Game Mechanics Remove the "Light pet" slot and just let us have any 2 pets.

[hweaver888]

let's look at the facts. there are 10 total light pets, now 3 of those are mastermode only and since the average player plays in expert let's just cross those out. we can also cross out "FlickerWick" since they are only dropped by the lvl 2 old ones army which the average player doesn't do (which is kinda sad) and the one dropped by moonlord. leaving a total of 5 light pets(actually 4 because the shadow orb and crimson heart are exclusive).

now both evil biome light pets are trash, the orb is too slow and the heart only has half the light level when not moving, while the magic lantern is sold by the skeleton merchant ONLY during a full moon which is pretty unreliable. now the Fairy bell may or may not be used since you have to craft it and then the wisp in a bottle is the BEST light pet but it's only a 0.5% drop chance.

so unless the average player gets lucky or figures out how to craft the bell, they will most likely be stuck with the trash orb or heart for the entire game.

Meanwhile, There are 48 normal pets, +21 more if playing on mastermode. and we can only choose 1?!?!?! are you joking? we deserve to be able to have ANY 2 pets.


Also a cool idea: similar to how you can combine the slime prince and princess pets together, you should be able to craft the Destroyer, twins, and skeletron prime pets into a mechdusa pet.

 

[Im_ConfuzzledCobalt🥐🌳🐿]

let's look at the facts. there are 10 total light pets, now 3 of those are mastermode only and since the average player plays in expert let's just cross those out. we can also cross out "FlickerWick" since they are only dropped by the lvl 2 old ones army which the average player doesn't do (which is kinda sad) and the one dropped by moonlord. leaving a total of 5 light pets(actually 4 because the shadow orb and crimson heart are exclusive).

now both evil biome light pets are trash, the orb is too slow and the heart only has half the light level when not moving, while the magic lantern is sold by the skeleton merchant ONLY during a full moon which is pretty unreliable. now the Fairy bell may or may not be used since you have to craft it and then the wisp in a bottle is the BEST light pet but it's only a 0.5% drop chance.

so unless the average player gets lucky or figures out how to craft the bell, they will most likely be stuck with the trash orb or heart for the entire game.

Meanwhile, There are 48 normal pets, +21 more if playing on mastermode. and we can only choose 1?!?!?! are you joking? we deserve to be able to have ANY 2 pets.

A few questions.
1. Can you equip two of the same pet? Could I have two bone keys? Two eye springs?
2. Can someone equip multiple light pets for more light? Could I equip both a wisp and a true eye to essentially have a pet flashbang?

Also a cool idea: similar to how you can combine the slime prince and princess pets together, you should be able to craft the Destroyer, twins, and skeletron prime pets into a mechdusa pet.

Have the pet spawner item be named Suspicious Looking Skull just to mess with people

 

[Aceplante]

SUPPORT!

A while ago there was a thread on Light pets in regular pet slots without the light, so why cant normal pets likewise go in the light pet slot? If you wish to play with the self imposed disadvantage of not having a light pet (or are early game) why shouldnt you be able to? Actually, now taking another look at that thread, this very topic came up there too.

As for equipping two of the same pet, i dont see why not. Perhaps some pets could even have special behavior or interactions with each other, such as a pet that grows larger rather than summoning a second one when you equip two of that pet item. As mentioned above though, this shouldnt allow players to have two light pets, and the one in the normal pet slot wouldn't produce light.

 

[J Bame]

The issue with this is that this will not look like you'd expect it to; Pets right now dont have to account for the presence of other pets around your player; naturally because you can only ever have 1, and it's the same for light pets. Let you equip multiple of the same pets and now they will be drawn on top of each other and it will look awful, and changing this would require rewriting their whole code to account for every single pet and every single unique behavior they may have. It's just not doable.

The Resplendent Dessert is specifically coded to not have issues, which was simple because it's two of practically the same pet. Some people looked at it and thought that a Mechdusa Pet (the three master mech pets into one item) would be a cool idea, and it is, but god damn it would be hell on earth to have three complex pets follow your player without overlapping each other.

 

[Aceplante]

The issue with this is that this will not look like you'd expect it to; Pets right now dont have to account for the presence of other pets around your player; naturally because you can only ever have 1, and it's the same for light pets. Let you equip multiple of the same pets and now they will be drawn on top of each other and it will look awful, and changing this would require rewriting their whole code to account for every single pet and every single unique behavior they may have. It's just not doable.

The Resplendent Dessert is specifically coded to not have issues, which was simple because it's two of practically the same pet. Some people looked at it and thought that a Mechdusa Pet (the three master mech pets into one item) would be a cool idea, and it is, but god damn it would be hell on earth to have three complex pets follow your player without overlapping each other.

This was already done for most summons, with pirates and spiders coming to mind. Just make pets prefer to not stand on top of each other if possible?

