Are pet battles pay to win?

[Mojogrow]

Is this system of Battle Pets Pay-to-win or still considered balanced?

Now I do mean this in many different ways. First off, many of the "good pets" such as Lil' Ragnaros, Neatherwhelp, Dread Hatching, and Pandaren Monk are all linked to Real Cash in one way or another. Now we all know these are great pets, but can they be considered Overpowered? They still operate on a same basis as other pets with a set pool of points allocated into Health, Power, and Speed, simply having Unique move sets and (at times) Optimized point allocation and breeds, as well as only coming in Rare Quality. On paper they seem as balanced as others, just unique, because hey, people spend real money on them and thus want something for that money. But how fair is it to other players who don't want to dish out real money to play a Side-Game of sorts. More often than not, competitive PvP teams require you to have a promotional or Cashshop Pet in there, offering only meager substitutes that end up being lackluster at best. This limits the good synergy teams you can have down considerably, especially for newer players.

Which bring me to the other way Pet battles is pay-to-win, Overprice. Say you want to do pet battles pvp but don't have any of the Promo pets or Cash pets. Many times people will say "oh that doesn't matter, there are plenty great pets you can get off of bosses and such and buy off the auction house. You don't NEED to pay to use powerful pets" So then, when you finally do check the Auction house, almost all of the recommended "good pets" are Insanely high priced. 25k gold for a Blackfuse Bombling, 8k for an S/S Death Adder, the list goes on.

To make matters worst, there seems to be a new thing going on called pet holding. Two people will camp rare spawns, Such as Minfernal, Flayers, or Unborn Val'kyr and start a fight with them, then just basically go AFK while the other person offers up a shot at catching the rare to people for 1-2K gold. It's like paying to go to a public washroom...

Bottom line, if you want end up with more wins that losses in pet battle pvp, you'd better pay up, be it with ludicrous amounts of In-game Currency or Real money.

Agree? Disagree? Please leave your feedback, as I love reading arguments for both sides, and once again, thanks for reading!
(PS. I do hope this is an acceptable section to put this in since, since the only other forums I could thing this could go in would be Off Topic.)

[Kalium]

I can't really agree with your premise. Although some pets offer an unique ability... there are other comparable pets with similar move sets. As far as best breed... that's very debatable... RNG plays a bigger role in the outcome of a battle than whether the pet is P/P or B/B. True it feels good to stack as many variables in your corner as possible but the outcome on any given battle is not determined by who paid real money or insane gold prices for a pet versus someone who captured a random wild pet.

[Ligre]

Well said, Kalium. This "pay to win" business is a myth. http://pvppetbattles.com/ - go here and you can, and will, find quite a unique treasure trove of great teams, some of which involve zero pets that cost anything to get.

[Liopleurodon]

The whole wrong breed thing will likely be largely remedied by pet breeding in the garrisons. Um, maybe. lol. We haven't heard much about it other than it's a thing and can change the breed of a pet.

The reason the 'good' AH pets are overpriced is simple supply vs demand. Blizzard isn't really at fault if gold barons want to flip pets. And the breeding thing described above will likely cut the legs out from under the specific breed market. And since you can't really buy gold *ahemahem* having in-game rarity isn't contained in an accusation of 'p2w.'

As to the whole premise, no. Check the thread where people are challenged to use off-beat pets (viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9315). It's definitely viable to win in PVP without using the flavor of the month.

[Digem]

None of the true real money spent pets are needed to do well pvp so I will say this point is mute.
Now for ones from raid bosses or island drop pets those are not totally "needed" but makes ones life in the pvp world much easier.
These pets yes cost a bit to buy but any level 90 can easily make the money needed for them or farm themselves.
Which isn't any different than having top raiding or pvp gear.
Yes if one wants to be truly successful at this it takes some time and maybe money.
How is that different from raiding or pvping?
One needs gear, enchants , and gems.
If anything this is easier to succeed on because lots of easy to get pets are just fine for this

[3wd]

Everything in this world is on the basis of pay to win.

what I mean by pay to win is the efforts and time you spent on such thing.

If you will consider the time you spent to capture a rare pet or the in game currency you needed to purchase some good pets are not fair, well then, nothing is fair.

To make it worse, even if you will have these pets, you still won't be that good as you are still missing the time sink to learn and get better.

So sum it up : yes, everything is pay to win, nothing is free.

[Mojogrow]

To counter, I wish to bring up a question I asked a bit ago on the Battle.net forums, asking about a darkness team, since I was having trouble beating them. To my shock 20-some people all replied that I need Pandaren monk or Mini Tyreal/Soul of the Aspects to even consider building a team around darkness (as well as a Crow/Raven but that was why I had asked the question int he first place).

