There is no petting!!! ... that I am aware of. However, I have yet to experience a ~perfect expedition~ or whatever it'll be called, because I am apparently garbage at making anime children feel good about themselves. So there may in fact be petting that I am just too socially awkward to partake in. tragic, really.

The picnics are just slightly better versions of the tea parties in Three Houses, but I do mean it when I say they're slightly better. It's still the same basic mechanic of responding to the characters in ways they approve of, but you can actively ask the characters questions about a bunch of generic but nonetheless character-building topics ('what are your plans for the future?', 'what's your family like?', et cetera) and then you respond according to what they tell you.

You can also just let them talk freely and respond to whatever they lead with. Whichever way you go with it, it does feel like you get more character from these scenes than anything you really got from the tea parties. I'm certainly not saying this is the stuff of dreams, and I really do get heebie jeebies from the first-person shit, but! A minor improvement is still an improvement, one supposes.