Pet battles match-up are fixed/padded by blizzard

[Neolithic]

Ive been pet battling for over a couple months now non-stop close to 2,000 wins.
I cant help but notice that ive been matched with the same player 90% of the time regardless of the time of day i log on.
(i have a very very erratic schedule and i log on at all hours of day and night - its next to impossible to think that these same
hours is kept by another person)
Now there might be a bit of paranoia here but this player utilizes the same pet combos and his moves are predictable by now.
The strange thing about it is that depending on the time of day these pet combos that are all too familiar to me now are not played the same way. I should prolly say they are NOT played as skillfully and definitely not consistently at certain times of the day. It leads me to suspect that its the same acct played by diff peeps and manned 24-7.

Now we know that pet battles is its own division within the wow development team and is given a good amount of importance
by blizz. Recently they have released a statement saying that they are very happy with the pet battle participation of players
claiming that a very high percentage are participating. Now while the pet battle match-up system might back up this claim
(especially with the presence of the account i mentioned above) trade chat and common everyday server banter does not.

When was the last time you saw anyone discuss pet battle strategy in trade chat?
If you asked the server what pets to use for a "lightning+dots" strategy would u get an answer?

Considering that the pet battle match-up system has almost no down time it should follow that more players should be aware or at least have a basic knowledge of the diff strats. The reality is THEY DO NOT.

My conclusion is that game masters are heavily involved
in pet battles and they dont always play fair. (tweaked dodge/hit chance)
Furthermore a lot of them lack skill.

Thanks for reading my drama all flames are welcomed!

[Chimonks]

I think that you've played a few too many pet battles and should probably lie down for a bit and rest.

[Neolithic]

I think that you've played a few too many pet battles and should probably lie down for a bit and rest.

i totally agree and i have.
Unfortunately that didnt fix it.

[Rosalyne]

The only time I've ever encountered the same player numerous times (his pets were named, so I could tell it was the same guy) was at 2am one morning, so I guess him and I were the only people queuing at that time. Accusing Blizzard of cheating in pet battles is pretty silly. If it's the same person with the same team over and over, figure out how to counter him and rake in some easy wins.

As to your complaint about hit/dodge rates here and in another thread you started - it sounds like you've encountered that wonderful feature known as RNG. Use Pet Accuracy Recorder (http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/pet-accuracy-recorder) and you'll probably find that there's nothing unusual going on.

[Tuatha]

Recently they have released a statement saying that they are very happy with the pet battle participation of players
claiming that a very high percentage are participating. Now while the pet battle match-up system might back up this claim
(especially with the presence of the account i mentioned above) trade chat and common everyday server banter does not.

When was the last time you saw anyone discuss pet battle strategy in trade chat?
If you asked the server what pets to use for a "lightning+dots" strategy would u get an answer?

First, I've played a lot also, and I've seen the same or similar teams pop up a lot. I think jumping to the conclusion that Blizzard is paying employees to play, just to pad the numbers, doesn't quite meet Ockham's Razor's requirements. There are some popular teams out there, and several people may be playing them--with different styles, and at different times of day, even. And when there's just you and one other person queuing for pvppb, you'll see them every time. They may even change up their move rotation to keep you guessing. I know I do that.

As to the quoted text, can you provide a link? I know Cory Stockton said something similar in an interview last December, but I haven't seen anything more recent. I'm not saying wasn't true, but what may have been true 9 months ago could have changed by now.

And as for chatting in trade, yes, I've seen it. Maybe it's rather infrequent, but then I don't see people flooding the global chat channels asking for advice on taking down Lei Shi either.

[Neolithic]

The only time I've ever encountered the same player numerous times (his pets were named, so I could tell it was the same guy) was at 2am one morning, so I guess him and I were the only people queuing at that time. Accusing Blizzard of cheating in pet battles is pretty silly. If it's the same person with the same team over and over, figure out how to counter him and rake in some easy wins.

The pets were named and the toons playing wore easily identifiable armor/transmog
There is no doubt they are the same.

I never said i had any problems winning or countering.
It is precisely how i notice the oddity in the difference of play style inspite of the same pet combos.

[Neolithic]

There are some popular teams out there, and several people may be playing them--with different styles, and at different times of day, even. And when there's just you and one other person queuing for pvppb, you'll see them every time.

And as for chatting in trade, yes, I've seen it. Maybe it's rather infrequent, but then I don't see people flooding the global chat channels asking for advice on taking down Lei Shi either.

This could be the first sign of a viable explanation to what i have observed. I didnt know about teams that switched jockeys like you mentioned . Im assuming these teams are prevalent enough to have a continued presence in the pet battle system im guessing.

