PVP battles, opponent fleeing, and win/xp confusion.

[Deviantelf]

I'm really curious because if I come up on a team that just flattened me, I am more than happy to let them get a win again but would like to know at what point I can flee and they get the win without dragging it out for both of us. I don't want to flee early and them not get the win as they deserve it, they'd beat me.

Here's the backstory/thinking that led to this question. I've been doing PVP battles on an alt recently. I noticed sometimes when the opponent flees I get xp and the win, sometimes (but always either both or neither). I noticed this around 50 wins. So I started paying attention to when I do and don't get xp/win on a flee of the opponent. It seems some where between the battle being even (healthwise?) and you're obviously winning no matter what plays out (like the opponent has one pet at 150 health and you've got a pet and half obvious). However clearly this is a very small sample size now that I'm close to 250 wins. But since paying attention I've noticed:

If they flee before any moves (example I just beat that team super easy, they see my team and flee) gets no xp/no win.
If they flee from when my pets are percentage wise overall healthier than theirs, I get xp/win.
If they flee when the overall health percentage of my pets is lower than theirs I get no xp/no win.

As I said this is obviously a small sample size since I've been paying attention, but it's been consistent. Or at least something close to it (maybe it's not health percentage overall but some metric close enough, etc). But definitely if I'm clearly winning and they're going to lose no matter what I get xp/win, but if they flee before any moves I don't. So is there known defined rules on when you get PVP battle xp/wins?

[Gráinne]

I have read comments from players stating that the winner gets character XP if the battle lasts at least one minute. I haven't seen an official Blizzard statement on that.

You get a PvP win credited regardless of the length of the battle, of course. Even if you forfeit immediately you see the team, your opponent chalks up the win. I know this for sure because I have had a couple of wins from instaflees. I can't account for you saying you have had no win when an opponent resigns. I do know for sure that the "You Win"/"Battle Finished" message at the end is bugged, since I have seen "Battle Finished" even when I have definitely won, and got credit for the win.

I would never feel bad about resigning early. Anyone actively trying for character XP from PvP battles is clearly Doing It Wrong, since wild PvE battles are both faster and effectively 100% guaranteed wins. Some people may prefer to do their PvP on lower level alts for the extra benefit of whatever XP comes their way, but if their main aim is character XP, they're not in the PvP queue!

[Deviantelf]

But that's my issue, I don't get win credit immediately if someone flees or even early on. That's pretty much the point and the question of where it changes from you don't get xp/win to you do get xp win, even if someone flees. Cause if they have an awesome counter for my team, and awesomely slaughter me then I get them again, I want them to win with the least time possible... as I said before.

I've had plenty of battles where people flee early on and have never got credit for a win in those circumstances. I only used win/xp cause the character in question is not max level, but that doesn't change the fact that they don't get wins in certain circumstances and it's what I'm asking about.

Again, this isn't about character xp, it's just related.... of course leveling by pvp battles is horrible xp.

I feel like you're awfully confused about the whole thing.

[Nomidial]

A "win" in a pvp battle and getting xp from the battle are 2 different things. You will get a win no matter how long the match lasted if your opponent leaves. This win will count for things such as quests and achievements but does not necessarily give xp.
Getting xp does require certain conditions to be met but I don't know what those are.

If you want to help along someone who's team will crush yours just leave. Almost no one is doing pvp battles for the xp it gives they are usually doing it for quests,achievements, or fun. Leaving as soon as you know you have no chance saves them time if they are doing it for quests/achievements and lets someone who would crush you get on to a more interesting battle if they are they for fun.

[Drudatz]

But that's my issue, I don't get win credit immediately if someone flees or even early on.

Yes, you do. If someone flees even before anyone made a move: YOU get the win.

That's pretty much the point and the question of where it changes from you don't get xp/win to you do get xp

thats a bit more complicated. Fact is if your opponent flees without any moves done you get the win but ZERO xp.

I've had plenty of battles where people flee early on and have never got credit for a win in those circumstances.

Your UI might not have stated it CLEARLY but as said - you opponent flees = you get the win no matter at which point he flees.

Again, this isn't about character xp, it's just related.... of course leveling by pvp battles is horrible xp.

Not true - my panda I level mostly - apart from the needed intro and the needed quest for salvage yard - by pet battle alone. and with a win rate of 90% you make good xp.

