#313 - Sept. 28, 2012, 11:41 p.m.
09/28/2012 12:12 PMPosted by
Noitora If you want to keep the cost, increase the level needed to buy it. New and low level players will get confused by this feature. It's already bad enough having people beg you for gold so they can buy some overpriced glyph or green gear.
Increasing the leveling requirement isn't a reasonable solution. If you're a more experienced player and you want to roll a new character, we don't want to keep you locked out of pet battles. Since the system is account-wide, we want you to have the option of participating in pet battles while you level.
We still don't think the same should apply to new players. The gold cost is a clear indication that you need some level of experience with the game and the economy in order to access the feature, even though it's unlocked at level 5. I don't know why this would be more confusing for new players, as I've seen many assert in this thread, than giving them access to a series of random quests that don't enhance their characters, are almost completely separated from character leveling progression, and require a modest number of pets that they may not have.
Reading through the thread, so far I haven't seen any clear indication in anyone's post that they are, in fact, new players who feel limited by being unable to access this feature. Most of what I'm reading comes from more veteran players weighing in on what's right and what's not right for new players.
And to be clear, we don't hold a monopoly on knowing what is or isn't potentially something that may confuse (and perhaps even drive away) a new player. But we do have the advantage of being able to carefully analyze years and years of data which reflects how the average new player approaches the game, the things that trip them up, the things that make them feel like their progression is barred, etc.
What I do know is that a lot of posters in this thread -- even those who claim to be very casual -- take their knowledge of the many core aspects of WoW gameplay for granted. If you look at the way the 1-20 experience has evolved and been streamlined over the years, it should be quite clear that it's a direct reflection of design decisions we've made to try and better ease new players (especially those without MMO experience) into the game, based on a lot of research on our end.
Someone earlier in the thread pointed out that, when we first introduced dual spec, the cost and level requirements were meant as a barrier to entry to ensure leveling characters didn't feel like it's something they should spend their gold on asap. We later drastically reduced the gold and level requirements when we felt more confident about this not being an issue. The same could be true for the cost of pet battles. We'll certainly take player feedback into account -- though, as I mentioned, hearing almost entirely from players not adversely affected by this gold cost, as opposed to new players who are, leaves us with very incomplete actionable intel -- and we'll evaluate whether or not the current cost is necessary.
For those who implied that our change over time on dual spec should've been a learning lesson, keep in mind what we say all the time: we prefer to introduce a new gameplay feature or piece of content with slightly conservative implementations, and then, if necessary, loosen the restrictions or increase accessibility over time. That's held true for everything from raid tuning to Transmogrification restrictions. If we get things wrong and a feature is too accessible or too easy, to the point that it's negatively affecting overall gameplay, it's much meaner of us to then tighten restrictions after the fact.
