Ranking Pets!

Report bugs and share your ideas to improve WarcraftPets.
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Reapersbeast
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Ranking Pets!

Post by Reapersbeast » August 14th, 2013, 2:50 pm

I'd love to start ranking the pets on here but I've been waiting to see if this site is going to break the ranking down into sections like usefulness(in pet battles) and attractiveness/coolness or whatever ya wanna call it. But I guess thats not gonna happen :(!


Honestly if your a pet collector then you would love to get them all so they would all get a 5 star but some pets aren't even worth looking at much less using in an actual battle so they deserve less stars! Then some are amazing to use, but look like crap so which way would you vote for them?? And I'd think a better ranking system for the pets would help Blizzard to Improve their pet designs, which is probably the most imporant aspect of pet ranking IMO!!

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Re: Ranking Pets!

Post by Quintessence » August 14th, 2013, 6:58 pm

Since this seems more appropriate for the Suggestion section of the forums, moving it there.
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Feel free to browse through my pet collecting blog: http://wowpetaddiction.blogspot.com

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Re: Ranking Pets!

Post by Breanni » August 14th, 2013, 7:46 pm

We're looking into reworking the rating system.
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Re: Ranking Pets!

Post by Reapersbeast » August 14th, 2013, 8:16 pm

Well Thanks for the info on the rework in progress.

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Re: Ranking Pets!

Post by Breehit » August 15th, 2013, 2:32 am

I tend to agree! I have lots of pets who fit certain categories, and I know about the super OP pets such as Anubisath Idol, but what about the others? For example, there are a ton of moths..yellow moth is well thought of, but how do the others rate? Which pets can do a good job on killing dragonkin (of the many that are slotted as dragonkin killers)? etc. I have been creating my own lists, based on my experiences, but it would be helpful to see some hard data. Since we do not all have the best breed of the best raid-won OP pets, it would help to know which one of our more accessible pets to choose for a trainer battle.

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Re: Ranking Pets!

Post by Breanni » August 15th, 2013, 4:47 pm

A little clarification...

Right now, the thinking is that we would not offer two rating systems -- doing so would be cumbersome and confusing to our more casual users. Instead, we'd purge all the existing pet ratings because most of these ratings are pre-MoP, based on looks alone. Then we'd give people a chance to re-rate each pet from .5 - 5 stars. The rating would be based on both looks and battle prowess -- the whole package.

Also note that our intention is to change the way the "Top Rater" badge works where you'd earn that badge permanently for rating a set number of pets (like 100) instead of all of them.
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Re: Ranking Pets!

Post by Tiggindy » August 15th, 2013, 10:25 pm

Breanni wrote:A little clarification...

Right now, the thinking is that we would not offer two rating systems -- doing so would be cumbersome and confusing to our more casual users. Instead, we'd purge all the existing pet ratings because most of these ratings are pre-MoP, based on looks alone. Then we'd give people a chance to re-rate each pet from .5 - 5 stars. The rating would be based on both looks and battle prowess -- the whole package.
Can I say bleagh? A single rating for two disjoint sets is worse than useless.

Some peeps only care about collecting and having cute companions, and others want to poke'-battle and seek the ultimate team. There's cute pets that aren't that useful for pet battles, and oog-ly ones that are FotM for battles. Blizzard could add a hissing cockroach that was totally OP for battles, and that could get the same rating as the useless (but completely adorable) fluffball. Or they could add something like the new celestial companions (I haven't looked at their abilities at all) that could be both cute and OP. With a single rating, peeps wouldn't know if they're looking at a dainty pet, a beautiful brawler or ugly combat monster because they're all rated at 4.6.

And to throw in a further monkey wrench, the cuteness of a pet doesn't change, but since they're continually tweaking abilities in the name of balance, the battle rating could (and should) go up and down based on the current patch.
Also note that our intention is to change the way the "Top Rater" badge works where you'd earn that badge permanently for rating a set number of pets (like 100) instead of all of them.
This gives me an idea for a totally unworkable suggestion.

I'd like to see two ratings.