Likewise, I know a fair bit of people saying Murkalot and Lil'Deathwing are staples in PvP and should be included in almost all your teams. Now I am not sure of the validity of these claims, but I have read through a fair share of people claiming that to be the "true way" of being good at Pets.

That said, I do see that raid pets and prices are A) not the fault of Blizzard (and that Blizz is working against that [see I had no clue about stables]) and that B) it's basic progression in a way, getting "better pets' by going deeper into the game.

Thanks for all the comments as far! I love seeing how people reason and it is always enlightening to look at different points of view from People of various "rankings".

[Kpb321]

Yeah you need to have pets to put together PVP teams and win but isn't that kinda the point of battle pets? Collect them, run battles with them etc? If you think that makes things play to win and you don't like then why are you doing battle pets at all?

[Denarian]

Disagree.

If you look at the most used pets in pvp, they are almost always non paid pets. Yes, you might see a store bought pet once in a while, but the only paid pet I would even want to use is Murkalot. But he isn't a game changer, seeing as his ability can be neutralized with with moves like Nether Gate.

If you look at the 20 top rated battle pets on here, only 4 are paid pets. While, 6 are completely wild pets. The rest are either drops or vendor pets, but do not "require" any extra money spent. Anubisath Idol can be obtained rather easily, as all classes can solo Ahn'Qiraj without much of a struggle.

[Mojogrow]

Yeah you need to have pets to put together PVP teams and win but isn't that kinda the point of battle pets? Collect them, run battles with them etc? If you think that makes things play to win and you don't like then why are you doing battle pets at all?

All I am arguing is that there should be more diversity in the options you can put in your team. When you require X or Y to build a team around pet Z, and both X and Y are unattainable unless paid for with no substitute, then yes I do call that pay to win.

Also, there isn't too much wrong with pay to win as of yet. It's not as bad as some games CoughNexonCough. I just wanted to bring up an argument and see the views of other people. It isn't like I'm sitting here crying about never winning a game because I don't wanna sink all my money into wow. I just wanted to bring up the point that, from a new player ( and pet battler)'s prospective, it seems like some of the Real Money pets have an upper hand in terms of Breed and Move synergy.

[Quintessence]

To counter, I wish to bring up a question I asked a bit ago on the Battle.net forums, asking about a darkness team, since I was having trouble beating them. To my shock 20-some people all replied that I need Pandaren monk or Mini Tyreal/Soul of the Aspects to even consider building a team around darkness (as well as a Crow/Raven but that was why I had asked the question int he first place).

I think this is a common misconception about Pet Battles. Sure, X number of people may think A, B, C are a must for a certain team comp, but that doesn't mean other teams aren't just as viable.

There will always be a flavor of the month and teams that are over-hyped for one reason or another. Some of those teams involve pets that require real money, but those teams are only a handful out of many possible setups.

IMO, it takes quite a bit of research and play testing to really grasp the finer details of team building. So for players newer to Pet Battles, it may seem like the end game is all about pay to win. Many seasoned battlers will tell you that that is not the case, though.

[Denarian]

I've never bought any of the pets from the Blizzard Store or any CE or Blizzcon pets.

I win consistently. Yes, having certain pets ups your chances of winning, but those pets are caught in the wild. Emperor crab, Unborn Valkyr, Infinite Whelping, Scourged Whelping, Qiraji Guardling, all pets in the wild, and are super effective battlers.

[Poofah]

I have read through a fair share of people claiming that to be the "true way" of being good at Pets.

Having more options for your team will always give you an advantage. However anyone who says there is one 'true way' is fooling you (or themselves). Pet battles are designed as a rock/paper/scissors type game, so regardless how strong your rock is, it can get beat by paper. Murkalot is the strongest pet you listed among the pay-to-win pets, and it can be beaten routinely by Valk or other popular 'free' pets.

[Digem]

The way pet battles is set up everything has a counter everything.
Some pets for a bit may seem superior but once the counter is out there and known it quickly moves onto a new "flavor" of the month pet.
Yes if you are new to pet battling you will behind for awhile.
Some of us have been building are stables for years hence why this website was started.
Be no different if one just started to raid or pvp now.
Without that legendary cloak one will be behind until they get it and it takes some time to get it.
Even though they completely speed up how long it takes to get now it still takes some time which is only fair because those of us who have been around since the beginning had to wait almost all expansion to get it.

