Pets stop moving - needing to be resummoned

[teal fulcrum]

How to Reproduce: Randomly happens after a battle, can happen multiple times in a few minutes and leave me on whistle cooldown.```


How do i stop my pet from refusing to move after killing something?

[tardy solstice]

Just to confirm, what combat mode do you have your pet set to?

[teal fulcrum]

pressing these buttons make no difference when the pet stops moving

happens on all pets too not just this panther

[mystic vigil]

This appears to be a question about game play, not actually a bug. Use #community-help for this type of question.

[tardy solstice]

This looks like a bug to me TBH. If the pet just stands there on assist mode, it's messed up.

[teal fulcrum]

???
This appears to be a bug to me.

There is nothing i can do with the pet when it gets like this and i have to resummon it.

[mystic vigil]

I suggest two things. One, follow the format for the bug report at the top of the channel. And two, check with other AH players, as they may have suggestions about how they deal with this.

[tardy solstice]

You can also report the bug in-game with the '!' button on the right bar. As someone who has played AH, this is clearly broken. Very likely related to the recent engine upgrade that also broke pathing for a bunch of other stuff.

[teal fulcrum]

changed the format of the original post, that good enoguh sir?

[teal fulcrum]

Ok so it's not something im doing then?
I'v tried everything to get the pet to work properly, and i saw people asking in help channel yesterday about it.

[tardy solstice]

I don't think this is a you problem. Pets and even monster pathing is in a bad place right now.

[teal fulcrum]

Oh ok, so its a real thing, and not what that Greyfyn guy is talking about?

[tardy solstice]

His advice is generally good, but doesn't sound like he has played AH much recently.

[teal fulcrum]

Ok cool, this is the 2nd time iv seen him give incorrect info.

[tardy solstice]

There's a ton of stuff in this game; nobody can keep current on how all of it performs:)

[mystic vigil]

There was the... not knowing how hangouts work when you're offline and calling it a bug. That

[teal fulcrum]

Im playing a game bro, no time for your petty moderator stuff.

[mystic vigil]

The Devs really appreciate the bug reports. And no insults. Please check the rules.

[split flicker]

I have heard that the use of Clever Trick and possibly Sick 'em might be the culprits. I don't really have AH leveled. For anyone who has this happen a lot could you just kill some stuff without the use of AH abilities and see if it still happens?

[desert jacinth]

Not sure this is entirely related, but could be an old bug resurfacing: #1134692662637756547 message

[split flicker]

I want to say this is AH specific, I have never had my necro pets behave this way. I want to say that the pet is sometimes having issues returning to its normal behavior after either of those abilities are used which is whats causing it to basically stop functioning once its out of targets

[teal fulcrum]

That looks like what im experiencing.

[teal fulcrum]

I have been using both Sic'EM and Clever Trick.
I Recall getting Sic 'Em when i learnt the AH skill, and have always seemed to randomly have the issue.
The video linked above shows the spider pet bugged beside a dead target the same as the AH pet, but i can't see those 2 abilities on that action bar, and doesn't show how they got in that state.

[teal fulcrum]

Narrowed it down to the pet AI getting stuck Attacking a Dead target. @desert jacinth @tardy solstice

In the video: I cast "Sic'Em" on the dead "Cunning Wolf" and my pet locks down.

There doesn't seem to be anything governing a pets target logic to tell if a target is dead.

• I managed to get the pet stuck on dead targets if i tried to heal the dead enemy with "Feed Pet", it didn't work as reliably as Sic'em tho.
• Other skill schools eg:Archery didn't force the pet to do anything, i couldn't get them to cause the pet stuck issue, but if there are skills that make the pet try to attack something then it would be possible for it to also get them stuck attacking a dead enemy.

[tardy solstice]

Sic'em doesn't actually require a target, and doesn't respond to what you personally have targed if the pet is already in combat (it won't necessarily change to your target, and might just sic what it is already hitting)

If this behavior is causing your bug though, very worth reporting in-game.

[teal fulcrum]

Yeah, it can cast the spell and create a cooldown with no target. (this might a bug too)
But if you have a target.. it tells your pet to attack that target, dead or alive.

[buoyant topaz]

I may be late here, but I've been running AH for years and have always experienced this. I just assumed it was me. The best way I've found to "fix" it, is to just unsummon and resummon

[teal fulcrum]

It's been like this for years??
Have you reported it or seen others report on this?

[buoyant topaz]

No, like I said, I thought it was just me making a user error lol

[teal fulcrum]

oh 😦
There was a guy in here who said it was how the game is meant to be played haha. #1357488085860094062 message
Im wondering if people just assume the game is this awkward in general.

[tardy solstice]

Na this is a bad take. Clearly pets aren't supposed to just stop working.

I would never see that and think it was right

[buoyant topaz]

I personally find that there is a delay when I use an AH skill, and if the target dies before the skill is used, then the pet gets "stuck" and won't follow me or respond to any other commands

[tardy solstice]

That's the definition of a bug

[teal fulcrum]

A delay using AH skills in general?
Or the weird delay between the skill being pressed and the pets groggy reaction like it just woke up?

If im fighting multiple enemies and target a dead enemy with Sic'em then my pet will become stuck and not fight back while being struck repeatedly by the enemy.
I was doing searches on this discord and found a fair few people reporting weird things like this happening for a while, and a few people replying to those reporting it like it was "intended design" and write it off like this reply #1357488085860094062 message.

This is what i see when im using pets in this game.

ice skating.

[tardy solstice]

That's also a bug, but at least the pet isn't stuck. That kind of minor issue is probably very low priority for devs since it is just cosmetic.

