Now we are all equal

So, I hear most MMs complaining that they don't like how their ranged pets are now running into melee, and I have to say, it seems like the 'rangers' now just have to deal with the same problems Ninjas/ and Necromancy/ have always had.
People have always complained that the Ninjas and Zombies were squishy. It's probably the main reason they are the most rare types of masterminds (I still see more Mercs than these two). Well, now that the other pets are starting to run into melee as well, it's been discovered that all pets are squishy, but the ranged ones just stayed out of the thick of things.
In my opinion, this now levels the playing field for all masterminds. Melee pets already have a disadvantage- they are single target. Under the old AI, they also died faster. They did not have any extra protection to mitigate the fact that they were melee, they didn't do more damage than other sets, there was no trade off for this propensity to die more often because they were closer to the enemy. So it was a double penalty for them, Single target AND they died faster.
Now, all pets at least have similar survivability. Instead of only Zombie and Ninja users having to resummon all the time, now all masterminds have to do so.
On a closing note, pets that do not have melee attacks (IE Phantasm) running into melee, I agree is rediculous. But minions all having similar lifespans because they all die to AOE melee attacks, that just seems fair to me.

I have to admit, since the bug hit I wound up rerolling an old Ninja MM I once had, but gave it up for bots/dark which I took to 50.

Glad I did. I changed the secondary to /TA instead of the old /PD he had, and now he's lvl 37 and destroying spawns like nothin'.

My defense capped bots are no squishier than before, but if they run into melee range all the time, all those nice cone attacks I have hit one guy. Ranged pets have powers designed to work at range. If the AI is screwy, it makes their powers not work correctly.

How are you people having problems with your bots?

I have an occasional protector bot or drone run into melee range, but it's nothing a goto command can't fix.

Hell, most of the time I want my bots in melee, because that's where I am and that's where my FFG is. It's just easier that way, and I don't have to "resummon all the time."

Also, in response to the OP, there are tools to keep your melee pets alive. It's called bodyguard mode. If you can't figure out how to play your ninjas or necro well, I'm sorry.

Goto commands are temporary measures at best. And by temporary, I'm talking about 2-3 seconds at best. I don't want Bots in melee and I absolutely don't want my Thugs (sans Bruiser) in melee. It's simple geometry why these pets need to be at range, there's certainly no advantage to them being in melee, outside of FFG. I'd rather they be doing max damage and I'll worry about their protection.

Even if I'm not having to "resummon all the time" these pets are not performing as well as they did. I've said it before, I've retired from MMs, with some special exceptions, until there's some fix.

It does seem to get worse and more frequent the higher you raise the challenge though. Run a -1/x4 mish and you get the odd 1 bot run into melee, up it to -1/x8 and it jumps to 2 bots running in occasionally. Raise it to +1 or higher, and you're looking at several pets running in and the goto command getting spammed more frequently - these have just been my observations when running RWZ missions.

As funny as it sounds, I kinda agree. Maybe this is why castle hasn't changed it back. lol

I brought my Merc/Storm to ITF the other day and I've noticed one of the pets would always run in. He doesn't necessarily use brawl. He just runs closer to "shoot". It's usually either Commando or one of the Soldiers. Spec-Ops tend to stay back.

As far as the pets not responding to goto commands, I have noticed two things. 1) Pets seem to take a second to respond to your command, I have used Heel on my pets before when they started running after enemies, and it took them a few seconds to actually stop running at the retreating enemy, dispite the word bubble appearing letting me know they recieved the command.
2) Unless they are on passive, they are going right back into combat. On aggressive they just attack everything they see, but we know that. On defensive, I have seen some wierd stuff, sometimes they stood there and did nothing while enemies beat them to death, sometimes they would attack random mobs 100yd away that they apparently felt had looked at me funny.
But if my pets are on passive and I give them a goto command, they stay put. I actually feel that goto should be a mode and not an action, that way you could tell your pets to goto X location, and attack once they got there. That way you could position your bots/mercs/etc in a strategic location, and then have them attack from that position, and they would stay at that location since they were in the goto "mode."

How hard could it be to extend the pet command templates to "ranged-based" and "melee-based"

Or even have a "Hold your ground" type command where the pets ultimately become stationary until ordered otherwise. It seems like there are a lot of easy fixes to a problem that is killing the AT for a lot of us. It could be fixed with an hour of coding max.

or keep melee based pets with inherent brawl, and give range based pets an inherent range attack with similar dmg/acc stats to brawl?