Please make MM upgrade powers passive

[srmalloy]

8 hours ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

The official overview of the Mastermind as quoted on the HC Wiki's Mastermind page disagrees with you.   (The team support slot redside is taken up by Corruptors.)

And while it has not worked out that way in practice, according to the devs the original design of City of Villains had Masterminds being the closest analogous AT to the heroside Tanker. I think, though, that with the shift toward increasing difficulty in play, with more groups going for +4 and then multistar difficulty, that the structure of the Mastermind archetype has fallen behind, but as @GM_GooglyMoogly says, balancing the AT is a complicated process.

 

One thing that might be looked at is making the pet upgrades PBAoE toggles, with a minimal or zero base End cost, that automatically apply the upgrade to pets at some End cost per pet receiving the upgrade. It's not an 'automatic' effect, but it would work in a similar way.

[tidge]

I wouldn't advocate for the toggle idea... primarily because toggles for powers which affect others generally have some radius. This feels like the sort of thing that would open a lot of rabbit holes and require lots of work/testing. It may not be best-practice, but I do often position my henchmen outside of the IO Aura pieces areas of effect and Supremacy range. It would stink if I sent a henchmen to go draw an alpha strike and it lost survivability from its first upgrade.

[kwsapphire]

11 hours ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

The official overview of the Mastermind as quoted on the HC Wiki's Mastermind page disagrees with you.   (The team support slot redside is taken up by Corruptors.)

 

 

No, the red side support slot is Masterminds (and Soldiers). Corruptor are considered DPS as far as role diversification is concerned. That's according to the devs. I call corruptor "support," but the HC devs clearly disagree. 

 

Despite that MM powers all cost more endurance and are less effective than other ATs with the same power sets. 

 

Edited Thursday at 04:18 PM by kwsapphire
added image

[kwsapphire]

Accidental double post

Edited Thursday at 03:41 PM by kwsapphire

[Col. Kernel]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

I wouldn't advocate for the toggle idea... primarily because toggles for powers which affect others generally have some radius. This feels like the sort of thing that would open a lot of rabbit holes and require lots of work/testing. It may not be best-practice, but I do often position my henchmen outside of the IO Aura pieces areas of effect and Supremacy range. It would stink if I sent a henchmen to go draw an alpha strike and it lost survivability from its first upgrade.

I think what @srmalloy was saying is that if the henchman is in range of the toggle that End would get spent to apply the upgrade to the henchman.  The henchman now has the upgrade even if they leave the toggle radius.

[kwsapphire]

Just now, Col. Kernel said:

I think what @srmalloy was saying is that if the henchman is in range of the toggle that End would get spent to apply the upgrade to the henchman.  The henchman now has the upgrade even if they leave the toggle radius.

 

I don't even know if that's possible to implement... but if that's how they did it, I'd hope for zero-end toggles. MMs already have enough endurance issues. 😉

[srmalloy]

On 3/20/2025 at 8:50 AM, Col. Kernel said:

I think what @srmalloy was saying is that if the henchman is in range of the toggle that End would get spent to apply the upgrade to the henchman.  The henchman now has the upgrade even if they leave the toggle radius.

 

Yes. The upgrade would be a one-and-done effect, yes, so that the upgrade toggle essentially sits there idle until one of your pets without the toggle appears in or enters the toggle area, at which time the upgrade is applied as if the MM had used the current version of the upgrade power.

 

[tidge]

2 hours ago, srmalloy said:

 

Yes. The upgrade would be a one-and-done effect, yes, so that the upgrade toggle essentially sits there idle until one of your pets without the toggle appears in or enters the toggle area, at which time the upgrade is applied as if the MM had used the current version of the upgrade power.

 

 

To my point: if the henchmen is positioned outside of the toggle radius, it would lose the benefit. There are no infinite-duration clicky powers nor are there infinite range aura powers.

[srmalloy]

2 hours ago, tidge said:

There are no infinite-duration clicky powers nor are there infinite range aura powers.

"Infinite-duration clicky powers" -- so the current Mastermind pet upgrades wear off? They're click powers, and their effects are permanent. A couple of years ago, you could make an equally absolute statement that there are no archetypes with a ranged primary and armor secondary; now we have Sentinels. It's a good thing that the lack of existence of something now doesn't preclude it from existing in the future, no matter how many straw men you set up to argue against.

