Pig/merm improvements

[Masked Koopa]

Some of these changes may be based around my Wurt suggestions, so bear that in mind. 

Flavour:

- Pigs and merms will now greet their own species when close to each other and not hired, with phrases along the lines of "YOU NICE AND SMELLY TODAY" or "Have florpy day!", this includes Wurt and pig guards.

This gives the species a stronger sense of camaraderie, and highlights their (somewhat) more intelligent nature than the wild animals. 

- Pigs and merms will now give their kings offerings (you can't see what it is), in exchange for 1 morsel/kelp frond that they will immediately eat. Could perhaps raise the Merm King's hunger if he is below 75 hunger.

This helps make the kings feel like an actual part of the two societies, as well as making the maintaining of Merm king not just Wurt's job.

- Pigs and merms will pick and eat from berry bushes occasionally. Mermhouses now spawn with leafy berry bushes nearby. 

It's very strange that pigs have berry farms set up if they're never going to eat from them, not to mention very strange that gobblers and moslings are apparently able to pick from berry bushes, yet the species with hands that will even eat rot off the floor can't be bothered grabbing their own berries. This will also make pigs and merms a little more annoying to have with you, which is a fair counterbalance to the buffs I'm suggesting.

- Picking from a non-replanted leafy berry bush will cause pigs to aggro on the player.

The player should be at least somewhat punished for trying to steal from the pigs, and leafy berry bushes are conveniently never spawned outside of pig villages, meaning a player who picks from them is stealing. Merms don't need to be factored in, as they're aggressive without their king anyway, and with their king they're neutral even to pigs.

- Pigs will now panic at the sight of a werepig in the same manner as when it is dark, returning to their homes until it is no longer nearby.

Just a minor change to make pigs feel a little more aware of what's going on. They may not be able to figure out that you're the one that caused the transformation, but they're sure as hell scared of what their brethren turned into.
- Panicking pigs (from darkness) will now not aggro independently on monsters, but will retaliate and/or help their fellow pigs.

Makes life a little easier for Webber and Wortox mains, but we'll assume their hatred of merms runs deeper than their fear of the dark.

- Pigs and merms now have special battlecries for one another, pigs will use the merm one when attacking Wurt.

Considering their deep-seated rivalry, it would be neat to have some lines establishing their disdain for one another instead of a generic "YOU GO SMASH".

- Pigs have a special battlecry for spiders, also used when attacking Webber.

Spiders are one of the most common targets of pigs, and one of the most common monster types overall, while also helping communicate to webber players that pigs see them as an enemy, if the description "is a monster" didn't clue them in.

- Pigs now have a special battlecry for krampii, also used when attacking Wortox and Klaus.

Pig villages are one of the more common places for krampii to show up, if the player is killing non-werepigs, so the encounter of a krampus and a pig is common enough to be worth a little flavour quote, as well as giving wortox his own unique quote for targeting.

 
- Hats that perform no function on followers (like sanity control, insulation, rain protection) will now no longer degrade below 1%, meaning they can be permanently customized.

The degradation to 1% will prevent them from being used as free hat storage, while still allowing pigs, merms, spiders, etc to be given a permanent new look.

 <- You can't tell me you don't want to see followers rocking this look without the hat breaking, can you?

Mechanical:

- Pigs and merms will have a chance of coming out of their home wearing a seasonal hat, with 1-20% remaining, with the hats not degrading at all (it remains at the 1-20% it started at), and being obtainable by killing them or trading them for a different hat. The hat will vanish if they are unloaded/enter their homes, once the season is over.

- In autumn, pigs and merms have a chance to come out of their homes wearing top hats, or a flower crown or sea wreath respectively.
- In winter, pigs and merms have a chance to come out of their homes wearing bunny muffs, cat caps, or winter hats.
- In spring, pigs have a chance to come out of their homes wearing rain hats, while merms have a chance of wearing a fashion melon.
- In summer,  pigs and merms have a chance to come out of their homes wearing a straw hat, or an ice cube hat.

While this does provide "free" hats to the player, they have to kill the pig/merm or trade in something else to actually get their hands on it, AND use a sewing kit if they want to wear it for more than a couple of days. In addition, many of these hats are rarely used by players due to better options being available, and this will let them see a little more use, as well as make the pigs/merms feel a little more dynamic in adapting to the changing weather conditions.