Keep in mind the game is still in development, so things like this are somewhat common.

[teal fulcrum]

Sure.
Just adding to the:

• "pet can't tell if something is dead"
• "pet can't tell if it's walking"
• "pet moves slower than player at walking speed"

[vale lark]

Ya it’s been a known problem with AH pets, they constantly get stuck or lag way behind the player forcing you to de-summon them and re-summon. I know it’s frustrating because any other pets don’t seem to have that problem, ie WW, deer, necro, BC golems never seem to have such big issues. It’s been like this since I started 3+ years ago. The Devs have tried making it better but it’s probably pretty complicated (I know nothing about coding). For now, probably need to deal with it, it helps having atleast 3 pets on sidebar so your not stuck waiting on whistle cooldown. This problem has caused a lot of people to stop playing AH because it is pretty annoying.

[split flicker]

Take the zombie +10 sprint speed mod and just apply it to all pets by default

Necro pets can lag behind, not as bad as AH but especially in fast groups or solo. Respawning for them is a lot more miserable because it costs resources or if you accidentally go too far and you enter combat now you can't summon most of your skeletons so you better start hoping you're indoors.

[teal fulcrum]

I tried Necro briefly, got to level 30-ish and deleted the character.
I felt it was the worst pet build i'v ever played over any game, the micromanaging of the pets and needing to be near dead players to resummon or a graveyard was not for me.
Their AI pathing was annoying getting stuck on everything and always needed to resummon.
Aswell as the anti-npc thing where you had to park them outside town to talk to npc's while there is no undead town equivalent in the early levels or underground community that doesn't deal with the living, it makes it all seem counter intuitive to entertainment to me.

[analog iris]

yea, i can confirm. being an animal handler in Vidaria is not great. Have to constantly resummon my pet. the scorpion event the pet runs into the mound and you cant use any of your ah abilities because you lose line of sight with your pet...there are some kinks for sure.

[split flicker]

Tried AH just to see how much worse it is than necro pets. Dear god its so much worse with the speed and the getting stuck, what is even going on.

Like they're substantially worse at following me and I have no speed bonuses on myself and if I encounter something like stairs its even worse.

Thankfully the are easily respawnable unlike necro pets outside of that 1min CD

[teal fulcrum]

It's like they created multiple whistles for pet stable slots that take up your sidebar, instead of 1 whistle with a radial menu for your whole stable.

Idk, apparently it's been like this for forever, i'v not experienced pets with stairs yet, only that everytime i go through a portal with a loading screen i have to summon my pets again, it's so weird.

[pallid crown]

AH pets automatically scale to your speed and they reliably follow me 100% of the time. I don't know what you guys are experiencing. I believe you that there are bugs, but without a way to reproduce them all I can do is fiddle with random stuff and go "does this work?" "Did that work?!" "Does this work?"

If you have a way to reliably reproduce a problem please let me know!

Otherwise I have some more changes coming and you can tell me if they work.

Also, I need players to remember that pets are monsters, so if you are experiencing a pet bug, the monsters are too. If you see a way to reliably break a monster, that is a bug you should report! I know that many players refrain from reporting bugs that they can abuse, but remember that it's all the same code.

The recent changes to pathfinding which were forced upon us by Unity are making fundamental issues complex to track down. If you find a location that is broken, that's a bug we have to fix manually for that specific spot.

If you find a generic way to break pets that can be reproduced by me, I am super happy to receive that news.

Unfortunately most "super easy to repro" cases I've seen are not at all reproducible in controlled environments. This is a hard problem with a lot of variables. In cases like this, I just have to gather a lot of data and try to read between the lines.

We do have fixes coming, as I mentioned. I don't believe they will resolve most of these varied and complicated issues. Who knows, maybe they will. But if they don't, please think like a QA tester. What is going on when the bug happens? In return let me share my theories about some of the bugs:

• monsters looking dead to you/your pet/any monster: if a living monster looks dead to you or vice versa, that means your client screwed up. Monsters and pets also use a client (a headless, cloud client) to move around. I believe this is the same bug for everybody. What causes it? Dunno. My best guess is it has something to do with projectiles -- hitting the target at just the right time, or right after they die, or something like that. No repro after hours of trying though.

• monsters/pets/auto-movement not working on stairs: that is going to be bugs due to the forced nav-mesh rewrite. Those issues have to be fixed individually and manually right now. We're working on ideas on how to automate it but automating something like this brings its own risks. Please report each location separately, because they have to be fixed separately.

• pets/monsters not following you quickly: we've been tracking this and one guess is a networking issue between the main game server and the sub-servers (headless game clients that move monsters). But I haven't been able to pin it on anything solid yet. However there are other possibilities which I may have a fix for in the next update.

[tardy solstice]

I have seen a fairly reproduce issue that if you use an AH skill like sic'em just as a target dies (that the player is targeting) such that the cast goes off while the target is a corpse, the AH pet gets stuck until unsummoned and called again

[pallid crown]

thanks, I've tried to reproduce that one in the past but I'll give it another try today with my newer testing setup

[split flicker]

I've got a question regarding that AH pet speed scaling with player speed, is that only calculated on summon or is it updated when player speed changes? Like if someone hits me with a speed boost (like Extra Toes) will my pet also increase in speed with me?

