Companions and Sidekicks

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Kinak
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Companions and Sidekicks

Post by Kinak »

It's been a standing issue for a long time that nobody uses temporary sidekicks (aka companions). Despite having dozens of items and five skills to their name, they never get their day in the sun *sniff*

Until today.

As part of a major rewrite of the sidekick code, we've split sidekicks and temporary companions. Which means you can have your sidekick, like Bob the Computer Pharmacist, and a companion, like a wolf, at the same time.

You still only get one of each. We're crazy. We're not that crazy.

Now, I 100% guarantee there are bugs out there. Let me know what explodes.

A few random points:
  • Since companions are no longer sidekicks, +sidekick effects do nothing for them and they do not scale to level.
  • Companions from items and skills will prompt you to replace other sidekicks, rather than just blocking you and making you manually switch.
  • While I was rewriting everything, I fixed a few things a few places where sidekick scaling didn't work quite as advertised. Mostly, this takes the form of getting an extra damage or two here and there.
  • A lot of extra text got added to sidekicks and companions to fit the new formatting (p.s. there's new formatting).
  • Mostly there are a lot more failure messages, such as chip find sidekicks and companions giving appropriate messages if they don't fire (because the enemy doesn't drop chips).
  • Related to that, chip find sidekicks/companions and damage-reduction companions should be more explicit.
  • It's entirely possible that, now that companions aren't competing with sidekicks, we might have to go over their balance at some point. For now, go nuts, see how it works out.
Happy Thanksgiving!

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Cristiona
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Re: Companions and Sidekicks

Post by Cristiona »

On the character page (and the public sheet), only the sidekick is listed if you have both. Putting your sidekick away doesn't fix this, which means there's no way to dismiss companions.
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Re: Companions and Sidekicks

Post by Kinak »

Cristiona wrote:On the character page (and the public sheet), only the sidekick is listed if you have both.
Only the sidekick is listed at all, yeah. I removed the no-longer-accurate "companion" label there.
Cristiona wrote:Putting your sidekick away doesn't fix this, which means there's no way to dismiss companions.
Changing sidekicks no longer clears companions because they're not exclusive.

I've added a section to the bottom of the sidekick page on the off chance anyone wants to clear it manually.

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Re: Companions and Sidekicks

Post by zatade »

This is a great idea, I really like having a sidekick and a companion. However there does seem to be a problem when you have the Computer pharmacist as a sidekick, in that it comes up as both a sidekick and a companion.

thanks
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Re: Companions and Sidekicks

Post by Kinak »

zatade wrote:This is a great idea, I really like having a sidekick and a companion.
Thanks!

The other thing that's nice is that it'll be way easier for us to add more companions in the future.
zatade wrote:However there does seem to be a problem when you have the Computer pharmacist as a sidekick, in that it comes up as both a sidekick and a companion.
I'm not seeing anything too weird. It can show up twice a round (once for attacking, once for its XP/drop message).

If there's something stranger than that going on, let me know :)

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Re: Companions and Sidekicks

Post by Patojonas »

Having spaded some foes out there I'm pretty sure that the sidekick/companion boost used to be applied to the actual value of chips the foe dropped.

Now I've noticed that it is being applied to the middle value between the chips maximum and minimum value. (tested with publicist and accountant)

Statistically I guess it's the same in the long run but was this changed on purpose?

Also, when chips are concerned is it rounding .5 up or down? (spading purposes :P)
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Re: Companions and Sidekicks

Post by Kinak »

Patojonas wrote:Having spaded some foes out there I'm pretty sure that the sidekick/companion boost used to be applied to the actual value of chips the foe dropped.
Yeah, it was just rolled in with everything else for the final chip drops.
Patojonas wrote:Now I've noticed that it is being applied to the middle value between the chips maximum and minimum value. (tested with publicist and accountant)

Statistically I guess it's the same in the long run but was this changed on purpose?
Not as an ends to itself, no. It's just a side effect of some code being rearranged.

I can fiddle with it to add some variance back in but, as you noted, they're functionally identical.
Patojonas wrote:Also, when chips are concerned is it rounding .5 up or down? (spading purposes :P)
In theory, it could vary for each sidekick :twisted:

I think it should be up for everything, though.

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Re: Companions and Sidekicks

Post by Sanjuro »

Occasionally, the Ice Sculptor's face shows up in the fight text without any text next to it.
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Re: Companions and Sidekicks

Post by Kinak »

Sanjuro wrote:Occasionally, the Ice Sculptor's face shows up in the fight text without any text next to it.
The Ice Sculptor should have appropriate miss messages now, thanks!

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Re: Companions and Sidekicks

Post by Cristiona »

Elisa Day backs up some data from your computer. You gain 0 XP. I mentioned the part where it's backing up to your brain, right? Good, I'd hate to think I'd missed that.
Sure, I'm level 1 and this is a level 1 foe, but it seems there should be a floor value.

Ice Sculpture will also return +0 against the Super-Ultimate Frisbee Player.
The churches are empty / The priest has gone home / And we are left standing / Together alone
--October Project: "Dark Time"
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Re: Companions and Sidekicks

Post by Kinak »

Cristiona wrote:Sure, I'm level 1 and this is a level 1 foe, but it seems there should be a floor value.

Ice Sculpture will also return +0 against the Super-Ultimate Frisbee Player.
Should be good now.

For what it's worth, I think that's actually their original behavior. It just never came up often (only every few encounters and only at 1st level).

Which is to say, they've been very very veerrrrrrry slightly buffed :)

Cheers!
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