Problems with the Paragon reward pets.
By
Aneko,
Posted on: 2011-11-12 11:21 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
Just tested this bug and yep, once you spawn a second vet pet (also happened when spawning mini MVAS) it kills the other vet pet already out.
Too busy laughing at the new spawn emote though to really mind.
Pet summons are no longer simply Summonings. They're acting as Toggles. Granted, the toggle costs no Endurance (that I can see), but any situation that would cancel a toggle is cancelling the pet.
I think this is horribly awkward! I know my Kheldian is hating it, since shapeshifting cancels the toggle.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I hope they fix this then!! I like running about with my little pets out! Yes one gives a small buff, but as I said the other is literally nothing. Also holds will cancel them too, as they can turn off toggles!
Not happy with the change, but I also don't wanna sound too ungrateful. I am disappoint! And graciously ask for the team to look into it, and maybe fix it, so its back the way it was, or make them both be able to be toggled on at the same time, and not have shape change and holds and what not effect it, these are vanity pets, they are supposed to enhance your game by being fun and giving you a little fun thing to play with. 
Thanks.
Jason
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Yep... This is annoying. My "blaster build" Human/Nova Peacebringer usually runs with Spot (her blue wisp pet-) active. I switch back and forth between her two forms *a lot* in the normal course of play, and having to resummon the little guy every time is a pain in the tentacles. |
Originally Posted by Fireheart
Pet summons are no longer simply Summonings. They're acting as Toggles. Granted, the toggle costs no Endurance (that I can see), but any situation that would cancel a toggle is cancelling the pet.
I think this is horribly awkward! I know my Kheldian is hating it, since shapeshifting cancels the toggle. Be Well! Fireheart |
I'm also none too pleased that the buff and vanity pets are now exclusive. As I said in the feedback thread on the beta forum, I have a defender who actually uses both for practial purposes... Her flying clockwork for its buffs (Every little bit helps when you're as squishy as Zhen is-) and the non-flying vanity clock as a location marker, so her partner knows where she is for heals and fire-shields when she's hovering out-of-easy-sight over a fight. As things stand now, I've lost one or the other of those functions.
@Brightfires - @Talisander
That chick what plays the bird-things...
IIRC this change was intentional because pets add to server strain so the fewer pets the less server strain
I made a thread about this when I noticed the change on Beta, you're not the only one disappointed: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=276192
If their servers aren't up to the task, then perhaps they should look into that, cause at the end of the day, it's a small non-interactive and non-buff pet, not a big ask really and it makes having them both just pointless, the buff pet in most cases would win! Makes the vanity one a little useless, and whats with swapping forms breaking it.
I suppose the question becomes why punish people for something that was earned as a reward? Seems a little counter intuitive to me.
Jason
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Honestly, I doubt the form-switching problem ever crossed anyone on the dev side's mind. What our Kheldian toons do is far enough outside "the norm" that it's easily forgotten when it comes to things like this.
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Originally Posted by Millennium
If their servers aren't up to the task, then perhaps they should look into that, cause at the end of the day, it's a small non-interactive and non-buff pet, not a big ask really and it makes having them both just pointless, the buff pet in most cases would win! Makes the vanity one a little useless, and whats with swapping forms breaking it.
I suppose the question becomes why punish people for something that was earned as a reward? Seems a little counter intuitive to me. Jason |
@Brightfires - @Talisander
That chick what plays the bird-things...
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which would be a copout because the pets generally don't really do anything that should create unnecessary load. I've bugged this and the fact that my normal pets stop following (won't even respawn while I was testing in base) if I jump/run too far away quickly. When I get back within poking distance they respond to my presense.
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Originally Posted by Necrotech_Master
IIRC this change was intentional because pets add to server strain so the fewer pets the less server strain
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When I combine this issue (WAI or not) with others, like the resetting GUI bug, I'm starting to think there are dev-only badges, and they are going all out for...|
Originally Posted by Kioshi
I made a thread about this when I noticed the change on Beta, you're not the only one disappointed: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=276192
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Disdainful: You have ignored the reports of 100 extremely annoying issues in beta. That'll teach the players to know their place!
When I discovered this ingame I logged a petition/support ticket as follows;
Me:
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| I have the Power Oscillator Pet, The Mekman pet, and the Vangard MVAS pet. Yesterday I could have these three pets out at the same time. Today it will only allow one of them at a time.What has happened? |
Well its official, the developers meant it. WHAT?!? The character I discovered it on has a design that is based around having lots of robots around him. Why take this away?
And why reward players with multiple pets if they can't even use them? Some reward! I feel really ripped off.
I have earnt, and paid for, these with time in the game as a loyal customer for 5 years. I want them back!
Sweet, the devs found another way to punish us for being loyal veterans of the game! Thumbs up devs!
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Originally Posted by Necrotech_Master
IIRC this change was intentional because pets add to server strain so the fewer pets the less server strain
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Originally Posted by Millennium
If their servers aren't up to the task, then perhaps they should look into that
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The load for the pets is mostly on the client side, where they have to be rendered. The more entities that have to be rendered on screen, the more things will slow down client side. If you are running your card well below what is capable of, then this probably isn't a big deal. If you are running an older graphics card, or are pushing your card for everything you can, it is much more of a factor.