[pallid crown]

theoretically, every 5 seconds the pet checks your current speed and matches it. So very short-lived speed buffs might or might not get picked up, but long-lasting ones should

BTW, the pet movement speed bug is one I am more confident in a fix for. Will have to see after this update to see if I got it, but fingers crossed

[split flicker]

Sounds good, when I get time I will see if I can break the pet AI some and if I can create a reliable way to reproduce it and maybe some video capture of it

Actually while you are here, I remember people used to say that the pet not responding after bit and refusing to move / attack was a result of low bond level and not a bug. Is it possible to get a confirmation or denial of this

[pallid crown]

You know, it's possible that we experimented with that idea at first, it sounds famillar. But I just double-checked the code to confirm that AH pets should always follow your Sic 'Em and Clever Trick instructions regardless of bond level

[tardy solstice]

Does following instructions include target? Because if I am fighting multiple things at a time, and target another one and press these skills, most of the time the pet doesn't change target.

(assist mode, if it matters)

[split flicker]

Okay cool, I vaguely remembered that being a thing and I could not remember if it was ever changed or if it was still part of how AH pets functioned.

[pallid crown]

bond level can affect whether the pet follows your target. basically, when you use Sic 'Em you're "taunting" your pet onto your selected target. But if the pet already hates the hell out of a different enemy they may not break off. And if they don't like you much I believe that taunt is less effective. I'll have to review that code also to be sure how it works

but if they have no other target they should always take yours

[tardy solstice]

What defines a low bond? Raw bond level, or compared to your AH skill or something?

I was fighting earlier today Rakshasa in Rahu for example, and they frequently become immune to physical damage...trying to change my pet target in this case was essential otherwise the entire skill becomes useless, and it just wasn't happening

[split flicker]

Iti s a literal stat on your pet, you can check on them, im pretty sure you raise it by just killing things with them

[tardy solstice]

I know what bond means, just wondering how the game considers it to be "low" in the context of following instructions

[pallid crown]

pets are monsters and use the same taunt system that monsters do under the hood. your bond level boosts the taunt multiplier that your commands have on your pet. So it's not a penalty so much as a lack of a bonus

I don't have more specifics than that at the moment, will have to dig into the code.. but that's something I'll look into to see if it's scaling appropriately in the modern game

[tardy solstice]

Do you feel that this taunt-based system is the goal, or would you think having more control over pet target makes sense?

[split flicker]

this is what were talking about with the sick em bugging out on dead mobs

it does it on live ones sometimes too, i think if the mob dies before the sick em attack goes off but on already dead ones its much easier to reproduce

showed bond level just incase that mattered lol

[pallid crown]

The game has a lot of systems and compromises in it. If a pet is being murdered by six different monsters, 5 of which are level 2 and one is level 30, and the pet gets no instructions from you, which enemy should it attack first? The one doing the most damage to it, right? That's what happens with the taunt system. It provides a lot of pets' core functionality.

[tardy solstice]

This makes sense. Very different behavior though from necro minions, for example, where the same argument could in principle be made.

[pallid crown]

Necro minions also use the same taunt system, I'm not sure what you mean?

[tardy solstice]

Maybe it is an artifact of using necro minions and AH at the same time. If my AH pet has all the attention, my archers respond immediately to my changing target.

[pallid crown]

Monsters (and pets) generate hate when they hit their target, or when someone hits them. A tanking pet is going to be pretty furious at whatever is attacking it

So that may be what's going on there

[split flicker]

Now I just need to convince you to give those skeleton warriors a burst attack some of that sweet area threat control

[pallid crown]

different topic 🙂

[split flicker]

True,but yeah that video shows how to recrease that sick em bug with the AI. tried it several times after the recording and it seems to work 100% of the time

[analog iris]

sorry boss. i forgot to report. sent.

[split flicker]

Couldnt test with clever trick, because the rat clever trick is the burst heal and doesnt techically cause it to engage with an enemy

[pallid crown]

thanks, yeah I'll try to repro it shortly. I'm sure the same is true for both Sic 'Em and Clever Trick

internally they are the same, one is just "PetA" and the other "PetB"

[tardy solstice]

I appreciate the insights on threat, and am happy to hear that this is working as intended. Pets here may just not be a fit with my personal style, which is perfectly ok 🙂

[pallid crown]

damage at high level has scaled much more dramatically than the old pet code anticipated. I'm sure that logic needs review to work better

[split flicker]

I like the idea of the pets having their own aggro list, my only gripe with control is that i miss being able to bind pet attack / pet comback that other mmos tended to have

takes getting used to, but sitll fun

[pallid crown]

I think the way I'd like to do it is to add a "Heel" sidebar ability which wipes their aggro list and forces them to return to your side before choosing a new target. But the cost of a sidebar ability is too high for some players

I don't plan to let you hotkey the options in the pet window -- originally the pet window was supposed to be unchangeable during combat. That's why some abilities change the pets' modes. And certainly being able to de-spawn your pet in combat is not an intentional thing. It was a bug that we've left in until things work more smoothly

[analog iris]

damn, yea. that was the key i thought it was missing. Some way to guarantee it back before you select a new target. youre the one with the vision though. Ive had fun so far so you have my support.

[pallid crown]

all that to say that there are lots of ways AH logic can change in the future -- but really bug fixes need to come first

[analog iris]

This would be necessary in some form to use the bears as tanks in high level scenarios. Losing line of sight in dungeons to group up monsters is something we use as tanks all the time.

