Wild Pet battles and Forfeiting

[Shad0cat]

A couple days back I started using the addon Battle Pets-Quality notice and I started noticing an odd trend. It's been reccomended in here a couple times to forfeit matches that comeup as not worth fighting to save time when seeking a specific pet. Now that I have an addon that instantly identifies the pets I've been able to do this far more easily than before. While I was doing this I noticed an odd trend. I began having dry spells where no uncommon or rare pets would spawn whatsoever. I spent an hour and a half in Grizzly hills in which nothing above a common spawned in in any of the three slots. Once I abandoned looking for certain pets and started grinding for experience my luck got better again within about 3 rounds. I didn't finally make the connection until I was down in deepholm and hit another dry spell attempting to farm crimson Geodes. (if anyone knows how to catch one of these without it self destructing I'd love to know about it.) When I started forfeiting there I noticed that not only was it spawning just poors and commons but it was spawning the exact same combination of the exact same pets with the exact same quality. It did this 6 times in a row when it finally caught my attention. That might be a coincidence, but later I forfeited in Twilight Highlands when I had a rare shorecrab as the third member of a group. I have rare shore crabs coming out my ears at this point and the other two were poor so I tried to skip that battle. It regenerated the same group with the rare shore crab 3 more times until I killed it so I wouldn't have to see it again. I'll buy the repeat of commons as a coincidence but I have to raise an eyebrow to repeating rares. I also wanted to add that since I stopped forfeiting and just started killing them for exp instead I havn't had any more hour long dry spells. Sure I get a round or two of poor/common but then I start picking up uncommons and rares pretty quickly.

[Kingdms]

I noticed this as well, in Felwood while hunting for Fel Roaches in between Minfernal spawns.

The Roaches there spawn in sets of three, and I began noticing that all three spawns seemed to generate the same combination and rarity of pets. I initially brushed this off as nothing more than coincidence, forfeited the matches, and moved on. This behavior, however, continued to crop up. I was beginning to become a bit suspicious.

Then I attacked the first of a set of three and found a Common Fel Roach with a Rare Fel Moth as the secondary. I already had a Fel Moth, so I forfeited the match and moved to the second spawn in the set. Turns out all three roach spawns included a Common Fel Roach and a Rare Fel Moth. That's not coincidence, that's a pattern of behavior, and one that I noticed several more times over the next couple of days with Rare secondary pets.

This is something that should definitely be looked at. There does seem to be some form of encounter memory inherent in the Pet Battles system, and we need to figure out how it functions.

[Quintessence]

I noticed this as well, in Felwood while hunting for Fel Roaches in between Minfernal spawns.

The Roaches there spawn in sets of three, and I began noticing that all three spawns seemed to generate the same combination and rarity of pets. I initially brushed this off as nothing more than coincidence, forfeited the matches, and moved on. This behavior, however, continued to crop up. I was beginning to become a bit suspicious.

Then I attacked the first of a set of three and found a Common Fel Roach with a Rare Fel Moth as the secondary. I already had a Fel Moth, so I forfeited the match and moved to the second spawn in the set. Turns out all three roach spawns included a Common Fel Roach and a Rare Fel Moth. That's not coincidence, that's a pattern of behavior, and one that I noticed several more times over the next couple of days with Rare secondary pets.

This is something that should definitely be looked at. There does seem to be some form of encounter memory inherent in the Pet Battles system, and we need to figure out how it functions.

I've had the same experience with wild pets that spawn in threes. Same stats, quality, and lineup. After a while, I simply ignored the other two and only engaged in combat with one since the other two were clones of the first one.

Is it encounter memory? Or is it simply how pets are spawned, and if they're in close proximity of each other/spawn in groups, they have a much higher chance of being identical?

[Shad0cat]

I noticed this as well, in Felwood while hunting for Fel Roaches in between Minfernal spawns.