One of the things the developers have always tried to avoid doing is raising the minimum requirements of the game. They don't want to have to tell people who have been playing this game since launch that they can't any more unless they go out and buy new gear. It's just bad business, and it makes sense.
All of that being said, I can understand limiting vanity pets to one at a time. In fact, that other grossly overweight MMO that has tons of vanity pets available already does this, even for vanity pets you pay cash for. I do think it may be a mistake to lump the buff pets in with other vanity pets though. If the temp power summons (such as the Loa Bone) which summon a limited number of COMBAT pets are also lumped into this same group, that is DEFINITELY a bad move, so I hope that is not the case. Not sure if anyone can confirm or deny this yet.
- Garielle
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Originally Posted by Frosty_Femme
I said "ur" which is not a word. It's a sound dumb people make when you ask them to spell out "you are".
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I did not have a Vet Pet out, however, during a Tin Mage run on Friday night to grab the Midnight Dodger badge, I dropped a Shivan, a HVAS and a Snowbeast along with my two Lore pets and they all functioned for their duration.
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Originally Posted by Garielle
If the temp power summons (such as the Loa Bone) which summon a limited number of COMBAT pets are also lumped into this same group, that is DEFINITELY a bad move, so I hope that is not the case. Not sure if anyone can confirm or deny this yet.
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"Life is what happens when you are making other plans"
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Ally summons != pets. You can summon as many allies as you like since they have a limited summon duration. The summon change to pets is WAI, since pets have an unlimited summon duration (until you zone) and there will probably be many opportunities in the future to collect or purchase pets from the Paragon Market. The devs apparently don't want to let each player have a dozen possible pets summoned at a time.|
Originally Posted by Fomsie
I did not have a Vet Pet out, however, during a Tin Mage run on Friday night to grab the Midnight Dodger badge, I dropped a Shivan, a HVAS and a Snowbeast along with my two Lore pets and they all functioned for their duration.
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Originally Posted by Evangel_NA
Sweet, the devs found another way to punish us for being loyal veterans of the game! Thumbs up devs!
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Originally Posted by Obsidius
If you consider the devs looking out for performance of a player's client system and reducing lag caused by an excessive number of vanity pets (in the probably future) to be punishment, you have a bad case of selfish entitlement. Being a vet doesn't mean you have the authority to lag someone to death at will. Otherwise we might as well just recreate the Doombox and put it as a Tier 9 reward.
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If you consider that vet pets have been available for 3+ years and this is the first time that any issue of "lag induced by vet pets" has been presented to us you have a bad case of falling for a corporate answer of bs.
If vet pets were introduced and a few weeks or months later large amounts of lag were being reported and people were complaining I could see the devs changing the code. 3 years later is a little far-fetched that all this time the devs have been worried about lag and are just now implementing it. The fact is they are worried about their precious new freebies getting lagged out and discouraged by vets so they yet again punish the loyal veterans for something they have spent years earning and paying.
The $1260 I have contributed is no longer important to the devs because they have new freebies who are foolish enough to spend $30, $40, $50 and more a month so let's punish those that have been players for years upon years by diminishing the set of merits we've given them to distinguish them as vets...
Sounds perfectly logical, of course I am being selfish...
Ditto what Ev said.
I think the fact that this pet "improvement" was stealth-implemented speaks volumes about whom it was truly intended to help.
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it wasnt stealth implemented, its even listed in the patch notes for 11/10
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Originally Posted by CinnderScot
Ditto what Ev said.
I think the fact that this pet "improvement" was stealth-implemented speaks volumes about whom it was truly intended to help. |
I'll miss Zhen's clocks, but what I REALLY want is for them to either fix the toggles so that they aren't greyed-out when my Peacebringers are in their Nova or Dwarf forms, or to remove the "instant pet death" toggle-goes-off thing that happens when they switch out of human form in the first place.
As it stands right now, neither of my Khelds can use any of their pets... vanity *or* buff... AT ALL when they aren't in human mode. That's just unfair. No other AT is looking at that strict a limitation.
@Brightfires - @Talisander
That chick what plays the bird-things...
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Sorry, my bad. Thanks for the correction.|
Originally Posted by Necrotech_Master
it wasnt stealth implemented, its even listed in the patch notes for 11/10
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Still think Ev's point stands, though.
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well the patch notes states that all vanity pets work this way (including future ones) and there are already 2 pets on that list which are not on live yet, imagine this is like a year or 2 down the road and we can potentially have 10-15 vanity pets, if they stayed the old way and every player has 15 vanity pets out just 10 players would mean thats 150 vanity pets doing nothing|
Originally Posted by CinnderScot
Sorry, my bad. Thanks for the correction.
