Allow allies to pass through henchmen freely

[PaxArcana]

MMs don't have to be built in a certain way to do it, though (beyond having some AoEs, or maybe Provoke, in their toolkit).  Just keep the pets all in Boyguard, and take aggro.  🙂

 

As for "MMs are support" ... eh, no.  Corrupters are the closest the Villain ATs get to a support class, and even for them, it's a sideline.

 

My MM's buff powers are mostly for my pets.  If I can spare a moment, and a few points of END, I'll help you out too ... but don't count on it.  (I mean, seriously, my MMs are almost all VILLAINS, they're not into the whole "sharing is caring" thing ...! 😄 )

[ZeeHero]

MMs are kinda at least half support becuase they literally get support sets. Villains have support as well. Corruptors are literally defenders with slightly less buff and more damage.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

18 hours ago, ZeeHero said:

Inferior in design in what way? a game with pets and players blocking each other is not well designed- it's a hindrance to mechanics and gameplay.

You're grossly mistaken. Brutes have always had that spot. MMs are support and always have been. MM's CAN be pseudo tanks as can any AT though.

 

Also tanks without leadership are absolutely fine and not "Wrong"  is this truly the attitude you have towards people doing things differently?

on the subject of collision I consider it essential to role play immersion which I place before meta game dumbing down for those not willing to think and adapt.

 

on the subject of MM, yes they were indeed the counterpart to the tank. Many wrongly thought brute the counterpart to the tank, its not its the scrappers, the stalker was actually the counterpart of the blaster. Vil Ats got designed around basically solidifying certain atypical hero side play styles. many solo blasters in the early days took stealth and used snipe in much the way AS was used. MM basically got made to reflect the increasing popularity of the time of the pet tanks that became SOP in hami raids, as illusion pets were far more valued to hold aggro during a certain era.

 

I know they shove brute into the tanking sub class now days but that is in part due to later changes to the AT to appease certain vocal forum outcries, same as happened to stalkers to increase their survival factor as many could not adapt to a squishy melee hit and run play style, The changes also came about after going rogue because the merging of red and blue made the old view of vil ats as being more for solo centric play somewhat passe.

 

It was also due to the sheer lack of use of red side and the AT by the total playerbase, it was after all deemed a failure by both cryptic and NC soft based on the player metrics. So they relented and altered some vil AT to be more like hero AT to increase their over all use.

 

This has lead to the current debates of brutes being too OP in comparison to tanks and if they make them obsolete, much as some say about stalkers vs scrappers.

 

I think you missed the subtle point I was trying to make with the comment about tanks and leadership. If one wants to talk being optimal, and being as useful as possible to a team, which tanks are mainly meant for, as lets face it for mainly solo play the other melee options blow tanks out of the water for fast fun game play, then leadership which due to tanks nature as a defensive primary make greater use of 2nd to only defenders. And a tank with vengeance never need fear if a blaster over aggros and ends up eating dirt and risking getting the team overwhelmed as the veng buffs will make the tank completely unstoppable and also make the rest of the party hardy enough even if support is lacking or down, the party will all be in lite tank mode themselves.

[Crysta Clear]

Collision hurts roleplay more than helps it. I can't count how many times I've been sitting next to another character at a bar and chatting, only for someone to walk past us three feet away and shove us all off the barstools.

[esotericist]

On 8/27/2019 at 2:22 PM, PaxArcana said:

As for "MMs are support" ... eh, no.  Corrupters are the closest the Villain ATs get to a support class, and even for them, it's a sideline.

As it happens, Paragon Studios didn't agree with you that MMs are not support. I mean this was like this on live:

 

 

 

 

Even setting that aside, why pigeonhole "this is the singular <x> for this side" like that? Blueside had two support ATs (controllers and defenders), and as it happens so did redside on release (masterminds and corruptors).

 

 

---

 

Getting back on topic: I would be greatly disappointed if collision was removed from players entirely. It'd be nice if collision was refined (so that, e.g. someone walking nearby doesn't shove you), but I dearly hope it never goes away.

 

For mastermind pets, though, I think making them pass-through for all players (but not enemy critters!) by maybe extending the check for pushable would probably be the ideal solution, if it's at all feasible.

 

 

Edited August 29, 2019 by esotericist
minor rewording

[PaxArcana]

1 minute ago, esotericist said:

I mean this was like this on live:

... a round dozen issues after the Archetypes were first on the scene.  So that bit of interface is ex post facto.

 

In Issue 6, there was no explicitly  "support Archetype" among villains.  There were villains who were capable of providing support, but not a single one of them had support as it's primary role (like, say, Defenders on blueside do).

