Are Pet Battles really that popular?

[McNeil]

I don't think we've ever had any statistics on how many people actually participate on these. I only played a bit during MoP where I ended up with 3 max level pets, then I couldn't be bothered anymore. If I wanted to play a Pokémon type of game I'd actually play Pokémon, this is just a cheap knock off. But I think the rewards are whats pulling people into doing them. At least the menagerie in your WoD garrison had some good stuff, not sure if they have more like these.

[Regalbeast]

they must be because the devs keep pushing out content for them...personally never got into it. I mean, I've played a few pet battles and caught some pets I think I have like 300 pets.

[Eurhetemec]

they must be because the devs keep pushing out content for them...personally never got into it. I mean, I've played a few pet battles and caught some pets I think I have like 300 pets.

Yep. If they weren't seeing regular use by some subsection of the community, they'd have been quietly shelved. The fact that they even have pet battles on bloody Argus strongly suggests there are a significant number of people doing them.

One would think breeding mechanics would have been introduced already.

I suspect it's because it's low-effort content for decent reward (in terms of people engaging with it) and breeding mechanics would be a lot of work to get right, both tonally (especially when pets can be things as bizarre as miniature Necropolises - that's coming soon IIRC), and in terms of balance to prevent the market being flooded with certain pets. If they do add mechanics, I don't expect it to be that.

[Tartys]

I get slightly irritated when I get a pet from a quest as I don't care about collecting them either.

How much of the player base actually pet battles on the regular?

You're a bit ridiculous... In Legion there is only 1 pet as a quest reward and it's only for Rogue... mostly are drops or you have to work on specific things to gain it. So, unless you are a rogue, you don't have any reason to be "slightly irritated". But even if you are a Rogue, that pet got a unique feature that fit well with a rogue class. So why complain?

And pets as a drops, works just like all the others drops: you can find something usefull or something uselless, so you can sell it, trash it or use it.

Apart from that, I don't care about collecting mounts, toys or equips for trasmog but I am a very active Pet collector/battle.
I just don't get it even about PvP... but if I'm not interesting in something, that doesn't mean nobody like it...

The sad thing is, because there are some pets related to pvp, I'm forced to do some pvp and it's my choise, but If I Gotta Catch 'Em All, I have to do thing that usually I don't like it... I dont like fishing but I spent 2 hours a week in fishing raid, I don't like farming but I do raid for farmanig Demon Eye...

Even wowprogress got a section about pets: https://www.wowprogress.com/petscore/

I have no doubt it has an audience. What I am really wondering is, why hasn't Blizzard expanded the system in complexity beyond new pets since its release if it is that popular? One would think breeding mechanics would have been introduced already.

Because they are working on other feature like Pet Battle dungeon and pet battle scaling tech... also, a "breeding mechanics" is quite uselles by now, you can find all the breed that you want for mostly pets but basically, for some specific battle, you just need an S/S breed.

Now its easy to capture an s/s pet and make it level 25 rare just using a stone, easy to purchase for a few Pet Charms.

Also, our arsenal of pets is so large by now (900+) that you can find many different strateges to beat a Team that not require a specific breed.

[Dug]

You're a bit ridiculous... In Legion there is only 1 pet as a quest reward and it's only for Rogue... mostly are drops or you have to work on specific things to gain it. So, unless you are a rogue, you don't have any reason to be "slightly irritated". But even if you are a Rogue, that pet got a unique feature that fit well with a rogue class. So why complain?

There is a quest in Azuna that rewards you a blue dragon whelp toward the end of that chain (or at the end). For any class

[Renley]

Maybe, but I have hard time imagining it. Why would anyone choose Pet battles and not Pokemon, unless they didn't play it and they don't know how much better is it? It's like playing one of those crappy free mmos and not WoW.

I both collect pets and battle pets. Used to play Pokemon forever ago, ~15 years ago maybe? Always had fun. Pet battling is similar, though less deep. I personally don't go out in the world and spend my day pet battling, but I enjoy going through the pet dungeons, celestial tournament, and pet achievs a few times to get the rewards. Argus had a spectacularly fun and challenging set of achievements, to fight each Legendary pet with a full team of one family, for every family. It was a fun challenge and puzzle.

Anyway, I mostly do it for the challenge stuff and the rewards. It's not the most compelling stuff just doing random battles or PvP battles, but the more "challenging" content can be fun.

- - - Updated - - -

You're a bit ridiculous... In Legion there is only 1 pet as a quest reward and it's only for Rogue... mostly are drops or you have to work on specific things to gain it. So, unless you are a rogue, you don't have any reason to be "slightly irritated". But even if you are a Rogue, that pet got a unique feature that fit well with a rogue class. So why complain?

Not that I disagree with your point, but there are eight from Legion quests(Ashmaw Bear, Grumpy, Crackers, Emmigosa, Hungering Claw, Lurking Owl Kitten, Skyhorn Nestling, Untethered Wyrmling). That said, yeh, silly to complain about regardless.

