Controller pets controls not for me

[Spectre7878]

Ok. I may be the only one that does not like this. I wish there was an opt out option for this. If I wanted to control pets I play a mastermind. Which I don’t play because I don’t like it. I have enough to do during battle rather than telling my pets to attack and stay etc etc. I played my illusion dark controller who use to be fun but now I have to micro manage my phantasm. Worse yet when I spawn him he automatically goes to follow me/passive. I don’t want to be clicking pet window to make him passive and or aggressive. Please give players options to have pets do what they use to do. 😢

[...]

You can just make a macro to set him to follow/aggressive.

 

But yes, it is an extra step that didn't exist before. 

[Psyonico]

I'm going to throw together a suggestion post in regards to this concern.

[Epistasis]

I agree totally.  I chose Gravity (ever since live) not only because it's cool to hoist things and choke the life out of them, but because I wanted the Singularity to function as a 'fire and forget' defensive measure of last resort - I have zero interest in controlling it (I have a Thugs/Kinetics mastermind for that!).  I'd like to see some of the primaries reverted, or at least the option for it.

 

Sincerely,

Epistasis

Torchbearer/Everlasting

[Maelwys]

/bind KEY "petcom_all aggressive follow"

Summon Pet.
Press KEY.
Done.

No clicking of pet trays or any other horribly difficult UI interactions required.

And if you are the sort of person that doesn't need the kids to set up your streaming box (that's the modern equivalent of "program your VCR", right?) you could even append the petcom command onto the end of the same button you press to summon the controller pet in the first place.

[Heatstroke]

While the new controls can be somewhat annoying at first if you are not used to them, what I did is what I learned to do was summon the pet and then drop and drag the different Icons into a power tray. This allows me to use the button to easily change behavior. One of the most useful is the " Goto " command. I can use that command to make the pet(s) engage first,  drawing inital aggro and then follow up with holds. debuffs or attacks. Very very useful. Especially for pets like Singularity which has a habit sometimes of staying slightly out of range. 

[Riverdusk]

Need to change their stance out of defensive every time you zone as well.  Not saying it is that hard, but it isn't just at summons.

 

Personally I'd still be for controller pets defaulting to "follow aggressive" if being able to set our own default isn't doable.  It is the closest to what they were before.   Defensive is not a great stance as it leads to wonky behavior.   On a controller even more than a MM.  A controller often quickly ends up....controlling....the enemy so they end up not attacking.  Which leads to the pet to stop attacking.  There is no 'bodyguard' benefit to having them in that stance like a MM has either.

 

Aggressive or passive is really all I need for a controller pet the vast majority of the time.   It isn't a big deal, but it defaulting to the least useful stance all the time is still an annoyance.

Edited Wednesday at 03:23 AM by Riverdusk

[Zombra]

On 7/21/2025 at 7:20 AM, Maelwys said:

/bind KEY "petcom_all aggressive follow"

 

I like /bind w +forward$$petcom_all aggressive

Don't even need to worry about the thing changing attitude between zones which seems to happen sometimes.  Any time you move, your pet becomes aggressive again 🙂

 

[Six-Six]

My feeble brain can't micromanage pets either. I just place a button to attack my target on the tray, then a few keybinds to goto, stay while on defensive stance, and follow while passive (heel). so during a tangle, the button click acts like a regular attack.

I personally like being able to exert a bit of control over pet(s) as opposed to dom and arachnos VEAT epic pets that just do what they want and end up dead or getting me in trouble.

[tjknight]

I double checked this for myself, because it seemed odd to me. All my pets on various controllers are in default Defensive - Follow mode not Defensive - Passive. I haven’t even used the controls on the pets at all. I wonder what's going on?

[Zombra]

9 hours ago, tjknight said:

I double checked this for myself, because it seemed odd to me. All my pets on various controllers are in default Defensive - Follow mode not Defensive - Passive. I haven’t even used the controls on the pets at all. I wonder what's going on?

 

It's no secret.  This was changed recently as part of the Issue 28, Page 2 update.  Search for the string "trollers in" to jump to the relevant patch note.

 

So now Controller pets behave just like Mastermind pets, defaulting to Defensive/Follow instead of the usual Aggressive behavior we've been used to for so long.  (They were never 'Passive'.)

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 03:30 PM by Zombra

[Riverdusk]

10 hours ago, tjknight said:

I double checked this for myself, because it seemed odd to me. All my pets on various controllers are in default Defensive - Follow mode not Defensive - Passive. I haven’t even used the controls on the pets at all. I wonder what's going on?

 

You can't have a pet in both defensive and passive.

 

There are three main modes - Aggressive, Defensive, Passive. 

 

Aggressive = attack anything nearby.  Defensive = attack if you or the pet is attacked recently, Passive= never attack. 

 

Then there are movement modes you can add- Attack (current target), Goto, Follow, Stay.  Those tell it how to move/target.  The default is currently defensive follow and it resets to that every time you zone.   

 

Problem with defensive is there is a time limit so if an enemy attacks you or your pet, you mez it, then your pet will only attack it for a set amount of time.  If it doesn't kill it in that time your pet will stop attacking as it hasn't been attacked in a while by that enemy.   Then you end up with your pet and the partially damaged enemy just sitting there staring at each other.   I've actually had that issue even from just slowing an enemy enough, not even full on mezzing it, but a mez will often do it for sure.

Edited Wednesday at 04:33 PM by Riverdusk

[tjknight]

4 hours ago, Riverdusk said:

 

You can't have a pet in both defensive and passive.

 

There are three main modes - Aggressive, Defensive, Passive. 

