Henchmen can't keep up with Group Fly

[Weylin]

Title just about covers it. The pet AI can't keep up and remain within range of the AoE unless you stop every few seconds.

 

Any ideas how to address this problem?

[justicebeliever]

Didn't you already post this elsewhere?

[AkuTenshiiZero]

The problem is Fitness, specifically Swift.  Swift increases both your run and fly speeds, however these bonuses apply ONLY to your character.  When Group Fly was first designed, Fitness was optional, so if you wanted your pets to keep up you just wouldn't take it.  But that is not the case anymore, and no matter what you do you will ALWAYS be faster then your pets, simply by the base value of Swift, so they will always fall behind.

 

I doubt there is a way to fix this.  It's an artifact of old design that sadly never got addressed.  I don't think it's possible to extend the Swift bonuses to your pets, that would be the logical solution but God only knows if that's even possible.

[Weylin]

4 minutes ago, AkuTenshiiZero said:

The problem is Fitness, specifically Swift.  Swift increases both your run and fly speeds, however these bonuses apply ONLY to your character.  When Group Fly was first designed, Fitness was optional, so if you wanted your pets to keep up you just wouldn't take it.  But that is not the case anymore, and no matter what you do you will ALWAYS be faster then your pets, simply by the base value of Swift, so they will always fall behind.

 

I doubt there is a way to fix this.  It's an artifact of old design that sadly never got addressed.  I don't think it's possible to extend the Swift bonuses to your pets, that would be the logical solution but God only knows if that's even possible.

Hmmm, I didn't realize that.

What if Group Fly were tweaked to apply to your pets regardless of range? Maybe allies and pets get a higher flight speed than the Group Fly caster?

[biostem]

I wonder if they could implement a power that "collapses" your henchmen into/onto you.  Maybe have it where unsummoning a henchman at full health instantly recharges the associated summoning power...

 

Alternatively, how difficult would it be to offer a command, like "follow_close", that dramatically shortens the pet tethering distance?

Edited August 7, 2019 by biostem

[Vanden]

Implement an Equivalent Power to Group Fly, that only affects your own pets, but has effectively unlimited range.

[justicebeliever]

5 minutes ago, Vanden said:

Implement an Equivalent Power to Group Fly, that only affects your own pets, but has effectively unlimited range.

I'm a +1 to that...But honestly, does anyone use Group Fly except for MM already?  If not, just take the existing power altogether and limit it to pets

[Ironblade]

I don't think there is a solution for pets.
I had a character with Group Fly once upon a time and used it for teammates.  The same problem existed, but the solution was to let someone slow or low level be the 'lead flyer' and you (with Group Fly) would auto-follow them and everyone else would auto-follow you.

 

So, if there was a way to tell one or more pets to fly to the next mission or a point on the map.......

[PaxArcana]

4 hours ago, justicebeliever said:

I'm a +1 to that...But honestly, does anyone use Group Fly except for MM already?  If not, just take the existing power altogether and limit it to pets

Or give it an absolutely HUGE range for pets, but not other players.

[Weylin]

32 minutes ago, PaxArcana said:

Or give it an absolutely HUGE range for pets, but not other players.

This is what I keep begging for. It would help immensely.

Even if the pets fall behind, which they always do, they will eventually catch up to you.

[Sunsette]

5 hours ago, AkuTenshiiZero said:

The problem is Fitness, specifically Swift.  Swift increases both your run and fly speeds, however these bonuses apply ONLY to your character.  When Group Fly was first designed, Fitness was optional, so if you wanted your pets to keep up you just wouldn't take it.  But that is not the case anymore, and no matter what you do you will ALWAYS be faster then your pets, simply by the base value of Swift, so they will always fall behind.

 

I doubt there is a way to fix this.  It's an artifact of old design that sadly never got addressed.  I don't think it's possible to extend the Swift bonuses to your pets, that would be the logical solution but God only knows if that's even possible.

Group fly in general needs to grant slightly more speed for everyone but the caster, so that they can put the caster on follow without issue.

Also group fly should lose the Acc penalty imo.

[Redlynne]

One possible option, which theoretically ought to work but would almost certainly be murderous on a programmer to program(?) would be to make Group Fly into a PAIR of Cone powers, rather than a PBAoE.

