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That would result in up to a 50% increase in server CPU time in the Powers computations, though and that simply isn't a workable solution.
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Ouch, that would be a doosy on the servers. Understandable that some would be miffed at the current change, but the alternative sounds far worse.
As a MM player, I've never had a need to have my pets cycle attacks faster. So long as they're still getting movement bonuses form things like Speed Boost, I'll be happy. I'd rather have them keep up with me than have the AI get hung up on a power because it keeps recharging in time for the next attack cycle.
Agreed there Obsidius.
I have a 50 Mastermind, and generally I think this is a good thing. Not ideal perhaps, but it'll work.
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The alternative, as I understand it, would be to fix that long standing bug I said we couldnt fix. That would result in up to a 50% increase in server CPU time in the Powers computations, though and that simply isn't a workable solution.
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like many i don't presume to understand the pure coding of mmo's, but i suppose when put this way the one they're going to implement isn't as bad after all despite how horribly unpleasant it is. (i'm trying to be positive from his "at this time" comment tho =X ) it was like choosing between crap and worse crap i guess lol, but i'd much rather not lag >.< appreciate the background tho...think i'm beaten into submission *sigh* for now >
(i haven't actually looked into those rip io's yet oddly enough as i have a few different pet controllers and 2 mm's. i will have to do so now to see what they're all about)
now i tend to have a bad memory but was it specified whether the set bonuses or set recharge procs will affect pets? or only how fast the pet summon power itself recharges? (don't yells at me >.< )
But what about exemptions to this fix. Thats what most of us want to know about. We already know its possible for some exemptions because there have been reports that the defender lightning storm still behaves the same as on live as on test yet the controller/corrupter/mastermind version of the power is now uneffected by recharge. I do think at the very least if you are making the powers not take recharge any more and if they arent able to be targeted anyways then maybe you can up the damage or change the recharge itself. I just really hate for lightning storm to become worthless outside of boss/av fights.
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I think the fix may be worse than the bug. You've replaced one counterintuitive behavior with another. It makes me curious how you decided this new behavior was preferable. In other words, why is this a net positive for the players?
On the downside, It seems to me that this change narrows the usefulness of a bunch of buffs (powers and IOs) that players have intentionally selected. In cases where we were 'sneaking' +recharge into pet used powers, maybe I could consider this a fix. But it doesn't stop there, it also effects specific IO procs, and entire buffing sets.
I don't even want to think about how this effects MMs in pvp. To the extent that they are fighting debuffers (if there are any).
The upside is that four or so pets now have better AI. Though, really, we already knew how to avoid the problem for most of them. (Which is ugly, since it's not new player friendly).
(edited for speeling)
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Mu
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But what about exemptions to this fix. Thats what most of us want to know about. We already know its possible for some exemptions because there have been reports that the defender lightning storm still behaves the same as on live as on test yet the controller/corrupter/mastermind version of the power is now uneffected by recharge. I do think at the very least if you are making the powers not take recharge any more and if they arent able to be targeted anyways then maybe you can up the damage or change the recharge itself. I just really hate for lightning storm to become worthless outside of boss/av fights.
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Powers like Lightning Storm, Voltaic Sentinel and Auto Turret are precisely the powers that were targeted by this fix. Making exemptions for them would defeat the purpose, don't you think?
Thanks for the update Castle.
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But what about exemptions to this fix. Thats what most of us want to know about. We already know its possible for some exemptions because there have been reports that the defender lightning storm still behaves the same as on live as on test yet the controller/corrupter/mastermind version of the power is now uneffected by recharge. I do think at the very least if you are making the powers not take recharge any more and if they arent able to be targeted anyways then maybe you can up the damage or change the recharge itself. I just really hate for lightning storm to become worthless outside of boss/av fights.
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Powers like Lightning Storm, Voltaic Sentinel and Auto Turret are precisely the powers that were targeted by this fix. Making exemptions for them would defeat the purpose, don't you think?