Anyone actively trying for character XP from PvP battles is clearly Doing It Wrong, since wild PvE battles are both faster and effectively 100% guaranteed wins.

Sorry but thats just YOUR opinion. PVE fights can only be done ONCE a day AND you have travel time. PVP I can do without moving away from the AH

[Vakeetah]

Anyone actively trying for character XP from PvP battles is clearly Doing It Wrong, since wild PvE battles are both faster and effectively 100% guaranteed wins.

Sorry but thats just YOUR opinion. PVE fights can only be done ONCE a day AND you have travel time. PVP I can do without moving away from the AH

You know, wild pet fights are also PvE. Restricting PvE to just tamer dailies would be like restricting PvP exp to the weekly quest. Duh! No way to properly level if there isn't a renewable source of content, is there...

A wild pet fight takes 2 minutes at most, and yields around a third of a the XP of a level-apropriate quest. I've leveled 90-100 on 7 of my 10 characters via pet battle alone, and you get about 60% of a level per hour.

A PvP win yields as much XP as any equal level victory; it'll be marginnaly higher than a wild PvE fight solely because you're guaranteed to face 3 level 25s, but that's about it. And if you take into account the time investment (which is mugh higher in a PvP battle) the XP gain is clearly inferior.

[Ranok]

A wild pet fight takes 2 minutes at most, and yields around a third of a the XP of a level-apropriate quest. I've leveled 90-100 on 7 of my 10 characters via pet battle alone, and you get about 60% of a level per hour.

It had always seemed that I was getting better than 1/3 XP leveling a toon with wild pet battles but had never kept track of exact numbers. Tried that today.

Setup is a level 82 character battling with a 20's level carry pet and two 25's backing it up.

Orgrimmar fishing daily gave 18052 XP.
Early Deepholm quest also gave 18052
Battles against 23, 24 and 25 wild pet teams gave 12332, 13018.and 13702 XP respectively, or 68%, 72% and 76% of a level appropriate quest.

Considering that you can generally knock out several pet battles in time it takes to do one quest, and that you're leveling pets at the same time you're leveling the toon, does seem like a worthwhile alternative to questing.

[Vakeetah]

It had always seemed that I was getting better than 1/3 XP leveling a toon with wild pet battles but had never kept track of exact numbers. Tried that today.

Setup is a level 82 character battling with a 20's level carry pet and two 25's backing it up.

Orgrimmar fishing daily gave 18052 XP.
Early Deepholm quest also gave 18052
Battles against 23, 24 and 25 wild pet teams gave 12332, 13018.and 13702 XP respectively, or 68%, 72% and 76% of a level appropriate quest.

Considering that you can generally knock out several pet battles in time it takes to do one quest, and that you're leveling pets at the same time you're leveling the toon, does seem like a worthwhile alternative to questing.

I seem to remember comparing it to a number such as 28k-something XP when I compared it. Since I'm already at level 100 on most chars except bank, I'm looking the values in Wowhead, and apparently that's actually an abnormally high experience value for a quest - possibly, the end of a chain, a weekly, or something.

Most quests in Draenor are closer to the 13-14k XP mark, whereas a wild pet fight is at 11-12k... which (hot damn!) gives similar results to yours - about 80% of the XP off a quest*.That's actually much better than I had thought, certainly puts pet-levelling at a great efficiency level.

EDIT: They seem to be lower than your level 82 values. Probably Heirloom related, I guess!

[Ranok]

I seem to remember comparing it to a number such as 28k-something XP when I compared it. Since I'm already at level 100 on most chars except bank, I'm looking the values in Wowhead, and apparently that's actually an abnormally high experience value for a quest - possibly, the end of a chain, a weekly, or something.

Most quests in Draenor are closer to the 13-14k XP mark, whereas a wild pet fight is at 11-12k... which (hot damn!) gives similar results to yours - about 80% of the XP off a quest*.That's actually much better than I had thought, certainly puts pet-levelling at a great efficiency level.

EDIT: They seem to be lower than your level 82 values. Probably Heirloom related, I guess!

I'd noticed in the past that doing the big-city cooking and fishing dailies carried same XP as the routine quests in level-appropriate zones, reason I did one of each to make sure I had right baseline number for questing.

You guessed right about the heirloom XP-buff, my toon doing the experimenting takes advantage of all he could get to speed up another leveling grind. Pretty sure that both the pet battles and questing get affected by the buff in exactly same way so comfortable with the percentage results from the test.