 

You could create a power that is a toggle that has the effect of spawning some sort of invisible and invulnerable pseudo-pet that periodically pulses a PBAoE version of the current pet upgrade power; aside from being PBAoE rather than targeted AoE, the upgrade effect would remain identical to the current one.

[tidge]

2 hours ago, srmalloy said:

"Infinite-duration clicky powers" -- so the current Mastermind pet upgrades wear off? They're click powers, and their effects are permanent.

 

And you are asking that they turn into auras. This isn't a "straw man" argument by me against the idea. A straw man argmuent is bringing up Sentinels... because the game did have characters with ranged attacks and armors.

 

You are literally asking for a power that I don't think exists in the game.

 

EDIT: The only power I can think of that comes close to what is being described is... wait for it... Group Fly.

 

2 hours ago, srmalloy said:

You could create a power that is a toggle that has the effect of spawning some sort of invisible and invulnerable pseudo-pet that periodically pulses a PBAoE version of the current pet upgrade power; aside from being PBAoE rather than targeted AoE, the upgrade effect would remain identical to the current one.

 

And as soon as the henchmen were out of range of this new "pseudopet", they'd lose their upgrades, which would stink. Also... have you seen how closely pseudopets stick to Masterminds?

Edited Saturday at 09:30 PM by tidge

[golstat2003]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

 

And you are asking that they turn into auras. This isn't a "straw man" argument by me against the idea. A straw man argmuent is bringing up Sentinels... because the game did have characters with ranged attacks and armors.

 

You are literally asking for a power that I don't think exists in the game.

 

EDIT: The only power I can think of that comes close to what is being described is... wait for it... Group Fly.

 

 

And as soon as the henchmen were out of range of this new "pseudopet", they'd lose their upgrades, which would stink. Also... have you seen how closely pseudopets stick to Masterminds?

Hmm the last few points back and forth seem like this would be difficult to implement. I would argue that if they ever do develop such a power for MMs (I’m neither for or against) I would like the option to STILL have the ability to directly upgrade my pets. I would be highly annoyed if that was fully taken out of my control.

 

Regardless the people the OP would have to convince are the devs, who have said they expect MMs to behave and work as an AT in a certain way.

[Wavicle]

MMs are not just generally underpowered. Only in Incarnate and Hard Mode content. In the rest of the game they are plenty powerful. That's why it's not such an easy fix.

[srmalloy]

6 hours ago, tidge said:

And as soon as the henchmen were out of range of this new "pseudopet", they'd lose their upgrades, which would stink. Also... have you seen how closely pseudopets stick to Masterminds?

John Heywood, Dialog of Proverbs, 1546. "Who is so deafe, or so blynde, as is hee, That wilfully will nother hear nor see?"

 

Once more, and maaaaaybeeee this time you won't misread it. The pseudopet casts an ability that is IDENTICAL to the current upgrade power, except that it is PBAoE, rather than targeted AoE. It applies the empowerment to any of your pets in the AoE in EXACTLY the same way that they would receive the empowerment from the version of the power as it exists now. The buff does not expire, nor is constrained to function only within the AoE, any more than the existing MM empowerment buffs turn off if the pet moves further away than the range of the current empowerment ability. But, as I expect, you will recoil in mock amazement, and spuriously claim in self-justification that I previously misrepresented what the proposed ability did, instead of your having read your own preconceptions into what I said, then attacked that.

[Jacke]

Hmmm.  I'm not one way or another.  I can see the point of both the current Henchman-target AoE buff and an auto/passive MM-based PBAoE.

 

But can the auto/passive work?

 

Let's look at two current example MM Henchmen buffs, from Thugs.

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=mastermind_summon.thugs.equip_thugs&at=mastermind

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=mastermind_summon.thugs.upgrade_equipment&at=mastermind

 

Each is a whole bunch of 'Apply "Grant Power" (all affected targets)' effects that cover all the added or replaced Powers on all Henchmen.

 

Does applying it more than once break things?  No.  Probably because the code that does the 'Apply "Grant Power" (all affected targets)' doesn't break the Pet if it was already done.

 

Could an auto/passive Power do the same to the Henchmen.  Yes.  But how often would it check and would it soak up too many clock cycles?  Welp, the current click Powers seem to take less time than their animation.  And there are already a bunch of checks for effects, whether they expire or do something.  And they seem to run well enough.

 

So it could be made to work as a auto/passive MM-based PBAoE.  But should the change be done?