[/ QUOTE ]Ok fine I see your point in this. Its just like how back in the day we were never meant to have more than one instance of a pet but yet it went on for more than a year before it was addressed. I understand what you are doing from the developer side but as the players how are we supposed to know what you all intended as the limits for certain powers? There is just no way for us to know this. All I can say is if this decision is final then it truely makes me sad because doing things like this with IOs was to me building a part of who my character was as a whole. But if we have to go back to plain on vanilla slotting again because the IOs dont give as much benefit then I might as well not even play that toon anymore and/or ever create toons that have those powersets. To me the buffed up lightning storm was the difference between choosing storm summoning over cold domination for my defender. 
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i thought the fix was originally because of animate stone/bruiser/and a ninja pet/and im sure some other pet im missin. guess i didn't realize it was a bigger problem than it sounded to begin with. =/ still wanna know specifics on what wont affect the pets anymore and what will, maybe a powers/and io set list for things that will not affect their +/- recharge? maybe im just daft but i like to know specifics lol. if it was mentioned somewhere already could it get linked? >.>
Like I figured, it is good to go.
Is LS going to accept these problematic RIP IO's now as you are officially saying it is a pet? I could use it as an IO mule now and the RIP sets have way better bonuses than the ranged damage sets that this "pet" takes now.
Any playtips on how to use LS outside of once a mission vs the end boss now that it fires so slowly that is is horrible dpe unless it fires most of its bolts?
What in your opinion is storms' roll against difficult content as damage isn't it as it doesn't bring nearly enough damage to offset the value of other buff/debuff sets?
Any chance one of more of these aspects of LS can be changed?
1. Intangible (all agro onto caster, not very pet like of it)
2. Immobile (cya later pet, too bad you can't fight by my side like all the others)
3. Act independent of the caster (as in if I move away from LS it will keep attacking, cause it doesn't right now)
4. Attract its own agro (all agro is directed at the caster, which is not how ANY real pet ie imp, henchman, even gun drone behaves)
5. Can be interacted with after summon (+dam only affects it while active on me, so powers like assault don't do anything for it and I can't buff it with forge or anything after it is cast, which if it is officially a pet it shouldn't carry "aim" over on cast, but should be buffable after si?) I'm honestly surprised it is a "pet" it is so different than every real pet.
6. Accepts pet IO's
7. rate of fire increase so it isn't an "end boss" only power, which iirc you aren't fond of in the power "domination" so hopefully don't want to impart on any other powers.
In the spirit of "minimally impacting" everything is anything going to be done for powers that debuff recharge and are now coded to do nothing to pets? I expect a fair amount of MA content to be pet heavy tbh and there is always pvp to consider.
All well c'est la vie, I'll just wait for i15 when cold hopefully comes to trollers as it is storm + so much more now 
thanks for the update at least.
Castle - How about a small buff (5-8%) to damage to counter the loss of DPS from losing recharge in those pets most affected?
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Powers like Lightning Storm, Voltaic Sentinel and Auto Turret are precisely the powers that were targeted by this fix. Making exemptions for them would defeat the purpose, don't you think?
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Castle, if this is true, then the patch note is an outright lie. The patch note claims:
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This change was made to allow pets to correctly cycle through their attacks instead of getting locked on using the same attack over and over and neglecting to use other available powers.
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If this change was instead to correct LS, VS, and the turret becoming too powerful, it would have been much better if you had just come out and said so. It would also have been nice if we had been notified that this was a bug and that a fix would be implemented when it could. Instead we were lead to believe that this was intended behaviour and slotted accordingly.
I am extremely unhappy with the change. But appreciate your forthrightness. LS, VS, and the Turret became too powerful and now been nerfed. This happens to fix some other pet's AIs as well.
I feel as if we were intentionally mislead by the patch notes inorder to stealth in a nerf.
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Since we can't get 2 freespec with i14 how about a frespec and a respec rescipie?
Make sure you list in the release notes every pet and psueo pet this affects.