 

[J Bame]

This was already done for most summons, with pirates and spiders coming to mind. Just make pets prefer to not stand on top of each other if possible?

It was already done for a class that was designed around the possibility of multiples from the first item, yes. Minions from 1 Staff are all the same projectile with the same AI, they are all made to adapt their positioning based on copies. Now let's look at "prefer to not stand on top of each other if possible" for all pets (and note, i am not asking this as "how would this logically work?" but rather "how would you program this?")

Eye Spring jumps to move, would it adjust its trajectory in midair based on a second walking pet?

If a pet that was in front goes into "return mode" does it go back to the front or to the back? How would you decide that?

How would you ensure the two Slime Princes always stay together when there is a third pet? What happens if i summon another one of the pair?

What about the Prime pet that covers a massive amount of space and has 4 arms? Or the worm pets that have a complex movement AI and weave around the player? How would you make it so multiple of these pets summoned dont overlap?

Hell basically any pet that isn't "walks right behind you" will need AI adjustments to not get in the way of another pets. Else you will summon two pikachu bunnies and then realize they will both Zap around in the exact same patterns, at the exact same time, like there was only one.

We could sit here and argue about every possible pet and pet combo but, i think you get it by now. It's not a simple task and definitely not something you "just" do

 

[Dapling]

It was already done for a class that was designed around the possibility of multiples from the first item, yes. Minions from 1 Staff are all the same projectile with the same AI, they are all made to adapt their positioning based on copies. Now let's look at "prefer to not stand on top of each other if possible" for all pets (and note, i am not asking this as "how would this logically work?" but rather "how would you program this?")

Eye Spring jumps to move, would it adjust its trajectory in midair based on a second walking pet?

If a pet that was in front goes into "return mode" does it go back to the front or to the back? How would you decide that?

How would you ensure the two Slime Princes always stay together when there is a third pet? What happens if i summon another one of the pair?

What about the Prime pet that covers a massive amount of space and has 4 arms? Or the worm pets that have a complex movement AI and weave around the player? How would you make it so multiple of these pets summoned dont overlap?

Hell basically any pet that isn't "walks right behind you" will need AI adjustments to not get in the way of another pets. Else you will summon two pikachu bunnies and then realize they will both Zap around in the exact same patterns, at the exact same time, like there was only one.

We could sit here and argue about every possible pet and pet combo but, i think you get it by now. It's not a simple task and definitely not something you "just" do

I don't actually consider this a downside. Stacking visual effects like this was actually one of the reasons some people miss how Obsidian rose used to layer behind other hairpin accessories and helmets, and many pets have additional vfx or randomization that means they either do cool stuff when stacked or would eventually desync anyway.
Take the electro-bunny pair for example, the "quick attack" sparks have randomized offsets, so you could stack the pet to basically alter the trail in a unique way that would look cool in theory and allow you to mix multiple dyes to customize it. There's also far, far more variants of flying pet ai than you realize. A tiki totem, any worm pet, hoardragon, skeletron prime, fairy, fairy princess, and butterfly all have radically different ai from each other and wouldn't stack under basically any circumstance.

In short, stacking doesn't look as bad in practice as one might think, with the examples of it we've had before being considered upsides by some, and even when it does look bad it still looks better than the intended mechanic of dunking everything you're wearing in one of the hades dyes

 

[hweaver888]

I don't actually consider this a downside. Stacking visual effects like this was actually one of the reasons some people miss how Obsidian rose used to layer behind other hairpin accessories and helmets, and many pets have additional vfx or randomization that means they either do cool stuff when stacked or would eventually desync anyway.
Take the electro-bunny pair for example, the "quick attack" sparks have randomized offsets, so you could stack the pet to basically alter the trail in a unique way that would look cool in theory and allow you to mix multiple dyes to customize it. There's also far, far more variants of flying pet ai than you realize. A tiki totem, any worm pet, hoardragon, skeletron prime, fairy, fairy princess, and butterfly all have radically different ai from each other and wouldn't stack under basically any circumstance.

In short, stacking doesn't look as bad in practice as one might think, with the examples of it we've had before being considered upsides by some, and even when it does look bad it still looks better than the intended mechanic of dunking everything you're wearing in one of the hades dyes

as for the "following behind you" pets, it's as simple as giving them a tag. if 2 "Following" pets are equipped, have slot 2 be set farther away.

 

[hweaver888]

A few questions.
1. Can you equip two of the same pet? Could I have two bone keys? Two eye springs?
2. Can someone equip multiple light pets for more light? Could I equip both a wisp and a true eye to essentially have a pet flashbang?

Have the pet spawner item be named Suspicious Looking Skull just to mess with people

i want yes to all. but even if you cant have 2 of the same pet, that's ok. imagine having 2 dirt pets.

