The Pet Derby has always been one of my favorite minigames in Wizard101. It's fun, exciting, and it has potential to be a great alternative to regular PvP for those seeking arena tickets. Unfortunately, overall interest in the Pet Derby has declined over the years and I've found getting enough players in the ranked queue for a match to be quite long and difficult.
A couple reasons for this may be that the arena ticket prizes are significantly lower than regular PvP as well as the lack of updates or new features related to the Pet Derby. Meanwhile, regular PvP has gotten several new adjustments and features over the years such as daily PvP assignments and tournaments. I understand that this is likely due to there being much more demand in the playerbase for regular PvP than the Pet Derby, but I've found it disappointing how neglected the Pet Derby has become.
I have a few ideas that could potentially garner more attention towards the Pet Derby:
Increase the arena ticket rewards as well as other potential Pet Derby prizes! As I've mentioned earlier, the Pet Derby has great potential to be an alternative method of getting arena tickets for those who may not be ready for the storm of chaos that is Ranked PvP or just prefer a more casual PvP experience. (People like, well... Me! ) Just increasing the arena ticket payout for the Pet Derby could definitely motivate players to play it more. Plus, new pets and gear that you could buy with those tickets could also help with that!
Add new features or game modes! Perhaps a daily Pet Derby assignment system similar to regular PvP or even new game modes could help grab the attention of players! Maybe a mode where the slowest player wins could be funny and interesting.
Add new stages! There have been a ton of new worlds discovered in the Spiral which could make for fun new Pet Derby stages. Perhaps there could be different kinds of obstacles and terrain in the stage depending on the world. For example, a Celestia themed stage could have more water. This would of course require more time and work than the previous ideas, so I completely understand if this is not possible at the moment.
Personally, I'd love to see the Pet Derby become relevant again as it could encourage people to develop different kind of pets and make 'selfish' (Pet stat boosting) talents far more useful. I hope that KingsIsle could consider giving the Pet Derby some more love some day!
) Just increasing the arena ticket payout for the Pet Derby could definitely motivate players to play it more. Plus, new pets and gear that you could buy with those tickets could also help with that!