[analog iris]

the fae bee did this for me too and then eventually remembered it was suppose to follow me. so it might be different for different pets

[split flicker]

ill admit i didnt wait around a whole lot to see if it remembered. I do know if you ran far enough for it to leash to you it would usually remember to be a pet again. I just was trying to find the fastest/ most reliable way to break the AI so citan could repro it and see whats up

and yeah could be different AI for different pets, not sure

[pallid crown]

I still can't reproduce that. There must be something else involved in making it happen

Some way you fought the monster before it died, or... something. There's a missing variable

I'll add some hand-wavy if-statements to try to prevent it, see if that helps

[analog iris]

I have a question regarding how one of the bears abilities operates. Where can I ask this and get a response? I know this thread deals with an issue specifically.

[pallid crown]

I can't reliably answer questions all the time so there's not a place for "ask a dev anything". but atm you can ask in #general and I will see it

[teal fulcrum]

Thankyou @pallid crown
I just finished reading all your thoughtful info.

I believe what we are experiencing with the is high ping/delay and possibly client issues, i didnt know there were from bullet point one, here: #1357488085860094062 message
The clips i showed of me attacking a dead target without a system check for me to be able to cast it on a dead enemy that stops the pet from functioning is here: #1357488085860094062 message
And here: #1357488085860094062 message

Would it cause issues if the pet checks my speed and matches it every 1 second? the 5 seconds mimics latency mechanics.
And can i ask about the animation pets get stuck in idle stance?

[teal fulcrum]

Ahh i see you are a man of cut grass setting. 👍

[pallid crown]

We can consider speeding it up to every 1 second yeah. Though that would mean pets always have nerfed speed when you do, so might not be ideal. Polling every 5 seconds cuts down on short-lived buffs AND debuffs

When you are rooted, your movement speed is so slow that the pet just defaults back to its native movement speed.

[pallid crown]

If you mean pets in dead stance, that's the aforementioned issue with client thinking a creature is dead when it isn't. Otherwise I'm not sure what you mean specifically

[split flicker]

If it helps the way I killed it was just sending the pet in with Sick Em, letting the pet kill it with sick em and then castit on its corpse. I also killed ianother one with one of my other abilities and then spawned the rat and used sick em to see if it changed anything and it didnt.

Little update: Looks like ranged AH pets do not experience this

the ranged turret wasp will still follow the handler and not break when sick em is used on a dead mob

[teal fulcrum]

Thanks for keeping the convo going, i feel it's being heard.

I don't get that pet speed logic, so the pet speed is set to 5 seconds delay because it also wipes buffs? 🫠
i don't understand the downgrade speed to match the player, mostly because if i consider a dog or cats speed it would +2 or +5 compared to a person in real life.. in my head as i play the game i notice the gameplay comes across as doped/slow movement/reaction, it's especially noticeable when the pets animation gets locked to fixed stance.

[split flicker]

Follow up question to being unable to recreate it, are you testing on the live server or a test server? and if it is a test server is it local? Could be some type of ping/network thing at play

[pallid crown]

I'm testing on a test server. Reproducing on the live server doesn't help me because I can't debug there

[pallid crown]

most pets are faster than baseline players. Like cat speed is 8 I think and player speed is 5. So you won't reduce the pet speed below 8. But if your speed is below 8, you aren't buffing the pet's speed, either

[pallid crown]

I can't reproduce this with any kind of pet -- it does incorrectly try to use the ability on a dead target, but the pet just gives up immediately. I don't see why it would lock up the pet since pets can't hate dead things. But we'll see if fixing the target logic fixes the issue

[pallid crown]

I moved the speed logic to happen every second, you can see how it feels in next update

[teal fulcrum]

this doesn't feel like +8

[pallid crown]

One immediate effect is that when you go into combat, you lose your "Sprint Boost (Out of Combat)" bonus. The pet used to keep that bonus for a few seconds usually (beause it only updated every 5 seconds). That's the sort of thing I mean by short-lived buffs and debuffs. The pet now loses your out-of-combat speed buff immediately when you do.

Which is fine, maybe better, probably just as good

[pallid crown]

why not?

btw its not +8 -- 8. It moves 8 meters a second while default player speed is slower

[split flicker]

On a plus side, if you are rocking that mod that gives you bonus sprint speed when you cast sick em, your pet will immediately also inherit that boost

[pallid crown]

this is true

pets also target a position a ways behind you. So they won't ever "catch up" to the player

If you're slower than 8 m/s yourself, the pet will basically be bottlenecked, hitting a spot behind you quickly

without that logic the pet literally runs into the player's butt; most players seem to prefer the pet stay back a ways to reduce visual noise and clutter

when not in combat

anyway, it's complicated, but give it a try in the next update see what you think

[teal fulcrum]

So it is +12 with sic'em ?

Race..

is that +12 ?

[split flicker]

I was way off :P

[pallid crown]

can you hold down the ALT key? it should show the distance to the target over the target's head

so the cat's speed is 8, the buff adds 4, so the pet moves 12 meters a second. It looks like you're more than 12 meters away from that rat so it makes sense that it would take more than a second to reach it

[teal fulcrum]

But you can see what it looks like to the player? im keeping up with the pet mostly.

Pet always starts behind me, depending on the delay the pet could be far behind me

[pallid crown]

I mean I see the animation issue if that's what you mean

otherwise, yeah, that looks about right to me for a low-level pet ability. You

you're only 4 m/s slower so you should be able to keep up okay

since it scales 100% with your speed, there's not really any space for me to make it even faster

e.g. it can already move at 40m/s if that's your speed. The server can only handle speeds that are so fast before they just blip through obstacles and make a mess.

but I'll think on it. I don't really like it scaling 100% as it is; it feels cheesy that an archer needs super-speed boots to make their pet faster even if they're stationary. The problem is any change will be seen as a nerf because the top speed can't be increased from what it already is (which is 50 m/s I believe -- the higher tiers of Sic 'Em add more speed)

[pallid crown]

see if the pet sticks closer to you after the next update

[split flicker]

I know people would complain about the visual clutter if they were too close, thought about moving their follow position off to the side of the player?

