Controller/Dominator Pet QoL

[AgentForest]

Can we get more control of our non-Mastermind pets?

 

Before anyone gets upset with me, let me explain and elaborate.  I love Masterminds, and I don't want their niche being taken from them.  I don't want pet stances, go-to, or bonuses for being near you.

 

Controller pets essentially fight in Aggressive stance constantly.  Perfectly fine.  But if you have a tanky pet like Animate Earth, it's hard to get it to actually tank for you because it won't really engage until you put yourself close enough to be at risk.  So unless you have a fully decked out build with sets, good defenses/resistances, and some other tools to survive the initial alpha strike, your pet is rarely taking aggro until it's already too late.  And not every build should require you min-maxing to have stalker/scrapper defenses as a dedicated support class.

 

My proposed solution would be pretty simple.  Most MMOs with pet classes have at least something like this.  Just make it so the moment you activate an ability that's targeting an enemy, your pet engages.  To some extent they do this, but I feel like their move priority is a little off.  Animate Earth does a slow Hurl Boulder before running in, making you take the brunt of the opening attacks.  If those with melee attacks would prioritize those moves during the first few seconds of combat, they'd actually do their job better.

 

Though, the simplest solution might be to just make it so Controllers and Dominators get the "petcom_all attack" macro.  No stances, no complex commands.  Just the ability to send the pet before yourself.  This could even be baked into the first two moves of the set to accomplish my previous suggestion.  Use your single-target control move on something, and the pet is commanded to attack that target.

 

There are a handful of hyper-optimized builds that don't have issues with this, but I don't think every controller build should have to strive for that design requirement.

Edited February 9 by AgentForest
For clarity because of how the Internet is.

[Psyonico]

What if you're tabbing through targets trying to find a sapper/surgeon/whatever? The pet would attack the moment you started looking for something...

 

No thanks

[Doc_Scorpion]

For reference, my build isn't optimized for anything in particular and it's largely SO based.
 

3 hours ago, AgentForest said:

But if you have a tanky pet like Animate Earth, it's hard to get it to actually tank for you because it won't really engage until you put yourself close enough to be at risk.  So unless you have a fully decked out build with sets, good defenses/resistances, and some other tools to survive the initial alpha strike, your pet is rarely taking aggro until it's already too late.

Soloing my earth/rad, I almost never take the full alpha, and the vast majority of the time I do - it's because of a screwup on my part.  (Usually going in too fast and not paying attention to who is in range.)  I only take significant damage maybe once out of every ten to twenty encounters before Stoney pulls 'em off of me.

I do not agree with the proposition that a 'troller needs a specialized defensive build.

[AgentForest]

4 hours ago, Psyonico said:

What if you're tabbing through targets trying to find a sapper/surgeon/whatever? The pet would attack the moment you started looking for something...

 

No thanks

That's not what I proposed.  You misrepresented my post.

 

I said a tool to let you order a pet to attack if you wish.  Not that the pet just immediately targets anything you have selected.  It would be an active choice for the player.

[AgentForest]

1 hour ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

I do not agree with the proposition that a 'troller needs a specialized defensive build.

 

Almost every build guide promotes choosing sets to get your character, regardless of class, as close to at least the defense soft-cap as possible.

[Rudra]

19 minutes ago, AgentForest said:

That's not what I proposed.  You misrepresented my post.

 

I said a tool to let you order a pet to attack if you wish.  Not that the pet just immediately targets anything you have selected.  It would be an active choice for the player.

 

5 hours ago, AgentForest said:

Just make it so the moment you target an enemy with an ability, your pet engages. 

Then in 4th paragraph you change it to have a macro. Except you also change what you are saying when you get to the 4th paragraph.

 

5 hours ago, AgentForest said:

Though, the simplest solution might be to just make it so Controllers and Dominators get the "petcom_all attack" macro.  No stances, no complex commands.  Just the ability to send the pet before yourself. 

 

 

So no, @Psyonico did not misrepresent your post. (S)he responded to the 3rd paragraph where you said:

5 hours ago, AgentForest said:

Just make it so the moment you target an enemy with an ability, your pet engages.

 

And if all you have to do is target an enemy with an ability, just targeting mind you, that makes pet control a wonky approach where just searching for a higher priority target in a group will send your pet running off to kill it before you are ready. Or if you tab targets and the tab again jumps out of the group you are fighting to another group across the room and refuses to tab back, well now your pet is running off into a new fight leaving you screaming "Get back here, rocks for brains! Fight the guys in my face!".

