MM pets unspawn upon char level from sidekicked 49 to true 49

[cohRock]

My level 48 Merc/FF MM was teamed with a level 50+1 brute doing an AE mission.  Thus he was sidekicked to level 49.  Upon leveling to true 49, all his pets unspawned.  I know this happens when one drops in level, but when staying at the same level??  Incidentally, when he leveled from 47 to 48, nothing happened to the pets.  This was expected, because his effective level remained 49.

[TygerDarkstorm]

As noted here: 

 

This is working as intended.

[UberGuy]

Yeah. It's not the most awesome case for how the implementation works, and I very much think it's fair to suggest it could be better, but it"s not actually a bug.

[cohRock]

@TygerDarkstorm and @UberGuy

"Working as intended" and "not actually a bug".  ..  Hmm, That would be easier to believe if my MM's pets despawned when he leveled up from 47 to 48 (remaining a sidekicked 49 throughtout). They did not.  They only despawned when his effective level of 49 became his actual level of 49. 

Edited April 15, 2021 by cohRock

[UberGuy]

As mentioned in the linked thread, when you catch up to your mentor so that your combat level equals to your mentor's security level -1 (so level 49 if your mentor is level 50) your SK actually drops, and this dropping of your SK is what kicks in the code that kills off your pets.

Edited April 15, 2021 by UberGuy

[TygerDarkstorm]

57 minutes ago, cohRock said:

@TygerDarkstorm and @UberGuy

"Working as intended" and "not actually a bug".  ..  Hmm, That would be easier to believe if my MM's pets despawned when he leveled up from 47 to 48 (remaining a sidekicked 49 throughtout). They did not.  They only despawned when his effective level of 49 became his actual level of 49. 

As UberGuy said, you caught up to your mentor, thus becoming "unsidekicked" and triggering the game's response to kill off the pets and require a resummons. Is it annoying? Absolutely. But is it a bug? No. The feature is working as intended. If you want to see it changed or something, then the appropriate place to post at this point would be the Suggestions and Feedback part of the forums.

[srmalloy]

31 minutes ago, TygerDarkstorm said:

But is it a bug? No. The feature is working as intended.

The function is working as designed -- when you drop sidekick, your pets despawn. Is it working as intended? Without the original devs to ask, that's going to be harder to answer, but since your combat level isn't changing when you drop sidekick as the result of leveling to [leader's level-1], then I believe the exhibited behavior of killing your pets is an unintended consequence of the code's function, and is therefore a bug.

[TygerDarkstorm]

31 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

The function is working as designed -- when you drop sidekick, your pets despawn. Is it working as intended? Without the original devs to ask, that's going to be harder to answer, but since your combat level isn't changing when you drop sidekick as the result of leveling to [leader's level-1], then I believe the exhibited behavior of killing your pets is an unintended consequence of the code's function, and is therefore a bug.

Hm, fair enough I suppose. I suppose, "appears to be working as intended" would have been better phrasing. Like I said, I agree that it's completely annoying, and it does seem weird that coming to even level with your mentor triggers the event. I guess I still am unsure if it qualifies as a bug, but I am not in a position to declare it as one or not, so I'll concede.

 

@Jimmy @Captain Powerhouse as the live devs are no longer available, perhaps this falls into your team's jurisdiction. 🙂

[Tahliah]

Bug or not, it's unacceptable.  When I dinged my new level, I was in the middle of a fight and ALL my pets died. At once.  This was not optimal, and yes, I did manage to run away (que Monty Python), but if this is what's intended, then the intent needs to be fixed.  Having an MM's usefulness cratered to practically nothing simply for gaining a level that happens to be the level of the team lead is insane. 

 

How is this okay to you guys crowing about this being "as intended"? Let's play this out on your tank, troll, or blaster---you ding the same level as your team lead and you immediately cannot access your defense/resist, control, or damage powers. They all just go grey.  As intended.  Three cheers?  Or maybe a problem?

Edited April 18, 2021 by Tahliah
clarity

[TygerDarkstorm]

1 hour ago, Tahliah said:

Bug or not, it's unacceptable.  When I dinged my new level, I was in the middle of a fight and ALL my pets died. At once.  This was not optimal, and yes, I did manage to run away (que Monty Python), but if this is what's intended, then the intent needs to be fixed.  Having an MM's usefulness cratered to practically nothing simply for gaining a level that happens to be the level of the team lead is insane. 

 

How is this okay to you guys crowing about this being "as intended"? Let's play this out on your tank, troll, or blaster---you ding the same level as your team lead and you immediately cannot access your defense/resist, control, or damage powers. They all just go grey.  As intended.  Three cheers?  Or maybe a problem?

You are taking this personally and getting overly emotional about an issue that we have no control over. No one has said that they enjoy that this happens, however, that does not mean that we are incorrect in saying that it *appears* to be working as intended by the original devs. It is a measure to keep low level MM's from being OP if they go from high level content to lower level content.

 

No other AT functions like MM's; comparing them to one another is facetious. As you can see, many of us have said that we agree that going from sidekicked to on level with the team leader causing you to lose your pets (where now you're both at the same level) does seem hinky, but it's still debatable if it's a bug, and since it's not *technically* a bug, further discussion on it belongs in the suggestion forums.

 

As you can see, I even tagged a couple of the devs on the matter; with any luck, they'll have looked at this, and if we're even luckier, we may even get some sort of response on the matter. Regardless, it does appear that MM's will be getting a pass over by the dev's soon, and they are buffing our ability to resummon and buff our pets mid-combat.

[srmalloy]

On 4/17/2021 at 7:56 PM, TygerDarkstorm said:

...but it's still debatable if it's a bug...

In every other case when a MM goes up a level, their pets remain summoned and at the level determined by the MM's prior level -- i.e., they ding 13, their two tier-1 pets remain at 11 and their tier-2 pet remains at 12. This happens whether the MM is sidekicked or not -- except for the single case where the MM is naturally -2 to the leader/mission holder, and dings to become -1 to them, which causes all the MM's pets to die, because only in this specific case of leveling does the code that handles sidekick/exemplar level changes terminate the sidekick status, which triggers a second function that reaps all of a character's pets when they drop sidekick to prevent them from having pets that are higher level than the character should have. This is a bug; it is code working in an unforseen way that actively harms the character.