Searching through my Marleybonian mailbox, I found this letter from Calamity Grove, regarding her pets:
I have a large family playing on W101. Three of us have Defender Pigs that were purchased on the same date. They all three developed different talents during training. Two made it to 9% spell proof and one to 8% spell[ proof]. Boy was my sister mad about that. We think it might be the games and snacks we feed our pets,especially after re-reading w101 release that said talents are developed based on training. My thought is for example if agility is maxed at adult it would manifest a certain trait but if intelligence is maxed at adult it would manifest another. At this point this is just theory we need the test realm to open again so we can relevel the same pets. We spent a lot of time leveling pets in test and recording the talents to compare when it opens again.
Just thought I would share this with you. Love your 4G Defender Pig [Lord Hunter]!
Calamity Grove
Let's explore two topics, and hopefully this answers or helps you, Calamity! - (1) training, and (2) why the Defender Pigs have differing benefits.
Training
From what Team has found and researched, it turns out that pets are almost parallel on the Live and Test realms. In other words, the abilities that they develop in their lifetime, including the order that these Talents and D-Skills are revealed, are the same on both servers (99.9% of the time). I use the Test Realm as an opportunity to "see" into my pets' future, and quickly uncover what they are
meant to unlock. Keyword: "meant."
By that, I mean that Pet Abilities are
predetermined. When and where the process happens, we can only guess that it's right when you click the "Hatch" button after agreeing to breed; or this also happens when you redeem a code from a Gift Card, or redeem an in-game gift. Once the egg is created and waiting to break open, we assume the Talents and Derby Skills are already chosen.
I trained up yet another Defender Pig (I literally have my own Dojo with these, in addition to the litter of Death Ninjas I got from hatching with Missy), this time a 5G, up to Ancient on the Live Realm, and he received
Spell-Defying,
Health Gift, and
Pip O'Plenty. I asked myself, is it really worth blindly putting in 1000 XP worth of food into this pet? What if he gets
Durable, or
Tenacious, instead of
Spell-Proof (which was what I was after; a pet with stacking universal resist)?
So, I decided to wait for the Test Realm before training and feeding, and he did in fact learn Spell-Proof at Epic. Oh, keep this in mind: even though Spell-Proof is an Epic Talent, it
doesn't mean that he had a higher chance of receiving it when he became Epic; there is
no relationship between an ability rarity (Uncommon, Rare, Ultra-Rare, Epic)
and a pet's age (Baby, Teen, Adult, Ancient, Epic). The method I used for raising a pet on the Test Realm is failing the Dance Game on purpose, just so I can get to the Feed Pet screen and dump Mega Snack XP right into it. Thus, the stats raised were at random (based on the snack chosen).
On the Live Realm, Baby Callie did indeed learn Spell-Proof at Epic, after a lot of Cereal (+2 STR, +2 INT, +2 POW, and another +2 POW from "Loved") was fed:
Thus, the mini-games that are played do
not affect
manifestation; nor do the Stats that are trained.
In other words, I could play Cannon Game for +4 WILL and feed WILL-only snacks repeatedly until I reach 1875 XP (total experience needed to reach Epic), have a max WILL of 240 on Baby Callie, with 0 STR, 0 AGI, 0 INT, and 0 POW, and I will
still find the above Talents and Derby Skills manifested/unlocked.
Of course, the actual values (4% resist, 9% resist, 108 HP, 5% power pip chance) will be different than what you see in the picture, because Resist is based on STR+AGI+POW. Since I have only 0 in each of those stats in this theoretical example, I would have only 1% from Spell-Defying and 1% from Spell-Proof.
Why Your Defender Pigs Have Differing Benefits
The bit from the above paragraph ties with what you wrote in your email:
"...w101 release that said talents are developed based on training."
Let's clear up the ambiguity. What KingsIsle means is that your Talents' strengths (the
amount of your
%-damage,
%-accuracy,
%-resist,
mana, or
health) are based on the
points of the Stats that affect them. In the example in the previous explanation, I stated that with 0 STR, 0 AGI, and 0 POW, I will have 1% resist from Spell-Defying and Spell-Proof each.
