Companion Appearance Rework Suggestion

oldbaldyone

The idea here is, there are a ton of companion skins that are not used, because they are on undesirable companions, due to bonuses, abilities, etc.

Here is the pitch:

We take the mount screen, and use it for companions. Your top selection would be the summoned companion skin. Any companion you own would become a skin for your summoned companion. Second, the summoned bonus, which can be selected from any companion you own. Finally, the last selection would be your choice of a skill set (basically each set of skills that a companion has that you currently own is available to be applied to a pet as a set).

For example, If you want the Iron Golem as a pet, with the abilities of the Sellsword, and the active bonus of the Wild Hunt Rider....you could do it.

While there may be some combinations that are overpowered, I think overall this benefits everyone. The game looks "prettier" as now people can use the skin they want (IE no more 500000 Fire Archons). I think everyone agrees that the ability to skin mounts made the game nicer to look at - the same can be done with pets.

There may be more to work out but overall I think this would be a change people would love.

beckylunatic

I have some suspicions that the main thing preventing this or holding it up from being developed is companion attack animations.

For example, having the Priestess of Sehanine Moonbow go into her airplane imitation routine but it damages and debuffs your opponent like Wicked Strike instead of casting her Moonbeams... I'm not sure how that would work, and I also expect that any companion where Forgotten Realms canon is applicable has abilities that have been approved by WotC, and changing how that works might not be permitted under the license.

I do agree that making the companion system work more like mounts would make many players happy and make the game look nicer (I do not miss the days of everyone and their dog on a flail snail). But it has slightly more logistical issues than mounts, even mount combat powers not matching your riding mount which is never seen in combat anyway.

oldbaldyone

Fair point. Just tired of seeing like 3 or 4 companions all the time.

tripsofthrymr

beckylunatic said:

I have some suspicions that the main thing preventing this or holding it up from being developed is companion attack animations.

Sort of like when my Siegebreaker Griffon spits out a Swift Golden Lion, but on steroids

pitshade

I could never use a Con Artist just because of the dialog. Just no.

There are a lot of fun pets that will never actually be useful, and that's sad. You can get away with a less optimal choice if it has decent geat/rune slots but that still limits the field by a lot.