[Soulwind]

I have no doubt it has an audience. What I am really wondering is, why hasn't Blizzard expanded the system in complexity beyond new pets since its release if it is that popular? One would think breeding mechanics would have been introduced already.

Same reason they didn't expand brawlers or scenarios, when both were fairly popular features.

I... actually don't know what the reason may be, other than the lead designers not liking these features or not considering they need to be expanded, and focusing all resources into the more established aspects of the game.

But then they add micro-holidays, transmog contests and hidden mounts, which probably take a comparable amount of effort, but have very little to no replayability.

It's like they divide the work into two tasks: maintaining the core PvE and PvP gameplay and creating brand new side-activities that they can then add to this pile of obsolete, barely updated content.

I guess achievements are the exception, since they are tied to every aspect of the game, forcing them to update them everytime they add something.

[Renley]

To add to the expanding:
They've expanded a lot on Pet Battles over the year. We got the Celestial Tournament, Legendary pet battles, Pet Dungeons(with "hard more"), and pet challenges via achievements(use all one family). They dabbled in breeding, but in the end, it didn't work out and/or didn't matter. There's only so much you can do with pet battles system, and what they've been doing has been great.

[krille20]

Me and a friend have done pet battles the last week because of the mounts you can get. The ones you pick up in 4 of the legion zones and level up and do a bunch of stuff for. If it weren't for the mounts we wouldnt have done pet battles at all.

[Puri]

Wowprogess lists more players with a pet battle score higher than 50k (and that's high, currently achievable are ~58k) than players with itemlevel >940.

[Kazgrel]

Back when I did play, I believe I got 3 pets to level 20 or whatever the max was, and that was a result of some level up stone/item I got in WoD from the garrison. Only did it to unlock that last plot there for the pet stable or whatever it was called.

[BHD]

Oh..what pet battles reward mounts? Missed that...

http://www.wowhead.com/falcosaur-guide

There's 4 mounts from there I believe, several quests in the chains don't actually require any pet battling though.

[krille20]

Probably more people do them than raid mythic....



Oh..what pet battles reward mounts? Missed that...

In Val'sharah, Highmountain, Stormheim and Aszuna there are world quests called "Snowfeather/Direbeak/Bloodgazer/Sharptalon Swarm". When you kill the matriarch there a hatchling will spawn somewhere in that area. You feed this hatchling a specific type of food that you can just google for and it becomes your pet. There are 3 quests for each pet each day, assuming you have 3 110 characters that you can do with a total of 15 days. Some quests are real easy like "Complete 3 PvP WQ with your bloodgazer hatchling" for example and others can be more tricky like "Complete 3 Pet WQ with your Bloodgazer Hatchling and two Undead pet" for example. And after you've completed all 15 quests for each pet you have 4 new mounts!

Here's a link to explain it all: http://www.wowhead.com/falcosaur-guide

[Razorice]

I enjoy it, it's not on my priority list but I do pet battles everyday.

[Dragon ANX]

It's boring compared to Pokemon games. You can't possibly compare pet battles with a masterpiece like Pokemon.
I think it needs a complete combat redesign. I rarely see anyone doing pet battles for anything else but selling pets for gold and rewards, but doing it out pure fun fun? Nah.

I do it for pure fun, i like pet battles a lot.

But the way pet battes work in WoW it is not as fun as in other games if you dont like pets at all.

[Deleted]

Never did a pet battles, being playing for years.

[Lodreh]

...How much of the player base actually pet battles on the regular?

I do my fair share of pet battling. I find it relaxing and interesting to see how people react during the fight. There is not a single "I Win" team which makes for lots of variety... not to mention a little RNG can swing the fight in unexpected ways. Additionally, you never get the same fight twice when dueling players. Sure you may see the same team but they learned something and their strategy has usually improved. It's the competitive aspects and challenge of PvP without the asshattery associated with PvP.

[Lahis]

Same reason they didn't expand brawlers or scenarios, when both were fairly popular features.

Scenario tech is being used for story content, which is better use for it. 3 player scenarios weren't that popular, untill heroic scenarios that were just quick way to cap VP for teh week.

Brawler's Guild has had new encounters on every iteration and designing those takes considerable effort to make.

[Sencha]

One takes significantly more developer resources over the other so its not even the same thing

You mean pet battles right? Because developing additional mechanism for mythic raiding does not require lot of resources. Everything else already exists in heroic.

thats because more people do pet battles then the numbers of mythic raiders.

You made my day.

[Constraint]

The system hasn't really improved in any particularly meaningful way since MoP. As such, I barely bother with them these days. It needs a lot of spicing up in my opinion.

I still collect every pet I can, but I don't roam the fields hunting down rares of everything in the way I used to.