[pallid crown]

's a possibility yeah

but my first goal is getting things working the way they're intended to work

right now I don't want to change things that will make it harder to tell if there's bugs

and I need to get feedback on how it feels when it's working as intended. Otherwise will overshoot the mark

[split flicker]

Very true, one step at a time

[pallid crown]

Well, I definitely fixed bugs with pet speed not matching the player reliably.

And Sic 'Em explicitly fails if all targets in combat with you are dead

other than that, I may or may not have fixed things.

I'm going to start the build process for the next update now; it will go live later today. Please let me know how it goes!

[tardy solstice]

Didn't expect these things to be addressed so immediately. Thanks!

[tacit radish]

I'm not sure if what I'm seeing after the patch is related to this or should be reported as something entirely new. My animal handling pets aren't moving at all now. They show staying exactly where they were summoned and I can only interact with them as if they were there, but they fight as if they were elsewhere.

After changing zones from where I logged out and in (sunvale) to etibule my pets seem to be working correctly now.

[pallid crown]

There was a problem with the bug-fix update and it's been delayed until after the boss-invasion event (so Monday). Please let me know if pets behave better after that!

[unkempt grove]

I'll save any further testing and detail until after the update, but I did want to get in here and confirm that this is a real bug, and I first asked about it around a month ago.
I asked people in game about my AH pets randomly freezing in place, typically after a fight, and it was a known issue then.

If I'm actively out in a field killing mobs, I will reliably run into this issue, needing to dismiss and resummon my pet every few minutes at least. It's affected every pet I've tried, from rat to bee. If it isn't fixed after the update, I'll pay more attention to whether or not it's only occurring if I use Sic 'em.

To quickly describe what happens:
Kill mob, run off, pet does not follow.
Toggling stances does nothing.
Pet will not teleport to you no matter how far away you are, you can cross the map and they will remain in place.
If you are in range of the stationary pet, and another enemy you can target, you can get your pet to move and aggress that enemy by issuing a command like Sic 'em, Clever Trick, etc..
The pet will return to being frozen when that mob is dead.
Nothing will remedy this aside from dismissing, and resummoning.

[tardy solstice]

@unkempt grove Citan appears to be on top of this one 👍. We are in good hands. 🐻 🐝 🐱

[unkempt grove]

That's why I'm posting

[split flicker]

Going to chime on the part of the Sick 'Em and Clever Trick fixes. They seem to be working, I tried a few times yesterday and several times today to bug out the pet AI and I could not get it to stop functioning again so it looks like that bug has been smashed.

They also seem to be following me better overall, though I have not tested stairs yet. I will ask though regarding them inheriting player speed bonuses, any plans for this to also apply to when the player mounts? Just for the sake of keeping up?

[teal fulcrum]

The only thing i could replicate was the players movement speed while mounted.
Pets lag behind then teleport to the player like a grasshopper.
Using mounts to travel make pets seem broken that requires the game to teleport the pet to have them keep up.

The original issue with the pet becoming unresponsive if attacking a dead enemy is gone tho.

[split flicker]

Well I don't think pets are supposed to inherit mount speed so that is intended. I was asking if this was going to change in the future.

[teal fulcrum]

So they are supposed to lag behind and teleport?
It looks broken, if you watch people roaming around on a mount with a pet active then you can see for yourself and will probably have the same thought i did where it looks dumb.

[split flicker]

I think they were actually supposed to despawn when you mounted

but people complained about that so they just left it as is

[teal fulcrum]

It makes sense that people who like pets would always want their pet along side them as much as they could.
The opposite would be an imitation of neglect.

But the recent changes to make the pet match the players speed doesn't work when the player is mounted.
Instead the pet looks silly as it lags behind and then teleports magically, something they can't do unless the player is mounted and moving at normal mounted speed, it looks like a pre-alpha version.

[split flicker]

Actually I dont know if this is technically a separate thread but I have noticed at least with Sick Em. Does casting it on a target not place that target on the pets aggro list? When I send in my pet with sick em I often see it run up to the target, slap it with with the sick em attack (in this case a burst taunt because its a bear) and then start running back to be, if it gets hit during the run back it will engage properly otherwise it will just run back to me bringing the mob with it.

[split flicker]

Particularly annoying for things i want to keep away from me, like ogres

[split flicker]

Okay so while I cant break the AI anymore, there is still something strange going on, I noticed in the egg run my pet bugging out several times and getting stuck like it used to, same problem in eurrrka's cave as well.

So improved, but not 100% fixed

[tepid perch]

There are a couple of 'sticking points' in the first 1/3 of the dungeon that have always stuck when trailing an AH pet.

Admitedly, I haven't tried AH on an Egg Run since the update...

Anyway - Your loc is recorded when you submit a bug report in-game, so be sure to send a rpt for each instance.

[split flicker]

Ooh if there are sticking points that very well could be what I was hitting, it definitely was not the just the first third of the dungeon though and sometimes it was not really touching anything just in the middle of the hall. I have no real reliably way to recreate this sadly so I dont know how I really help pin point the problem other than saying it might still be around

Will do

Will id record my pet loc aswell or should I run back to where the pet gets stuck

[tepid perch]

I'm sure they can get the general idea and rep from there. Cheers.

[teal fulcrum]

I'm not able to test this Sic'em issue with a Bear pet.
But i was not able to replicate this with a Cat pet.