 

Edited February 9 by Rudra
Edited to remove "me" from "makes me pet".

[AgentForest]

1 hour ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Soloing my earth/rad, I almost never take the full alpha, and the vast majority of the time I do - it's because of a screwup on my part.  (Usually going in too fast and not paying attention to who is in range.)  I only take significant damage maybe once out of every ten to twenty encounters before Stoney pulls 'em off of me.

 

I'm curious to know your method of engaging then.  How do you start a combat so that your pet gets the aggro?

 

I don't mind constructive criticism or advice on forum posts, but "maybe you just do it wrong" isn't really helping anyone.  I try my best to make my posts as friendly and respectful as possible, and was trying to open a discussion on something that to me seems a bit of a relic of an old game system that has had improvements since.

 

Before Masterminds were added, there weren't really the systems implemented for better control of your pets.  And as I said, I wouldn't want the Controller pets to have all the functionality of a Mastermind pet.  It's just that pretty much every MMO made since CoH launched has addressed this issue before, and later expansions gave us the tools to solve it in CoH.

[AgentForest]

5 hours ago, AgentForest said:

Just make it so the moment you target an enemy with an ability, your pet engages.

Target an enemy WITH AN ABILITY.  I then explain how it could be limited specifically to the first 2 powers that are single target as well.  At no point did I say that your pet should run off the moment someone is "selected." I said when an ability is used on them.

 

Rudra, I feel like you only exist to flame these forums.  You seem to follow people and take their comments out of context as a regular hobby.

Edited February 9 by AgentForest

[Rudra]

7 minutes ago, AgentForest said:

Target an enemy WITH AN ABILITY.  I then explain how it could be limited specifically to the first 2 powers that are single target as well.

 

Rudra, I feel like you only exist to flame these forums.  You seem to follow people and take their comments out of context as a regular hobby.

Here's the thing. I can target an enemy with an ability and not have that ability fire. I do it regularly. I hit an attack and if I have no targets already targeted, it targets one without triggering. So yes, I can target an enemy with an ability, and wind up with a result I don't want if the pet simply engages because I clicked an ability that targeted an enemy.

 

Edit: And to address your edit? No, you said targeted with an ability. You may have intended "when you attack a target with an ability" such as whenever you use an ability on the target, but that isn't what you said and I'm not a mind reader.

 

Edited February 9 by Rudra
Edited to correct "and" to "an".

[AgentForest]

2 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Here's the thing. I can target an enemy with an ability and not have that ability fire. I do it regularly. I hit an attack and if I have no targets already targeted, it targets one without triggering. So yes, I can target an enemy with an ability, and wind up with a result I don't want if the pet simply engages because I clicked an ability that targeted an enemy.

 

Which is why I started a thread for discussions of possible solutions, and didn't personally hack the game code to implement initial suggestions without any dialogue or testing.  The Sentinel used to have a similar mechanic to what I suggested, but they made it a separate power for reasons not unlike yours.

 

So perhaps the "petcom_attack all" macro is the best solution, since it avoids all of the issues people have with making it an aspect of your base powers themselves.

[Rudra]

4 minutes ago, AgentForest said:

 

Which is why I started a thread for discussions of possible solutions, and didn't personally hack the game code to implement initial suggestions without any dialogue or testing.  The Sentinel used to have a similar mechanic to what I suggested, but they made it a separate power for reasons not unlike yours.

 

So perhaps the "petcom_attack all" macro is the best solution, since it avoids all of the issues people have with making it an aspect of your base powers themselves.

I don't personally care if Controllers and Dominators are made able to use the petcom attack command. As long as Controller and Dominator pets are not made controllable like MM pets are. The ability to send their pets into combat before your character does anything and nothing else? Fine. In fact, for the few Dominators I have, that would be very helpful. (Edit: I'm pretty sure they can use the petcom dismiss command already, so as long as the attack command is the only petcom command also granted to them, I'm fine with it.)

Edited February 9 by Rudra

[kelika2]

why not make pets strongly want to attack the last thing you used a single target hold on

[Psi-bolt]

I would agree with giving Control pets a single button that makes them attack your target.  That wouldn't step on MM pets that much.

[Rudra]

8 minutes ago, kelika2 said:

why not make pets strongly want to attack the last thing you used a single target hold on

Because while I will use my ST holds on the biggest threat/priority, I can usually lock that target down pretty well and I prefer to have my pet(s) obliterating everything else so we can finally focus on the held target without getting myself killed.

