So here's my proposal. Guild Wars 2 had an excellent design with the "bird" or "flying" type pets, which I vastly prefer to WoW's bird pets. Basically, they perch on your shoulder when you're stationary or walking, but when you're running, they lift off and fly above or beside you.
Obviously, the pterodactyls or Nerubian flyers (another pet with both flying and grounded animations)
are way too big to be perched on any humanoid's shoulder, so after approximately 5-10? seconds of inactivity they would land on the ground next to you.
Grounded
When moving or in combat, the beasts would fly beside you like a Chimera, Bat, Bird of Prey, or Carrion Bird.
Hovering
These creatures have "transition" animations of settling and taking off, so hopefully the movement would be natural, not forced.
Touching down
When walking (RP-walk) the creature would use its ground-walk animation. For birds, they would just fly slowly.
For existing pets that only fly, there would be an ability, kind of like an Aspect switch, that would toggle between "always flying" and "smart-movement" mode. This isn't just so fans of the old system would be happy, it allows you to enjoy all the animations of a great pet.
Eagles, Condors, and the currently untameable Kunchong all have transition animations, as well as sitting/flying ones. For Kunchong, the button would toggle between "Take Off" and "Land", as the mantid tanks are usually grounded. They wouldn't automatically switch like the aerial pets.
Currently, Vultures, Outland Vultures, and Owls all lack animations for perching and other transitions, so they would not use this new system until more animations are added. Bats and Chimeras would remain the way they are.
Using this system would lead to new types of pets that are not only more realistic (really? a massive eagle that hovers in place at all times?!) but more diverse.
Show your support, and there might be an extremely small chance that possibly hopefully a developer would see this and suggest something similar to be implemented in a future patch!