First, an adorability rating by model.
-For instance, all cockroaches would be under a single rating since there's only one cockroach model. However, there would be 3 ratings for rats, since there's white, grey and brown rats. This way if a new pet is added that has an existing model, peeps don't need to rate the new pet for this category. You've already got all the model/color info linked to pets, so I'm not sure what would need to be done to attach this rating to the pets, and maybe show the rating for the multi-skin pets (like the rat would show the rating for each color under alternate skins).

Second, rate the moves, not the pet.
-Each pet gets an battle score based on the average of their move scores. To make things simpler here, you could link like-but-different moves, for example illusionary barrier, ice barrier and beaver dam have different names and different family sources, but are all the same move and all would/should have the same rating. So if a new pet comes in without any unique abilities, peeps already have an idea on how it will perform. Similarly, if a new pet is coming in with a "unique" ability that's just a renamed/family-change of an existing move, it's already rated. It's only when it's a truly new move that peeps would have to rate it.

In both cases there's fewer things to rate (overall) since there's WAY fewer moves than there are pets, and I'm pretty sure there's fewer models than there are total pets (I could be wrong on that one). The total of the two probably isn't much more than current pet total.

And per my monkey wrench comment above, this also gives the ability for (sorta) dynamic ratings for pokemonitude. If an ability is being changed with the patch, when the patch hits, you clear the existing rankings for that specific ability, make a note of it on the news page asking peeps to re-rate based on how harshly the ability was was nerfed.

And with a two rating system peeps can search by either rating to find what they want, maybe even a combo if they want to field the hottest and fiercest battle team around. :lol:

*edit* It just occurred to me that the battle rating should also be affected by breed as well, since someone had mentioned the yellow moth. Why do peeps prefer the yellow? because it has a different breed than the red moth, so maybe some kind of multiplier based on breed preferences?

In any case, this is all probably moot. :roll:

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Re: Ranking Pets!

Post by Reapersbeast » August 20th, 2013, 6:58 pm

Sorry but I Totally disagree with 1 ranking for "the whole package"!!

Would it really be "cumbersome and confusing to our more casual users" or to you guys who have to figure out the best way to create the 2 lists?? Honestly there are 2 Major categories for pets, Collectiablity(looks/coolness) and Usefulness(during pet battles)! Some pets will obviously have the same ranking because they are both cool and useful! And I know there's A LOT of kids playing WoW now a days, but I'm sure even they would be able to see you can rank 1 pet, in 2 different categories especially since they would probably be ranking the pets for both categories on the same page probably right beside each other!! Yes even the fools that screw around in the middle during WSG, or "stand in fire" during raids could figure that out, lol!!

I really do like this site, a lot! It has the best overall organization, and pretty good flow of information, of the dozens of pet sites I've browsed! And I would just like to see it even better! The ranking system is really the only major flaw I see on this site actually! 1 ranking for such a diverse(and only getting more and more diverse) group would be a mistake IMO! Again just my opinion, but it seems like common sense to me!

BTW Tiggingy I Completely agree with your first paragraph based on your first quote of Breanni's!! However I think in your second section you are actually getting a little too into that "cumbersome and confusing to our more casual users" she's talking about! They can just keep it simple, a rating for Collectablity, and one for Usefullness(well however they want to word them!)!

There's just so many diverse pets, and so many more to come I'm sure! To group them as "the whole package" Just in the case of "rankings", Yet have 10 different breeds(dumb ideal IMO to begin with! Talk about "cumbersome and confusing to our more casual users"!!) and multiple models for the same kind of pet, and pets that Only raiders can get, and pets Only pvpers can get, and so on! Just seems like a Huge contradiction!! Especially since some of the pretty cool pets are "Completely" useless in a pet battle!

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Re: Ranking Pets!

Post by Dragonwizard » August 21st, 2013, 5:23 am

There are a few issues with ranking for usefullness. First what happens when a pet is OP one patch and then gets nerfed into the ground to be useless the next (think FFF), or the opposite can happen, useless one patch then gets a buffed the next (think new trainer added and now that random roach is great, BoF and apoc). Second, one pet may be great for a trainer but horrible for PvP. Third, breeds, example P/P yellow moth is one of the best against aquatics but there are a bunch of other pets that are a lot better than every other breed yellow moth.