The cat pet would continue combat with the target of Sic'em, they didn't drop target after the first slap.
I tried it with the 4 different stances, and only the follow button could get the pet to retreat.

I watched some memes the other day and there were Cats doing the rapidfire combo slap, i can't find that ability in this game.

[haughty night]

I get this using Old Fangsworth . Sic 'Em 2 on an unaggro'd target, then while pet is running but before attacking, I kill the target. Pet becomes unresponsive.

[split flicker]

Thanks for the heads up I'll test this when I get home and see if I can recreate it easily, also might have another way to break em that I'll need to test.

See if I can make some videos of it happening so it's easy to see what's going on.

[split flicker]

Okay so i confirmed the problem from @haughty night is super easy to reproduce, just send the pet in with either Sick Em or Clever Trick and then kill the target while the pet is still en route to the target. It will cause the pet to stop moving and stay in one spot. Example:

[haughty night]

Pet action decision tree getting stuck when no valid target anymore? No fail-out in the loop.

[split flicker]

Another way to cause this problem is to just send the pet to attack with either sick em or clever trick and then just hit the follow button on the pet window (like to call it back from a bad target) and it will cause a similar problem. Example:

It is worth noting that even though the pet wont follow when it is like this, (usually) if it is issued another sick em or clever trick command on a target or itself/the handler is attacked with it being in guard/assist mode it will respond and attack the enemy then return and follow the handler like normal.

[unkempt grove]

i'm not sure what's causing it, but i just wanted to confirm that pets are still going unresponsive.

[buoyant topaz]

I find that when you use an attack skill and the target has died, that seems to always cause my pet to go unresponsive. Idk if that helps.

[crisp river]

Anyone know if today's update fixed things?

[unkempt grove]

haven't tested it, but saw no mention in the patch notes

[split flicker]

Nope, the two meethods i showed earler with videos still break the AI

[split flicker]

Z-axis still the pets worst enemy

Air-Rat ( I had the audacity to jump when it decided to warp to me)

[teal fulcrum]

Hahaha, the gravity on planet Gorgon has always been odd, based on the jump mechanics.

[split flicker]

With the Z axis fixed, or maybe because of the unity update has anyone else noticed their pets beicoming unresponsive more often?

[woeful gazelle]

About the same.

[drifting panther]

Yes, seems like this bug is back. Sometimes my pet will get stuck in an open space immediately after we kill an enemy and it will not teleport to me no matter how far I run. Sometimes it'll just despawn on its own if I'm far enough.

[split flicker]

Well it never really left, it just seems that is has gotten a bit worse after either the unity update or the Z axis fix.

[split flicker]

Yeah definately seems to be worse, just running around FR, mainly around the mountain areas and itll become unresponsive

[thorny hound]

I stopped playing AH due to this bug partially. Its super frustrating to die because your pet just stands there. Its definitely back.

[cinder snow]

I invested over half a million councils in high-tier bred pets just for them to rot in my stable since pet AI is so unreliable

[pallid crown]

Hey guys, if you've got info that helps track down pet problems, that info does help. I don't have a secret fix that I'm keeping from you, and we aren't ignoring the problem. I can't repro a problem recently so I can't fix the problem. Info that helps to reproduce the problem is very valuable.

We fixed bugs related to pet movement earlier and those bugs are still fixed! So saying "it's back" isn't really helping anything. I get that you're experiencing similar behavior, but from a code point of view, it's not the same issue. I can't just fix the same bug and be done, because it's a new bug that needs to be tracked down. So we need details that can help figure out what's going on.

So let me know what you're seeing this time around. You press a command and the pet doesn't engage? Or the pet just stops mid-jog and refuses to move? Or the pet doesn't seem to be using their specials? WHAT exactly are you seeing? How often are you seeing it? Is there any sort of pattern you can notice? We need clues here.

Also: you have to include details that that might not be to your benefit. Very common example: if you are seeing a problem that affects pets AND MONSTERS, please do not pretend like it only affects pets. Tell us what you're seeing in full detail. Otherwise the info is often worse than nothing because I'm looking in the wrong place.

[woeful gazelle]

It's frustratingly difficult to reproduce. Basically, occurring rarely, the pet will just stop moving "for no reason". If I bring a mob in attack range it will fight, but otherwise it just won't move to help me. In my case I have no specific scenario to offer, maybe others can do better.

[pallid crown]

hm. For next update, I'm going to add some debug info when you examine a pet. maybe that can give us a hint.

Have you noticed this happening to monsters? Monsters and pets share most of their code so having a pet-only problem is actually very beneficial for debugging (there's not a lot of code to search). But most of the time it affects monsters, too.

[split flicker]

Ive not noticed it happening to monsters or to others peoples necro pets only to AH pets, ill need to test necto pets myself and see if theyre doing it aswell

But like Niph said its seems to be very random in its occurrence with the new bugs, however the old bugs mentioned above are still present. Maybe they may yield a clue to what's causing the new ones

[split flicker]

This one

[split flicker]

And this one

[cinder snow]

never seen a monster get stuck the way AH pets do. And while I don't use necro myself, I've also never seen or heard of necro pets being stuck. So I'm reasonably sure it's pet only. And I second what Niph said. It happens rareish (often enough to be a nuisance, but not all the time) and I can't see a clear pattern (didn't do all that much gameplay with AH tho). Part of the reason why it makes playing AH so annoying is that due to no clear pattern behind the pet freezing, I often don't notice it until I'm in the next battle where not having my pet screws me. And while just dismissing and resummoning it does work, it was mentioned that dismissing pets mid-battle isn't intended and it does both cost valueable power to summon the pet in battle and also costs me a few seconds since I first need to click the x in the pet window and then summon the new pet. Not only do those few sec make me lose a lot of dmg, if I'm being swarmed/up against an elite, my pet not tanking for a few seconds can be deadly.

