Officially Unofficial Weekly Discussion #8: Pets

[TalynDerre]

My first redside 50 was a Mercs mastermind, and I always argued that they weren't as bad as everyone said they were... that being said, I'm really liking the Merc buffs.  Just... so much gunfire.  Everywhere.  Shell casings for days.  Love it.

 

That being said, it can be tough to get pets to match your character's aesthetic and/or RP persona.  Pet customization - even limited pet customization, if the full thing is too hard to program - would encourage me to make more MM toons.  I'd love to put gas masks on my Mercs/Poison minions, or turn my 'fantasy' zombies into 'sci-fi' zombies, or put hazard markings on my Robots so they look like repurposed industrial equipment, just as a handful of examples.

[gamingglen]

3 hours ago, TalynDerre said:

My first redside 50 was a Mercs mastermind, and I always argued that they weren't as bad as everyone said they were... that being said, I'm really liking the Merc buffs.  Just... so much gunfire.  Everywhere.  Shell casings for days.  Love it.

 

That being said, it can be tough to get pets to match your character's aesthetic and/or RP persona.  Pet customization - even limited pet customization, if the full thing is too hard to program - would encourage me to make more MM toons.  I'd love to put gas masks on my Mercs/Poison minions, or turn my 'fantasy' zombies into 'sci-fi' zombies, or put hazard markings on my Robots so they look like repurposed industrial equipment, just as a handful of examples.

 

Or Beasts have red noses and can fly... at least for a season.  🙂  

[DoctorDitko]

Ever since PA became customizable, they've been a personal favorite.

 

I wish we could at least lay a color tint on pets. Is a lick of paint on my bots too much to ask?

 

And I agree, Controllers should get at least the Aggressive/Passive/Defensive level of pet control. It's the name of the archetype, after all!

 

[UltraAlt]

10 hours ago, DoctorDitko said:

And I agree, Controllers should get at least the Aggressive/Passive/Defensive level of pet control. It's the name of the archetype, after all!

 

Eris is not pleased.

 

 

 

[Greycat]

Mm. Looks like one I was planning on answering but never did.

 

I kinda-sorta like most pets. (Mind you, I'm keeping the "Pet vs Minion" divide here - Minions or henchmen are the commandable MM ones, and have their own issues.) I'm not fond of the one in Symphonic. It's not visually distinct, has a weird effect and just has not clicked with either of my Symphonic control characters (one Controller, one Dom.)

I'm probably most annoyed by pets, in the form of Phantom Army, on Illusion. I don't try to build for all the recharge, but - at least controller-side - it always felt to me like you were forced to for Illusion because of PA. Not spectacular hard control - but whee, you got two invisibilities for whatever reason, and were leaning hard on PA. Which - unless I was making an emp in early days and was using the invis to keep a power pool free - was part of what made Illusion my least favourite control set. In short (and to the relevance,) pets should not force the rest of my build a certain way.

 

(As far as other pet changes that have been made... I *still* hate having my blaster's Voltaic Sentinel as a toggle. I hate it. I've tried to play it, but I just solidly *hate* it now. I *really* do.)

 

Lore pets - I don't care about numbers, I pick whatever seems best matching the character. If I can't find one, it's usually polar lights or robotic drones. I want more options, frankly - I have a character, for instance, that has ties to the Family. I'd love to have Family as a Lore option. Or Mastermind's Robotics minions as Lore pets. (Or, really, any of the MM minions as pets.)

 

And... that goes to masterminds. I get the level shift thing - and it works (kind of) up to 50, then gets broken because Incarnate shifts aren't "real" levels. That aside, the shifts (to me) hurt *worse* in the 18-25 levels, when you get your last tier 1 minion - so they're *all* down -2 - and you only have one T2 that might hit... and, when MMs were only redside, you'd hit a fair number of AOE-heavy enemies, or so it seemed (frigging Demolitionists) so the T1s were just getting slaughtered - and there wasn't a heck of a lot you could do to offset it with slotting. It really felt like you were getting punished for playing a MM, or playing redside. (MSRs can be a bit like this, too, though I often will just not summon my T1s.) I don't know if getting rid of the level shift would help - I think it'd be a bit *too* much, really - but it could use some help, or Incarnate-shift-awareness.

[gameboy1234]

On 12/14/2022 at 9:38 AM, Six-Six said:

1) the Force Field Generator pet from Traps. I wish it could be pass through like the MM pets are now. Sometimes I get trapped in a room because of it.

 

Same for my, whatsit, the Dark Umbra Beast from Dark Control, I think.  The thing has a collision box the size of all outdoors and is unfortunately in the way far too often.  I'd like to see either a much much smaller collision box on all of these pets, at least.  Or just allow everyone to walk through the pets without collision, like MM pets are right now.  The latter would be the best option imo, but there might be roleplay or graphical or technical issues that make smaller collision boxes a better idea.

 

(Aside: sometimes a collision system will use more than one collision hit box.  One larger box for "any possible collision" and then a tighter collision shape for a more detailed check if the larger box is found to be colliding.  It feels a bit like the Umbra Beast has the larger shape for its "detailed collision" box.  But that's a minor issue, the larger issue is that many pets still could use some sort of mechanism for players to push past it.)

 

Hmm, ok I'll add one more.  Sometimes pets get stuck.  Maybe add a /stuck_target command to allow us to target a pet and then run the "/stuck" command on it just like a player can run it for themselves.  Actually this would work well for stuck NPCs, if it's possible to add it for any NPC at all in the game, not just pets.

 

[Six-Six]

speaking of collision boxes, has anyone experienced gears (the little buggers spawned by the death of a Prince) pushing you or your pets out of Faraday Cage or similar rooted def/res bubble?