Teach MM pets: Fire bad!

[RogueWolf]

I suspect this has been brought up many, many times... But why do Mastermind pets just stand there like morons while they burn in a fire patch (such as vs Scrapyarders or Destroyers) after their attack animation is over? Is this a huge AI code feat to make them run away 10 feet and go back to whatever mode they were in?

[SuperPlyx]

I think this falls under "do your job" move them.

[MTeague]

I'm with @SuperPlyx on this one. 

 

I'd hate it if my pets just spent their time trying to slowly run away and NOT ATTACKING if the Tsoo or Knives of Artimis toss down caltrops.  Or if the Arachnos big humanform robots (ABU's, RBU's whatever they're called) put down some fire on the ground. I want my pets kllling things dead. I will support them by strategic use of my secondary tree, or by use of inspirations, or pool powers, etc.  Or, if things are seriously hitting the fan, I will invoke Expiditious Retreat and bravely run away while my pets die for me.... but I want them keeping enemies busy, and killing as many as they can, the whole time.

 

If there's times I want them to move, it's a quick tap-click for me to hit the "Move Here" keybind and select a target location.  

[RogueWolf]

So the answer is that they just did not want to because of the other situations it would cause them to run? Yeah I can see that. I would think that making the behavior specific to fire or to a higher threshold of damage would get around the caltrops problem, though. It's not a game breaker, but it's aggravating to have to worry about.

[EmmySky]

Slap their little handsies 😀

 

Hey, it worked with my kids.....mostly.

[kelika2]

No fucking way.  Before they went fucking berserk and ran across the map and back from a fire patch by a -25 leveled demo or some world burn patch or a rain.  even friendly burn patches like a lit oil slick caused fear.

 

move them yourself

[RogueWolf]

It's weird to think there is no middle ground to their behavior between going berserk as described above and just sitting there taking extreme damage and almost dying before you can move them.  But ok.

[plainguy]

32 minutes ago, RogueWolf said:

It's weird to think there is no middle ground to their behavior between going berserk as described above and just sitting there taking extreme damage and almost dying before you can move them.  But ok.

Just the way the coding was back then I guess.. 

I am sure if ported over to today standards they would be using a different coding and as you know this game would be much better..  

Mind you in my head I think this is what homecoming is about.. All a test to see what can be done and the value and cost.. But that is another story..

 

They had to make a choice I am glad they reverted back to the original way. Otherwise these MM pets would run all over the place ALL the time.. Not just fire..

 

 

[Elthenar]

21 hours ago, kelika2 said:

No fucking way.  Before they went fucking berserk and ran across the map and back from a fire patch by a -25 leveled demo or some world burn patch or a rain.  even friendly burn patches like a lit oil slick caused fear.

 

move them yourself

Yeah man. Honestly, I didn't realize this had been fixed until the other day. What the OP is asking for is a disaster that some of us have already lived through. No just no, but hell no!

[SurfD]

I would put this down to the fact that YOU are the mastermind, and your pets are your loyal minions.  So loyal infact, that they will follow your orders to the literal letter.   Oh, the boss told us to attack that guy?  I will get in range and attack that guy.  That guy is burning where I am standing?  Well, the boss didn't tell me to move, so I am staying right here thank you very much.    They are your minions, literally willing to die for you.  Why would you expect them to get out of a burn patch unless you specifically tell them to?

That being said, I have no idea how possible something like an "cautious offensive stance" would be to code, where the pet does it's best to maintain fighting range, but actively attempt to move out of certain types of damage effects.  I mean, it would have to be coded as a discreet stance, because sometimes you WANT your pets to stay in a particular place no matter what and modifying the standard aggressive stance wouldn't work in that case.

[agentx5]

On 7/15/2020 at 9:25 PM, SurfD said:

That being said, I have no idea how possible something like an "cautious offensive stance" would be to code, where the pet does it's best to maintain fighting range, but actively attempt to move out of certain types of damage effects.  I mean, it would have to be coded as a discreet stance, because sometimes you WANT your pets to stay in a particular place no matter what and modifying the standard aggressive stance wouldn't work in that case.

Bioware has some publicly available AI coding that'd work for that, the problem is you have to link global states between attack types.  It's one of those deeper coding things, totally feasible but could be rather time-consuming. I mean you might have to (as a coder) change variables and netcode for every attack type in the game.  That's a worst case scenario, but it just depends on how easy it is.  I've taken a quick look into the CoH code and it doesn't like like a quick fix (unless I'm missing something).

 

@RogueWolf  May I suggest these keybinds with icons instead?  IMHO, not doing tactical commands with macros for your pets is missing out on the fun & capabilities of Mastermind.  The default binds you get on character creation suck, unfortunately...  I actually disliked Mastermind a great deal until somebody taught me how to make use of a few clever, fairly basic macros.  Give them a try, I bet you'd like them as much as I did:

 

/macroimage "KnivesOfVengeance_FearsomeBlow" "Attack Area" petcom_all go aggressive
## Go to a area location, attacking anything in range, but stay leashed to that area not pursuing fleeing targets too far.

 

/macroimage "KnivesOfVengeance_AssaultStrike" "Defend Area" petcom_all go defensive
## Go to area location, but don't do anything at location until attacked. Stay leashed to that area not pursuing fleeing targets too far.

 

/macroimage "KnivesOfVengeance_ConcussiveBlow" "Single Attack" petcom_all defensive attack
## attack that one enemy target, then come back to me, like a yo-yo, because in defensive mode.

 

/macroimage "KnivesOfVengeance_RallyingCry" "Regroup" petcom_all defensive follow
## rally all pets to myself

 

 

They're are more advanced ones of course -- such as where you can command particular type of pets only -- but those four I've found make a huge difference and they're pretty easy to use.

example for robots only:
/macroimage "KnivesOfVengeance_AgileCross" "Drone Attack" petcom_pow "battle drones" defensive attack

 

Edited July 18, 2020 by agentx5