Singularity getting stuck frequently.

[Bionic_Flea]

It's been a while since I played gravity, but I've leveled at least two to 50.  I decided to give it a go again to take advantage of Singularity's new gravity well ability combined with Enflame, Spirit Ward, and the other Sorcery pool goodies.

 

The problem: Singularity is frequently getting caught or stuck.  He was just stuck at the RWZ portal exit; he's gotten stuck in lab maps and sewers.

 

The first couple of times it caught me by surprise when I went to engage a group solo but didn't have my backup buddy.  Now I look back before engaging just to make sure and have had to re-summon many times because he was left back on another floor.  A few times I have circled back to him and then he snapped out of it and followed me.  But sometimes he's just stuck and nothing I can do seems to break him out.  I even tried teleporting right next to him to see if I could nudge him free, but it didn't work.

 

Even though I haven't played Grav in a bit, I know this is not normal behavior.  I don't know if his gravity well power is causing it, if it picked up an old bug that certain MM pets used to get that they would get stuck and not obey commands or something altogether different.

[Ura Hero]

The Pet AI R Stupid.

 

It's not just Singularity.  It's pretty much all controller/dominator pets.  My Phantasm will just stop and refuse to move.  He will stop when zoning and refuse to move.  He refuses to move when I enter a mission.  He finishes attacking an enemy and refuses to move.  Etc, etc, ad nauseum. 

 

I haven't figured out exactly why this happens.  Maybe it is purely random.  Maybe he just secretly hates me.  I'd love to see the Pet AI get the Mastermind makeover, because right now it's really annoying.

[Bionic_Flea]

But the thing is, I didn't have this problem with Singy before.  Mind you, "before" was years ago. 

[UberGuy]

Did he start this after the most recent patch? Or was he doing it right after Page 2 came out?

[Bionic_Flea]

I was hoping to catch the eye of other Gravity players.  I only made him after the Page 2 patch.

 

My other Gravs pre-date HC.

 

Gravitational Pull On CoD says: 

100% chance

• • Mag [MagExpr] Repel for 0.625s (all affected targets)
     

• • Magnitude Expression: (45/19 - distance/19)*(45 - distance)**2/361

if target>enttype eq 'critter'

 

Is it possible that it sees other inanimate objects as "critters" and it's trying to pull them in?

Edited May 7, 2021 by Bionic_Flea

[UberGuy]

I don't think so. AI doesn't interact with things that aren't critters. (Things we interact with are almost always critters, even if they seem inanimate - like glowies.)

 

But the fix to flying MM pets did involve some AI / critter physics changes. Maybe that's negatively affected Singy somehow? The fact that it flies seems like a bit too much of a coincidence.

Edited May 7, 2021 by UberGuy

[Ura Hero]

It's not just Singularity.  It's all pets.  I have a slew of controllers and dominators and all of the pets get stuck to some degree or another.  Sing and Phantasm seem to be the worst of the lot however, perhaps because their models are bigger.  It's been this way since Homecoming relaunch at least.  I don't remember it being quite this bad on Live though.

[Psycho]

I mean I have had a pet attacking an invisible entity before.

[Coyotedancer]

I was running around a bit this afternoon with Dennu, my Grav/Dark Controller, and her goofball did seem to get stuck on things an awful lot. I know the pet pathing AI isn't the best, but I don't remember my previous Grav's Singularity being quite THAT bad about it. 

 

Maybe red side's more complex geometry is to blame... Dennu is a Rogue and was in Saint Martial, while Amneris was typically played blue-side... but whatever's going on, poor Anku ended up getting dismissed and resummoned an awful lot.   

[Kyksie]

Yeah... on my Illusion troller, the Phantasm seems to be getting stuck a lot more than usual the last week or so.

[JAMMan0000]

Possibly the change to fly that Jimmy said might affect other things unexpectedly?

[Bionic_Flea]

A new, never before experienced oddity!

 

So I just finished running a mission in Portal Corp. and had to go to one of the other buildings to get to next mission.  I stop for a moment to sell and notice that Singy is not behind me.  I go back to find him stuck by the downstairs elevator door shuffling back and forth excitedly, kinda like Paragon protectors do, only it seemed quicker.  Sometimes Singy breaks free of whatever hang up he has just seeing me but that didn't work this time.

 

I tried teleporting right next to him to see if I could nudge him away from the wall, but he was still swaying after several tries.  I hit him with Temporal Selection as buffs usually breaks emotes and that got him unstuck.  The oddity was that he immediately then got on the elevator and exited the building, then re-entered and took the elevator back down.  I was scared he was going to get stuck again, but he didn't.  It seemed like he was OCD compelled to go where I had been before he would start following me again.  I have never seen any pets do that before.

[UberGuy]

That seems like good info. I would not expect any NPCs to do that shuffle any more. Hopefully the right devs see this.

[Apparition]

41 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

A new, never before experienced oddity!

 

So I just finished running a mission in Portal Corp. and had to go to one of the other buildings to get to next mission.  I stop for a moment to sell and notice that Singy is not behind me.  I go back to find him stuck by the downstairs elevator door shuffling back and forth excitedly, kinda like Paragon protectors do, only it seemed quicker.  Sometimes Singy breaks free of whatever hang up he has just seeing me but that didn't work this time.

 

I tried teleporting right next to him to see if I could nudge him away from the wall, but he was still swaying after several tries.  I hit him with Temporal Selection as buffs usually breaks emotes and that got him unstuck.  The oddity was that he immediately then got on the elevator and exited the building, then re-entered and took the elevator back down.  I was scared he was going to get stuck again, but he didn't.  It seemed like he was OCD compelled to go where I had been before he would start following me again.  I have never seen any pets do that before.

 

Mastermind pets tended to do that often with elevator doors, especially on Crey lab maps and with the doors in the last mission of the Tin Mage TF.  I had to despawn them all *twice*, and then resummon and rebuff them all to fix it.  I don’t know if that is still the case as I haven’t played a MM in over a year.

Edited May 10, 2021 by Apparition

[BZRKR]

I haven't seen my Singularity get stuck, mainly because I have been resummoning it to reposition it.

 

However, yesterday while running my Mastermind through the Croatoa arcs, I found my Thugs, when set to aggressive, would get caught up attacking the Fog clouds.

[Baney]

I've been rolling around on my Gravity controller and the Singularity has most certainly been getting "stuck" on things (which it didn't before),I could fly to the end some of the larger Maps, and he's just floating in some doorway. At first I assumed he was beating up some NPC, but when I go back to help out, he's sitting there, bobbing in place. 

Another one of my weekly groupmates plays a Gravity/FF and shes also been having trouble with hers getting stuck. 

It's almost like the leash is too long and they  don't know to catch up.

OG Singularity (for all of its time on Live and here) was always like a shadow. They were not fast, but they always moved with you. They would float up behind you and crush and bump things (if you liked it or not).
The new Sing is much morepowerful, and I Love that, the new "Attract mechanic" is brilliant. But I need them to keep moving with me.

Edited May 30, 2021 by Baney