Vanity pets and zoning.

[Luminara]

It'd be really nice if vanity pets were persistent on zoning.  I enjoy having my way-cooler-than-@Jimmy cat watch me kicking and throwing things, but I don't enjoy it enough to summon it again every few minutes.

[Rudra]

Yes please. And the buff pets too.

[Oklahoman]

I want to be able to name my vanity pet. It's been suggested my German shepherd should be named Hell, since I tend to say "...and Hell's coming with me!"

[Luminara]

The workaround I've cobbled together is to add   powexec_location self Spirit Panther Pet   to both of my travel/toggle binds.

 

Example binds from my Dark/Martial dominator:

 

/bind v "powexec_location self Spirit Panther Pet$$powexectoggleon Infiltration$$powexectoggleon Sprint"

/bind b "powexec_location self Spirit Panther Pet$$powexectoggleon World of Confusion$$powexectoggleon Combat Jumping$$powexectoggleon Maneuvers$$powexectoggleon Weave$$powexectoggleon Sprint$$powexectoggleoff Infiltration"

 

I already use variants of those binds on all of my characters (V to turn on movement power, B to shut it off and ensure that all of my other toggles are active (including activation of Stealth on the characters with that power (eat it, mutual exclusivity!))), so adding the vanity pet to the sequence only required me to adapt my enter/exit strategy (SOP is B before entering a mission, V before exiting, so i'm retraining myself to reverse the sequence).  I also found that clicking a door while the summon is animating causes the pet to spawn inside the instance, saving a key press if I forget and deactivate my movement power outside.

 

But this isn't a viable solution across the board.  My main has ten toggles, and due to the character limit on binds and the lengths of the names of some of the toggles (like Rise to the Challenge), I can only activate nine of those toggles with a single key.  I have to turn the tenth toggle (Form of the Body) on with the travel bind.  Squeezing another toggle in on the toggle key just isn't possible, so using a vanity pet on this character would mean redesigning my entire travel/toggle sequence until I could activate all of my toggles without constantly turning my travel power on and off, or dedicating a key to summoning the pet, or manually clicking the power.  I can't say I'm enthusiastic about any of those options.  Simply having a persistent pet would be preferable.

[Glacier Peak]

I'm not really sure why they don't persist. Is it a hardware or coding limitation? Their buffs are trivial, but they do bring a coolness factor I wouldn't mind seeing persist like the summonable crafting Workbench.

[Luminara]

6 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

Their buffs are trivial

 

Vanity pets don't buff.  They they can't be targeted or clicked on, buffed, debuffed, teleported or otherwise affected by anything in the game, they're Untouchable for the entire duration of their summon.  They don't do anything but follow you around and perform animations.  Like NPCs, but with scritchable ears and bellies you can rub without incurring a sexual harassment lawsuit.

 

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/powerset.html?pset=prestige.vanity_pets

 

12 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

I'm not really sure why they don't persist. Is it a hardware or coding limitation?

 

Neither.  The Can Zone flag is set to False.  Setting it to True would allow the pets to zone with the character.

[Rudra]

@Glacier Peak was likely referring to my follow up comment for buff pets to be able to zone too. On the characters that have the buff pets, I use them as vanity pets. Extra props for my characters' appearance. And after a zone change or two, I just stop summoning them. Like with the vanity pet.

[Glacier Peak]

1 hour ago, Luminara said:

Vanity pets don't buff.  They they can't be targeted or clicked on, buffed, debuffed, teleported or otherwise affected by anything in the game, they're Untouchable for the entire duration of their summon.  They don't do anything but follow you around and perform animations.  Like NPCs, but with scritchable ears and bellies you can rub without incurring a sexual harassment lawsuit.

 

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/powerset.html?pset=prestige.vanity_pets

 

 

Neither.  The Can Zone flag is set to False.  Setting it to True would allow the pets to zone with the character.

Ah thanks for the catch! I must've been thinking of some other pets that buff, I am pretty sure they are sold at the P2W/T4V vendors.

[Luminara]

2 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

Ah thanks for the catch! I must've been thinking of some other pets that buff, I am pretty sure they are sold at the P2W/T4V vendors.

 

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/powerset.html?pset=prestige.combat_pets

 

Which are also flagged False on Can Zone.  And, in typical Cryptic/Paragon overkill fashion, they're also saddled with -75% Res to all damage, -1000% Res to all debuffs and they have 1 HP.

 

Can't have players abusing that 3% +Damage, it could destroy the entire universe.

[TraumaTrain]

Can Zone is the name of my next toon. Thanks!