Guild Wars 2

Anyone notice mini-pets getting disabled randomly? I know they do on heavily populated boss fights but I’ve noticed when I’m not doing boss fights my mini-pet eventually isn’t there anymore.

Sometimes your mini can become unchecked after the game hides it, either in high population maps or when gliding etc.

It’s been around since HoT launched, and I haven’t seen any posts from the anet addressing the issue. It probably isn’t on their radar.

Edit, sometimes your mini will become unchecked when logging in or changing maps.

Yeah it’s a reoccurring bug. My guess is it’s one of those ones that doesn’t have an obvious cause so it comes and goes and is extremely hard to get rid of easily.

At least it’s better than the one in the database at my last job – if you clicked on the empty space beside a button the whole program would crash. Never did find out why.

Submit a bug report. Perhaps if enough players do it will get on a QoL fix list.

I’ve been submitting bug reports periodically, as and when I get ideas on what the pattern might be.

It was an issue before HoT and they fixed it (miniatures would disappear due to culling, as expected, but then they wouldn’t be rechecked later).

It became an issue again after HoT (miniatures now disappear often, but not always, when gliding). I think they claimed to have fixed that once, but it wasn’t all that noticeable to me.

The best we can do is to report it using the in-game /bug tool when it happens, especially if you can offer your theory as to what triggers it.

What I’d really like ANet to do is to not worry about fixing the root cause and instead, create a new algorithm that allows the minis to be reenabled automatically, regardless of why they were turned off. For example:

• The checkbox in the wardrobe is used to indicate your preference (appear when possible|don’t appear).
• Separately, the game uses a different flag to actually make the mini appear or not (due to culling, gliding, or any future other mechanics).
• The game checks your preference whenever you waypoint, change maps, exit a transform and resets the “different flag” accordingly.
• Bonus: offer a flag for “PvE” and “competitive zones” (i.e. PvP, WvW) or “all the time” and “out of combat only”.

I was wondering if anyone else was having this problem. It’s really odd in that it seems to happen most often (nearly all the time) on my main, but not as much on my alts. It could be that I obviously play my main more and just notice it more, but I rarely ever have to recheck the box for my mini when I am on my ele. It happens between almost every map change on my ranger, though. Strange.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

It was an issue before HoT and they fixed it (miniatures would disappear due to culling, as expected, but then they wouldn’t be rechecked later).

It became an issue again after HoT (miniatures now disappear often, but not always, when gliding). I think they claimed to have fixed that once, but it wasn’t all that noticeable to me.

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The best we can do is to report it using the in-game /bug tool when it happens, especially if you can offer your theory as to what triggers it.

What I’d really like ANet to do is to not worry about fixing the root cause and instead, create a new algorithm that allows the minis to be reenabled automatically, regardless of why they were turned off. For example:

• The checkbox in the wardrobe is used to indicate your preference (appear when possible|don’t appear).
• Separately, the game uses a different flag to actually make the mini appear or not (due to culling, gliding, or any future other mechanics).
• The game checks your preference whenever you waypoint, change maps, exit a transform and resets the “different flag” accordingly.
• Bonus: offer a flag for “PvE” and “competitive zones” (i.e. PvP, WvW) or “all the time” and “out of combat only”.

This wouldn’t fix the current problem though, because when minis disappear and don’t come back the checkbox is unchecked. So the bug would uncheck it and then the game would look at your preferences, think you didn’t want the mini out and wouldn’t bring it back.

Danikat.8537:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

It was an issue before HoT and they fixed it (miniatures would disappear due to culling, as expected, but then they wouldn’t be rechecked later).

It became an issue again after HoT (miniatures now disappear often, but not always, when gliding). I think they claimed to have fixed that once, but it wasn’t all that noticeable to me.

---

The best we can do is to report it using the in-game /bug tool when it happens, especially if you can offer your theory as to what triggers it.

What I’d really like ANet to do is to not worry about fixing the root cause and instead, create a new algorithm that allows the minis to be reenabled automatically, regardless of why they were turned off. For example:

• The checkbox in the wardrobe is used to indicate your preference (appear when possible|don’t appear).
• Separately, the game uses a different flag to actually make the mini appear or not (due to culling, gliding, or any future other mechanics).
• The game checks your preference whenever you waypoint, change maps, exit a transform and resets the “different flag” accordingly.
• Bonus: offer a flag for “PvE” and “competitive zones” (i.e. PvP, WvW) or “all the time” and “out of combat only”.

This wouldn’t fix the current problem though, because when minis disappear and don’t come back the checkbox is unchecked. So the bug would uncheck it and then the game would look at your preferences, think you didn’t want the mini out and wouldn’t bring it back.

Maybe I explained it poorly.

The idea is that there are two checkboxes, one we can see and one we don’t. The game is only allowed to touch the flag we don’t see — turn it off due to culling or whatever reason. Then, the game checks for the presence of the user-set flag regularly, e.g. after waypointing, changing maps, etc and resets the game’s flag.

Thus, the bug could never uncheck our preference.

Regardless of the system, my underlying point is that ANet should give up on finding the root cause and instead assume that there will always be some mysterious reason the user preferences get overridden. And given that, they should find a way to restore the user preference without us having to do so ourselves.

This is what seems to happen from my experience.

-Player enters (or the map becomes) too densely populated for mini’s and they are thus hidden.
-The mini will remain hidden though still checked to appear and will reappear if the map opens up or the player leaves.

The system works as intended.

The problem arises when you throw gliding into the mix.
If you glide while the mini pet menu is open you’ll notice that the pet is unchecked temporarily while the glider is deployed and will reappear when you land.

Do this in a densely populated, no minis allowed, map and for some unknown (likely bug) reason, the box will remain unchecked, even after landing, forcing you to manually reactivate the pet when you switch maps or the zerg moves on.

Whatever causes the bug has been in game since HoT launch and subsequently makes mini’s all but unusable in HoT maps since they frequently get populated to the point that minis get disabled and the near constant need to glide means they will need to be reactivated manually after the fact.