Pet Normalization: The Middle Way (Part I)
Znodis at the Mystic Hunter has written several very good posts about pet normalization. His latest, Inevitable Normalization, is another well-written and interesting read on the topic. But while I agree with much of what Znodis says, I think he misses the mark in some (admittedly small) ways.
First, allow me to summarize the gist of the matter in my own words: Pet families are currently in an annoying state where some of them are much, much better than others. This is largely a matter of which pet skills each family has available, although differences in stat modifiers also contribute to the problem. There are two ways to fix the situation:
- Distinctive design, in which each pet family gets some distinctive special power(s) that will make that family equally desirable, if not actually equal, to all other families; and
- Normalization, in which all pet families become functionally equivalent because they all have the same stats and access to the same skills.
Many hunters prefer the first option, distinctive design, because it preserves the interesting complexity and diversity of the system. In other words, it makes you feel good for having chosen a special pet. (Both Znodis and I find this to be a false sense of choice, however.)
But as Znodis correctly points out, distinctive design is the more difficult choice from a game design perspective: it takes more time and effort, and in particular it requires a continuing commitment going forward as new pet families are added in new expansions. Blizzard isn’t going to sign up for that much work for something they doubtless regard as a small class subsystem. For this reason, Znodis believes that normalization is inevitable if we are to fix the pet family problem.
And I agree — with everything except the fact that normalization is inevitable. Based on my experience with live MMO teams, I find it quite unlikely that Blizzard will attempt either solution to this problem. Znodis is correct that distinctive design is too expensive, especially in terms of long-term commitment. But there are problems with normalization as well, especially the deep-seated normalization that Znodis has advocated in the past. In particular:
- True normalization will probably require code changes in addition to content changes. Despite the fact that code changes are often safer and more easily tested than content changes, MMO designers are often extremely loathe to involve code. For that reason, deep normalization probably looks like more of a mess to Blizzard’s designers than it really is.
- It seems likely that somewhere in the past, someone at Blizzard really wanted pet families to exhibit complex and distinctive design. It certainly looks like they started out that way and then ran out of time. And it’s also likely that someone on the team still holds out hope that they will be able to fix up all the pet families in a distinctive way, without normalization. Maybe not this expansion, but certainly next one … or maybe the one after that, if something comes up. (And something always comes up.) In the meantime, they don’t want to start down the road to normalization because that would severely limit their choices for the future, when they finally have time to do things right.
In other words, the limits on pet family design have less to do with game design or player desires or even design resources and a lot more to do with the internal dynamics of a live MMO design team.
This may sound negative and cynical, but I don’t mean to. While I find it unlikely that Blizzard will fully embrace distinctive design or true normalization for pet families at any point in the near future, there is a third way that might work for them as well as for us. A middle way. A –if you will pardon the expression — half-assed way. But it would be better than what we have now.
What’s this middle way? In short, we take the pet skills and mechanics we have now and distribute them among the families in such a way as to alleviate some of our problems. No code changes, few content changes. We can’t make things perfect with this middle way, but that’s not the point. The point is to find a compromise solution that has a chance of being implemented.
Well, okay, you say. That’s not very satisfying, but … what specifically am I suggesting? I’ll delve into that tomorrow.
Table of Contents for Series: Pet Normalization: The Middle Way
- Pet Normalization: The Middle Way (Part I)
- Pet Normalization: The Middle Way (Part II)
14 Comments
Since normalization is such a dirty word, I would just like to say that I would absolutely love it if each pet family was unique and useful. However, I think that’s like saying it would be really cool if hunters could tame dragons. It’s a great thought, but I just don’t think I’ll ever see it happen.
I’d love to be proved wrong.
coding aside, I always felt that pet classes would reflect the capabilities of that particular animal type. cats == claw as a prime example. when broken tooth had a 1 sec attack speed that was shorted by buffs, it made it hell for casters. that’s a desired feature to tame a pet, use the skills for you, not just decide on a skin that appeals to you.
Beastmaster in the verious D&D environments is very different, and so are the pet skills. However, as we all know only too well, this ain’t D&D and more anima/manga than D&D…something had to flatten out for design, to keep the bloat down, and the increased variables at a minimum.
I too would like to consider my pet taming by the unique skills, and hunt for rare pets in that area that have more of those rare skills. a silver rare animal should come with some skill that is quite unique to that critter. yeah, that’ll happen soon :)
In other words, as I’ve mentioned before, I tended to hunt my pets not by skin, but by desired effects. not a BG or AV or PvP player, those skills that give advantages in those areas were never in my mind.