 

The idea being that the forward 120º Cone gets one Fly speed value for the Group Fly effect ... and a rear facing 240º Cone(!) would get a different slightly HIGHER Fly Speed value that would exceed the Flight Speed bonus granted to the Caster by the Swift power.  Point being that anyone affected by the aura who starts "falling behind" will automatically "overtake" the Group Fly caster and move into the forward 120º Cone where they'll slow down and get "overtaken" by the caster again, creating a more dynamic "looping" forwards and back behavior around the Group Fly caster.  It wouldn't be Formation Flying but it would at least allow everyone to "keep up" with the caster.

 

An optional quality of life adjustment for Group Fly would be to rig it such that in the absence of active movement control by others everyone affected by Group Fly has their movement "slaved" to the Group Fly caster's movement commands ... so you don't have to "coordinate" everyone to move with you to stay within the aura radius.  However, if someone other than the Group Fly caster uses a movement keybind, then that PC's movement commands would take precedence over the "slaved" Group Fly movement commands from the Group Fly caster.  That way, you can have the Group Fly caster "bring" everyone in the aura along with them, so long as all of the other PCs don't activate any movement keybinds, but as soon as they do they can "peel off" from the Group Fly aura and "drop out of range" whenever they want to.

 

To prevent Griefing of AFKers, this slaving of movement controls (with manual override for other PCs) functionality would only affect Teammates ... so as to prevent "scooping up" AFKers and dumping them someplace unfriendly without their (implied) consent.

[PaxArcana]

Let's put some of these ideas together.

How about, a blanket doubling of it's radius, and let it grant 20% faster fly speed to everyone except the caster?

 

The bigger radius makes it so pets' pathfinding won't leave them dropping out of the sky, the speed boost means everyone can follow the caster.  Do those things, and I would actually take Group Fly on my Masterminds.

[AkuTenshiiZero]

Honestly, now that I think about it, it seems like it should be possible to give Group Fly two separate effects: A normally-sized PBAoE aura that effects players, as it is now, and a zone-wide effect on pets.  Since players and pets are already treated differently and some powers will effect one but not the other.

 

The thing that comes to mind here is Phalanx Fighting.  When I started playing my Shield Tanker I quickly noted that Phalanx Fighting does not gain any benefit from nearby pets, therefore they must be flagged somehow as a non-player entity so that they can be selectively excluded.  All one would need to do is use that to selectively target them with this new secondary flight aura.

[Tahliah]

I was just talking to a friend of mine about this the other night.  He wanted me to get it so he could watch my pets fall out of the sky for the grins, but it got me thinking about group fly and masterminds.  Some mishes are on the other side of maps, and if I'm flying to them on my mm, my pets are trotting along behind and sometimes taking damage and even dying (they are on defense follow but it still happens).  if they could just fly with me, it would be so much better.  And who doesn't like to see demons, ninjas, beasts and/or bots flying through the air?

 

I don't know about game mechanics, but if it's at all possible to have a group fly just for mms that would solve the problem.  I haven't seen anyone take group fly in forever; I tried it with an mm back in the day but respec'd out of it as soon as I realized it sucked (for mms, no idea what it's like for teams). 

[PaxArcana]

No-one ever takes group fly, because it results in pets (pr team-mates) being dropped from the sky all the time.

[Weylin]

18 minutes ago, PaxArcana said:

No-one ever takes group fly, because it results in pets (pr team-mates) being dropped from the sky all the time.

This is just overwhelming evidence that it needs to be buffed so that these things don't happen 😛

[Gravitus]

+1

[Clave Dark 5]

AFAIK, I've only ever once sen someone with group fly.   He was leading a team through that mission/TF or whatever is is that ends with you fighting Council on the scaffolding around the giant robot with lava below; he was using the GF to keep us and MM pets from falling into the lava below, which was actually a pretty good idea.

[008Zulu]

All the players have Swift, but some might have it slotted to boost run speed in stead of flight, they'd be dropped too. Would there be some way to remove the Swift buff from Group Flight?

[PaxArcana]

1 hour ago, 008Zulu said:

Would there be some way to remove the Swift buff from Group Flight?

I believe it's fly speed could be tagged as un-enhanceable / un-buffable.  Then it's speed would be it's speed and that would be all, for anyone, ever.

[Weylin]

Would it be possible to get TWO powers by picking Group Fly? My allies reallllly do not want that ability being active during a fight, but I want to use it exclusively for the pets to fly above the fight and stay out of the way.