Animal companions are great - I just wish it made sense to have them around more often by druids/rangers but I usually find myself un-summoning them If I know I am about to go into a dangerous area because they are just going to die in one hit. I think it would be cool to have some kind of system similar to like favour but could call it Animal Training or something which would give you points up to a point that you could invest in improving a companions (Mostly thinking of survive-ability).
So it could be something like this:
Each companion can get up to 5 training points - gaining one point for each X hours spent summoned IG.
Area of training could be:
- Movement Speed
- Strength
- Dexterity
- Constitution
- Physical Resistance
each training point could provide a small bonus in one area and it can represent the progress of the animal companions training and make them a little better. I don't think animal companions are a huge power boost to the class and consider it more flavour then anything, but the reality is with a combination of tricky companion AI, EE's and really strong mobs it make them very difficult to utilize.
Just so you are aware, they only go away for a reset now, and come back after that : )