 

[Aceplante]

It was already done for a class that was designed around the possibility of multiples from the first item, yes. Minions from 1 Staff are all the same projectile with the same AI, they are all made to adapt their positioning based on copies. Now let's look at "prefer to not stand on top of each other if possible" for all pets (and note, i am not asking this as "how would this logically work?" but rather "how would you program this?")

Eye Spring jumps to move, would it adjust its trajectory in midair based on a second walking pet?

It would just hop again to not be stacked. Again, it tries to avoid being stacked and it can simply do so by "moving" (in the case of the spring, jumping one more time)

If a pet that was in front goes into "return mode" does it go back to the front or to the back? How would you decide that?

I dont understand what you are asking. Are you asking order? Maybe light pet would always be in front.

How would you ensure the two Slime Princes always stay together when there is a third pet? What happens if i summon another one of the pair?

What do you mean third pet? there are only two pet slots. In the case of the suggested change to that slime prince pet, removing one to try to summon something else would cause it to shrink back to normal size.

What about the Prime pet that covers a massive amount of space and has 4 arms? Or the worm pets that have a complex movement AI and weave around the player? How would you make it so multiple of these pets summoned dont overlap?

Whats wrong with them "overlapping"? Thats on the player to figure out what looks good together.

Hell basically any pet that isn't "walks right behind you" will need AI adjustments to not get in the way of another pets. Else you will summon two pikachu bunnies and then realize they will both Zap around in the exact same patterns, at the exact same time, like there was only one.

Again, they could prefer to not go in the exact same spots, and simply offset.

We could sit here and argue about every possible pet and pet combo but, i think you get it by now. It's not a simple task and definitely not something you "just" do

I dont see why this would be anywhere close to the issue you seem to say it is.

 

[J Bame]

I don't actually consider this a downside. Stacking visual effects like this was actually one of the reasons some people miss how Obsidian rose used to layer behind other hairpin accessories and helmets, and many pets have additional vfx or randomization that means they either do cool stuff when stacked or would eventually desync anyway.
Take the electro-bunny pair for example, the "quick attack" sparks have randomized offsets, so you could stack the pet to basically alter the trail in a unique way that would look cool in theory and allow you to mix multiple dyes to customize it. There's also far, far more variants of flying pet ai than you realize. A tiki totem, any worm pet, hoardragon, skeletron prime, fairy, fairy princess, and butterfly all have radically different ai from each other and wouldn't stack under basically any circumstance.

In short, stacking doesn't look as bad in practice as one might think, with the examples of it we've had before being considered upsides by some, and even when it does look bad it still looks better than the intended mechanic of dunking everything you're wearing in one of the hades dyes

I dont think that "equip two of the same pet and they draw on top of each other" is acceptable to just implement as-is. Sure not all pets have the exact same AI, not all of them will have problems, but i think that two pets just sitting too close could already look off. not saavy enough on Pet AI to comment on the "eventually desync anyway" but i dont think having to wait on a desync is acceptable either

More importantly, you can make the visual jank look good if you are creative enough but it's not a good idea to just, change something, knowing it won't work like anyone would initially expect it to, and leave it to people to figure something out with it. It will just be seen as a broken feature, you can't compare it to 1 isolated case like the obsidian rose layering

as for the "following behind you" pets, it's as simple as giving them a tag. if 2 "Following" pets are equipped, have slot 2 be set farther away.

It's not "as simple as giving them a tag" we literally just went over how you'd have to edit whole pet AIs

It would just hop again to not be stacked. Again, it tries to avoid being stacked and it can simply do so by "moving" (in the case of the spring, jumping one more time)

I dont understand what you are asking. Are you asking order? Maybe light pet would always be in front.

What do you mean third pet? there are only two pet slots. In the case of the suggested change to that slime prince pet, removing one to try to summon something else would cause it to shrink back to normal size.

Whats wrong with them "overlapping"? Thats on the player to figure out what looks good together.

Again, they could prefer to not go in the exact same spots, and simply offset.

I dont see why this would be anywhere close to the issue you seem to say it is.

you didnt understand my post at all, it wasnt a "this isnt possible" breakdown, it's going over how much of a programming and qa hassle it'd be to implement

 

[TWillyH]

I dont think that "equip two of the same pet and they draw on top of each other" is acceptable to just implement as-is. Sure not all pets have the exact same AI, not all of them will have problems, but i think that two pets just sitting too close could already look off. not saavy enough on Pet AI to comment on the "eventually desync anyway" but i dont think having to wait on a desync is acceptable either

More importantly, you can make the visual jank look good if you are creative enough but it's not a good idea to just, change something, knowing it won't work like anyone would initially expect it to, and leave it to people to figure something out with it. It will just be seen as a broken feature, you can't compare it to 1 isolated case like the obsidian rose layering