I know – chaning the scope of pets and tamers is very unlikely to happen, but, if they really wanted to make it more enjoyable for hunters, rather than the daily grind, hunting up and taming a new critter is right up there.
and more stable space :)
I’ve always treaded the middle path on this one. I actually don’t like the idea of all pet families being alike, but I also don’t like the idea of all pet families having their own individual talents. Hunter pets are almost the only place I would love to completely redesign the game. From working with Caster pets, I get a sense that there was something greater planned here. They were intended, quite possibly, to BE casters in the same way that an Imp is a caster. This explains some remnants that are, if they creep above a certain threshold, going to be useful. For those who do not know, Caster Pets have a built in Spell Crit rate. That crit rate grows slowly as the pet levels; however, it isn’t a big enough offset to the loss of damage in other places, at least below level 30 (Sakebi and Hinata are only up to level 26).
I’ve always thought that overlapping skills would work nicely. The remaining pets could or should have some of the skills that other pet families have. So, for intance, Gorillas, which are known to run at a threat and hit pretty hard, could be given Charge. Charge isn’t something a Cat would do though. Cats, and their cousins the Hyena, prowl. So, Hyena would be effective if given Prowl.
I think seperating the Hunter pets into distinctive ‘classes’ would help here. Pets built for tanking would get tanking abilities in certain orders while DPS’ers would get DPS skills, and Casters could be made into Casters. Overlapping skill sets would cut down on developement time.
But, yes, what gets developed often depends upon time and space.
I read somewhere that Northrend and the level 70 cap were both suppose to be in the original release of WoW. However, they started the Alpha and Beta without finishing the continent, and chose to delay Northrend and a few other areas about mid way through the Beta. There are still maps from before WoW went live that show those areas.
I dunno, making all pets the same and allowing the hunter to customize its stats seems the best way to me. Is there any point in having a pet with high hp or armor? No. A dps pet would tank nearly as well but do more damage, so people will always opt for high damage dealing pet, since thats what a hunters main job is in a party/raid.
I agree with Znodis. I’d love to see each pet family become unique and useful. However, the only problem I see with that happening is that the more unique you make them, the more the Hunter class becomes something akin to a “Pokemon Trainer” class. I think that’s why Blizz will never do it
Moomaul- I’ve tried just about every pet under level 40 now. I can honestly tell you that having that health and armor boost on some of them actually does make a difference. If you can’t burn down a mob very, very fast when you have a low armor or health pet, you’re both dead. If this wasn’t true, then you would see a lot of mid-level Dragonhawks. I’ve had Cats as pets in the midranges and watched them die constantly because, while we could generate a lot of damage, we, hunter and pet, couldn’t generate enough to burn down the mob fast enough. And it got ten times worse for each mob that got added into the mix.
Conversely, having had a Gorilla, that extra health can make a difference in single and multi-mob fights.
Quite honestly, damage isn’t everything. If you can’t burn down a mob exceedingly fast, then that 10% extra damage is pretty useless. And, if you do too much damage, you generate too much threat and growl breaks and you’re no longer doing as much damage as you need. So don’t discount tanking pets.
Seidouyumi While you are right about leveling, Moomaul is also right about endgame raaiding DPS matters much more there.
While I would love to see each family be unique I think Mania solution in part 2 of this works just fine.
Seidouyumi – Additionally, the contributions from hunter stats begin to takeover the individual family differences as you get higher. For instance, my crab with the highest armor in the game only mitigates 2.25% more damage than the lowest. The highest health pet in the game only has ~500 more health which is a 1-2 hits from a normal mob, and well under half a hit from an elite.
And now to segue in to the growl issue again, a pet that can’t hold agro (anything without a focus dump and/or high DPS) is a pet that can’t tank. If the mob isn’t hitting your pet, it doesn’t matter how much armor or HP it has.
Damage _is_ everything.
Znodis-
I still disagree that damage is everything. That extra ten percent isn’t huge enough to make a difference either.
HOWEVER, I do agree with Growl’s issues. I think the problem may not be that Growl is ‘broken’, but that we’re rapidly outstripping it’s ability to generate aggro. Somewhere between how damage is calculated, and how much damage we do each time we crit, Growl just cannot keep up. If it is gaining only a fraction of the spell bonus, then the simple solution is to hike it’s contribution up a lot more.
