Exactly how many players are PvPing?

[Mathew013]

So, I'm back for a bit (one of those play-for-free-for-7-days dealies) and I notice a new quest, [What We've Been Training For] and I think "Okay! Sounds fun." so I queue with a team or two, and I realize I'm fighting the same player. He's got one of those laughably OP Imp/Direhorn teams, and I get rolled easily. So I do a bit of research, and queue again. And... the same player again! What the heck? So I lose again (I don't have a counter team) and I take a 2-hour break. And I queue again... yes, you can see where this is going, eh? Same. Bloody. Player!
Is the player queue based off your realm only, or something? I'd figure so sort of randomness, like LFG or BG queues.... but doesn't appear to be. I even tried to stagger the times I queued, and managed to find 2 different opponents in an one hour span.

>> Mathew

[Mochara]

If the team is OP it's very possible you're getting a different player with the same team each time to be honest.

[Teacake]

That is odd. It's my understanding that queues are by battlegroup, and if I'm trying to get away from a particular team waiting a few seconds before requeuing usually does the trick. I face a pretty wide variety of teams on about a 30-60 second queue pretty much every time I play (which is often).

Did the pets have the same names, or was it just the same comp? Because direhorns are pretty popular right now. Otherwise, maybe try Tuesday night when more people are trying to get the quest done?

[Mathew013]

Sorry, should have stated the names of the pets were exactly the same, very unique.
But maybe I'll try my luck on Tuesday, thanks for the tip!

>> Mathew

[Peanutty]

It's entirely possible it's different people with the same pet teams - I seriously can't escape 3 direhorn or direhorn + some combo of imp / anubisath teams.

To mix things up I'll either change zones (it seems to put people from the same continent together) or switch to an alt on the other faction. Or switch to a toon on another server, in a different battlegroup.

[Azrile]

I don´t mind that quest, because it offers nothing unique. But I really hate that they added the acheivement with a pet for pvp battles. They just are not balanced enough to have fun pvp. There is no strategy to winning.. it is like 85% comp and 10% luck (hit-miss-crit). Your actual ingame decisions do not matter that much.

Direhorns and Kun-lai runts are popular because they are powerful, but also because they have very simplistic rotations. Not only do you see a ton of people playing them, but they all play them exactly the same. At least with darkness and switch teams, there is some variety in how they play against you, especially in regards to breeds used.

[Ghostrunz]

I like the pet battles because there IS strategy involved. There could be less RNG in the battles but that annoyance is tollerable. I like the turn based approach so there's a little time to think about your moves.

I do agree that something should be done to randomize your opponents. I battled the same player about 15 times in a row yesterday. It was pretty cool how we exchanged wins. I'd beat the player with one of my teams then play the next battle with the same team, giving the player the opportunity to change teams to one that would beat my team. Then I'd change my team to beat the other player's team, and so on. But for newer players that don't have a lot of pets to change up teams I am sure it has to be frustrating to get the same opponent over and over.

[Oolu999]

Something is definitely very odd with the matchmaking. Today I was fighting a pretty unique team that I hadn't seen before (2x imp + restless shadeling) that I was very weak against. Fought that team three times in a row. Then I logged over to an alt on another server (different battle group also), queued up, and got the same exact team again.

[Rakrath]

Hi@ll,

yeah the matchmaking is indeed very "mysterious" or whatever.

what i observed:
mostly during night or offtimes u face the same team often
- once i had two mechs in my team and faced, regulary two or more elementals, after i switched to water attack types, well i got another team ^^
- if u want to keep ur toon u playing on and your team, try swap secnd and third pet might help
- as already mentioned, u can change faction/toon/zone

speculation:
i think there must be some matchmaking/wins/team selecting variables in the lf pvp pet battle, not only just random.

Rakrath

[Kiowa]

what I love is when you fight a Gnome with 3 pets that have been given names. The battle ends you reque to an instant pop and are now fighting an Orc DK with the same 3 named pets as the Gnome. Someone must have a really fast log off switch toons and log on process

[Dragonwizard]

what I love is when you fight a Gnome with 3 pets that have been given names. The battle ends you reque to an instant pop and are now fighting an Orc DK with the same 3 named pets as the Gnome. Someone must have a really fast log off switch toons and log on process

Nope you are fighting the same toon, when doing pet PvP blizzard automaticlly gives your opponent a random class/race/gear combo. They do that so who you are battleing can stay unknown.

