Blizzard
Hello pet battlers!We've seen some discussion around pet battle changes coming in Visions of N'Zoth, and we'd like to discuss those, as well as changes we currently have planned for a future content update.
The Weather Outside is Fight-fulWeather effects have always been intended to slightly change the rules of pet battles.
沙尘暴 is great against pets that do weaker attacks,
太阳光 is great for healing abilities, and
净化之雨 is great for aquatic abilities. However,
泥石流 and
暴风雪 both fell by the wayside in terms of being impactful or rule-changing outcomes. So in Visions of N'Zoth, both of these weather effects are being updated with new added effects in addition to their existing effects:
- 暴风雪
Now also increases all elemental ability damage by 25%.
泥石流 - Now also increases all critical damage dealt by 25%.
To be really clear about the
泥石流 change: Critical strikes usually hit for 150% of normal damage.
泥石流 will now increase that to 175% of normal damage.We've also been thinking for a while that we should add a new weather type to the game, so Visions of N'Zoth will also introduce a new weather type:
剧毒烟雾. This deals
龙类 damage to the current enemy pet and applies the
剧毒烟雾 weather effect.
- 剧毒烟雾
Increases the duration of all hostile damage over time effects by 1 round. - 全部 pets are considered 中毒 while 剧毒烟雾 is active.
Max No MoreIn Visions of N'Zoth, all of the new outdoor pet battle
世界任务 in
奥丹姆 and
锦绣谷 will scale their level to match the highest level pet currently slotted on your team, instead of always being a level 25 enemy pet. This will also be the case for
纳沙塔尔 and
麦卡贡 – all of the pet battle World Quests there are being updated. You can check them all out with a team of three level 1 pets!
Stat ChangesIn Visions of N'Zoth, we're also changing how percent-damage reduction abilities stack with each other. Currently, if you're fighting a pet like
17号单位 in
麦卡贡 (a Boss pet that passively takes 50% less damage), and
17号单位 uses
蹲伏,
17号单位 becomes immune to damage because the two 50% damage reduction effects are added to each other. In Visions of N'Zoth, the plan is to cap damage reduction at -75%. Using Unit 17 as an example, while
蹲伏 is active, it will take 75% reduced damage instead of 100% reduced damage. This will smooth out the challenge with some enemy bosses.Please note that abilities like Dodge or
偏斜 will continue to avoid all damage. Those will not be impacted by this change.
What the Future HoldsIn a future update, we're targeting a number of balance changes we want to make, which will amount to lowering the effectiveness of some pets and strategies. Again, these changes will not be happening in Visions of N'Zoth, but we wanted to give you ample warning time that changes are coming. While we don't have specific numbers or details to share right now, here are some examples of abilities that we're going to take a close look at:
- 黑爪 and similar abilities that increase damage taken by a flat amount.
- 狩猎小队 and similar abilities such as 群殴.
- The Shattered Defenses debuff effect from abilities such as 狩猎小队 or 群殴.
- Any large percent-damage-taken or percent-damage-dealt buffs or debuffs.
- 暮光陨星 and similar long-cooldown damage-splitting abilities.
- The 恶臭水罐 ability.
- 寄居蟹
Of course that last one isn't an ability, but
寄居蟹 incorrectly has a higher stat budget than it should, and it will have its stats reduced to bring it in line with other similar pets.A goal we have when making many new pet battle
世界任务 or encounters is to create puzzles that players can counter and “solve”-- ideally with the option to use a variety of pets and tools to do so. When a few pets have such strong synergies that they can deal massive damage in just a few rounds and almost trivially beat these enemies, it becomes problematic. Do we make new challenges only beatable by the highest damage combos, or do we make them generally solveable and therefore immediately smashed by massive damage?We don't want to ruin the feel of combination abilities, so we aren't going to make
黑爪 no longer interact with
狩猎小队 or
群殴, but we want to make sure these abilities are dealing appropriate damage. And we want to make sure that secondary effects such as
粉碎防御 are being accounted for with regards to balance.When we have further specifics, we will be sure to let you know.