The arguement that a pet without high damage and a focus dump can’t hold aggro is actually rather erronious. I’ve run a few of my hunters without Growl even on and found myself pulling aggro off a Cat just as fast as off a Bear or a Boar. The baseline damage just does not generate enough damage per hit to keep aggro. Furthermore, I’ve pulled aggro off pets with high, medium and low damage just as easily as one another. The two pets without Growl that have kept aggro the longest, so far, are a Carrion Bird with Screech and a Wind Serpent because Lightning Breath does so much initial threat and damage that it holds aggro pretty well. Everything else I end up pulling off my pet somewhere around half health. Those two hold aggro long enough that I can usually burn a mob down well below half health before I pull aggro.
Meanwhile, that 500 health and 2.25% extra damage mitigation does have long fight implications. So, I wouldn’t discount them.
Sorry Znondis, but damage is NOT everything. I have made this argument before, and I am making it again. That persists up until you critical OFTEN with go for the throat, which is so late in the game anyway that most if not all normal mobs will be dead before they reach you anyway. Now that I know more about aggro garnering through growl the argument is even more clear. Growl at rank eight gathers about 850 aggro, thats 850 white damage worth of aggro for fifteen focus, five second cooldown. Claw at rank eight costs twenty five focus, and does around eighty damage per claw, instant cast, no cooldown. To make up that difference in aggro generate, claw would have to be used roughly ten times. Now, I am perfectly aware that you can use both claw and growl at the same time, but claw’s nature tends to mean that growls are delayed. Not a huge deal, but a deal none the less. Focus dumos in general help, its true, but is not the be all, end all for pets that so many people make them out to be. Do I wish there were a focus dump for all pets? Heck yea, but I have learned to cope.
And for the love of god, Znodis, fifteen to twenty damage difference isn’t that big of a deal later on, and thats pretty much what it comes down to on a per swing basis. It’ll make a bigger deal for beastmasters, whose pets attack at insane speeds, but even then its not a this huge deal so many people make it out to be. Just bah.
A while back, some pets did have unique characteristics. But that led into players favoritism and flames to others cause ‘they sucked’ cause they didn’t have such and such pet cause it was the best. Thats why Blizz made most pets the way they are. I agree that some skills should be passed to other’s that don’t have them. But still keep their skills unique in away, so you can pick a pet to use depending on what you will be facing so you have more reason to use more then just one pet. Pets need to be more different to give reason to use more then one type. But not to the point that the issue before hand where if you didn’t have this one type of pet you’d stink.
Kai, all normalization did was make it easier to get one of the desired pets. They lost any sort of unique characteristics they had, and were turned into almost carbon copies of one another. And as far as being flamed for not having a popular pet goes, well….. for one, you oughta be mature enough to understand that its your choice, and not let anyone else make you feel bad or stupid for it. And for another, how third grade is it to say “u dont hve the n pet, u sck!” As far as that goes anyway though, whats so diverse about everyone thinking they need to have a ravager/scorpid/cat to succeed? Nothing. In fact its worse then it was before.
I had a hunter back when each pet had it’s own set of stats. I spent many hours getting the unique pets that had highest stats. I personally went for fast attack to thwart those pesky magic users. When Blizzard first normalized my pet into mediocrity I quit playing a hunter for over a year. They never should have rewritten the code in the first place for the first “dumbing down” of hunters pets. If they screw them up even further their will be even less hunters playing than there are now. “Normalization” is for losers that love to whine about things like their pet not being as awesome as mine is. Well, if they are going to do that, why not go to the normalization extreme like some other MMO’s out there and make all armor have the same base stats too? Same difference… you just customize your armor with gems. Normalization stinks. Period.
Kai, blizzard did not normalize pets because of hunters calling each other names, they normalized them to appease casters and other players that were whining because of how powerful good pets could be if you took the time to research and find them. I also had two of the 1.something attack speed pets a wolf and a scorpid and it was much better to be a hunter then. I took my level 18 dwarf hunter to durotar to get the scorpid and to sfk to get the wolf but the sense of accomplishment was great. I too took a long break from my hunter when blizzard screwed up the pets with normalization.
I would like to see something done to make other pet families viable for the things that count. There is so much more that should be done with pets that is not being done so hopefully blizzard will listen to wonderful people like Mania who have taken the time to come up with intelligent suggestions and someday we will see something besides scorpids in arenas and one of 3 pets on raids.
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