 

Brute: Melee (& more Melee)

Stalker: Melee (& Stealth)

Corruptor: Ranged (& Buff/Debuff)

Dominator: Crowd Control (& Melee)

Mastermind: Pets (& Buff/Debuff)

 

Not a single one had "Buff/Debuff" as their primary role, because it did not fit the villain mindset as the devs understood it.

[kelly Rocket]

Doesn't matter what the devs' vision is, to be frank. Especially if we're talking Cryptic rather than Paragon, they were wrong about their game. A lot. Probably more often than they were right. Jack was/is a moron.

 

Anyway, the way it actually tends to play out in game mechanics, the meta that arises from the way the game actually functions, is that Support is so powerful that if you have a support set, you are a Support AT. Defender, Corruptor, Controller, Mastermind... Doesn't matter. You're a Support.

 

Anyway, this whole argument is silly and off topic. It arose just because of one person yelling at everyone else to unsummon their pets and then being dismissive of everyone who posted to say that resummoning and buffing is a pain. And it is a pain. Especially for Bots, where you have to wait for the Protectors to get all the pets and yourself bubbled again.

Edited August 29, 2019 by kelly Rocket

[esotericist]

1 hour ago, PaxArcana said:

... a round dozen issues after the Archetypes were first on the scene.  So that bit of interface is ex post facto.

 

 

That's nice. My point was that Paragon Studios, who was in charge of the game for most of its official lifespan, disagreed with you.

 

And as kelly rocket said, cryptic was mistaken on a lot of things, many of which Paragon Studios pivoted on for the health of the game.

[Chuckers]

If you want to take this to a thematic/RP level, pets should ALWAYS get out of your way.. YOU are a Master Mind, they are your subordinates and as such, they should never think to block your path (or the path of your allies.. in this case, teammates.)  

[PaxArcana]

1 hour ago, Chuckers said:

YOU are a Master Mind,

Pets' collision IS turned off for their own Mastermind.

 

The issue is, that it's not turned off for anyone else.

[Chuckers]

1 hour ago, PaxArcana said:

Pets' collision IS turned off for their own Mastermind.

 

The issue is, that it's not turned off for anyone else.

Then maybe it's not working properly. I've been stuck in small rooms because the bots are in the doorway... 

[esotericist]

7 hours ago, Chuckers said:

Then maybe it's not working properly. I've been stuck in small rooms because the bots are in the doorway... 

Promise you, if you walk into your own robots, you won't collide with them and they'll be shoved out of the way (without affecting your movement).

 

Mastermind pets literally cannot impact the positioning or movement of their summoner.

[PaxArcana]

Maybe Chuckers is remembering from back on Live, before that change happened?  Because what he says was true, back in issues 6, 7, and I think 8 at least ...

[Chuckers]

1 hour ago, PaxArcana said:

Maybe Chuckers is remembering from back on Live, before that change happened?  Because what he says was true, back in issues 6, 7, and I think 8 at least ...

 

Well, I hadn't touched my mastermind in 8 years.. so I could very well be wrong 😉 (that sounds bad....)

[Pale_Enchantress]

The pet collision makes teaming very annoying sometime and makes roleplaying also annoying . There is no reason it should remain how it is.

[srmalloy]

On 8/28/2019 at 5:34 PM, Crysta Clear said:

Collision hurts roleplay more than helps it. I can't count how many times I've been sitting next to another character at a bar and chatting, only for someone to walk past us three feet away and shove us all off the barstools.

There are a few places where it hurts gameplay as well. Zone in or out of a mission, activate a power that's interruptible, and the MM minions push you out of their way and interrupt you. Or being unable to click on the door because they're standing in the way. Making the, say, 20 feet inside or outside of a mission door or tram entrance a collision-free area would address that.

 

Also, just as a QoL thing -- and it would be complicated to do, so I'm just tossing it out for comment -- if there were some way to 'quarantine' all pets (MM, Controller, Dominator, Lore incarnate pets) in locations where there cannot be combat for them to be used, it would clean up chokepoints. For example, I had a case yesterday passing through Ouroboros where I could not click on the portal to leave because of three sets of Lore pets and a MM pet collection standing right on top of the portal; I gave up after a couple of tries and waited three minutes for their players to leave. I'm not asking to have them despawned, just leave them active and not draw them in the area. There are all too often enough people standing around something you need to click on, adding pets just makes it worse.

[PaxArcana]

3 hours ago, srmalloy said:

Ouroboros

There is an easier fix for this:  MOVE THE GORRAM ARRIVAL POINT AWAY FROM THE EXIT PORTAL.  That way you don't get people zoning in, and just .... not moving, for ten or twenty minutes, while an entire crowd of like-minded fools builds up around them.

[srmalloy]

There's always the brute-force method of putting a Repel on trainers, Ouro portals, mission doors, and tram gates that only affects pets, so they get pushed clear, and you only have players standing around idle to aim past when clicking.    🙂