And yes its difficult to interpret the activity in trade chat but i expected a bit more discussions based on what blizz claims
to be a very high participation level.

i need to look up these teams u mentioned ....ty for this response i doubt my conspiracy theory more than any of you which is why i posted this thread. I needed other opinions and wanted a different take on it.

[Tuatha]

the toons playing wore easily identifiable armor/transmog There is no doubt they are the same.

The toons you see are placeholders. Your opponent doesn't see you and you don't see them. No transmogs, no race, nothing. The only way to identify teams is by their pet names, which can be misleading (there are several players using direhorns named Cera in my battle group, for example--it's a Land Before Time reference).

[Rosalyne]

the toons playing wore easily identifiable armor/transmog There is no doubt they are the same.

The toons you see are placeholders. Your opponent doesn't see you and you don't see them. No transmogs, no race, nothing. The only way to identify teams is by their pet names, which can be misleading (there are several players using direhorns named Cera in my battle group, for example--it's a Land Before Time reference).

I occasionally run into some weird lag where I see my character standing on the field before the opponent loads. Last week I discovered I was fighting someone on my server, because her hunter pet was standing where the enemy team would normally be and I was able to mouse over it.

And I'm one of those oh-so-creative people using a Pygmy Direhorn named Cera...and a spider named Charlotte.

[Tekulve2012]

I've noticed some trends through pvp that make me scratch my head but it's less to do with coming up against the same team. I've had glitches with 'Err. name' instead of breed types which makes battle challenging since you don't know the breed and speed of your opp.'s pets

I've also had to 'reset' my character into the pet pvp queue by finding a wild pet battle and exiting it ..then re-queue to pet pvp

I've noticed while battling on Illidan horde (busy server) that the weaker the team I put on the field , the easier the opp. I face (even teams with UCommon pets). This may be a fluke but if others care to put it to a test, I'd be curious to know if there is a built-in competition strength variable in pet pvp

[Azrile]

The only time I've ever encountered the same player numerous times (his pets were named, so I could tell it was the same guy) was at 2am one morning, so I guess him and I were the only people queuing at that time. Accusing Blizzard of cheating in pet battles is pretty silly. If it's the same person with the same team over and over, figure out how to counter him and rake in some easy wins.

The pets were named and the toons playing wore easily identifiable armor/transmog
There is no doubt they are the same.

I never said i had any problems winning or countering.
It is precisely how i notice the oddity in the difference of play style inspite of the same pet combos.

pets names would be a giveaway. But your comment about their armor is wrong. Blizzard does not show you the player, nor their armor. it is just randomly generated gear, even their race changes.

As far as match-ups. I have no idea. one thing to keep in mind is a lot of people who take pet battles seriously have done their research, and the fact is there are only about 10 really viable teams for overall play ( there of course are other teams that can beat a specific team). It is one of the things I do not like about pet battle balancing right now.. there are only about 10-15 pets that you see on the really successful teams. If I see a team with none of those pets, it is a very easy win for me.

Your theory about the same account played by different people sounds more like just two differently skilled players who did the same research, but one isn´t as good as the other. I see this all the time... a very powerful team, just played very poorly. They read somewhere that a certain team is powerful, but they never found out why and they don´t use the pets correctly. ( I see people using switch before they dot the opponent all the time).

I still have a strong suspicion that there is a hidden match-making score involved. After my first 30 games, I almost never go up against really bad teams anymore. My first week, every other team had a non-blue pet, and most were just random pets with no team concept. Once I won a ton of those games, I have been seeing nothing but the high quality teams.

[Ligre]

and the fact is there are only about 10 really viable teams for overall play

Yah, this annoys me to no end as well. Hopefully, 5.4 will even out the playing field quite a bit more, and CREATIVITY will actually be able to prevail for a change. I'd rather win a battle with luck than with some cheesy, near-guaranteed-win combo using crap like Swaps, Direhorns, and conventional unimaginative Rag/triple Undead horsepuckey...all of which is overpowered beyond the horizon right now and needs to be fixed/nerfed/neutered.

Right now, I'm trying out a Frosty/Kun-Lai Runt/Wolpertinger squad I like to call "Stunned Stupid". Synergies and themes are what attracts me to the system, and its nice to see the occasional opponent who believes the same thing. Very rare though, right now...

[Gilneas]

and the fact is there are only about 10 really viable teams for overall play

Except that's just not a fact. You can make a lot of good, viable teams that win a good percentage of their matches. People just gravitate towards what others have all ready discovered, making them "popular". There was a capped thread on the official forums with many good teams.