[Jerebear]

Also keep in mind that number of wild pet battles to level increases as your level increases. In the level 85 to 90 range, it is around 50 wild pet battles per level. In the upper 90's to 100 it moves closer to 90-100 wild pet battles per level.

[Deviantelf]

To avoid multiple repeated quote/unquote and this being super long with quote spacing I'm just going to respond to each point in bold.

But that's my issue, I don't get win credit immediately if someone flees or even early on.

Yes, you do. If someone flees even before anyone made a move: YOU get the win.

That's pretty much the point and the question of where it changes from you don't get xp/win to you do get xp

thats a bit more complicated. Fact is if your opponent flees without any moves done you get the win but ZERO xp.
But I haven't gotten the win from any in that circumstance that I've paid attention to. I might even think you could be right it's a UI I issue (even though I've nothing that you'd expect to cause an issue, I realize UI issues cause weird problems, for example my husband had to disable his to do the 10 fireworks in 20 sec for the holiday event). However, my last run at it I only needed 4 wins to get to 250, and I kept track in Notepad. First battle was to the death of all opponents pets. Second battle was same opponent pets/battle location as first and fled. Then won, won, loss, loss, won (all played to all pets dead. Next person fled when their first pet died. Next person I won with a battle to their pets dead. That's when I got the 250 achievement and pet. That was yesterday, upon logging in today I still have exactly 250 wins. Maybe it's a bug, but I legitimately thought there was some cut off as this has how it has been for the entire time I've done PVP, which admittedly is only a few weeks.

I've had plenty of battles where people flee early on and have never got credit for a win in those circumstances.

Your UI might not have stated it CLEARLY but as said - you opponent flees = you get the win no matter at which point he flees.
Obviously this isn't the case. You could argue that the UI is somehow keeping me from getting credit for the wins, but I feel like that is a stretch though not impossible so you could be right it's a ui issue (as I mentioned my husband's issue previously). If you have any idea what addon could be keeping me from getting the wins I'd love the input! I'm taking a break from PVP now that I hit 250 but would eventually like to get all the PVP achievs. I use Auctioneer, Arkinventory, Battle Pet BreedID, Chinchilla Minimap, HandyNotes, MogIt, Postal, Quest Completist, Rematch, and DMB (and the various expansion related addons for it).

Again, this isn't about character xp, it's just related.... of course leveling by pvp battles is horrible xp.

Not true - my panda I level mostly - apart from the needed intro and the needed quest for salvage yard - by pet battle alone. and with a win rate of 90% you make good xp.

I agree you're probably right here! I'm a doer. So I feel like time waiting in queue is wasted, even though it may very well equal out to, or even be better than questing with time spent. I fully admit this is me feeling like time wasted not doing something while waiting so I'm not about to argue!

[Gráinne]

Anyone actively trying for character XP from PvP battles is clearly Doing It Wrong, since wild PvE battles are both faster and effectively 100% guaranteed wins.

Sorry but thats just YOUR opinion. PVE fights can only be done ONCE a day AND you have travel time. PVP I can do without moving away from the AH

As others have pointed out, wild battles in dense zones - Wyrmrest, Nordrassil Inn, Mistfall, Halfhill, by Gorespine, Lucky Yi, No-No can be done until you drop, yield ~80% of a normal quest at that level, are 100% wins inside 2 minutes, and incur no queue time. (I waited 35 minutes in pet PvP queue Sunday lunchtime last week with no battle, though that is very unusual.)

With heirlooms, in the range 85-90, wild battles in Halfhill/Mistfall give about one character level per hour - and you can get some pet levelling in while you do that. PvP battles usually give a little more character XP per win, but they're not nearly as fast. Most of the time they're about equally interesting. This week, I've seen lots of varied teams, so PvP has been more interesting, but on a normal day, PvP is about as interesting as grinding Mistfall.

Edit: I said

on a normal day, PvP is about as interesting as grinding Mistfall.

I'd like to revise that. Just as I wrote it, I faced a Graves/Weeb/Crusher team, played very badly by someone who named his pets "Easy", "Win", "Dude". Destroying that team felt good. And last week, I faced a BA/SS team when I had my Purple Puffer out. Moments like that are fun. Most of the time, though, in my neck of the woods, the range of PvP pets is too small to be interesting.