I will make extra sure to keep out an eye for weird monster behaviour just in case, but unless this is related to the thing about monsters not returning to their spawn point after they kill someone, I'm not aware of any weird behaviour of monsters. And I'm not even sure whether the monsters not returning to spawn is a bug or an intentional thing. Would like some clarification on that actually.

[drifting panther]

I am in Vidaria with my Chopjaw - I kill orcs during the invasion event - my Chopjaw sometimes stops moving once we're done killing the last orc in our current combat, will ignore being attacked - AH skills such as sic'em or the little commands to attack, follow, or defend do not work - unsummoning and resummoning fixes the problem

I have also noticed the problem mentioned above with me killing a target while my pet is still using sic'em, although I'm not sure if it's the cause 100% of the time, as Chopjaw stops moving even if we're both standing still during battle

Haven't noticed this happening to monsters either, but I will keep an eye on them

[woeful gazelle]

It also happens to monsters, just as rarely if not even rarer. I'd say it happens when an entity disappears (such as me unsummoning my pet), but it's only anecdotical evidence.
Next time it happens, I'll go next to the mob but out of melee range, to see if the symptom is the same.

[split flicker]

Ooh if that's true I'll try to recreate it and if I can I'll record it

[thorny hound]

You know, now that you say that. I'd frequently hit the Sic em' button and then 1 shot the target, then my bear would stand there like a dingus. So this might be worth investigating.

[split flicker]

Ive seen it happen, Ive even seen a few mobs bug (namely the shock droaches in FR that are on the hillsides) but I cant find a way to successfully recreate it

[split flicker]

I have made several attempts to bug out monster AI to no success, ive tried unsummoning. Ive tried using a low level pet and killing it with unnatural wrath before the mob gets to it. No success. I did learn that the AH pet AI will only break went the target dies or the follow command is issued when a skill (Sick em / Clever Trick) is used. If I aggro a ranged mob, and it hits me and my pet goes for it but i kill it before the pet gets to it. it will return and continue to function normally ( this is probably why necro pets dont have this problem)

[misty prairie]

I have accidentally found a very consistent way of getting pets stuck: have it be stood next to a pillar in Goblin Dungeons, with you on the other side of the pillar, and an enemy behind you (so: pet > pillar > player > enemy), with the distance between you and the pet not be high enough to get it to change positions on its own to follow you. Something just seems to have them intent on keeping their foreheads glued against the pillar

It happens accidentally pretty consistently in the goblin dungeons under eltibule, or at least it did as of two days ago - issuing sic 'em on any enemy beyond the pillar (or any other position for that matter) has no effect, pet will remain stuck as if it's trying to walk through the pillar instead of around it. The way to get it unstuck is usually by walking far enough back/away that it's forced to change paths somehow, or unsummon and summon again (which will bring it closer to you rather than further)

[split flicker]

That sounds like it might be a pathing issue rather than AI related, i could be wrong, it it is like the ones in NMC bug report it and they should fix it in the following patches like they did with NMC

[split flicker]

So I finally managed to catch the Shocking Droach behavior I was talking about, while not exactly the same as what is going on with our pets (or maybe similar sine alot of our pets dont have ranged options) It will not run in and engage in melee attacks but instead just spam its ranged ability. You even see it move in a little closer to use its burst attack, but still no melee. Ill post a video shortly. Running into melee range will cause them to melee attack you like they should but if you back up again they will not try to keep you in melee range.

Sadly I have no idea how I caused this to happen

Actually it seems to be happening to the majority of the shock droaches in FR. Their fiery cousins are working properly.

[cinder snow]

ngl I just assumed it's normal that shock droaches stay at range when possible since I never saw one move in close on its own in the 3 weeks or so I've been strong enough to poke around in FR

[split flicker]

I don't think they are supposed to do that. Tbh I'm not sure I am just basing that on the fact that they are now behaving differently than the fire/darkness ones. Maybe their AI got set to ranged or something and it's not actually a bug but I'm pretty sure they were not always behaving like this. It's been a while

[cinder snow]

<@&592051994135625778>

[pallid crown]

I haven't been able to reproduce this yet. (Yes, even the ones with video, sorry!) It simply doesn't happen for me here in a sandbox environment. That suggests it can only happen under load, maybe.

In the next update, I've added a bunch of debug info that's shown when you examine your pet. (It looks like the pic below.) When you see the pet stop moving, grab that debug info and paste it here. Hopefully that will at least point me in the right direction!

To clarify, we have been able to repro specific spots that don't work. I'm talking about the general bug where pets stop moving mid-combat

[violet ruin]

My pet bee Fran suddenly stopped during combat and wouldn't follow when I switched modes. Looks like it's stuck on pursuing itself from reading the debug info, using sic 'em on another living enemy target fixed it.

[vast pendant]

ilmari, horsing around killing stuff, stopped moving but do teleport

[vast pendant]

stuck in eggrun

[vast pendant]

gazluk

[trail dawn]

During this bug, my pet simply gave up on following me. He would follow me after I started fighting just to assist. This causes problems because him being ~15 seconds away from the fight is not fun. I did not get the other screen shots of him being a bum, because I had to keep up with my group.

[woeful gazelle]

Ilmari after fighting some Rakshasas near their village.