[Azrile]

and the fact is there are only about 10 really viable teams for overall play

Except that's just not a fact. You can make a lot of good, viable teams that win a good percentage of their matches. People just gravitate towards what others have all ready discovered, making them "popular". There was a capped thread on the official forums with many good teams.

I just finished my 250 wins. So I am done completely with pvp battles until the next expansion. I used Fiend Imp, Bone Spider, Direhorn runt. On my way to 250 (took me maybe 2 weeks), I lost about 30 games total. At one point, I had a 47 game win streak. My normal routine was to play pvp battles every night until i lost, most nights I would get 5-10 wins.

Yes, i am sure there are a lot of ´decent´ teams out there that will get you above 50% wins. But there are 5 or so teams that dominate, and only really lose to another team within that 5. Those 5 teams probably comprised more than 50% of my overall battles. Then there are another 5 teams that are also common, with slightly different pets than the first 5.

There are many ways to make creative teams, the problem is they won´t do better than 50% against the big 5 teams. The problem is mainly with switch teams ( and you will fight a ton of them). Almost all ´creative´ teams require you to do things in a precise order. You go against a broom or a fiend imp, and now you basically have 3 non-synergized pets because those pets will be faster than you and get you out of your cycle. Just from playing a 333 fiend imp on my main team, I can´t tell you how many times I played a team and completely destroyed any synergyies that team might have had simply by timing my switch correctly.

´ this move always goes last in a round´ should have been added to every switch ability. Having fast pets with switch abilities just makes any ´creative´ team fairly worthless. The only teams that gave me any trouble were exact duplicates of my team, or a team with a broom... and even then, I would be above 50% win rate ( a lot of people play the good teams, but don´t understand their real strengths).

[Gilneas]

Its going to vary by battlegroup what you see, certainly. But your experience doesn't match up with mine and I've seen others say the same.

And teams that aren't those teams aren't "creative" teams, as if that were some sort of insult. You imply they are gimmicky or whatever and barely scratch out wins. That's certainly not the case; a team that happens to be good is not "creative" or a gimmick or whatever. They just work well together and are a good team. You don't just win 50% with good teams that happen to not include a Direhorn; you win much more than that (if you have a good team, of which there can be many). Again though, people don't want to do the thinking to look at the pets and see what works, so its easier to go with what people complain about and popularize on the forums.

[Tekulve2012]

Azrile: to win 47 straight is unreal to me with any team ... I just got the Trainer title for the 1 k pvp today and I can say a few things of note from that long haul to the achieve:

Yes, the GBSpider is a great pet, the f.imp is ok too but swapping is supposed to be nerfed in 5.4

Direhorn do hit for a lot but the weather teams and many others like the DmTonk, TMYeti and SoAnimus all handle them effectively

3 pets with ability to either tank, stun or hit a ton do well even without synergy
such as lil rags, blossoming ancient, Anub idol

When you decide to switch out is the whole game in pvp... There is a bit of luck too

I agree that Speed is always great .. Try a 3 moth team out for fun ... They can give fits to many opposing teams

I think the pvp game is pretty balanced and 47 straight wins would be a complete aberration

[Azrile]

Try it. Imp-333 and BS 287 with a direhorn HH

1. Imp. use switch first After the switch, use immolution. Only time I change this up is if he starts with a mechanical. A lot of players aren´t aware that fiend imps have elemental attacks. Also, sometimes I let the Imp eat an extra attack if I know it is harmless because he will be in the backline for awhile afterwards healing.

Bring out your BS

2. Use two dots, switch, use 3 dots, switch.. then just dot until your BS dies. Not only do you have 2 dots ticking on two of his pets, you have immoltion ticking on his front pet

3. When BS is dead, bring out your imp - Switch and Immoltion again and maybe eat an attack.

4. Bring out your direhorn and play how you want. If he has three alive pets, I like to use the speed debuff to damage backline pets. Otherwise just zerg.

The beauty is the ending. Because of the switches, immolution and the BS dots.. all of his pets are highly damaged. And you not only have Immoltion still ticking, but you have a direhorn ´go first attack´ and a high speed Imp if your direhorn dies. The other really good part of this team is the BS is undead, which means you can get a lot of dots going.. and once it dies, your imp gets the freebie turn again. My favorite part is when the other guys brings in his third pet so I can dot that one too before my bs dies.

There isn´t a hard counter to this team except the exact same team because the entire time you are disrupting anything he might be doing. You almost always have a switch available in 2 rounds. You should always have 4 switches every match and have a ton of dots going.. There are teams where you have to alter your attacks, for instance stuff like sandstorm, where you want to keep the sandstorm on the back line until you are ready to direhorn him. But usually it is very easy to see what the opponent is trying to accomplish.