- Pigs can now be hired by anything edible according to food value.

There's not much reason to make the player require meat to be able to hire pigs at all, considering how easily meat can be obtained anyway, and how meat often has high hunger value anyway.

- Merms can now be hired forever by live fish, and pigs can now be hired forever with any meat-based crock pot dish.

If the Webber update has showcased anything, it's that followers lasting forever doesn't actually change much power-wise, it just raises convenience. Making these hires require relatively expensive items will make sure that webber's perk of being able to easily mass-hire isn't infringed upon as a result. It would be great to see players running around with a couple of pigs early game, and perhaps warm people up to wurt a little more.

- Pigs and merms can now pick grass by punching it, they will try to give the items to you once they reach a stack, or you move away from them. It will be dropped at your feet if you have no room.

There's honestly not much good reason for them not being able to help with the collection of grass, especially considering grass gekkos will be more time efficient anyway.

- Pigs and Merms will now not get involved in same-species conflicts, meaning no mass civil wars.

While bunnyman civil wars are efficient and make a fair bit of sense due to bunnymen being a little... shall we say completely crazy... the same can't really be said for merms or pigs. The tendency of pigs to back away from one another makes them tend to spend a lot of time running away, and it really seems like they should know better than to attack their own. They should either A: ignore any attacks on their own while hired or B: lose loyalty if you attack their kind, and aggro onto you.

- Pigs and merms can now be right clicked to dismiss them.

Pigs and merms are intelligent enough to understand verbal commands, so they shouldn't need a whistle to know you don't need them around anymore. Nothing more annoying than trying to dismiss followers without starting a war between them.

- One-man band no longer has a cap on the maximum number of followers, but still has stacking insanity effects. It now only targets valid followers, meaning wortox, webber and wurt cannot use it to hire pigs, or bunnymen in the case of the first two.

While it's a neat bug(?), it's not really consistent and doesn't make a whole lot of sense lore-wise. It would be one thing if it just let you hire anything, or specifically worked to allow anyone to hire pigs, but as it stands, it allows wurt, webber and wortox to hire pigs, while also allowing webber to hire spiders, and wurt to hire merms, but no other character can hire merms or spiders with it. This change would also make it very useful for bee queen strats using follower spam, as one would be able to skip the hiring process if one is able to deal with the insanity, or has obtained a bone helm.

- Followers now gain 1/20 of their HP back from heartrending ballad instead of a fixed rate of 1 per hit.

While it's a perfectly useful effect on players, followers attack slowly, and often have gigantic HP pools and at most 1 item of armour, meaning the heal is practically nonexistent for most of them. A percentile heal rate would make them all benefit similarly while not making them insanely tanky as a result.

- Pigs and merms are now boosted by honey crystals.

It makes no sense that they're not, and it would give warly a neat synergy with wurt, while also letting solo warly players have a better pig army.

- Merms will avoid stepping on tentacles, and will attack ant tentacle that reveals itself on sight.

If Wurt, and presumably all merms, are able to detect submerged tentacles, then it makes no sense for merms to just randomly wander onto tentacles. They should have an especially high attack priority on tentacles to ensure they'll tend to clear them out when they do show up, however, and make their fights with them seem less caused by their obliviousness.

- Pigs will avoid stepping on spider webs if there is no point of interest (food, monster to attack).

While the spider forest is neat, it doesn't really make sense for these pigs to have survived as long as they did if they haphazardly wander onto spider webs. Making the fight break out due to a "mistake" on the pig's part would make it feel a little more authentic and more like a delicate balance has been broken.

- Charlie will now attack pigs.

Wilba, Wurt and wormwood prove that Charlie isn't just gunning for people from outside the constant, and pig's fear of the dark should be less unfounded than it is currently. This one I can see being a little disliked because it might break full moon werepig farms, but I think it's at least worth throwing out there.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

i like many of these suggestions

i would add that pigs and merms try to extinguish wildfires close to them

[Keller Max]

Your Pig/Merms suggestions are great! Would like to see QOL patch centered around followers.

Full overhaul would be nice!

[Well-met]

On 9/14/2021 at 10:21 AM, Masked Koopa said:

- Pigs will now panic at the sight of a werepig in the same manner as when it is dark, returning to their homes until it is no longer nearby.

All good stuff except this one. This will virtually destroy pig farms.