The Roaches there spawn in sets of three, and I began noticing that all three spawns seemed to generate the same combination and rarity of pets. I initially brushed this off as nothing more than coincidence, forfeited the matches, and moved on. This behavior, however, continued to crop up. I was beginning to become a bit suspicious.

Then I attacked the first of a set of three and found a Common Fel Roach with a Rare Fel Moth as the secondary. I already had a Fel Moth, so I forfeited the match and moved to the second spawn in the set. Turns out all three roach spawns included a Common Fel Roach and a Rare Fel Moth. That's not coincidence, that's a pattern of behavior, and one that I noticed several more times over the next couple of days with Rare secondary pets.

This is something that should definitely be looked at. There does seem to be some form of encounter memory inherent in the Pet Battles system, and we need to figure out how it functions.

I've had the same experience with wild pets that spawn in threes. Same stats, quality, and lineup. After a while, I simply ignored the other two and only engaged in combat with one since the other two were clones of the first one.

Is it encounter memory? Or is it simply how pets are spawned, and if they're in close proximity of each other/spawn in groups, they have a much higher chance of being identical?

If it were simply how pets were spawned it would be occuring whether you forfeit or fight through. This doesn't occur when you fight through only when the match is forfeited and repeatedly forfeiting seems to prevent the spawning of uncommons and rares.

[Kingdms]

I've had the same experience with wild pets that spawn in threes. Same stats, quality, and lineup. After a while, I simply ignored the other two and only engaged in combat with one since the other two were clones of the first one.

Is it encounter memory? Or is it simply how pets are spawned, and if they're in close proximity of each other/spawn in groups, they have a much higher chance of being identical?

Impossible to tell at this point, but I suspect there's something at work we're unaware of. It may be some sort of encounter memory, it may be the result of spawn proximity, or even the second or fraction of a second that a spawn pops, since most RNGs are time-based. We'll need to devise some manner of testing this to understand it, and I imagine it will involve a very long data collection process.

[Alaiyarocks]

I had this happen with Tainted Roach in Felwood, every time it was an Tainted Roach and a Tainted Moth. It only happened with the roaches and they come in sets of three from what I found. They always spawned the same two pets, and each seperate time they were of the same quality as well. (It did vary though if I moved onto another set of roaches)

So far I haven't encountered it again but will take note if I do. I am not using the addon, just the macro.

[Doobjanka]

This is common in Uldum with the sets of three that spawn in place of the camel statue. Seen it in Valley of the Four Winds too. I imagine when the sets are spawned they are a certain template.

[Snakeskii]

So this is great for rare spawns btw. If you find a group of 3 with a rare in it, you can tame it 3 times. I also found a group of 3 spawns with 2 rares per fight and it was awesome to be able to get all of them.

Anyway, what I've found is if all three critters in the group spawn at the same time the fights are identical (which would commonly happen if you are forfeiting because there was nothing you wanted). However, if you are taking the time to fight, some of the critters might re-spawn at different times while you are fighting so the group of 3 will not be linked anymore. I did a lot of testing with this last night goofing around in Uldum trying to catch annoying lizards.

Example A: You fight critter A and move on to critter B. Critter B takes a while because it won't get in the frak'in trap! While you were fighting critter B, critter A re-spawns with a different group, but critter C is still the same as the two you had fought previously.

Example B: The group has nothing you want and you forfeit the match. You do the same with the other two spawns because they are identical groups. They re-spawn at the same time and therefore have the same linked group comp.

This also seems to be the case with anything that spawns in a group--like a mother with kits for instance. If they all spawned at once, the mom and the kits will be the same quality with the same back-up mobs. Anyway, give it a try. I've been playing with it a lot since I discovered the behavior and it is very useful for mass capturing pets.

[Kingdms]

The sets of three aren't always the same, though. I've also had multiple situations where they pop together, and are all different encounters.

[Croxy]

I will verify that quality dry spells are not affected by pet battle addons. I've been using none.

In some cases, could it be the weather? While trying to catch a rare Tiny Harvester, I got nothing but poors while it was raining. Didn't see my first common until I was battling in dry weather.