The hardest team for me was something with sandstorm and the magic crawdad on the same team ( with that big ´heal 50% of health to front pet´ thing). It is hard to keep two pets from using a strong one-round ability that requires no set-up.

[Azrile]

Azrile: to win 47 straight is unreal to me with any team ... I just got the Trainer title for the 1 k pvp today and I can say a few things of note from that long haul to the achieve:

Yes, the GBSpider is a great pet, the f.imp is ok too but swapping is supposed to be nerfed in 5.4

Direhorn do hit for a lot but the weather teams and many others like the DmTonk, TMYeti and SoAnimus all handle them effectively

3 pets with ability to either tank, stun or hit a ton do well even without synergy
such as lil rags, blossoming ancient, Anub idol

When you decide to switch out is the whole game in pvp... There is a bit of luck too

I agree that Speed is always great .. Try a 3 moth team out for fun ... They can give fits to many opposing teams

I think the pvp game is pretty balanced and 47 straight wins would be a complete aberration

You are right. Tonk, Animus and TM yeti would all destroy the direhorn. But the direhorn would never be played against them. Your imp is doing bonus damage vs them with immol, and your BS is doting them, then your imp comes back and uses his 1 attack (elemental). the direhorn is only there to mop up the nearly dead stuff at the end and to have the HPs to let the imps immolution keep running.

[Ligre]

No offense, but I can't wait to see you Swap folk squirm after the patch. All those teams do is the same cheap crap; and don't try to justify that by saying "there's timing involved". No there isn't...you can swap pretty much anything, anytime and completely destroy not only synergies, but HP as well in the blink of an eye. It's not bad enough that swaps hit like a truck, but they also cause the NEXT pet swapped in to lose a turn to boot, if they're not as fast as the swapper. So you're basically getting double damage, unless justice in the form of Miss RNG creeps up on you.

I don't mean any malice towards you personally, if you used a team with Swapping and/or Direhorns...you're probably a good person...but the exploits that are available still take a lot of fun out of it, and hopefully we'll see a lot less of that in 5.4.

[Azrile]

No offense, but I can't wait to see you Swap folk squirm after the patch. All those teams do is the same cheap crap; and don't try to justify that by saying "there's timing involved". No there isn't...you can swap pretty much anything, anytime and completely destroy not only synergies, but HP as well in the blink of an eye. It's not bad enough that swaps hit like a truck, but they also cause the NEXT pet swapped in to lose a turn to boot, if they're not as fast as the swapper. So you're basically getting double damage, unless justice in the form of Miss RNG creeps up on you.

I don't mean any malice towards you personally, if you used a team with Swapping and/or Direhorns...you're probably a good person...but the exploits that are available still take a lot of fun out of it, and hopefully we'll see a lot less of that in 5.4.

of course swap teams are OP. Of course direhorns are OP. Of course sandstorm teams are OP.. of course darkness teams are OP. That was my entire point I was trying to make in this thread. There are only about 5 really viable teams if you want to maximize your win rate.

also ´cheap crap´ and ´exploits´ are really stupid terms to use. Every OP team has a gimmick.. but of course you think ´yours´ isn´t a gimmick, but the other 4 are? At least I had enough integrity this entire thread to say ´my team´ was OP. I know it was OP, that is why I played it. I wanted to get to 250 wins as quickly as possible. I don´t enjoy 25 pvp because it is a waste of time since you can´t level pets doing it.

And also, you are wrong about ´swap teams´ not requiring any skill. Yes, they are a bit like a 3x direhorn team where if you are a terrible player, you can still get above a 50% win rate using them. I played against a ton of swap teams that were played terribly. Like I said, people with BS who used swap before dots. Or people with fiendish imps who kept them out too long ( their best use is swap, then immolute from the back line). Trust me, I went against my own team dozens of times..and you can definitely play it bad or play it good. People like you are wrong about swap teams, and you will lose as much as you win because you think that the ´swaps´ are the OP part to them. Swaps are nice, they hit decent, but they have high miss rates AND they have long cds. What you, and most people don´t realize the real power of swap pets is the ones that come with dots.

In any event. 5.4 wasn´t going to hurt my playstyle with my swapteam that much. I almost never was waiting for a swap cd, so the one extra round isn´t going to matter, and like I said, the actual damage of the swap ability is minor compared to the damage you are doing to that pet with 2 dots on the backline.

But your comments are just classic pvp denial ´ you are OP, you have no skill, just abusing/exploiting OP mechanisms´.. it is why the pvp forums are always filled with tears from players crying about OP stuff. Until that player actually plays the team in question and realizes it isn´t that easy to win all the time. Like I said, I played against my own team enough to realize there is a drastic skill gap in how players use them, and it makes a huge difference in your win rate.