It's not "as simple as giving them a tag" we literally just went over how you'd have to edit whole pet AIs

you didnt understand my post at all, it wasnt a "this isnt possible" breakdown, it's going over how much of a programming and qa hassle it'd be to implement

There's a weapon in my mod that shoots any projectile, including pets, I've seen what many pets at once looks like. I feel like having 2 (or more) pet slots would be fine as every pet probably has small AI differences (in vanilla)

 

[Dapling]

I dont think that "equip two of the same pet and they draw on top of each other" is acceptable to just implement as-is. Sure not all pets have the exact same AI, not all of them will have problems, but i think that two pets just sitting too close could already look off. not saavy enough on Pet AI to comment on the "eventually desync anyway" but i dont think having to wait on a desync is acceptable either

Better fix these then:

(there are plenty of other ones involving these pets but I couldn't be bothered to make a comprehensive list so just have the first few I could find, in particular a lot of the ones that try to move behind the character overlap with Crimson Heart and Fairy Bell).

A trillion accessories also do this already. Every hairpin stacked with each other in the past, and only recently was it made highly inconsistent by allowing you to stack some hairpins but not others with each other. If I want to look silly, what is the harm in that. It is NOT out of character for this game to have weird vanity interactions like that, and pets are vanity as much as these are.
You can wear 3 overlapping capes at once and extend prince cape's shoulder pauldron with another pauldron behind it in this game for crying out loud:

I'm not convinced community backlash is as much of a concern as you're making it out to be, considering A) this is probably the first time you're seeing any of the above interactions B) every time I've seen something similar brought up, anyone who mentioned it considered it a draw of the vanity system, and C) such interactions are far, far more numerous than what I listed here and that one """"edge case"""" I mentioned earlier. With that in mind, I can restate that this is less an actual issue and more a matter of taste. When something is purely aesthetic like this it becomes the only inarguably correct time to abide by the rule "don't like it don't use it" because there is absolutely no other reason you would be using it.

You already have to wait on a desync for many pet + light pet combinations. If this is really as big a problem as you make it out to be then more work needs to be done to address that in the base game, and at that point just embrace it by implementing this suggestion, it would genuinely be less work than going through every combination of pet + light pet to figure out every single case it happens with and fixing those.

And if you're extra extra scared of perfect overlap then you could always make it so the same pet can't be in both slots but still allow all pets in both. It's precedented behavior for equipment menus to do, considering accessory slots exist, and most people probably would want to mix up their pets anyway.

More importantly, you can make the visual jank look good if you are creative enough but it's not a good idea to just, change something, knowing it won't work like anyone would initially expect it to, and leave it to people to figure something out with it. It will just be seen as a broken feature, you can't compare it to 1 isolated case like the obsidian rose layering

An unexpected or "broken" interaction does not necessarily need to be considered a negative for the game just because it didn't fall perfectly inline with its original intent. We have a lot of proof of that in vanilla with step-stool clipping, hoiking, smoky logic gates actually having a function despite the smoke effect clearly being intended to be an indicator for failure to output, and many others as simple as buying items from merchants to shimmer them for commonly used materials.

We even got dyeable weapons in the form of Critter Shampoo... despite the devs citing the projectile dusts system as a major reason no weapons would ever be dyeable for years, and that exact concern being extremely evident on several minions (most noticeable on both stardust minions and Imp Staff) after implementation. Despite all that, no one actually cared that dyeing your stardust cell red still makes blue dusts, and I have seen exactly 1 person complain about anything even tangential to that when discussing dyeable minions over the 5 years it's been in the game, which is further evidence that this concern is being blown out of proportion and that people just won't use a purely visual customization option if it bothers them in any way.

Additionally you're forgetting that this suggestion does not remove any of the old pet functionality. You can still equip a pet in slot 1 and a glowing pet in slot 2. In fact most people will probably still instinctively do that or even encourage it when discussing the game, as there's an argument to be made that having a more useful pet for light and a less useful one for vanity is the most flexible. This objectively opens up more cosmetic options and I am highly doubtful the addition of some minor purely visual jank that already is present in the game is enough of a downside to offset the many upsides here.



TL;DR most players wouldn't care about pet overlap. Even the people in this thread have either stated they'd be fine with them overlapping or given no opinion on it. The most preventative measures people would probably require to be happy would be controlling which pet is drawn on top of which, and that's as simple as making 1 slot take priority (which in turn is as simple as making the order they spawn not random when you log into a world, so no additional code needed as I'm pretty sure they didn't shadow-drop a patch that makes the pet and light pet spawn in a random order over the years)

 

[Aceplante]

Exactly, and as I said, thats up to the players to figure out, not the devs to worry about. More player choice is a good thing.

 

[Asternove]

I think having them stagger while you’re standing still and not caring otherwise would be a decent balance between coding and effect.