[Doc_Scorpion]

1 hour ago, AgentForest said:

I'm curious to know your method of engaging then.  How do you start a combat so that your pet gets the aggro?

I kite them, slowly sliding in until Stoney aggros and initiates combat, then quickly backing off.  (Sometimes first firing a ST hold/immob, sometimes an AOE hold/immob.)   Do it right, and generally at worst I take the Alpha from a minion.  It's an art, not a science.

 

 

1 hour ago, AgentForest said:

 

Almost every build guide promotes choosing sets to get your character, regardless of class, as close to at least the defense soft-cap as possible.

True, because the meta on HC is "throw inf at the problem until it's not a problem any more".  (Usually a self inflicted problem because they insist on running headlong into things at +4/x8.)  The meta is very emphatically not the only way to do things.

[biostem]

3 hours ago, AgentForest said:

I'm curious to know your method of engaging then.

The simplest, IMHO, is to somehow conceal myself them walk the pet through the enemies, in order to get them to aggro it.

 

I wonder if they could add some sort of voluntary/optional mechanic, (or perhaps an IO), whereby a player can designate some other power to cause any pets they control to aggro on the target of said power...

[Uun]

Would need to be controlled in some way. Not all the control pets are as sturdy as Stoney. Pretty sure nobody wants their Imps, Gremlins or Fly Trap rushing in to take the alpha.

[Frozen Burn]

On all my controllers and doms... I don't need my pet to take the alpha - except Illusion because they have PA and that is designed for taking alphas.  All my others open with an AOE stun/hold/fear/KD/Confuse/etc to mitigate the alpha.  While I do strive for high defense, they mostly aren't soft-capped at all - generally, I don't need them to be except for the foes that are resistant to mezzes.  

 

Only thing I need my pet to do is provide damage.  And I do not need an "attack" command.  I understand the desire to control these uncontrollable pets so they attack a certain target and if you give it to me, I'm not gonna argue - but I don't need it.

 

However, I do not understand the reasoning for wanting a pet to take an alpha as any Controller and Dominator worth their salt can make an alpha strike and lock down the mob (or pull its focus with PA in the case of Illusion).  The times when a pet does make the alpha and it's a big mob, they usually die and then you have to stop attacking to recast.  

 

My Earth/Nature Controller, I play like a tank.  With Stalagmites (AOE Stun), Earthquake (AOE KD), and Volcanic Gases (AOE Hold), I can engage 3 groups if needed and take them out of the fight.  Plus, I have Entangling Aura (another AOE hold) that I can use to stack or engage a 4th group, if the crap has really hit the fan, which sometimes it does.  (Salt Crystals (AOE Sleep) is another good one that Earth has, but I didn't take it as Entangling Aura would interfere.)  

 

Fire Control can open with Flashfire (AOE Stun), Cinders (AOE Hold), Bonfire with a KB>KD proc (AOE KD) and can make alphas.

 

....I was going to list more, but I do not need to - every control primary has abilities for making the alpha and mitigating in-coming damage.  Some better than others, admittedly, but all can.

 

If you really need a pet to take the alpha - just quietly/stealthily move to the other side of the group and let it follow you into them.  

 

[Rimerat]

I would settle for the ability to refer to specific pets by powername or petname via /petcom. Right now if you're playing an Illusion controller and you want to release your Phantom Army but not your Phantasm or vice versa, you're out of luck. You can only /release_pets which kills off your Phanstam, Phantom army, and Spectral Terror.

 

It would be cool to be able to give your pets more specific commands, though, I guess - but that's kind of MM's special mechanic, isn't it?

[Uun]

44 minutes ago, Wiseguy said:

Right now if you're playing an Illusion controller and you want to release your Phantom Army but not your Phantasm or vice versa, you're out of luck. You can only /release_pets which kills off your Phanstam, Phantom army, and Spectral Terror.

Not ideal, but if you've got the pet window open, you can right click on the pet name and select release.

[Rimerat]

Yes but that involves clicking and I'd rather just be able to bind a button.

