[Suggestion] Maxwell crafts generic minions, and imbues them with items

[rezecib]

I'm really liking the new Maxwell, but I think it'd be even cooler if the minion type system was a bit more natural. If he crafted generic shadow minions, and then could place items into them, "imbuing" them with the item, this would let him repurpose existing minions, easily allow for using golden versions of tools, and make extensions to his suite of minions much easier (no need to clutter the crafting interface, which means no recipe code or art, and his recipes don't even really need their own tab anymore).

I made a small proof-of-concept mod, which also includes a "torchbearer" minion as an example of one that could be added easily. Edit: it also changes the sanity cost when changing minion types, and just doesn't let you imbue if you can't afford it. Hopefully that's helpful if you decide to implement something like this.

Thoughts/suggestions?

[Zeklo]

Someone mentioned this in the stream when he was shown. I believe what was said is that they want different minions to cost a different amount of sanity.

[rezecib]

@Zeklo That was me, and I handled that in the mod. It changes the sanity when you imbue, and if you don't have enough sanity, then it just fails to imbue (you keep the item and Maxwell says "I can't do that").

[Zeklo]

Oh interesting! My bad.

If that's the case then I don't see a reason why not. I know I'd use it.

[DarkXero]

What I like about this is that I don't need to have a guy with an axe, a shovel, and a pickaxe. Just one following me. Meaning I don't have to dump my sanity and tolerate those woosh woosh woosh noises. If I have all shadows spawned, I lower my sanity a bit and I enter insanity, to get some fuel before despawning the shadows.

I also like that you can discard the shadow tab, put the codex in the magic tag, and make the codex a readable book again.

The downside here is that instead of consuming a lot of nightmare fuel for your shadows, you end up consuming materials for tools. I can't tell how overpowered is this design wise, because getting nightmare fuel is not an issue for me. Maybe increase the cost of these shadows to 4 nightmare fuel and 15 hp? Maxwell spawns with 6 fuel, so he only gets 1 shapeshifter shadow at the start, instead of a legion of 3.

Another good thing is the option to implement a neutral shadow, so that you don't have loggers, pickaxers and duelists going nuts when you don't want them to.  More micromanaging for a summoner. However what would be the item to imbue? Nightmare fuel? A twig? Any food? Maybe Maxwell should be able to right click shadows to reset them to this swap equals false category?

You should also be able to give a one man band to a shadow.

Also, if you give a torch to a shadow that already had a torch, the light gets removed.

[rezecib]

13 minutes ago, DarkXero said:

Also, if you give a torch to a shadow that already had a torch, the light gets removed.

Oops, my if statement was a little off. There's also a bug that prevents clients with movement prediction from completing the imbue action, but I didn't think that was really a priority for this, being a proof-of-concept.

Right-click to revert to a neutral shadow seems reasonable. Or just empty-cursored click.

I updated the mod with both of those changes. (client still buggy, scratched my head for a while on that one and can't figure out what's wrong)

[DarkXero]

1 hour ago, rezecib said:

client still buggy, scratched my head for a while on that one and can't figure out what's wrong

Well, something is definitely going on for actions that require some sort of exchange with the hands equip slot.

Your thing works with, say, a footballhat as imbuer.

Or with this:

AddComponentPostInit("playercontroller", function(self)
	local _DoActionAutoEquip = self.DoActionAutoEquip
	self.DoActionAutoEquip = function(self, buffaction)
		if buffaction.invobject ~= nil and
			buffaction.invobject.replica.equippable ~= nil and
			buffaction.invobject.replica.equippable:EquipSlot() == GLOBAL.EQUIPSLOTS.HANDS and
			buffaction.action == IMBUE then
			return
		end
		return _DoActionAutoEquip(self, buffaction)
	end
end)

Maybe put Imbue overriding Give, and making it say Imbue via a strfn.

[rezecib]

Just wondering if any of the Klei designers got to see this? I think it got buried during the weekend and the puzzle hype.

[ADinosaur]

Alas! My diggers will stop ruining my freshly planted grass tufts! My choppers will stop ruining my charcoal farm! My miners will stop running into hound mounds for gold! People will finally stop attacking my minions, releasing me of my sanity problems!^{Oh wait that's still a problem...}

[GiddyGuy]

6 hours ago, ADinosaur said:

People will finally stop attacking my minions, releasing me of my sanity problems!

Again why aren't the shadow untargetable to characters other than Maxwell in PvE?

Also why is Abigail still targetable in PvE, I see no point if she also despawns with her owner if they leave the game.

[Mario384]

1 minute ago, GiddyGuy said:

Again why aren't the shadow untargetable to characters other than Maxwell in PvE?

Also why is Abigail still targetable in PvE, I see no point if she also despawns with her owner if they leave the game.

THIS.

THIS HAS BEEN THE BANE OF BEING MAXWELL.

ONE GUY WALKS ALONG IN PVE AND KILLS ALL YOUR SHADOWS.

NOT FUN.

KLEI PLEASE SAVE ME

[thisbird]

5 hours ago, Mario384 said:

THIS.

THIS HAS BEEN THE BANE OF BEING MAXWELL.

ONE GUY WALKS ALONG IN PVE AND KILLS ALL YOUR SHADOWS.

NOT FUN.

KLEI PLEASE SAVE ME

I ran into this a few times playing as Maxwell, too. All it takes is one person who hasn't seen his shadows/know what they do, and bam, gone in an instant.