 

It's a fundamental change to how MM's currently work.  Yes it is a QoL improvement, enough to make things better.  There doesn't appear to be any reason to not have the Henchmen upgraded.

 

So it comes down to:

• How hard it would be to implement, do so thoroughly, and be tested to be sure it's working right.
• Does it deserve to take up dev and tester time to do this.  As opposed to other projects pending.

Only the devs can answer them.  It seems to be a good idea.  Especially as Henchmen need a lot of replacing.  But I don't know enough of the fiddly bits underneath to be sure.

 

 

[tidge]

9 hours ago, srmalloy said:

John Heywood, Dialog of Proverbs, 1546. "Who is so deafe, or so blynde, as is hee, That wilfully will nother hear nor see?"

 

Once more, and maaaaaybeeee this time you won't misread it. The pseudopet casts an ability that is IDENTICAL to the current upgrade power, except that it is PBAoE, rather than targeted AoE. It applies the empowerment to any of your pets in the AoE in EXACTLY the same way that they would receive the empowerment from the version of the power as it exists now. The buff does not expire, nor is constrained to function only within the AoE, any more than the existing MM empowerment buffs turn off if the pet moves further away than the range of the current empowerment ability. But, as I expect, you will recoil in mock amazement, and spuriously claim in self-justification that I previously misrepresented what the proposed ability did, instead of your having read your own preconceptions into what I said, then attacked that.

 

Again: There is no power that I am aware of that works this way in the game. I can't think of any MM that actually wants a new (endurance consuming toggle). Just ask for the henchmen to have all their upgrades upon summoning, as that is a more honest ask and stop trying to invent potential mechanics (which don't exist in game) to satisfy that request without asking for it.

 

A couple things that it isn't clear are understood here...

 

The one "aura power" that affects everyone is Group Fly. We already have plenty of evidence that this sort of aura power doesn't discriminate what it works on. It is pretty easy for me to imagine that some rando MM walking by with this nu-Upgrade power is going to end up upgrading more that just her henchmen.

 

The Henchmen upgrades are already subtle and prone to "issues". In my own experience, having the upgrade(s) available as "cast" powers is the mechanism by which I can overcome subtleties like:

• Occasionally, henchmen don't get the upgrade (or "lose" part of an upgrade). This is weird, but I've seen examples where one T1 robot lost the "Super Leap" ability when zoning.
• When zoning between maps, generally as long as one henchmen has the upgrades applied... all the henchmen get the upgrades upon entering the new map. I mention this because this is an implementation that may defy logic, but it offers clues as to how this aspect of henchmen works.
• Henchmen don't get the effects of auras "instantly", either when summoned or when moving close back to the MM. I mention this because often the request to "have MM upgrades be free-ish" is predicated on an argument like "My MM is in the heat of battle and the henchmen die before I can upgrade them"... but if a MM player has played enough different content with different strategies they will come to understand this and how to mitigate it.

This "magic aura" as is a request to mess with a pretty well-understood set of game and play mechanics that we've been using on Homecoming for 6 years.... and mess with it by adding under-the-hood systems that the players will have no reason to believe would actually work.

 

This proposed solution is convoluted, and the problem it addresses is a trivial one based on some mental model of being annoyed at having to cast an upgrade. The devs already revisited MM primaries and this was explicitly NOT something that was going away. I'm trying to offer explanations as to why it would probably be a bad idea, even if the devs were inclined to make this change.

[kwsapphire]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

 

The one "aura power" that affects everyone is Group Fly. We already have plenty of evidence that this sort of aura power doesn't discriminate what it works on. It is pretty easy for me to imagine that some rando MM walking by with this nu-Upgrade power is going to end up upgrading more that just her henchmen.

 

 

Minor correction - Group Fly only affects people on your team. It doesn't even affect other teams on your league. So if the upgrade aura were implemented using a similar technique, at the very least, random new MMs just walking by wouldn't have their pets upgraded by someone else's aura.

 

That said, an upgrade aura does seem an overly complicated solution, and I definitely don't need another constant drain in my endurance. 

[Rudra]

4 hours ago, Jacke said:

So it comes down to:

• How hard it would be to implement, do so thoroughly, and be tested to be sure it's working right.
• Does it deserve to take up dev and tester time to do this.  As opposed to other projects pending.