Now don't get me wrong I would love to have 2 different ratings as it really would help but the usefullness ratings would only be valid for the first patch that it was added then things would change and even if they gave you the option to change your rating not everyone would do it so the ratings would be off.
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Re: Ranking Pets!

Post by Breanni » August 22nd, 2013, 9:04 pm

Ok... so it sounds like people really would prefer a couple different ways to rate pets. And I do see the value in that. Can you guys offer any suggestions for criteria? I'm thinking three categories...

1. Appearance
2. Utility
3. ???

Help us fill in number three. I'm envisioning a system where when you rank a pet, you provide a 1-5 star rating for each criteria. And two criteria may be enough, but three would "feel" more complete.

I'm still not sure how viable this system will be to create, but the gears are spinning to develop a system that includes these "sublayers" of criteria. Of course, I still need to run it past our lead developer. ;-)

In the meantime, please share your thoughts.
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Re: Ranking Pets!

Post by Dragonwizard » August 23rd, 2013, 5:32 am

For three different criterias I would go with...

1) Appearance
2) PvE
3) PvP

Or for a second option maybe

1) Appearance
2) Usefullness
3) Breed - maybe a fill in the blank or have a multiple choice style set up to choose one breed out of the ones available for that specific pet.

This maybe way over the top and just to much but

1) Appearance
2) PvE
3) PvP
4) Breed
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Re: Ranking Pets!

Post by Reapersbeast » August 24th, 2013, 11:48 pm

I personally think think 2 categories is enough Appearance and Utility sound great, because I agree with your previous posts ya don't want it to get "confusing"! But a third could give options for something that comes along later in the game(like raiding amoungst friends in groups/raids/guilds whatever or if they start giving pets something that helps you while your lvling or raiding like a small stat buff or a little damage or cc output, just whatever might happen later!)!

As for what Dragonwizard was saying about nerf's and such, Yes Blizzard has a Horrible record of doing that to toons and now pets BUT they haven't yet Completely made a pet worthless with a nerf, Yet! And yes that's obviously something Blizzard needs to stop doing, changing things So drastically that is!!! But honestly their stupidity never ceases to amaze me, so after my 8 years of playing and complaining(I'm not the only one!) to them, and them still not stopping Drastic nerfs to toons, I doubt they ever stop it with pets! So yeah they will flux a little but a pet is always(hopefully!) going to be at least useful or not useful! That's what numbers like 2-4 are for, those pets that would be in the middle before and after nerfs, but I think it's pretty safe to say pets like Pheonix hatchling, Celestrial dragon and Unborn are always going to be top ranked pets in all categories because they were so well designed and look amazing!!

A good way to fix that issue incase it does become a big issue after time, and after a stupidly huge blizzard nerf to a pet, is to make the ranking system they use flux too! Meaning make the ranking change as votes change, not sure technically how(what kind of system that is) they do that, but I've seen plenty of rankings/polls do that over time!! Honestly I'd just like to see less random pets being added, and see more Well designed pets being added!!

Just a thought the 3rd category could be Rarity! Meaning how hard it was to find/farm/create/buy, whatever!

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Re: Ranking Pets!

Post by Reapersbeast » August 25th, 2013, 1:38 am

Just a thought here!

I don't think this post is going to get the view's/attention it needs in the bug's and suggestion's category because I know "most casual players" don't really look at that category because it doesn't really involve them until they get an ideal or have a problem! Feel free to open a post of your own(best way for it to get attention :)!) in the collectablity(best probably) or battle categories to get a bigger varity of people telling you their thoughts on a new ranking system. Just a thought!

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Re: Ranking Pets!

Post by Maizing » August 25th, 2013, 2:13 am

I have never rated any of the pets because I have never been sure what exactly I was supposed to rate.

I like the suggestion of different ratings based on appearance and utility. Maybe the 3rd category could be "fun factor."

For example: I get a kick out of Withers growing when he encounters water. I love the interaction with the Pandaren Monk when you /bow to him, etc.

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