Battle-Stones - next expansion.

[Azrile]

I am sure this isn´t even on the radar yet for the devs for the next expansion. Just curious what players thought about if our current battle-stones will be usable next expansion. I am áll rare´ and starting to accumulate some beast-critter-flying stones that can be sold for a decent amount but I am saving them so that I can avoid rare-hunting next expansion. But they definitely seem like the type of item that Blizzard would make un-usable on new content( they would start over with a new type of stone).

Thoughts?

[Peanutty]

Gosh I hope they don't change it, I've been saving up stones for months and have um... over 200 of them now (wow, really???). If it does turn out that some new system will be implemented for next expansion, I'll just offer to stone pets for friends and guildees I guess.

[Brisela]

I stilk need prts stoned and theyly sre cagables can I get with you to work it out?

Brisela

[Gilneas]

I can't see them changing it by making new ones or anything. There's no real reason to, and it would run counter to what they've said their current thinking is for pet battles. They don't want to mess with the system because it is simple and works very well -- just add new content. Pets are pets, so they aren't going to make them unusable on new ones but usable on old ones (there would be no way to differentiate) -- and there won't be a level restriction or anything either since they said they don't intend to add levels in the expansion.

And its not as if battlestones are not useful to the vast majority of pet battlers. Only a very small percent are where they are stockpiling them because they are all rare. You don't change things that work well just because of a small minority that invests far more time than average.

In short, its a non-issue; battle-stones won't be invalidated in this way.

[Poofah]

I am sure this isn´t even on the radar yet for the devs for the next expansion. Just curious what players thought about if our current battle-stones will be usable next expansion.

Interesting question. If you have a zillion stones left over from MoP, then there will be less 'content' for you to do next xpac (ie less hunting rares). In the regular game, they avoid this problem by pushing us up another 5-10 levels, but they already said they didn't plan to raise the pet level cap above 25.

So the obvious solution is epic battlestones. They're already in the gamefiles and they would provide exactly the same timesink that rare battlestones did. It would be by far the easiest solution for them (and a nightmare for us).

I think not raising the pet level cap is a mistake. Leveling was fun for the first batch of pets; grinding battlestones much less so. It's also a lost opportunity to reshuffle and rebalance the PvP metagame (assuming new levels also grant new abilities). Also, if the level cap doesn't change, then the Pandaria and Spirit tamers would still be relevant content, for pet leveling even if not for stones.

Maybe they'll surprise us with an elegant and non-grindy way to make pets epic. I'm not holding my breath however.

This discussion also just made me wonder whether Blizzcon will have a pet battle panel -- I was probably going to drop $40 for the pet anyway, but some pet battle info would help me rationalize the cost.

[Gilneas]

So the obvious solution is epic battlestones.

That was also something they have decided against. They said that the same time that they said they didn't want to raise the pet level cap.

[Peanutty]

I'd rather not see epic stones, especially if it would require stoning in order to get wild pets as epic - the thought of stoning 500+ pets is scary! I could accept epic pets if maybe only certain pets came as epic by default, like the celestial tournament pets.

Brisela I might be able to help you out if you have some spare Timeless Isle pets, as I've been helping someone complete their collection.

[Domie]

I dont expect anything to happen with the battle stones, getting all pets to rare quality is a huge timesink, and most players wont even be close to have done it, so i would be really surprised if they made it any harder to complete that task, other than just adding more pets ofc.

[Poofah]

That was also something they have decided against. They said that the same time that they said they didn't want to raise the pet level cap.

I don't want to start a discussion about epic stones (again) if they are really off the table. But afaik this is the most recent word on it (June 13) -- https://twitter.com/mumper/status/347034321384775680

[Gilneas]

I don't want to start a discussion about epic stones (again) if they are really off the table. But afaik this is the most recent word on it (June 13) -- https://twitter.com/mumper/status/347034321384775680

They talked about it in the lead up to 5.4 too, which was after that. They don't want to change any of the systems -- just provide more content in the form of more pets, and more quests (e.g., the tournament). Increases in quality was something that was mentioned that they felt it didn't need, along with the increased level cap.

They're definitely right about the quality. That doesn't really get you anywhere other than just buffing the stats that everyone is expected to have for PvE quests/battles. Completely unnecessary, and its good they made that realization.

[Dash]

The majority of the new 5.04 pets are blue already, and I can't really see them making MoP stones useless for future pets. I was thinking about epic pets being introduced in a limited way, like you're only allowed 3 of them, or you can acquire epic stones with a quest or with something like another tournament of sorts, or in exchance for 5 of each stones (which would be easy peasy for some but super daunting for other)

[Mystik_sok]

I can see Epic stones being something where they are in very limited supply, probably throttled in a way where you can't earn them faster than some pace (i.e. valor). I thin that things like the celestial tournament are here to stay, though they need to work on the replay-ability of it ( each boss has random pets from a pool rather than random bosses) and better long term prizes (like a epic stone every 3 weeks).

I'm also interested in what will happen with the current pet trainers? Will they stay the same, awarding roughly 3.5k unboosted exp or will that be nerfed when they add new ones?

[Angelwings626]

How about being able to trade 10 for an epic stone?

Got overly excited and skipped some posts want to post....

Need a stone sink, and way to make them feel valuable to keep....

XD I've gotten over.....70 BOE stones by now..... I just like the way they look in the bags. BOP ones are another problem....TOO MANY...and the greens just get vendored/destroyed.

[Sanzul]

Epic stones would be the kind of thing that would make people simply quit pet battles. An increased level cap could work. There's a huge difference between doing a few battles with each of your pets to get them to level 30 (or whatever) and grinding stones to upgrade them all. I can get several pets from 1-25 in the time it takes me to get one stone.

[Mizix]

I hope they won't raise the pet level cap above 25, because the idea of leveling up 560 pets, plus all the new ones, really makes me want to cry. A lot. Same thing goes for epic stones, unless they plan to add epic wild pets, which means that we will be able to hunt for epic quality pets and will have to stone up "only" the old ones. That should keep us busy for a long long time anyway.

However, in my opinion the best solution would be to add new content to pet battles, such as new chains, new tamers, new tournaments and of course a gazilion of new wild pets. They can play around with numbers: add 100-200 new pets on the expansion's launch and then 20-30 each patch, just like they've done in MoP. It will surely take us many months to catch the right quality/breed and to level up all of them, plus everything else. If they keep putting out a patch every 3-4 months (including minor patches), we will always have have something to do.

Obviously, this would be the hard way. Much easier to raise the cap 5 levels or so and to force everyone into a mad epic-stones grind -.-'

[Peanutty]

I honestly think they'll keep things the way they are now since it seems to be working pretty well so far. Pet collecting can be a time sink for those who want to devote that much effort to it, or just something fun for folks who want a few new nifty companions. I like that they've added a new quest chain and a handful of new pets each patch - it gives me something to do without making me feel rushed since I know I'll have months to work on it.

[Opallena]

If they would make stones easier to get, such as making them ALL BoE so they can be posted on AH, or having vendors sell them for some type of easy-to-get currency (or just plain gold), then I wouldn't mind epic stones. But I do have to agree that if they didn't make stones easier to get, even if a portion of pets were auto-upgraded to epic it would still take forever, plus you have to contend with whatever new pets are added next expansion.