No, that isn't what it comes down to. Yes, those are questions that need to be answered for the suggestion, but they aren't the only ones. It also comes down to how does it change how the AT interacts with the game.

[Rudra]

3 hours ago, tidge said:

Occasionally, henchmen don't get the upgrade (or "lose" part of an upgrade). This is weird, but I've seen examples where one T1 robot lost the "Super Leap" ability when zoning.

Or sometimes the ability just disappears while running through a mission map. Early part of warehouse, the henchmen jump up to where I go just fine even if it is a rafter. Later, they can't jump to the rafters any more and the icon for their leaping is gone.

 

4 hours ago, tidge said:

When zoning between maps, generally as long as one henchmen has the upgrades applied... all the henchmen get the upgrades upon entering the new map. I mention this because this is an implementation that may defy logic, but it offers clues as to how this aspect of henchmen works.

This is an artifact from before the game was updated to track our lost health through doors. Once upon a time, "door heals" was a thing. When you transitioned between maps, the game spawned your character fresh, which meant full health even if you are borderline dead. That got patched away. Pets still go through the same thing. So you can 'door heal' pets. What that also means is that if any of your henchmen have whatever flags for their upgrades, then any henchman that was missing them gains them as part of being freshly spawned with the other henchmen on the new map.

4 hours ago, tidge said:

Henchmen don't get the effects of auras "instantly", either when summoned or when moving close back to the MM. I mention this because often the request to "have MM upgrades be free-ish" is predicated on an argument like "My MM is in the heat of battle and the henchmen die before I can upgrade them"... but if a MM player has played enough different content with different strategies they will come to understand this and how to mitigate it.

For clarification to others, watch your pets and your Leadership icons or secondary power set aura icons when running around. You will see the pets run up to you and stop. And it will still take a few more seconds for the pets to gain the aura icons (and so the aura benefits) after reaching you. (It's why I watch my pet's status bars rather than watch for their arrival. It's when they get the support icons that I know they are ready to fight.)

[srmalloy]

7 hours ago, tidge said:

Again: There is no power that I am aware of that works this way in the game.

And, by the obdurate and unbreakable standard, if it doesn't exist, it can never exist. We can, therefore, close the entire Suggestions subforum, because it's filled with ideas for things that don't exist in the game, which you appear to believe makes them impossible to ever implement.

 

Quote

Just ask for the henchmen to have all their upgrades upon summoning, as that is a more honest ask

 

And as @PeregrineFalcon stated back on the first page of this thread, the HC staff have already said that they're not going to do this.

 

Quote

It is pretty easy for me to imagine that some rando MM walking by with this nu-Upgrade power is going to end up upgrading more that just her henchmen.

Just like some rando MM can walk by and cast their empowerment abilities on other MMs' henchmen to upgrade them? The fact that the target_custom_next (and related) slash commands have the "mypet" and "notmypet" filters shows that the game has internal tags to distinguish between your pets and other characters' pets, and your continued inability to recognize my repeated use of the phrase "your pets" shows that you continue your straw man arguments.

 

 

[tidge]

43 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

And as @PeregrineFalcon stated back on the first page of this thread, the HC staff have already said that they're not going to do this.

 

So why make a suggestion that *is* pretty much the thing the devs aren't going to do? ...and... Why make it such a complicated suggestion? It isn't as if the suggestion is going to "trick" the devs into revamping the entire AT by having to rework game mechanics under-the-hood and visible to players (who would have to respec).

 

As I posted in my first reply in this thread... I don't think it makes any sense (especially in terms of "game balance") that the first upgrade isn't baked in to all the tiers. I've come to accept that the (current) devs feel that their is some deep, underlying reason to have each MM take a level 6 power to unlock certain potential in a level 12 and level 22 power(*1).... so whatever mechanism anyone can imagine about how that potential could be unlocked without taking or casting that level 6 power isn't going to happen.

 

I legit don't know why the HC devs stuck to this philosophy! I suspect part of it is because they simply don't know what else to put as a T4 MM primary power that would be "as balanced" (across primaries) as the current "first upgrade". There really isn't a strong argument (any more) for wanting to not cast that upgrade on one tier of henchmen. I'm not advocating that they reverse course or pick a different path, since we got a wider choice in how to slot those T4 powers and the one-cast-to-buff-them-all approach is perfectly workable.

