[PETS] Crouching Pet, Hidden Beast v1.13a

[zebramatt]

The creator of this mod in his post higher up above basically tells me that however the way he said it made it sound like Giant is no longer permanent but rather limited to 10 or so minutes...that's why I was bummed again...so both versions include Giant fish that have permanent duration or just ones that have long duration?

Read it again!

(Both have both.)

[SCHUMI4EVER]

Ok, then my next question, if using the non fishmash version then how rare a spawn are the giant fish?

[Velari]

Aww, I want permanent fish for all these creatures though (like the dog and catfish in the original torchlight) (or at least a permanent DragonKin)
It's no fun if it reverts back into the everyday dog or cat after a while (taken from a purely skinbased view, I don't care about the extra whistles and bells the transformations bring with em)

There are permanent fish. They each have normal, big, and giant versions, like the normal Torchlight stuff, and giant fish results in permanent transformation.

I just double checked and both versions of this mod have all four sizes of fish!

They shouldn't >_>
The normal one has normal, big, and giant, Fishmash version has small, normal, big, and giant.

The creator of this mod in his post higher up above basically tells me that however the way he said it

"Her" and "she."

made it sound like Giant is no longer permanent but rather limited to 10 or so minutes...,

Nope, what I meant is that Fishmash introduces a fourth size (10 minute transformation) in addition to the three that are already available (two minutes, one hour, permanent). This because the jump between two minutes and one hour is huge. Well, and I imagine because two minutes is honestly kind of useless >_>
So at any rate, both versions have the standard fish for two minutes, one hour, and permanent, the Fishmash version adds a fourth fish with a transformation time of 10 minutes (to be in line with how Fishmash works), plus the ability to transmute fish of the same size up to a fish of the next size.

So both versions include Giant fish that have permanent duration or just ones that have long duration?

Standard version:
- 2 minutes
- 1 hour
- Permanent

Fishmash version
- 2 minutes
- 10 minutes
- 1 hour
- Permanent

Ok, then my next question, if using the non fishmash version then how rare a spawn are the giant fish?

The Varkolyn and Phase Beast items are as common as the most common standard Torchlight fish, such as the Webfish, Tunnel Shark, and Batfish. The Priestess, Mycon, and Dragonkin items are a bit more common than the fish for Elementals. The Deathcaster items are pretty much the same as the fish for Elementals.

[zebramatt]

You're absolutely right, madam. *bows* My mistake.

[SCHUMI4EVER]

Sorry for making you type all that and sorry for getting confused but thanks for the clarification

[Velari]

Updated, most importantly with four additional pet forms. Also tweaked the stats on the original ones a little. Mostly the Dragonkin pet has been beefed up a little, to make him more viable for a number of levels.
Note that both the standard and Fishmash versions of Crouching Pet, Hidden Beast have been updated.

New pets include the Preying Spider, Widowmaker, Brood Mother, and Depth Dweller. First three are from my Champions Mod where they appeared as enemies, while the Depth Dweller is a modified version of the unused Torchlight boss Leviathan. Some of you may have met up with the Depth Dweller's big brother in the Starch the Monster Hunter mod
At any rate, as an unused monster it seemed like an interesting option for a pet.

The Preying Spider and Widowmaker are in general just stronger spider pets. If anyone happens to like the original spider pet, these might be good alternatives as the original spider pet is rather fragile and isn't of much use beyond the first few levels. The Preying Spider is faster, has a charge attack, and an increased critical rate. The Widowmaker is slightly slower, but stronger and does more damage. The Widowmaker's basic attack is 100% poison damage.
To distinguish it from the Widowmaker enemies in the Champions Mod, the Widowmaker pet is slightly larger than the enemy Widowmakers. It also has a blueish aura applied to it, both to help distinguish it from enemy Widowmaker, and to make it easier for the player to locate her or his pet in dark areas.

The Dark Priestess and Deathcaster pets provided an interesting alternative to the standard Torchlight pets, I found. Whereas the default pets are mostly "rush in and attack" pets, the Dark Priestess and Deathcaster are spellcaster pets.
The Brood Mother, then, is a summoner pet. Much like the enemy Brood Mothers in the Champions Mod, the pet Brood Mother can spawn spiderlings to attack enemies. The spiderlings all have a blueish aura, much like the Widowmaker pet, to make it easier for the player to recognise that they are not the enemy.

The Depth Dweller is a decently strong pet who can smash the ground and cause shockwaves that will damage enemy forces. There are rumours that it may also posses some other strange ability ...


While the Preying Spider and Widowmaker aren't particularly strong - though, as said, certainly a bit tougher than the standard spider pet -, the Depth Dweller and Brood Mother are certainly more useful than the standard Torchlight pets. That's because they're meant to be a bit more viable pet choices on higher levels. By which I don't mean level 90 on Very Hard, mind you. But they should prove a bit more useful than most pets, especially the Brood Mother with her summoning capabilities.

While on the subject of the Brood Mother, no, she's not a normal Tunnel Spider, if you want a Tunnel Spider pet, just fetch the Tunnel Spider pet by Irrelevant, which is awesome and the reason why I don't have to bother with making a Tunnel Spider pet

A video with me showing the new pets, and some short bits of the Brood Mother and Depth Dweller pets in action can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uexJo68r6r8


Mind you that there are minor issues with the Widowmaker and Depth Dweller unit themes. Sometimes they don't appear, or stick to other pets. These aren't issues with my mod, they are issues with the game (or its engine). I've tried a number of workarounds to get around these issues, but haven't managed to find anything yet.
Usually, though, simply feeding the pet another fish or exiting the game will be enough to get rid of unwanted effects.
(actually, you can see one of these issues in the video. During the title screen shot of the Preying Spider, you can see a haze over the floor in the background. That's because the Preying Spider had for some reason gotten stuck with the Depth Dweller unit theme, and that haze is a vastly enlarged version of the blueish haze that should be under the Depth Dweller)

[Phanjam]

...wow...

