battle pet arena

coldfire2038

I dont know if anyone has given this any thought but how about a pet battleing arena, ive heard WoW has it now but with how many companions we have been getting and how most of them are pretty unique and fun why not set up some sort of sub-pvp where you register your pets to fight one another in singles or team matches. give us a new area that would be a segmented Colosseum where 3-5 different fights could be going on while players waiting for ques and watching their pets can sit back. or if your one to run an ion stone just set your other pets to fight while doing your other things and get a message in the mail *congratulations your team won 6 out of 10 fights" while they are fighting you cannot summon them "as if they were training"

once you hit 60 and have done your dailys for the day what else is there to do? why not head to the battle arena and watch either your pets or anyone else's duke it out in 1v1 3v3 or 5v5. it would give you a way to showcase your pets since while you run an ion stone your Pheora hasn't seen the light of day since you locked it up.

a possible reward out of this could be honor points (to mimic glory) and as cryptic loves to do jack up the ammount you have to do. these rewards could be used to buy pet upgrades and even have a side shop with companion runes for honor points.

like pvp have different rewards for different costs

companion enchantment (of your choice) rank 1 cost 100
companion enchantment (of your choice) rank 2 cost 200
companion enchantment (of your choice) rank 3 cost 400
companion enchantment (of your choice) rank 4 cost 800

companion upgrades white to green 10000
companion upgrades green to blue 20000
companion upgrades blue to purple 50000

not only will this be a fun experience for most but it will also showcase more of the companions that the game has to offer, as well as thier special abilities

"but coldfire how will cryptic make money if people have an easier way to upgrade thier pets?"

thats simple little flamer, this will not give you the pets, sure feasibly you can have a group of purple companions that you bought for 2 gold from the companion vendor but your white pets probably wont do that well in fights thus smaller reward, thus longer time spent

just my thoughts

killerella

I think it sounds fun and adds a new dimension to the game. IMO, the more little cool things like this you add in the game, the more interesting the game becomes. I'd be willing to bet there is a direct relationship between the level of how interesting a game is, and how good the player retention is.

bioshrike

The only issue with companion battles would be that they'd have to go over all companions and flag them as combat or non-combat. For instance, the Acolyte of Kelemvor doesn't have any attacks, so she couldn't fight. The same goes for augment pets. Other than that, it'd also be a matter of companion quality and the gear they're using. Would we just rely on their AI to control the fight?

killerella

bioshrike wrote: »

Would we just rely on their AI to control the fight?

Yeah, I play this in another game, and in addition to managing their armor, you have to balance their stats build as they grow, but in the end, its still AI VS AI. The only exception was that you did have 2 buttons, 1 for attack, 1 for calling your companion back. This gave you the ability to temporarily recall your companion from an active fight for a few seconds before the opponent AI pursued, which then gave your companion a small window of opportunity at hitting a heal skill, buff, etc. Its still fun though, and there were still some people that dominated. There is definitely an art to finding the perfect balance, and it's pretty nice when your companion FINALLY wins a few matches after all your efforts.

coldfire2038

the way i was thinking the non-combat pets would work is stones and cats would not be able to compete as they do not attack and it would be too much of a hassle to try to allow you to put an ion stone on an armored wolf, they just cant compete, the cleric companions however would be able to. the cleric class is allowed in pvp now, they would just heal your other companions in the 3v3 or 5v5 situation. if you enroll a cleric in the 1v1 dont expect it to get too many wins

and flagging them as combat or noncombat wouldnt be too hard considering that the class of companions we have now are Striker, defender, controller, leader and augment. and since none of the augment pets have combat abilities, it would be easy to just say all pets but augment can compete

vortix44

coldfire2038 wrote: »

a pet battleing arena, ive heard WoW has it

Pokemon has it too.

lemartes99

This is a really cool idea.

Maybe give pets a weapon slot, and make some actual Pet Only gear as rewards.
With a real weapon, companions might actually be useful in the game.

Please fix there stats though, as half of them do nothing, or there DPS is so low, the stats don't matter.

coldfire2038

the pet only gear is a nice touch, i just like the idea because there are so many companions but most of them are next to useless just because thier dmg is so low, or people would rather have stones flying around and with so many unique companions and a more fun way of upgrading them they are just lacking in real flavor. This way would be a fun way to include your companions in more action, and with the current upgrade costs it seems more like a discouragement then a reward to upgrading a companion.

harnel

I can see this working. It'd give an entirely new dimension to how companions are chosen by different players. Do you choose the tank companion that can heal when he's hit? the striker that hits so hard he can get past a defender's armor? it's an interesting idea here. definitely something I'd enjoy taking part in. We'd potentially see legendary companions come about because of this, as well. Which would be pretty cool, to say the least.

... Actually, the legendary companion thing is giving me ideas. I'm going to go do something about that.

obsiddia

Have long hoped they'd add this.

5 on 5 arena would be nice. I spose augments would have to attach themselves
to another companion, or not be allowed. Player participation should probably
be limited to choosing enemies to target.

If that's too complex, a 1 on 1 arena with a view from the stands would still
be fun. Throwing your best pet against someone else's would be interesting.

Can have a reward system like the PvP arenas. Choose to buy special
companion augments with the winnings.

harnel

Oh geeze, I hope they wouldn't make augment pets apply to other companions in a match like this, otherwise you'd get teams that dump four ioun stones on a single companion, turning it into an unstoppable killing machine compared to everything else on the field.

obsiddia

If augment pets were allowed I'd figure only one augment per normal companion.
But yeah, they might be too much given the weak stats of most pets.

hustin1

It sure would be nice if there was more to do once our daily quests are finished. Sometimes I take a pet and use it to terrorize witherers -- isolate one by killing the others, and let, say, a phase spider have its way with him. It's still repetitive, though; it would be nice if the AI handled one-on-one pet vs. mob fights a little differently.

One thought I had that could be great fun would be solo-only dungeons where your other party members could come from your active companions instead of from other players. That would let you really experiment with different companion behaviors to see how they fare and interact. If play balance is an issue, maybe have mobs only aggro against your companions and never on you, and prevent you from directly harming them, as with NPC's -- now that would make strategy really important.

nazghul22

hustin1 wrote: »

could be great fun would be solo-only dungeons where your other party members could come from your active companions instead of from other players.

And it would be named sword coast adventures.