AMAZING PTR Change for us Hunters.

[Azunara]

It may be me, but my warlock's demons have as much, if not more personality than my hunter pets. I can't rename them, sure. But that's not going to stop me from giving them unofficial name and calling them as such. A lot of people here would know my felguard's name: Maxwell. That's what I call him, not Max, not Maxie...He's Maxwell, and he's my demon and I love him.

Chromir, a name given I loved, also has personality. Unlike most imps, he cares for Raven and is happy to protect her. Darkstar, my felhunter, is the same way. He loves Raven and would die to protect her. Maybe I'm putting a huntery spin to it, but just because I can't name them or see their loyalty doesn't mean they're emotionless and I'm a heartless monster ripping them from the Nether. It may be game mechanics, but I'm putting an RP spin on it.

As for my DK...uh...well...I'll grant you people ghouls, okay.

Frankly, I'll admit I did like pet loyalty levels, it did warm my heart to see Moonlight "Best Friend" but...at least -I'll- always know he's my best friend. Right hand Cat. Partner in Crime.

[Kurasu]

But I think Blizz might be after also that they are trying to tone down hunters being able to solo most of the content, since pets selfhealed themselves also with bloodthirsty and carrionfeeder.

... except they aren't removing bloodthirsty and carrionfeeder. The heals for those are still there. Therefore, you can still do the same thing, except your pet's not getting ticks of happiness with it.

[Ellaran]

Honestly, I'm glad happiness is gone. Considering how easy it is to keep it up, might as well toss it, it's really outdated.

I know some will be upset by it because of personal reasons, but look at it this way. Pets have not become "tools". We can still feed them to immediately heal them. We have hundreds of skins, dozens of models, and all of the families with more on the way. We still have Mend Pet. They all still have their actions, reactions, and quirks. They're nowhere near being anything like Warlock demons and Death Knight ghouls. We can go out and pick what companion we want to have with us, while they're confined to the same five or one carbon-copy companion.

The only thing that can turn your beastly buddy into a simple tool is yourself, if you decide to feel that way about your pet because of this.

[Miyon]

A glyph that makes pets bigger? Oh lord, as if healers didn't complain enough already about corehounds/devilsaurs blocking the tank and melee DPS...

I don't care. Their problem if they must click around instead if using the partybar thingies.

But bigger pets seems to be awesome, I was so disappointed when my mosh didnt keep atleast half of his size when tamed. But I'm gonna miss the petemotes..

[Grokan]

I'm very happy with this news. While I understand the depth happiness gave to pets and the fact that it really wasn't an issue as long as you had the glyph, I'm glad that I have one less thing to manage with my. Plus the change to the glyph sounds nice, Chromaggus was looking a tad small compared to the Drakedons in BWD.

[Worba]

Glyph of Mend Pet is now Glyph of Greater Proportion, which increases the size of the pet slightly.

Ohhhh my. My my my now. This is one happy happy orc.

[Kurasu]

Glyph of Mend Pet is now Glyph of Greater Proportion, which increases the size of the pet slightly.

Ohhhh my. My my my now. This is one happy happy orc.

I experimented with a couple of pets on the PTR. As of yet, I see no size difference between the two, so unless they are doing a *very* small size change of the pet (as in, small enough that it's not visible and not worth the time) it's not been implemented quite yet. I'm going to hope that's the case!

[Mindsprocket]

I don't even see the big deal. With the current system my pets were pretty much always happy anyway. I guess Blizzard realised that they've already created a situation where pet happiness is irrelevent since pets don't become unhappy anymore. So they decided to finally ditch it. I liked the old system back in the day, and admitedly I miss it sometimes. But going through all that hassle with 25 pets would be too much, so I appreciate this change, as well as the instant level up.

[Wark]

As others have pointed out, the Happiness system has existed but been close to irrelevant for awhile now. I can count on one hand the number of times I've had a pet dip down to yellowface after the first time I got them to Happy since Wrath. And while it added an element of flavor, WoW is just not a flavor-focused game. (Not to say it has none-- just that compared to many, many other MMOs out there, it does comparatively nothing to cater to flavor, RP, etc.)

So I can understand the annoyance/disappointment, but I don't see why someone couldn't build a mod to track your pet's "happiness" if you wanted. How recently/often have you fed it, has it died much lately, etc. If anything I'd think a mod could make such a system "better" as you could decide what things would impact a pet's mood, as opposed to simply accepting a system balanced around game mechanics.

In any event, I wasn't expecting the change but it seems sensible to me. The things I'll have to change are my reflexive Mend Pet habit, and now I might use Feed Pet for more than the entertainment of seeing the animation.

[Worba]

As others have pointed out, the Happiness system has existed but been close to irrelevant for awhile now. I can count on one hand the number of times I've had a pet dip down to yellowface after the first time I got them to Happy since Wrath. And while it added an element of flavor, WoW is just not a flavor-focused game. (Not to say it has none-- just that compared to many, many other MMOs out there, it does comparatively nothing to cater to flavor, RP, etc.)

So I can understand the annoyance/disappointment, but I don't see why someone couldn't build a mod to track your pet's "happiness" if you wanted. How recently/often have you fed it, has it died much lately, etc. If anything I'd think a mod could make such a system "better" as you could decide what things would impact a pet's mood, as opposed to simply accepting a system balanced around game mechanics.

In any event, I wasn't expecting the change but it seems sensible to me. The things I'll have to change are my reflexive Mend Pet habit, and now I might use Feed Pet for more than the entertainment of seeing the animation.

Sounds like an expansion for PetEmote?

[Pawtrack]

Ffff I wasted a ton of money on that glyph and now all it does is make your pet bigger? -_-

TBH I kinda want a refund...