How do I know Resist is based on STR, AGI, and POW? If you mouse-over either the Strength, Agility, or Power "experience bars" on your Pet Page (hotkey I), the tooltip bubbles state that these are what affects Resistances. The description for Power doesn't say so; it says "most," but your %-resist
will raise if Power is increased alone.
Thus, the higher total between STR, AGI, and POW, the higher %-resist will be. My guess for why your Defender Pigs are showing different Resists is because the last one has a lower combined total of those Stats. For example, Pig #1 and Pig #2 may have 25 STR, 25 AGI, and 25 POW maxed, but Pig #3 has 24 STR, 24 AGI, 24 POW. To be honest though, that's a bad example, since 1G (first generation) pets should be identical in Stats. Therefore, we move onto another explanation.
Perhaps Pigs #1 and #2 have a Passive Boost (+MAX STR and/or +MAX AGI and/or +MAX POW), while the #3 didn't get extra Stat points. Just as an example, Pig #1 may have 50 STR, 25 AGI, 25 POW; Pig #2 may have 25 STR, 50 AGI, 25 POW; and Pig #3 has 25 STR, 25 AGI, 25 POW. The first two have a combined total of 100, while the third has only 75.
There's also another explanation that I won't go too far into detail here, until the Team can establish some numbers, but it turns out that POW does
not weigh the same in points as the other four stats. That means, it may be possible that your pet
did get a Passive Boost, but its Stat maxes turned out to be a theoretical 25 STR, 25 AGI, 50 POW, so it still receives only 8%, even when you have 100 points combined. 1 STR has the same weight as 1 AGI, but is heavier than 1 POW.
What that means is, if it requires just 10 more points of STR to get to the next percentage, you can instead train 10 points into AGI and hit the 9% Resist mark. But, this doesn't apply to POW; we'll need 13, 14, or 15 points into POW before 8% becomes 9%. Of course, these numbers are all theoretical, but the idea I want to get across is that POW has
less weight than STR, AGI, INT, or WILL. Pig #1 and #2 may have gotten +50 STR or +50 AGI, while Pig #3 got +50 POW.
~
Phew, I hope that helped explain some things! Please leave a comment below if anyone has questions or needs clarity; I'll be sure to get to them shortly, either through a direct reply or another blog post. Thanks for writing in, Calamity! I would suggest breeding your sister's Pig against another Pig (or even another pet) that has higher STR, AGI, and POW maxes than hers for a chance at 9% resist, maybe even 10%, depending on the new pet's Stats. Here is a picture of my 1G Defender Pig, Bubba, with 10% resist (due to contributions of Stats from
Durable and
Tireless:
Hands down, the Spinyfish is a must-have for Storm Wizards! This frowning little guy actually brightened the Team up, seeing how it has only ONE passive talent (Eager), while the rest are actives (direct benefit to the Wizards). That means there's very little chance that you'll feel disappointed after raising this creature up a few ranks. Of course, if Stormtrap and Stormblade actually worked and wasn't bugged, then there's almost no chance you'll end up with a non-functioning sidekick. Come on, KingsIsle, what's up with these inactives? Anyway, even if those May Casts aren't going off just yet, this fish is a great investment!
The Sea Dragon is probably the most impressive pet I've yet to see; it's the first pet I've seen to give all active Talents, meaning it is free of Stat Boosts. Thus, the bonuses that this First Generation gives will already contain your best possible windows for the Fire School. If you're a Pyromancer, get this little goofy guy as soon as Test goes Live. If he doesn't produce the exact Talent combination you want, he will serve as a key pet to Hatch against.
Hmm...its active Talents aren't as diverse at the preceding pets, but the Sea Turtle has a satisfying seven to choose from. It's Life-based and has Sprite Time (note: not Spritely, unfortunately), but that's all there is for non-standard (-Giver, -Proof, -Shot, Pip O'Plenty, Health/Mana Gift) abilities. Thus, if you're focused solely on cosmetics and would enjoy having a shelled follower, by all means grab this pet at will! Otherwise, if you already have a decent Life pet, take a rain check on this creature. 
