Loyalty

Loyalty shown in the Pet tab

Loyalty was a property of a Hunter pet. It determines if the pet will stay with you or run off. Loyalty gain or loss is determined by the pet's Happiness. Raising the loyalty level should be your first concern after taming a new pet.

The pet's loyalty is shown in the Pet tab of the Character Info window.

Loyalty levels

When you first tame a pet, their Loyalty index is at the lowest level. If you immediately feed them, this will raise happiness, which in time, will help to raise the pet's loyalty index. So, keep in mind that loyalty is directly tied to happiness. You cannot neglect one without the other trait suffering. There are several stages of Loyalty:

Rebellious (Rank 1)

During this stage, your pet's happiness fluctuates a great deal. If the pet or yourself are constantly dying, or if you dismiss the pet too often, he can begin to become very hard to handle and may leave you.

Unruly(Rank 2)

You have begun to show the pet who the Alpha is but you still haven't totally convinced him. Keep feeding and treating the pet well.

Submissive (Rank 3)

You have won the pet over to some degree and he is ready to work harder at becoming your faithful companion. Feeding becomes a little less strenuous at this point, requiring less food to keep the pet happy.

Dependable (Rank 4)

That's it, you're the boss unless you mess up by letting the food bowl stay empty too long. The pet has fully accepted you as its master and things are good. Pet requires less food to remain happy.

Faithful (Rank 5)

It would be extremely hard at this point to run the pet off except by a concerted plan of neglect and abuse.

Best Friend (Rank 6)

Ahhh, isn't he cute? Your pet is now a furry rug at your feet when you settle down in front of the fireplace to have a glass of wine and read a good book. In this loyalty level your pet (should) require less food to remain happy.

At this stage of the pet keeping game, you would really have to work hard to get rid of your pet. Only by letting his happiness rating fall to unacceptable levels and remain there for an extended amount of time could you undo all the trust and faith your pet now has in you.

Loyalty gain

To gain loyalty one requires both xp gained and time spent. The following table was found by Mania's Arcania. Basically, to gain a loyalty level, your pet needs to, no matter what, gain at least 5% of the XP you, the Hunter, needs for your next level. This is required even if your pet is your level (which means they aren't actually gaining the XP). But there's also a time component on every loyalty level past Unruly. For example, to get to level 4 from level 5, you not only need the experience gain, but an hour must pass. This, as Mania says, is why sometimes your pet will ding loyalty while you're standing around in town-- you've gained the experience, but the time has to pass as well.

To get to rank ..	XP Gain required	Time required
Rank 2 (Unruly)	5% of hunter's xp at current level	0 minutes
Rank 3 (Submissive)	5% of hunter's xp at current level	30 minutes
Rank 4 (Dependable)	5% of hunter's xp at current level	45 minutes
Rank 5 (Faithful)	5% of hunter's xp at current level	60 minutes
Rank 6 (Best Friend)	5% of hunter's xp at current level	90 minutes

Removal

With Patch Version 3.02, hunter pet loyalty has been completely removed. Happiness, however remained. All pets start out with an amount of skill points, which depends on the level of the pet, not loyalty and level as before.