it won't be as bad. But I also worry about competition over these wild pets to not only complete the quest, but also collectors simply trying to collect them. Will there be enough pet spawns to adequately meet the needs of the number of players participating? We'll have to see I guess.

The other changes made seem more like bug fixes than anything. Being able to enter any Pet Battle World Quest, whether or not it was part of the day's rotation didn't seem like it was intended. Nor did the ability to repeat the fight over and over again, or sub-level 110s being able to engage in the battle.

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