I never noticed the recharge thing, but Pets used to get stuck when attacking "items" in Mayem missions without the recharge buffs. Especially the NPC ones. They would rather stare down that diabolical cardboard box than help me with PPD and Longbow. Since this example is not related to recharge, has it been looked at.
At least the Bruiser will leave the "parking meter" to follow me when I get too far away from him.
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For a long time, we didn't notice, but then we introduced the Recharge Intensive Pet IO Sets and suddenly HUGE amounts of Recharge were available to certain pets.
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so are you saying you guys didn't notice the pets were receiving the recharge bonus until the Recharge Intensive Pet IO Sets were out?
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If this change was instead to correct LS, VS, and the turret becoming too powerful, it would have been much better if you had just come out and said so. It would also have been nice if we had been notified that this was a bug and that a fix would be implemented when it could. Instead we were lead to believe that this was intended behaviour and slotted accordingly.
I am extremely unhappy with the change. But appreciate your forthrightness. LS, VS, and the Turret became too powerful and now been nerfed. This happens to fix some other pet's AIs as well.
I feel as if we were intentionally mislead by the patch notes inorder to stealth in a nerf.
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that would have been so much better, could have saved myself literally hours of going off the deep end trying to protect LS from the pet nerf. Only to find out LS "IS THE PET NERF" lol.
I never would have thought LS, VS and gun drone were too strong, especially given how many people lol@VS and I rarely hear people talking up GD. LS has always been considered pretty good, but there is another reason for that.
Personally I think it smells of backpedaling to cover his butt, but it makes no difference to the outcome, just helps to ensure continued developer mistrust .
So, does this mean Kinetics can be ported over to Masterminds now, without too many problems with the pet AI?
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wel thats just PERFECT
thanks for giving me another useless 50 to gut and delete.
EDIT: Dont interfere with the "vision" it was never intended... EVER we are not the superheroes, we are just citizens with a trick or two... most of them dont do anything really.
gads I am mad enough to bite the heads off of nails!
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I never would have thought LS, VS and gun drone were too strong, especially given how many people lol@VS and I rarely hear people talking up GD. LS has always been considered pretty good, but there is another reason for that.
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I don't think it's that they're too good. Just that they were operating out side of what they were suppose to be doing. If they had tried to buff Lightning Storm, they might have way unbalanced it for the people who know how to game the IOs to get all their worth. But STILL just made it "kinda ok" for everyone else.
If you want to buff things up or nerf them down. You first must establish a baseline.
Castle,
Is this affecting Controller pets as well? From the other thread it appears everyone else is assuming it does. I am worried about my Fire Imps. As far as I know they have only one attack. If they have another attack, I am not aware of it since it all looks the same. If this does affect Fire Imps, do you plan on giving them another power so they benefit from the cycling as this fix is intended to provide? Or do you believe Fire is still too powerful because of Kinetics?
Do you consider this fix a benefit or nerf to Fire Imps in particular? Do you see DPS going up/down/staying the same for all pets after this change?
As far as Phantasm, I do not see this having any benefit because I have no recharge boosts for him on my Ill/Emp. He just gets Clear Mind sometimes and always gets Fortitude. In his case I specifically took Team Teleport to get him close to mob(either because he started firing early or the knockback from Power Blast knocked them out of ET range)so he would fire off Energy Torrent else he stays backs and uses Power Blast and Decoy until the battle is over. Its an endurance drain I could do without having to maximize DPS because the pet cannot use all his powers effectively.
Thanks for listening.
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But what about exemptions to this fix. Thats what most of us want to know about. We already know its possible for some exemptions because there have been reports that the defender lightning storm still behaves the same as on live as on test yet the controller/corrupter/mastermind version of the power is now uneffected by recharge. I do think at the very least if you are making the powers not take recharge any more and if they arent able to be targeted anyways then maybe you can up the damage or change the recharge itself. I just really hate for lightning storm to become worthless outside of boss/av fights.
