Do difficulties/modes make any difference for pet affection levels?

Since I'm playing Endgame I have the impression as if I obtain the pet affection levels a lot slower than on Freeplay.

Is this possible?

For the monthly quest I need to get about 50 more pet affection levels and I have no idea how I should get them. Currently I get 1 every 2 maps (at least it seems like that to me) and I don't have that much time to play DD2.

Can you give me any hints for this?

Mmmhmm, I'm only gaining about 1 level per map too. Doing FreePlay with XP bonuses. And that is with a brand new baby pet, where I would guess it takes less xp... or waves... or whatever it takes to level them up.

I've heard people say, and I heard it confirmed on the stream that pet levels are tied to waves completed. Whether that's the only factor I have no idea and if difficulty makes a difference I do not know.

The tooltip for pet affection levels says "gain affection levels by having your pet equipped during battle" or something to that effect, I'm paraphrasing. I have noticed zero difference in affection levels as to what content I'm playing. I've also noticed zero difference in level number, meaning, it took the exact same amount of time to go from 59 to 60 on my main pet as it did to go from 1 to 2 on my newly equipped pet.

Take what you want from that, but I see it as meaning, it's not affiliated with exp gained, difficulty level, or anything else. It seems to me it's just associated with having your pet equipped while you are playing, almost as if it's time based, IE: your pet gains more affection for you because it's around you more.

I 'think' I have heard the pet affection level gain does not depend from difficulty, just from waves but I'm not sure about it. Also I'm quite unsure if the lower affection levels need less waves than the higher ones. Does anybody know more about it?

I leveled a character from 1 to 50 spamming throne room hard and got around 15 levels, maybe 20 max.  I've only been letting them get to level 5 and then I switch them out, though level 5 seems to take as long as level 1. Exp spheres did not appear to make a difference.

Also tried some onslaught and got 1 level every 2-3 rounds (6-9 waves).

It's food that's the issue less fish more ham plz on harder difficulties.

Regarding the monthly quest I'm only worried about the pet affection levels. The rest is quite realistic. ^^

Getting 40 levels until end of the months will be quite ... exhausting. 

@Dreizehn quote:

Getting 40 levels until end of the months will be quite ... exhausting. 

That was pretty ez , take a pet, make it to 3, take another pet, etc. since u needed to hatch 15 eggs, u got 45 pet affection levels easily :)

@Fozzie quote:

It's food that's the issue less fish more ham plz on harder difficulties.

@Colonel Rambo quote:

@Dreizehn quote:

Getting 40 levels until end of the months will be quite ... exhausting. 

That was pretty ez , take a pet, make it to 3, take another pet, etc. since u needed to hatch 15 eggs, u got 45 pet affection levels easily :)

By easy you mean run a map half a dozen times per 3 levels then ya that is easy. I don't have the kind of time or patience to run several hundred full matches to get the full 75 affection levels. I am at nearly 50 so far and don't know how much longer i can deal with this crap. I was hoping they would do something about this ridiculous monthly requirement but with the month nearly over and still not a single thing about affection levels makes me mad. 

I want to play some other games but at the rate this is taking me i have to spend pretty much every second i have trying to get this crap, even with swapping out pets every couple affection levels it still takes far too long.

build/join unslaught normal > afk > win affection pet level.

launch dd2 + another game, OP tactic.

@Colonel Rambo quote:

build/join unslaught normal > afk > win affection pet level.

launch dd2 + another game, OP tactic.

Was just in a hard onslaught for about an hour and a half and got zero affection levels on a 0/10 pet.

I noticed I gain 1 level for every full run on any difficulty. It sucks, but it's easiest to just do the first map on easy freeplay while you watch tv  or something fun. I don't have a lot of time but I only have 10 levels to go, that's 10 easy runs.

6 waves per 1 lvl...

but pet food makes me angry. 30 rounds onslaugt = only 1 bag of food. Madness...

same issue, seems like I could level pet affection super easy before.

I already finished the monthly quest. Total pain in the A. Took me around 10 days. My strategy for the pet affection: Main Monitor - Playing Hearthstone. Secondary Monitor - 30 sec build on Free Mode easy/normal and AFK.

AFK this game is op, even nm3 u can afk in unslaught. That's another story for nm4 :D