Biggest thing of pet battling is knowing what moves you plan to do and your opponents.
If you can stop,stun,swap out or switch in a pet the move hurts less one has a good shot to win.
Biggest mistake I see what I assume to be newer pet battlers do is plow ahead with their moves not paying any attention to what their opponent is or can do .
Doing ones big hit move against an opponent that can block,stun,blind etc.. Just leads to wasted moves and losses.

[Maizing]

While I hate pvp in all of its forms (and hence am just over 50 wins towards the pet), I am only that far behind because I just am not doing it... and not because I never use any of my RL$ pets in any of my pvp teams. I have as many of those pets as I have been able to afford, it is true, and I have leveled them up with the rest of my collection... I just never use them, because they aren't that good.

[Graven]

Some of the real money pets aren't very good for battling, while others are more useful. None of them are anywhere near required though.

[Harpua]

At Christmas, I received a bunch of the store pets as a gift. The only one I consistently use in PvP is lil Rags.

The raid pets are more useful. But most of them are available for free if you raid (although RNG does play a factor). If you don't raid, you probably do something that makes money. If you mine and gather herbs, you can probably make the money faster than you could get the pet to drop in a raid. You trade your time mining for their time raiding. And that pet may be something they didn't really want (they wanted gear instead).

After reading the forums here, other blogs and doing a little brainstorming on my own, I realize there are a lot of common pets that are useful in PvP. The thing is, you can get destroyed if you run into a bad matchup. But the more you do it, the more you figure out ways to prolong battles, capitalize on mistakes and gut out wins. It's pretty satisfying when you take down an uber team with common pets.

In a sense, the answer to your question is yes. You pay for it by investing a lot of time building a stable of pets to become competitive. You pay for it in the school of hard knocks by learning what not to do and why you lost. You pay for it either on the AH or by raiding a lot hoping for that pet to drop. As far as paying real money for store pets or TCG loot pets, that is a luxury, not a necessity.

[Hootstwo]

I've never actually spelled out my PVP team which does quite well, but it doesn't have any "paid" pokemon. Death Adder SS I do use here and there, but it shouldn't cost anywhere near 8k. In fact, I just bought 2 of the uncommon SS for 350 and 400g respectively. 2 stones and a bit of grinding and you've got an absolute MONSTER in the PVP arena. (funny story, I beat a guy last night using ONLY the adder, and it had only taken one direct hit during the battle - admittedly, it was pretty clear he wasn't familiar with how adders work, but man, was sort of humourous).

Some teams can be pretty decent and offer "fast" wins or losses, so even if your win percentage isn't great, the wins per unit time can be great (I sometimes break out crows ravens kaliri, if they've got a counter at all, I'm toast, but if they don't, man it's over fast!) Even though I now have the pet store pets (I didn't use RL $$$ BTW), I don't use them for PVP.

[Kendrah]

Likewise, I know a fair bit of people saying Murkalot and Lil'Deathwing are staples in PvP and should be included in almost all your teams. Now I am not sure of the validity of these claims, but I have read through a fair share of people claiming that to be the "true way" of being good at Pets.

Who are you talking to? I've never heard this. The two staple pets are currently the unborn and DAH (with a third that really doesn't matter.) I've never seen Murk or Deathy in a PVP battle together or alone. Actually, to be completely and utterly honest, I've only come across one cash store pet in one PVP battle. Lil' Rag and he was really easy to kill with a non cash store mech (which is really saying something.)

As for your original question, no. Absolutely not. It has always seemed like Blizz has gone the other way on that. Murkalot was once powerful but it was nerfed a while back but even then it wasn't the most OP of battle pets (and, honestly, it's OP was dependent on Kovak.) The most OP pet was a wild pet (unborn). I mean, I collect the pets because I'm a collector but I honestly never use them in either PVP or PVE.

[Ieana]

i completely disagree. I win the majority of my PvP pet battles and I have zero promotional, cash store, or otherwise obtained outside of normal play pets. Every pet has a counter, and the most successful PvP pets are the ones flexible enough to counter many threats (Like the Anubisath Idol.) or specifically dangerous to "classic strategy" like the Unborn Val'kyr.

The "secret" to PvP pet battles is to recognize the abilities of the opponent pets and quickly devise a counter strategy based on your knowledge of your own pets and their selected abilities. It's statistical, you cannot win every fight.

I would like to say one thing about the PvP pet battle system, I love the anonymity and lack of communication between the players, it's ALL about the pets and strategy. You don't know who you're battling and don't have to listen to any "smack talk."