Oh well. It'll mean that it's not a pain to try and find food for your stubborn fruit/fungi/bread eating thing.

[Jolyroger]

I personally don like the removal of the "Happiness" feature. Yes I know it does little functionally as "Loyality" was removed long ago. But the pet getting hungry, requiring us to "care" for it, is important to many of us. I have posted feedback on the WoW PTR forums. I know they won't care about my opinion due to the face I am not a major raider and it seems most of the time those are the ones whom they listen to. Yes, they have been very generous to us Hunters lately, but I can see more of the majority liking the face they will have more bag space not needing to worry about feeding pets. Not feeding the pets takes some of the flare of having a pet and being a Beastmaster, at least for me anyway.

Just my 2 cents.

[Kalliope]

The way I read it, actually feeding our pets was going to take priority over feeding them sparkles with Mend Pet, since now there will be an in-game reason for it: they'll get health back. As someone who mooches off the Mend Pet glyph constantly, this is a big incentive for me to feed them directly again.

[Nubhorns]

(Also I have no idea why you would want loyalty back. Good Grom could you imagine the tears when someone's Loque/Sambas/Chromaggus ran away due to not knowing how it works/a mistake on their part?)

This is something that annoys me. People who immediately assume that if loyalty was back, it'd work the EXACT same way as it did before. Who's to say they'd re-implement that part of loyalty if they put it back in? They could make it PURELY cosmetic. No pets running away, no bonuses whatsoever. All it would be is a little tidbit for people who liked the concept of it. I, personally, would squeal with pure GLEE if they put it back in. I hated it when they removed loyalty and would kill to have it back, if only for the "AMG MY PET HAS REACHED LOYALTY LVL 6!!!" squeal that me and my best friend would always have whenever our pet hit loyalty 6.

Because I can read your mind and tell exactly that you want a different version of the Loyalty system, rather than the 'Make them love you or they'll disappear' one that was, you know, the only Loyalty system in place. :P I'm used to everyone wearing heavily smeared rose-colored glasses - gotta be specific with the things you want, or I'm going by "the good old days".

That said, if it was cosmetic, what's the point besides pleasing you and a handful of other people who want it back? It'd be a waste, unfortunately, much like the out of combat feed pet heal is now.

Speaking of which, my friend and I talked about potential uses for that and the only thing we can come up with is if your pet was low on health and you saw someone coming in PvP. :/ Mend pet usually heals for all I need and pets rarely get jumped in PvP anyway, especially when there's a perfectly good hunter to stab right next to them.

[Azzrazzah]

Hmmm.. Now I'm wondering just how much of the screen will be taken up with my Princess Huhuran.. She's rather large at it is.. As it stands now.. When I use her, sometimes I have to turn sideways to click on bodies and things.. Hmm maybe smaller hit box's??.. Like the Damn first worm boss in Decent.. He has a freekin huge hit box!! Makes it hard to target worms after the pillar of fire spin and shoot.. I watch my Cursor change to a targeting icon, halfway up the stairs to it....

[Magnakilro]

@ Azz: Boss wasps are shrinking significantly next patch.

[erwil]

Sounds like an expansion for PetEmote?

I've always liked the addon and I think some kind of tracking mod for those who enjoy it would be a good idea.

I'm personally happy about them removing happiness from pets, even though I am going to miss the feeding feature. But someone mentioned the pets being "buff-bots" from now on, reminded me of something I read on the mmo forums earlier today. There was some discussion about a few people wanting to remove hunter pets completely (or just from a certain spec). Blizzard would obviously never do that, they've done far too much work for us to even consider it, but there seemed to be several people who were keen on the idea of letting Marksmanship hunters play without pets. =/

[Cialbi]

I was browsing through the mmo forums earlier today, and there was some discussion about a few people wanting to remove hunter pets completely (or just from a certain spec). Blizzard would obviously never do that, they've done far too much work for us to even consider it, but there seemed to be several people who were keen on the idea of letting Marksmanship hunters play without pets. =/

While it is odd that Marksmanship (and to a lesser extent, Survival) hunters use pets, I do agree that we won't be seeing that happen anytime soon. Besides, the hunter class would have to be completely reinvented to keep such a change from crippling it.

[Worba]

Sounds like an expansion for PetEmote?

I've always liked the addon and I think some kind of tracking mod for those who enjoy it would be a good idea.

I was browsing through the mmo forums earlier today, and there was some discussion about a few people wanting to remove hunter pets completely (or just from a certain spec). Blizzard would obviously never do that, they've done far too much work for us to even consider it, but there seemed to be several people who were keen on the idea of letting Marksmanship hunters play without pets. =/

Actually I think that could be cool - IF MM hunters could choose between "all gun / no pet" and the normal "75/25" things, e.g. tradeoffs would have to be provided allowing both routes to be equally effective without any MM players feeling like they were "forced" to choose one way over the other.

Something sort of along the lines of how fury warriors CAN choose titan's grip, but they can also choose to specialize in regular 1h'ers instead, iirc.

It will never happen, I know it - lots of coding involved and probably not a ton of player interest to justify it, but it's interesting to speculate...

[Worba]

I experimented with a couple of pets on the PTR. As of yet, I see no size difference between the two, so unless they are doing a *very* small size change of the pet (as in, small enough that it's not visible and not worth the time) it's not been implemented quite yet. I'm going to hope that's the case!

Eh, pretty sure that will get fixed.

But it did get me thinking - being a glyph this will affect any pet you summon, e.g. my devilsaur will be larger, which is awesome, but my fox which imo is already too large, will also be larger, which I don't like.

This isn't a major gripe - I'm still much happier to have this at least as an option (and I realize this can be somewhat offset by reserving your "want-larger" pets for use in BM spec and the others for offspec), it's just a reflection...