 

EDIT: (*1) I always felt that on Live, with CoV launch, the rationale for the first upgrade was meant to implement a "scale up" of powers for T1 henchmen that doesn't really exist for HEATs Nova and Dwarf Forms... and that the T2 and T3 just sort of seen as "bigger" versions of the T1, so they got the exact same treatment. What I mean is that after a certain level, the Nova form really drops off in utility... so the first and second upgrades for MM henchmen exist to make the henchmen scale up to typical at-level threats. My personal beef is that the first MM power-up comes so early in the game content that it might as well be "baked in" to each tier, especially now that there is no debt below level 10. There is practically very little content that will be experienced by a MM with only a single T1 henchmen that hasn't been upgraded, except by player choice.

Edited Sunday at 10:27 PM by tidge

[battlewraith]

2 hours ago, tidge said:

So why make a suggestion that *is* pretty much the thing the devs aren't going to do?

 

Because people change their minds about things? Or maybe they'll find some other solution to address the issue?

Why spend so much time arguing with people if you're convinced that it's never going to happen anyway?

[tidge]

9 hours ago, battlewraith said:

Why spend so much time arguing with people if you're convinced that it's never going to happen anyway?

 

I'm not trying to argue with people, I am arguing against the proposal. I find the proposal "I want henches without having to upgrade them" to be something of a rookie-level request that doesn't consider a lot of other things that are happening under-the-hood about how MMs work, nor does it consider certain elements of how the game balances content for ATs.

 

As a player that has taken MMs through a very wide variety of content and difficulty levels... a "no-effort henchmen upgrade" would make an AT that is already pretty easy to play even easier. I don't think this is necessary, because on HC MMs already have it pretty good! Off the top of my head:

• Resummon timeouts are faster than ever, with no map-changing issues (except at the 1% level I noted above).
• One-cast-to-buff-them-all.
• Lower levels at which the T3 hench is available.
• Easy access to all enhancements and sets.
• New slotting choices for Primary powers.
• New secondaries.

IMO, MMs are probably the AT with the least need for radical changes to mechanics. I'd put Kheldians at the top of that list, and they would almost certainly require under-the-hood game changes to 'adjust' their performance across all content.

 

For real creativity in suggestions, I'd like to read about ideas for new epic powersets for MMs; just my opinion but I think the choices we have for MMs are fine, but a little stagnant.

 

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

Mentioning anything that may or may not be in closed beta is not allowed.

 

Quoting a post that has been hidden will also get the responding post hidden.

[gameboy1234]

5 hours ago, tidge said:

I'm not trying to argue with people, I am arguing against the proposal. I find the proposal "I want henches without having to upgrade them" to be something of a rookie-level request that doesn't consider a lot of other things that are happening under-the-hood about how MMs work, nor does it consider certain elements of how the game balances content for ATs.

 

I'm still sticking with this: "the current implementation just makes the upgrades into busy work without any interesting or fun game play value."

 

There's no real argument against making the upgrades passive powers, other than developer time (which I can totally see).  A passive isn't that much different than a what we have now, just two less buttons to mash.  I'd love for some functionality to replace it, but I don't see what that would be atm.

 

5 hours ago, tidge said:

I don't think this is necessary, because on HC MMs already have it pretty good!

 

Once you get to fast moving or tricky incarnate content, MMs can fall apart pretty quickly.  Pet pathing is awful, your "powers" can get stuck behind random objects, and they can inadvertently aggro things or mess up the mission by using the wrong power.  Frankly a lot of times I just don't summon the pets, and I'll roll with my secondary.  In some content they're fine, I'll smash through an ITF with my bots just fine.  But other content is really designed around a single player, not a single player towing a bunch of pets.

 

5 hours ago, tidge said:

For real creativity in suggestions, I'd like to read about ideas for new epic powersets for MMs; just my opinion but I think the choices we have for MMs are fine, but a little stagnant.

 

I'd like some way to lock my pets in a phalanx behind me so they just automatically travel wherever I go, but that probably wouldn't actually cut it for most people, so I'm still at a loss for what would actually help with higher level content.

 

[Hedgefund]

I like this idea.  The concept that is, not getting into the implementation.  

 

I like it enough that I'll sign your petition but I'm not going to lead the charge.  If I were HC CTO I have some other things MMs need significantly more.  I shan't dereail the thread with those details.  I wish you luck OP.  The idea that having automatic upgrades would lessen my urgency to keep pets alive is *blinking white guy" meme worthy.