 

Aggressive = attack anything nearby.  Defensive = attack if you or the pet is attacked recently, Passive= never attack. 

 

Then there are movement modes you can add- Attack (current target), Goto, Follow, Stay.  Those tell it how to move/target.  The default is currently defensive follow and it resets to that every time you zone.   

 

Problem with defensive is there is a time limit so if an enemy attacks you or your pet, you mez it, then your pet will only attack it for a set amount of time.  If it doesn't kill it in that time your pet will stop attacking as it hasn't been attacked in a while by that enemy.   Then you end up with your pet and the partially damaged enemy just sitting there staring at each other.   I've actually had that issue even from just slowing an enemy enough, not even full on mezzing it, but a mez will often do it for sure.

Ooops I mistyped. But regardless thanks for the help  but I have 10 Masterminds, & 7 controllers and have been playing this game since live. So I know how all that works. I'm mor curious about what bug the OP is running into that's defaulting their pets to passive/follow. 

Edited Wednesday at 08:41 PM by tjknight

[Zombra]

7 minutes ago, tjknight said:

I'm mor curious about what bug the OP is running into that's defaulting their pets to passive/follow. 

 

Probably they're simply mistaken in thinking they're set to Passive.  Pets now default to Defensive instead of the Aggressive the OP is used to.

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 08:47 PM by Zombra

[Si1verg1ass]

Add my name to the list of people that dislike this change.  Set the default pet response to what we are used to, please.  That shouldn't be hard, and should have been the default to minimize the impact for those that don't want or care about the extra controls.

 

Currently, I hardly want to log in my controllers because they don't play the way I'm used to after all these years.  I do not play MM's BECAUSE of the micro-management aspect.  Not something I enjoy doing, other do... good for them.  Now my favorite AT (153 controllers) no longer feels like what I want to play. This is a poor change from mine (and apparently others) viewpoint and poorly implemented if it forces people to change how they play their characters. 

 

So, I'm entreating you to change the default behavior back to what it was for 21 years, what we were used to.  It won't impact those that wanted the extra controls, as they will still be able to execute the control commands for their pets.  And it will let those of us that enjoyed what we had to go back to enjoying our characters without having to remember extra steps after all this time. 

 

Thank you.

[JediDave]

9 hours ago, Si1verg1ass said:

Add my name to the list of people that dislike this change.  Set the default pet response to what we are used to, please.  That shouldn't be hard, and should have been the default to minimize the impact for those that don't want or care about the extra controls.

 

Currently, I hardly want to log in my controllers because they don't play the way I'm used to after all these years.  I do not play MM's BECAUSE of the micro-management aspect.  Not something I enjoy doing, other do... good for them.  Now my favorite AT (153 controllers) no longer feels like what I want to play. This is a poor change from mine (and apparently others) viewpoint and poorly implemented if it forces people to change how they play their characters. 

 

So, I'm entreating you to change the default behavior back to what it was for 21 years, what we were used to.  It won't impact those that wanted the extra controls, as they will still be able to execute the control commands for their pets.  And it will let those of us that enjoyed what we had to go back to enjoying our characters without having to remember extra steps after all this time. 

 

Thank you.

I genuinely don't get this mindset. As pointed out here, there's multiple easy fixes for it, all of which take less than a minute of your time. I personally think the bind to your forward key (w by default) is the one most people will find to be simplest. And on top of it then being identical to previous versions, you still have the new option of stop them from running off into another group chasing a runner. 

[Riverdusk]

7 hours ago, JediDave said:

I genuinely don't get this mindset. As pointed out here, there's multiple easy fixes for it, all of which take less than a minute of your time. I personally think the bind to your forward key (w by default) is the one most people will find to be simplest. And on top of it then being identical to previous versions, you still have the new option of stop them from running off into another group chasing a runner. 

 

True it is very easy and simple to create a quick 'follow aggressive' bind or button, but my counter would be it is just as easy for those interested in the new controls to make a 'follow defensive' button if the default was changed to aggressive instead.    

 

And this is coming from someone who is fine using the new controls, I just think the default setting for a controller pet is...not ideal.

 

I'd also be open to some sort of bonus for the pet while they are in defensive follow (like MM pets have bodyguard, but it wouldn't have to be the same), to make defensive more worthwhile to use.

 

 

[Captain Fabulous]

Nope. The change is good because summoned pets won't instantly aggro anything in their range. If you want them to attack you can tell them to. I'd rather them NOT spawn that way.

[Vinceq98]

5 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

Nope. The change is good because summoned pets won't instantly aggro anything in their range. If you want them to attack you can tell them to. I'd rather them NOT spawn that way.

Ive never found this to be the case as a Dominator. I cant even control my pets. None of them have run rampantly after a summon and aggroed whole spawns to me. Please include video evidence to your claim thanks

[Si1verg1ass]

Glad that some are finding it useful, I'm not.  Different people have different ways of doing things, none of them necessarily wrong, just how that person feels like doing it.

 

I've gotten used to doing things a certain way and now HAVE to do something different for the same character.  And frankly I'm struggling, forgetting to put it on aggressive because I've never had to.  I also don't want a dozen (or even one) binds to do something I never needed before.  I'm not into that, I want to play and enjoy my controllers...  And frankly with this change, I'm NOT enjoying my controllers.  Makes me feel gimped, with my pet not engaged when I expect it to be. 

 

If I could PICK my response and have it stay that way, I would be fine.  It is going into a mission and having to remember to change it again (and again and again....) that is aggravating to me.  It is a forced change to my play that I'm not adapting to... and really have zero desire to adapt to.  I knew what my characters (and their pets) would do... and now I don't.