[AgentForest]

On 2/9/2024 at 4:12 PM, kelika2 said:

why not make pets strongly want to attack the last thing you used a single target hold on

That is essentially what one of my suggestions was, but people atttacked that idea already because they didn't want to accidentally send their pet off because they happened to be slamming their face on the keyboard or something at the time.  I Had considered linking the petcom_attack macro directly to the T1 and T2 powers of the sets, the single-target holds and immobilizes.  But just giving Controllers/Dominators access to that specific pet command macro might just be the easier solution, since a player can always keybind their hold and that macro to the same button anyway if they want to.  My Thug/Sonic MM has petcom_attack all linked to the same button as Sonic Siphon since both help me focus down targets and area typically used on the same target anyway.

[AgentForest]

On 2/10/2024 at 11:14 AM, Wiseguy said:

I would settle for the ability to refer to specific pets by powername or petname via /petcom. Right now if you're playing an Illusion controller and you want to release your Phantom Army but not your Phantasm or vice versa, you're out of luck. You can only /release_pets which kills off your Phanstam, Phantom army, and Spectral Terror.

 

It would be cool to be able to give your pets more specific commands, though, I guess - but that's kind of MM's special mechanic, isn't it?

I think the main advantage of MMs is that they get stances and more complex commands like "Defensive Stance" to absorb a portion of the damage you take and attacking anyone who targets you with abilities, They also get more complex commands like "GoTo".  I don't necessarily want Controllers getting all of these things just the option to tell your pet to engage a target before you go in.  It's a basic feature of pretty much any MMO Class that has pets even pets that function like those of Controllers/Dominators, like essentially always being in "Follow Aggressive" mode.  It's mainly a relic of older engine capabilities that other pets didn't get any QoL updates when Masterminds launched.

[AgentForest]

On 2/10/2024 at 10:46 AM, Frozen Burn said:

On all my controllers and doms... I don't need my pet to take the alpha - except Illusion because they have PA and that is designed for taking alphas.  All my others open with an AOE stun/hold/fear/KD/Confuse/etc to mitigate the alpha.  While I do strive for high defense, they mostly aren't soft-capped at all - generally, I don't need them to be except for the foes that are resistant to mezzes.  

 

Only thing I need my pet to do is provide damage.  And I do not need an "attack" command.  I understand the desire to control these uncontrollable pets so they attack a certain target and if you give it to me, I'm not gonna argue - but I don't need it.

 

However, I do not understand the reasoning for wanting a pet to take an alpha as any Controller and Dominator worth their salt can make an alpha strike and lock down the mob (or pull its focus with PA in the case of Illusion).  The times when a pet does make the alpha and it's a big mob, they usually die and then you have to stop attacking to recast.  

 

My Earth/Nature Controller, I play like a tank.  With Stalagmites (AOE Stun), Earthquake (AOE KD), and Volcanic Gases (AOE Hold), I can engage 3 groups if needed and take them out of the fight.  Plus, I have Entangling Aura (another AOE hold) that I can use to stack or engage a 4th group, if the crap has really hit the fan, which sometimes it does.  (Salt Crystals (AOE Sleep) is another good one that Earth has, but I didn't take it as Entangling Aura would interfere.)  

 

Fire Control can open with Flashfire (AOE Stun), Cinders (AOE Hold), Bonfire with a KB>KD proc (AOE KD) and can make alphas.

 

....I was going to list more, but I do not need to - every control primary has abilities for making the alpha and mitigating in-coming damage.  Some better than others, admittedly, but all can.

 

If you really need a pet to take the alpha - just quietly/stealthily move to the other side of the group and let it follow you into them.  

 

Are you fighting -1 no boss encounters, because most bosses resist the AoE mez moves so you'll usually only stop basic minions and some lieutenants, which is only a portion of the alpha strike.  And it still means you going in first to eat their first wave of attacks because your pet won't.  By that logic you should go in before the tanker and eat the first wave of attacks because you're stunning or holding so many that it won't matter.  I'd like to be able to send my pet in then cast Earthquake and Stalagmites to protect HIM. from the alpha.

[AgentForest]

On 2/10/2024 at 8:20 AM, Uun said:

Would need to be controlled in some way. Not all the control pets are as sturdy as Stoney. Pretty sure nobody wants their Imps, Gremlins or Fly Trap rushing in to take the alpha.

A controller's main job is cc to try to mitigate the alpha, but currently you still are the one absorbing that aggro especially when soloing, in which case you DO want your pets being the first ones targeted.  I want my cc moves protecting my pet from the initial wave of attacks rather than myself.  Even if I have Imps or a Fly Trap, better them than me, and I'll still be dropping Vines or Flash Fire to weaken the first wave of attacks.