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Powers like Lightning Storm, Voltaic Sentinel and Auto Turret are precisely the powers that were targeted by this fix. Making exemptions for them would defeat the purpose, don't you think?
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While this fix addresses the issues that you mention in your post (and covers many things that the patch note does not, as mentioned earlier in the thread), I am still far more unhappy about how it affects the -recharge debuffs that several powersets use for mitigation - especially against times when they would be overwhelmed, such as mobs that summon pets.
I'm far more concerned about the effect this will have on those characters than about any positive or negative change to my Mastermind or Warshade.
Since it was brought up in the patch notes thread but not answered there, is it a safe assumption that this will affect all NPC versions of the summon powers as well? And if they do, are those slow powers going to have additional mitigation aspects associated to help the now nerfed powersets, such as -to-hit, or -damage, which would also be affected by level scaling like the slow is?
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that would have been so much better, could have saved myself literally hours of going off the deep end trying to protect LS from the pet nerf. Only to find out LS "IS THE PET NERF" lol.
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Honestly, I think I and others had been trying to quietly and with as much compassion and understanding as possible explain that very likely Castle may not have consciously been thinking about LS, but while dealing with this other issue it might have effected his decision.
Of course, now we find he did know about it all along.
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I never would have thought LS, VS and gun drone were too strong, especially given how many people lol@VS and I rarely hear people talking up GD. LS has always been considered pretty good, but there is another reason for that.
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I don't think it's that they're too good. Just that they were operating out side of what they were suppose to be doing. If they had tried to buff Lightning Storm, they might have way unbalanced it for the people who know how to game the IOs to get all their worth. But STILL just made it "kinda ok" for everyone else.
If you want to buff things up or nerf them down. You first must establish a baseline.
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fair enough, begin the 2 yr datamining process then hand out a 5% buff I eagerly await.
There has been a lot of discussion regarding this Patch Note:
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Pet Powers Change:
o Recharge times on pet attack powers will no longer be affected by any outside source. This includes buffs and debuffs. What this means is that pets can no longer have the recharge time on their powers increased by player buffs (like Speed Boost) or their recharge time decreased by player or NPC debuffs. This change was made to allow pets to correctly cycle through their attacks instead of getting locked on using the same attack over and over and neglecting to use other available powers.
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I wanted to take some time to more fully explain the change and the reasons behind it.
The CopyCreatorMods (or Pet Inheritance) code was originally written so that things like hitting "Build Up" then casting "Burn" would cause the Burn to do more damage. To my knowledge, most pet powers were set to only accept Damage, Accuracy and/or Status Effect mods. Recharge time was never specifically allowed for pet powers. This happened in Issue 7.
Meanwhile, we have a long standing 'bug' that we cannot fix: Say you have a Damage power that for whatever reason doesn't allow Endurance Reduction. If you slot an enhancement (say, a Hammi-O) which does both, both effects are applied to the power, despite the fact that the power is not supposed to accept Endurance Reduction. We pretty much have let that become "by design" since it cannot be fixed.
Now, you combine the two things...and suddenly, pet powers which were never meant to have recharge be altered (Lightning Storm is a great example here) are firing off much faster than intended. For a long time, we didn't notice, but then we introduced the Recharge Intensive Pet IO Sets and suddenly HUGE amounts of Recharge were available to certain pets.
We tried a few alternatives, which essentially ended up making RIP IO's broken for several months in a variety of ways. One day, while discussing this, another programmer who was looking at AI issues came over and began talking to me about the fact that one of the issues causing aberrant AI behavior was the powers recharging too quickly. Again, we tried some things, but ultimately, the change that is on the Training Room now ended up being the only viable fix. The alternative, as I understand it, would be to fix that long standing bug I said we couldnt fix. That would result in up to a 50% increase in server CPU time in the Powers computations, though and that simply isn't a workable solution.
So, thats the background. There is no other solution that we are currently able to implement at this time.