Alt-F4'ing out to repawn pets has been hotfixed

[Crandor]

Fresh from the 5.2 PTR patch notes:

Fleeing a pet battle will no longer despawn the pet that was being battled, but doing so will now inflict some damage on the fleeing pet battle team.
Disconnecting from a pet battle will once again respawn the pets you were fighting.
Any pet that has been killed in a pet battle will now never respawn.

Of course, its not set in stone...but definitely a positive change

[Quintessence]

I really hope that the changes mentioned in the 5.2 patch notes stick and work out. It would be a good compromise between intended gameplay and "fun".

It's a shame we won't be able to use the relogging trick to reset a battle in the event any rare pet was accidentally killed, but I guess that was never intended in the first place. At least we'll be able to help find specific pets for friends and guildmates again, and/or save rares that we don't need or want for someone else. And! We won't have to worry about being accidentally disconnected again yay.

[Catalytic]

I really hope that the changes mentioned in the 5.2 patch notes stick and work out. It would be a good compromise between intended gameplay and "fun".

It's a shame we won't be able to use the relogging trick to reset a battle in the event any rare pet was accidentally killed, but I guess that was never intended in the first place. At least we'll be able to help find specific pets for friends and guildmates again, and/or save rares that we don't need or want for someone else. And! We won't have to worry about being accidentally disconnected again yay.

I still don't like the new plan, for one reason. LUCKILY, a day or two before the hotfix on this, I found a Lofty Libram. It was the third one I'd seen, and no one was in the area. The previous two I found, i caught one and then held one for a friend. Anyway, when I engaged this third Libram, to my utter delight, it was a rare! I immediately switched to my Terrible Turnip, used sunlight once, then the heal (because my baby pet was low from hunting rare Snowshoe Hares), and then KILLED the beautiful rare Lofty Libram with a Weakening Blow. KILLED IT! I relogged as fast as I could, and luckily it was still there, so I used my baby pet until it died and managed to get the Libram low enough for capture. I thought perhaps it had suicided, but it doesn't have any spells to do that with, so I am not pleased about this change, either. It isn't always just an unlucky crit that kills a rare accidentally

(And yes, I've been using an Interact with Target keybind since Sunwell came out and people sat on the questgivers to be annoying. That's also when I started reporting people, as well.)

[Quintessence]

It isn't always just an unlucky crit that kills a rare accidentally

That sucks. I've had weakening blow kill a rare before too.

In that specific case, it's on the developers' shoulders since it's an ability bug that killed the pet. If they make it so deceased pets don't respawn in a fight, even after relogging, they'll need to be held accountable for the bugs imo.

But if the target pet dies due to a misjudged attack and by our own mistake, that should be on our heads. And I think that's the most common situation, at least compared to the one mentioned above which occurs less often.

The changes in 5.2 are acceptable to me because it's not all or nothing. I would much rather have it the way it will be in 5.2 than no way to save/share wild pets at all. It seems like a fair enough compromise for a mechanic that they never intended for us to use in the ways that we have.

[Hellomynameis]

Fresh from the 5.2 PTR patch notes:

Fleeing a pet battle will no longer despawn the pet that was being battled, but doing so will now inflict some damage on the fleeing pet battle team.
Disconnecting from a pet battle will once again respawn the pets you were fighting.
Any pet that has been killed in a pet battle will now never respawn.

Of course, its not set in stone...but definitely a positive change

Ahh, nice! This opens up for a new kind of kindness You can use pets that swap other pets into battle, and then you can kill all pets except the one who happened to be a rare, and then flee. The next guy coming along will only find one rare, with no backup.

[Jordicus]

The changes in 5.2 are acceptable to me because it's not all or nothing. I would much rather have it the way it will be in 5.2 than no way to save/share wild pets at all. It seems like a fair enough compromise for a mechanic that they never intended for us to use in the ways that we have.

yeah, it does seem like a good compromise. not sure exactly how the "Any pet that has been killed in a pet battle will now never respawn" will work together with fleeing a battle midway though. Does that mean we could kill the first 2 pets and flee and now only the third pet would exist for someone else to battle? and which pet would then show in the world?

[Palatank]

Is it me or is this even worse, kill the first 2, abandon, and let a friend with lower level pets take on that higher pet ?!

[Hellomynameis]

Is it me or is this even worse, kill the first 2, abandon, and let a friend with lower level pets take on that higher pet ?!

Its mining nodes all over again, unless they learned from it.. Mining nodes was picked clean for the good stuff, and left with the less valuable stuff, and never despawned until someone else came to pick it. I hope it won't be the same with pets. They fixed mining nodes to despawn after a time if opened/picked once, so lets hope they learned from that.

[Bistromath]

When i was hunting for Wild Rares i would just use my Turnip, so that way there is no need to log out casue the Turnips 1st attack cant drop a mob below 1hp.

[Darky28]

So now after i flee from a pet battle I need to nuke the not despawned pet so it can respawn as a rare.
Well.. get a use for hellfire after all.

[Quintessence]

Is it me or is this even worse, kill the first 2, abandon, and let a friend with lower level pets take on that higher pet ?!

Its mining nodes all over again, unless they learned from it.. Mining nodes was picked clean for the good stuff, and left with the less valuable stuff, and never despawned until someone else came to pick it. I hope it won't be the same with pets. They fixed mining nodes to despawn after a time if opened/picked once, so lets hope they learned from that.

I think it'll depend on how they implement it. If the pet that was killed in the battle prior to the forfeit is replaced by another pet, it might not be so bad. If there's no replacement, I could definitely it see it as being in the same boat as mining nodes.

Other factors will play a part in whether or not this change will be a positive or negative for pet collectors. IF the defeated pet is replaced, will the same type of pet take its spot? Same quality? Different? Same breed? etc.

[Silverthorn]

From the pure sportsmanship point of view (Blizzard's), they don't want folks abandoning pet battles because the rarity isn't what they wanted... or their lineup wasn't optimal... or (in the case of the master pet tamers), the opponent brought out an unexpected pet first round. That little bit of damage makes this approach less practical.

From the point of view of a rare collector such as myself, this sucks, but I can see how Blizzard might feel like we're gaming the system. I think they want to especially avoid anything that encourages us to log out and in. Look at what they did for Stable Masters (and I thought that was a pretty good strategy, myself, though I never used it).

I think I need to level another Darkmoon Zeppelin. That'll give me something to do while waiting for the snow to fall in The Storm Peaks or the Scourged Whelpling to appear in Icecrown.