[pallid crown]

Interesting stuff here! Looks like at least three different scenarios. One is that the pet seems to hate itself, meaning it did more damage to itself than any enemy did. I'm trying to figure out how that might happen.

Treasure effects like "Unnatural Wrath causes your pet to bleed for 160 trauma damage over 10 seconds" don't count here, because the pet would hate YOU for using that, not itself. (And it already has logic to prevent it from attacking you.) I'm trying to think of other things that might count...

Maybe pain bubble, or other debuffs used by monsters. @woeful gazelle @trail dawn @violet ruin does it sound plausible that your pets were in combat with something that made it "hurt itself"?

[analog iris]

Reflect mobs?

[pallid crown]

I'll have to look up how reflect is implemented, could be it

no, those add the hate to the reflective monster, not to the person reflected upon

[analog iris]

Poison bee screenshot too, so the damage is nil in that particular instance

[pallid crown]

I think I can fix the issue with a "don't hate yourself" if statement, but this suggests some other effect is giving out hate incorrectly, so I'd like to fix that too

no, it's already got code to prevent hating itself. Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree. More data is still useful if you get stuck!

[trail dawn]

Where I was in NMC, Pain Bubble would be possible.
Here is another one in Povus just now.
Sic'em and my pet did nothing even after something slapped him in the back. But once I got in range he would attack the other mob.

[trail dawn]

i realized i pasted nothing

[pallid crown]

were you flying when this happened?

[trail dawn]

yes

[pallid crown]

interesting, okay thanks

[pallid crown]

Pet AI Updated - I have done a rolling reboot of the subservers to address two of the issues shown here. I don't know for sure if they fix the issues, but I'm hoping so. Please report any freeze ups you see. Thanks!

[trail dawn]

It overall feels better. But there is an animation bug ive noticed. The bee's not flapping wings. obvi minor issue.

[cinder snow]

not using AH myself currently, but just an idea: If the issue pops up again, could you give us a breakdown of what that debug info means? And especially what things were abnormal in the provided screenshots? If people know what to look out for, they might be able to make more detailed reports

[woeful gazelle]

@pallid crown I don't use Pain Bubble or anything like this. I do use treasure effects "Pets taunt their opponent 54% less", "Pets have 57% death avoidance" and "Pets absorb damage based on their armor" which could conceivably generate self-hate if bugged.

[woeful gazelle]

After a fight with one Ice Droach in Vidaria.

[hollow delta]

I think the problem starts when you get mounted and move away and get about 60 to 70 meters away from it. I noticed that once you get 80 meters away from pet, it will teleport to you.

[drifting panther]

Used sic'em to attack some demons and he just stood there, menacingly

[woeful gazelle]

Stuck in Povus after teleporting while I was riding.

[vast pendant]

vidaria

[split flicker]

Vidira aswell, in the mountains south of the Vampire hideout,

[fallen minnow]

Kur, walked behind a tree to fight a mountain sheep and noticed wasp wasn't following

randomly stuck again

[split flicker]

Stuck again, in FR again, but this time actualyl stuck in an object it seems

[drifting panther]

Same, stuck in FR next to a bush

[vast pendant]

got stuck in combat, didnt even attack

[tardy solstice]

stuck in gaz while riding

[tardy solstice]

stuck in gaz while fighting

again. literally unplayable

again

[woeful gazelle]

Having tested in Gazluk with and without riding, the former is much more prone to getting the pet stuck. My suspicion is that it has something to do with the pet teleporting.

[vast pendant]

povus

[vast pendant]

ilmari

[pallid crown]

Thanks everyone, we don't need more debug info for now. I've finally been able to reproduce this scenario -- well, no, I've been able to reproduce what's in these debug info screenshots. And I have a fix for that. I'm hopeful that it resolves the problem but we'll have to see. I've added more debug info so if it doesn't fix it, we'll need new screenshots next time. But fingers crossed

The fix I've added will work if the pet somehow gets itself off the nav-mesh, like stuck in a tree or a tiny divot in Unity's less-than-perfect navmesh-generation system. I can tell that some of these reports are due to that. But it's not clear that ALL these issues are that. So it may be only a partial fix. But it will be an improvement, at least.

As usual, this fix also applies to monsters that get off the navmesh. Which may resolve some exploitable scenarios

[solar depot]

Pet still getting stuck

[viscid sigil]

This has been especially bad the last few days

[molten elk]

In the gobling dungeon, it seems like the pets gets stuck behind pillars.
If they can not see their targets, and they're close, they no longer seem to move to get to them.

Wasn't there a fix for a collision bug not long ago? Couldn't that be related somehow?

[pallid crown]

theres an unrelated problem going on right now which I'm calling "ghost instances". Theres a bug in our upcoming instancing system, which is affecting non-instanced outdoor areas. Not sure how it happens yet but sometimes players get sent to a separate instanced hell version of the place they're going.

The upshot is that there's no subserver running there. (If yuou type /status in game it will tell you things are bad.) You can easily tell this has happened to you because monsters can't move either.

We're aware of this and are looking into it -- if this is the reason your pet stops moving, we don't need more reports on that rightnow. But if your pet stops moving and monsters ARE moving, that's a different issue.

(The workaround is to go to a different zone and then return to where you were.)

[pallid crown]

addendum: we've fixed the "ghost instancing" bug. So if you have pets that stop moving now, please report them!

[short valley]

i have a similiar bug i guess, where my pet and the enemy stop fighting 'inside' and around pillars. it happens very often to me. i just notice it because i dont have any damage skills myself so if my pet stops fighting its a pain to kill them. they also dont fight back though...