Still think Ev's point stands, though. |
i do think the only change they should do is with the buff pets since they have functionality and are not purely for vanity
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Although I was merely using hyperbole to counter hyperbole, I think that your response has done far more than I ever could to point out over-entitlement.|
Originally Posted by Evangel_NA
If you consider that vet pets have been available for 3+ years and this is the first time that any issue of "lag induced by vet pets" has been presented to us you have a bad case of falling for a corporate answer of bs.
If vet pets were introduced and a few weeks or months later large amounts of lag were being reported and people were complaining I could see the devs changing the code. 3 years later is a little far-fetched that all this time the devs have been worried about lag and are just now implementing it. The fact is they are worried about their precious new freebies getting lagged out and discouraged by vets so they yet again punish the loyal veterans for something they have spent years earning and paying. The $1260 I have contributed is no longer important to the devs because they have new freebies who are foolish enough to spend $30, $40, $50 and more a month so let's punish those that have been players for years upon years by diminishing the set of merits we've given them to distinguish them as vets... Sounds perfectly logical, of course I am being selfish... |
The status quo changes constantly in an MMO. I think you were around for ED, yes? Now there was a change that "punished" "loyal" players for playing the game how they liked. I think likening a simple toggle change to that, for example, is laughable.
The game wants to attract more players, and in doing so, they have to make some changes to help optimize server load based on the number of rendered entities, polygons, physics, other player characters, NPCs, etc., etc. I'm sure pets may not seem like such a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but if an Atlas Park full of players were to suddenly generate a dozen other models per player, consisting of hundreds or thousands of ploygons per model, I think it would be more than just the "precious freebies" getting lagged out as their GPUs choked to death on a gluttony of polygons.
However, I'll argue that, if the "loyal" playerbase was enough to support the game, why move to F2P in the first place? Certainly, this is a tangent argument, but without the freebies that you apparently loathe, how much longer would the game have survived on the pittance afforded by a loyal, but small, fanbase? Those F2P and premium players are keeping your precious game alive.
But if you want to get into a pissing contest about how much you've spent on a game only for them to make Change X after however many years you've been playing, I may have you beat, perhaps not in subscription time, but probably in the departments expenditures (between the subscription, box purchases, comic books, M&Gs, hotel costs, travel expenditures,etc., etc.). So to come full circle on this fallacy of entitlement, I'll say that, because I've spent more on the game than you, my opinion matters more
And I say: lock down the pets before we introduce more, before we get to a point where it becomes a problem.
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Looks like a textbook case of wearing blinders here.|
Originally Posted by Evangel_NA
If you consider that vet pets have been available for 3+ years and this is the first time that any issue of "lag induced by vet pets" has been presented to us you have a bad case of falling for a corporate answer of bs.
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Did it occur to you that we will now be able to buy pets, lots of them, from the Paragon Market. The dog isn't even on live and people are DROOLING over it. I'm guessing the next purchasable pet is going to be a cat.
But you can go on living in the past and ignore the fact that adding onscreen entities requires more resources.
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
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Originally Posted by Ironblade
Looks like a textbook case of wearing blinders here.
Did it occur to you that we will now be able to buy pets, lots of them, from the Paragon Market. The dog isn't even on live and people are DROOLING over it. I'm guessing the next purchasable pet is going to be a cat. But you can go on living in the past and ignore the fact that adding onscreen entities requires more resources. |
You're only feeding my point though - all of these changes, every single change they are making is to please their new freebie moneybags. It's nothing about "entitlement", I don't even spawn my vet pets 80% of the time. But some people do for RP reasons or what not. It's not about the fact that things are "constantly changing" in an MMO, that's a given. It's not the fact that there are new pets coming. The point is simple:
The disregard is to the veterans who have earned things the "old-fashioned" way, and are now being punished because the devs want to keep the new moneybags spending. The reason for this change - any reason you can come up with: lag reduction included - is all an end result of greed to make more money. And yes I know the text-book argument of "it's a business you are supposed to make money" and that's a great response I applaud everyone who is intelligent enough to say that, the trouble is you cannot transition a market from one system to another without hurting a segment of your customers. And - as per usual when a game shifts to F2P - the people who get punished are the vets. Look at the prices in the market and you can easily see that these "great new features" the devs are so graciously providing for us have nothing to do with giving us new content - it has everything to do with pulling more money from pockets.
Anyone thinking I'm trying to engage in a "pissing contest" is missing the point of my statement. If you are a loyal customer of the game you are being short-changed now in the new model, and if you can't see that you're blind. When a game goes F2P the vet loses. Every time.
When I came back about a month ago or so, I found I had gotten a little pet, just a vanity pet, no big deal, but is cool!
Then as I got some points and some rewards, I got a little buff pet, fairies and that. And that was cool too, had some fun running around with my pets out, was cool. Tonight however I notice I can't have them out both together anymore! I suppose the bit I'm trying to understand is, if its a bug or unintended, or if it is deliberate, and I'm trying to think of why it would have been done?
One gives a small buff, and one does nothing, and isn't even targettable?
So please someone, anyone else having the issue? Or is it known?
Thanks.
Jason