Midnight Pet Collection GuideMidnight Overview
What is the Pet Battle Bonus Event?
Originally introduced way back in Warlords of Draenor, the Pet Battle Bonus Event is a weekly event that recurs roughly every 7 weeks. During the event, players are granted the Sign of the Critter buff which doubles pet battle experience gains.
Additionally, players are able to complete The Very Best quest requiring 5 PvP pet battles wins to earn an Ultimate Battle-Training Stone, helpful for instantly max leveling a single pet.
Overall, this World Event has seen little iteration and the rewards have remained relatively stagnant and self-contained within the pet battle content sphere failing to draw in new players. The incentive to jump into frustrating PvP pet battles just isn't there, leading to this being a fairly lackluster event long before the pet battle changes introduced in Midnight, sentiments that seem echoed on Reddit.
Pet Battle Changes in Midnight
Early on in Midnight Alpha, Blizzard addressed the lack of interest in pet battles and the future plans for the system going forward. Essentially, pet battling would primarily be sunset with a renewed focus on the collecting aspect of companion pets.
The Pet Battle system is being iterated on in Midnight, and changes will continue to come with future Alpha builds.
In the first builds of the Midnight Alpha, we have several goals:
For players who love collecting pets, there should be significant numbers of pets to collect.
For players who love to do pet battle combat, that will be available.
As time has passed, we’ve seen fewer and fewer players enjoying pet battle combat, so this is an area we want to iterate on.
There will be some new pets in Midnight that are capable of battling.
All parts of the pet battle system that were implemented in previous expansions should continue to operate as they have before.
We’re experimenting with some alternate methods to obtain pets in Midnight, and we expect to iterate on that, based on your feedback. Please let us know whether you’re an experienced pet battler or engaging with the system for the first time when you leave feedback.
That's not to say that there was no pet content in Midnight. No new pet battle world quests were added and most new companion pets would not have battling abilities, but new content included:
However, in a world where pet battling is sunset, does a major weekly event about pet battling make sense? Can something be done to make the event relevant or at least not collect dust in quest logs and buff bars?
Fixing the Pet Weekly Event
It's not surprising that interest in pet battling has waned over time. Blizzard has struggled to iterate on the combat of pet battles and the expansion over expansion gameplay loop. New content like pet battle dungeons have been added but the core system remains relatively untouched since its inception. There's a reason class changes are so popular; players want to know how their gameplay is changing.
Even Pokemon, one of the most popular turn-based pet battlers, has struggled to reinvent their stagnant turn-based battling system. While they've experimented with a nuanced speed-based battle system in Legends Arceus and a real-time action battle system in Legends Z-A, it's a continued pain point for players with each new generation. How do you revitalize or reinvent that core battle gameplay? Blizzard does mention that they want to iterate on pet battle combat, but in what form and on what timeline remains unknown.
In the meantime, collecting will likely be the primary focus of pets for the forseeable future, so the weekly event should revolve around that aspect so it feels current and relevant. What exactly that would look like I'm uncertain, but attaching it to Player Housing seems like a natural fit since they're already looking to expand ways for players to exhibit their collections including letting players bring their pets home.
I recently documented my favorite place in all of Silvermoon, the Missing Lynx Pet Cafe, filled with dachshunds and a variety of pets doing crazy pet things and tricks. It's a truly cozy space that feels alive and animated that has me wishing for a cafe of my own.
If this cafe is what's possible with pets and player housing, then you could build an arcane sanctum for mana wyrms to wander or a ritual summoning circle for a baby voidwalker. Now if only there was a weekly event that helped me earn cool new pets as well as pet-specific decor and accessories to build out a space for my favorite pets to wander.
There's many ways for Blizzard to repurpose the Weekly Pet Event, but regardless which they choose they need to find a way to make it relevant and well-supported in the modern WoW experience. What would you like to see from a reimagined Weekly Pet Event?
