Bug: Pets don't move on Zone-in

Id did submit this in game, but I don't see a thread for it so I thought I'd ask if anyone else is having the issue.

I have a Thugs/FF Mastermind who worked well through most of Praetoria. When I got the Anti-matter Mission to find the psychic in the funny helmet (Responsibility path), I zoned in and my pets did nothing. It was like the elevator bug from a few issues back. They all responded with their text, but they would not move or attack.

I tried to dismiss them, which resulted in the pets staying in game, but the interface going away. I had to zone out, then back in. When I got back in the mission, my Thugs came out of a building to join me as normal.

The next time it happened was the Save the Reactor mission. Something slightly different happened. I had to leave the mission to dismiss, then enter and re-summon. Entering while the pets were still out there somewhere didn't allow them to move.

Both of these were outdoor instances, and as far as I can recall, they were the only instance Missions I've done on a MM for a while.

The last time it happened was in Steel Canyon. I crossed over and headed for Icon. I thought it was odd that I had no pets in Icon with me when I talked to Serge, but thought I might have just outrun them.

When I went back out on the street, there they were, crowded around the door, watching me get my butt kicked by the ambush. Between sleeps, I managed to get in the formation of them and they still didn't act. I ended up having to summon Gang War to survive. Nothing I could do would let me gain control of them without leaving Steel Canyon, which I didn't actually try since it was late enough I just logged.

Anyone else?

Long-standing bug that has proven impossible to fix thus-far ever since they allowed MM pets to zone with the MM.

Personally, I suggest 'bind p /releasepets' as a literal panic button that is the only thing that works perfectly when this happens.

Unfortunately what you experienced is nothing all that new and yes it has been reported. Sadly to date the only fix has been a slash command:

/release_pets

type that in and hit enter and all your pets will be dismissed and you can resummon. Now for the bad news.... You never know when this bug will occur and you can do mission after mission with no incident. Then you enter a new mission and move ahead to engage mobs and suddenly wonder... "Why am I taking so much damage and why aren't my minions destroying these things in front of me." If you are lucky you defeat the mob or get just as lucky and RUN to safety to discover all your pets are still at the entrance trapped by whatever invisible field now holds them.

Its a sore point for many of the Masterminds that after so long no attempt has been made to determine and solve the problem other than that lone slash command. Sure it allows you to get you pets moving again but it does nothing to set your mind at ease. You find you need to discipline yourself to check on your minions at the start of every mission to be sure they are following and ready to complete their assigned tasks. Something no other AT has to deal with... A Blaster never has to wonder will my attacks fire when I need them. A Controller doesn't need to test their buffs, debuffs and holds before every encounter.. Those minions make up the majority of your damage and can and do provide an MM with defenses and even healing during combat. They are POWERS just like any other but for some strange reason its perfectly fine to let a situation continue that forces us to leave them at the front door unless we are constantly watching.

Wish I had better news for you but at least now you know its nothing wrong with your computer, PC interface, or whatever... just one small portion of one AT that has been allowed to go unfixed for far too long.

What Wicked Wendy said... It is real annoying.

I am already starting to simply summon again inside missions. Especially on trials.

Well turds. I play MM's quite often and once the elevator stopped happening in nearly every mission, then the pets all dying when I leveled (or whatever that was) I didn't have a single issue until the other day. That included running a Demon to 50 playing 6 hours every Sunday. I just figured that one was fixed.

Thanks.

I've had the same problems and I also found it to happen quite often on Lambda trials as well.

My suggestion then would be to send a PM to The Television or Alpha Wolf with all of the included steps to reproduce the issue. Be as explicit as possible with every step of the process including, but not limited to, where are you zoning from, where are you zoning to, what team number you are on, are you the team leader, are you the league leader, were the pets summoned in the zone you are in when you enter Lambda or were they summoned in a different zone, etc. The more explicit the steps, the better the chance of finding exact methods of duplicating it and finding a cause for it.

If they can duplicate the issue reliably they can then start trying to find what causes it.

We had a problem a while back that seemed easy for players to experience but it took a certain set of steps to be able to duplicate it and once some players found the steps to reproduce it EVERY TIME, they were able to find the cause and correct it.

At the same time, we had several players insisting that it was easily duplicated using other methods, but even other players couldn't always reproduce it using their steps.

EDIT: Be sure to include information such as "have you been to WW/BM", "have you opened any store interface (origin stores, FP Stores, Ghost Falcon store, RWZ store, etc", "what contact dialogs have you opened", "have you opened the enhancement window, Incarnate powers interface, etc", "have you spoken to a Merit Vendor", "have you spoken to Null the Gull or a Difficulty contact", "have you spoken to a tailor", etc. This may seem like I'm just tossing out arbitrary unrelated items, but surprisingly, one or more of these was the key to resolving the previous bug that was difficult to identify.

Well I can say for my MM, this happens 100% of the time on the Lambda. Don't think I have yet to see it not happen. OTOH, it never happens on the BAF and rarely happens anywhere else. I think I have yet to do a Lambda with him where I didn't have to ditch the pets and resummon.

I had this happen to me yesterday while running an ouroboros flashback set of missions (task force?), to get Alexander Pavlidis to surrender.

When it came time to kill 35 Family, I decided to zone from north indy to bricks then gate to south indy to get to family that was high 20's. The pets just stood at the gate. I released them, resummoned but they didnt resummon.

I decided to run down into the magic store in south indy. Then resummon. Didnt work. They eventually just entered the store and stood there.

I logged off this character, onto another character, on another server, then back. Same unresponsive pets appeared when I relogged back into the magic store, except they were standing by me.

I ended up logging off for about an hour. Then came back and the pets could actually be resummoned.

I didnt know about the slash command mentioned earlier. I usually just click them and hit x. How is this slash command different? Would that have worked for me?

The slash command is like a master kill switch. So yeah, it would have done the job.

Thanks. I made a macro button to kill my pets if I need to now