[Violetfemme]

Besides changing server/faction, etc as mentioned above, the other thing I like to do is have multiple PvP teams to be able to swap in and out. So if I find myself matched to one strong comp too many times I change my team to another type of team and either it gives a whole new process to the fight (and maybe allows me to win) or it seems to coincidentally change my opponent as well. Not sure exactly how we get matched but there was one day that no matter what I did, I was matched to multiple teams that were strong against my teams...I went through 4 PvP team set-ups and each time the opponents' teams just happened to demolish mine with barely any loss of health. I started thinking someone might have figured out how to hack the system, but then the next day, it went back to my usual win/loss ratio.

[Thark]

I believe a good number of people are playing. I've come across the same player twice in a row many times, but never 3 times in a row.

I also find it helpful to have multiple teams. Most teams are weak to something in particular, and sometimes it seems you'll consistently face teams that you are weak against, so it's good to have a change of pace.

[Gruhm]

I've run into streaks were it seems to match me up against the same player often. I'll generally just switch up my team a bit when it happens and it's a comp I struggle with or if it just gets too boring. I've had few similar experiences as Ghostrunz, Where I've traded wins with the same player. I was a ton of fun and the matches were all close.

PvP is a ball. I really enjoy experimenting with unusual comps. This of course generally results in a loss, but occasionally you hit upon a gem.

[Tenshiame]

I fought the same team like 7 times in a row once, after the 2nd time I made a counter team to it and annihilated him 3 times before he started running from me.

[Azrile]

There definitely has to be a rating system involved. Sunday afternoons are busy time in wow.. yet in 10 matches, I played only 3 players (named pets). There probably are hundreds of players from my battleground doing pet battles on a Sunday afternoon... constantly getting the same 3 players would be statistically impossible without a hidden rating score.

My favorite opponent names his 3 pets Eye - Ownz - You or something like that.

[Reapersbeast]

I'm sure a couple of the teams you faced are from different players especially since Pet Battles are so broken, making the same 4 or 5 pets have to be on Every team! Not to mention because of the way they set up(poorly) the pvp/turn based strategy of pet battles. I think overall Pet battles have been a huge disappointment!

Turn based strategy should Never Hinge on a miss, Yet So many battles are won or lost because of a key miss! It Very Disappointing!! And honestly I don't even think some of the tooltips are correct, when it says a spell has a 95% chance to hit yet it misses 3 or 4 times in a 20/25 round fight, or worst yet when a spell says it has a 50% hit and it hits 5 or 6 times in a row! And I'm talking about things like this happening Very often not once in a while!!

I've reduced my pvp pet battle playing down to the 10 games a week I need for the daily, because of how broken the system is! And I win at least 70 to 75% of my battles but there's just too many problems with it to be consistently fun! I don't want to just steam roll because I have the best pets, I want to "have to" use Strategy to win(and of course any miss Completely Ruins that)!!! Which is a shame because I had Really high hopes for pet battles!!!

And since I put so much time and effort into the pets when it first came out I have a 400+ unique pets and 3 full bank tabs, of Rare pets(from old raids, to dailies, to professions, to farming dino's and lfr's)! but when I Only use 6 to 9 because the rest are worthless(90% of the time) it's just not fun!! And of my 2 raid groups, and friends list, there's only 3 other people that even battle with their pets! Most don't even collect them, due to the fact that there's so many, Especially since about 100 of them you Can't even get anymore, or can only get in certain countries an so on!! Hopefully in time they will fix the pvp system and make all the pets at least competitive against the best ones! Thank God at least they got rid of dodge.....so they say lol. Sometimes I think the reason the miss tooltips seem to be wrong, is because they have hidden dodges called misses lol!

[Prudene]

I agree with your post about misses.. its incredibly frustrating and also doesn't make sense at all.
Why would any pet with almost full health start missing when the opponent is barely alive?

Frustrating with BoF too, that darn fish.. has 1 life left, you have 1 moth at full health, and the other in the battle, and wham... they BOTH miss... ALL their shots