I'm going to try them all! Thanks so much Velari! You are too cool!

[rking12345678]

Using the fishmash version of your mod (and the Merchant Pack mod so I don't have to actually fish for anything), I've gathered about 1/4 of the required smaller fish required to transmute a permanent Dark Priestess fish so far. From what your description sounds like it seems like it'd be a nice pet for my melee Vanquisher who really doesn't need a tank in front of her. Thanks for the nice mod, it looks like there are quite a few interesting choices here to play with.

[Velari]

If you've visited the Champions Mod topic in the last few hours, you know this was coming:
SUPER DUPER ULTRA SKIN UPDATE!
Tired of your purply Phase Beast? Well, you can now be stuck with a cuddly blue Phase Beast instead

1.12 Is purely cosmetic - there are no changes that will actually affect gameplay.
And yes, both the standard and Fishmashy Crouching Pet, Hidden Beast versions have been updated.

New skins added for the following pets:

Dark Priestess
Deathcaster
Phase Beast
Ember Mycon
Varkolyn Dark
Varkolyn Warrior
Preying Spider
Widowmaker
Brood Mother (Spiderlings have also had their skins changed to reflect the changes)

Also, removed the blue glow from the pet Widowmaker. It looks different from the enemy Widowmakers in the Champions Mod now, so eh.
The Dragonkin and Depth Dweller pets have not had their appearance changed. They look fine the way they are and anything that you might run into that looks the same is a dozen times their size The changes to the Varkolyn Dark and Varkolyn Warrior are very minor, by the way. There isn't much you can change about a Varkolyn Dark before you can't really call it a Varkolyn Dark anymore *shrug*
Might do a vid tomorrow for people who want to see them before downloading.

[Velari]

Okay, video showing the new v1.12 skins available here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyWMsaey5Xw

Note that the Varkolyn Warrior and Varkolyn Dark pets are not shown, as the changes are quite insignificant.

[zebramatt]

Hooray! I haven't had a chance to play Torchlight this past week or so - I was going to ask if you'd post a video!

[TormakSaber]

Best pet mod, IMHO tied with "Change my fish" which had some bugs I couldn't overlook so I topped using it in favor of this one.

[Phanjam]

Hi Velari:
First, thanks for this excellent mod! I'm using the varkolyn warrior at the moment.

He's fine but I just find him a little too small Isn't there a value I can alter in some file somewhere to make him larger? I tried adjusting the value for "scale" in the varkolynwarriorpet.dat file, but it doesn't seem to do anything. Can you help me out pls?

Thanks much!

[Velari]

Hey Phanjam, I though you were using the Dragonkin pet

That should be correct, though. I just did a quick test to be sure, although it was with the Brood Mother since that's my standard pet in the editor, and that worked

Though since you seem to have altered the file directly, did you delete the .adm file afterwards and/or clear the mod cache? That's certainly the first thing that comes to mind. Also, I don't know how much you changed the scale, but it could be it was a small enough increment to not be very noticeable. For now the .adm file not having been replaced seems to be the most likely cause, though.

[Phanjam]

Hey Velari! That was quick - thanks so much!

I'm using the varkolyn warrior with a new character, a vanquisher that I'm building as a melee fighter...


(turned her around 'cause her armor's a little racy...)

I'm still using the dragonkin but just on an earlier character (a destroyer).

Anyway, I had set the scale value to 2.0 just so I'd see any change RIGHT AWAY . I cleared the cache and ran the game just now, but as you can see he seems to have remained the same size

EDIT:
But let me work on this a bit more - I've been using your very first fishmash compatible version. Downloading v1.12 now and will see if that solves the problem

[Velari]

Ah, your hood is no longer green

And yeah, I was just about to ask what version you were using since the colour of your pet seems to be off It should be a tad darker.

[Velari]

Mmmkay, looks like it does work - it just doesn't take effect immediately. If you make the change and then go and play, your current pet still has the same size. It's still using the same data. I imagine the data for the pet's current form is saved to your savegame data when you use the transformation item on it, but I'm too lazy to check right now (and want to get back to finishing the next version of the Champions Mod ).
However, when I then give it another transformation item for a Varkolyn Warrior (with no inbetweens, mind you, from Varkolyn Warrior to Varkolyn Warrior), it does use the new data and is huge. A scale of 2 makes it larger than your Vanquisher, just so you know

[Phanjam]

Mmmkay, looks like it does work - it just doesn't take effect immediately. If you make the change and then go and play, your current pet still has the same size. It's still using the same data. I imagine the data for the pet's current form is saved to your savegame data when you use the transformation item on it...

Haha! Yes I found out the same thing! I transformed it to an ice elemental (120 secs) first, then fed it the varkolyn fish again and VOILA it was the new adjusted size!



This is at "scale:1.5" btw. I think I'll keep it ! Oh and I'm on your latest v1.12 now - more monster pets, yay! Thanks for such a great mod!

[Velari]

That's a relief, because I was kind of fearing that perhaps one of the items pointed to the normal Varkolyn Warrior instead of the pet Varkolyn Warrior, and that can certainly cause some problems. Such as it dying >_>

The size isn't that bad considering it can take a decent amount of damage

[Velari]

Added a pic to the download page on RGF, for those who want to see the pets and are too lazy or silly to watch the vids