Bug - Not A Bug Why choose a familiar before ascending?

[Ferdawoon]

I hesitate to call this a bug per say, but lacking other prefixes to use instead..

Anyway. It just struck me, as I'm about to ascend and try for a quickie before the crimbo festivities kick in, that the Pick a Familiar-option is still there when I'm about to ascend.
Now that all familiars drop back to 1 pound upon ascension, why is that choice-box still there?

So, my "bug" is that the choice box in the Ascensions window is outdated and no longer needed, and should be removed to avoid confusion.

 

[Theraze]

Does it still drop even in softcore and casualcore?

 

[Fluxxdog]

Counter: Assists in choosing a familiar for a 100% run. Original purpose may be outdated, but still serves other purposes.

And you were right with your instincts, you should trust them more ^^ General rule of thumb: Bugs are things not working as expected, such as mafia trying to equip familiar specific gear on the wrong familiar. Features are things to be added (new content), changed (tavern revamp), updated (better calculations with fewer server hits), or removed (obsolete relays).

 

[StDoodle]

To be fair, isn't it KoL that should remove this?

 

[Fluxxdog]

That is a KoL thing? Huh. In all fairness, I've only ascended once before I started using KoL. I don't honestly remember it now. I thought it was whatever familiar was active at the time and mafia gave the choice which one you wanted. Developer can confirm this as there's no way in hell I'm ascending until the New Year ^^

 

[Bale]

You remember correctly. Back in NS-11 it mattered which familiar you took into the gash, so mafia added the convenient drop-down to help you choose the best one.

It no longer matters, but KoL's handy familiar picker is still there.

StDoodle loses this round to Fluxxdog.

 

[Winterbay]

The drop down isn't in vanilla KoL any more when you try to ascend iirc.

That said: Perhaps the thing to do is to rename the drop down to "which familiar would you want active at the start of your next ascension?" (or something a bit more concise)

 

[bordemstirs]

If there's a dropdown in vanilla KoL, don't bother changing anything. But if not, then I'm all for Team Ditch It.
Superfluous ascension options? No thank you.

 

[StDoodle]

Sorry, /me hasn't played without mafia in years! Could swear vanilla KoL had such a thing, but it may have been a GM script or just shoddy memory.

 

[Ferdawoon]

Sorry, /me hasn't played without mafia in years! Could swear vanilla KoL had such a thing, but it may have been a GM script or just shoddy memory.

I'm not as stupid as I look, so I actually logged out of Mafia and into the normal KoL game just to check.
All I can see in the game without Mafia is the [Ascend] button and the two tickboxes with "are you sure?" and "are you really sure?". I admit I did not actually ascend that way (I like Mafia's easy way to tell me what moonsign do what!) so I dunno if there is a setting after that.

As far as Softcore and Sandbox goes, I have no idea if familiar keep its weight or not. Ages since I ascended Softcore and never done a sandbox =S

 

[Rinn]

Familiars don't maintain their weight for any ascension type.

 

[lostcalpolydude]

All I can see in the game without Mafia is the [Ascend] button and the two tickboxes with "are you sure?" and "are you really sure?". I admit I did not actually ascend that way (I like Mafia's easy way to tell me what moonsign do what!) so I dunno if there is a setting after that.

Glaringly missing from what you just described is anything that lets you pick a skill to perm, a moon sign, HC/SC, etc, so that was the wrong page.

 

[Theraze]

Though mafia has the familiar chooser on pre-ascension, and the skill to perm/skin/HC/restrictions are on the post-ascension bit, when you're leaving...

 

[Ferdawoon]

Ahhh well, yeh, been a while since I ascended without Mafia =)

 

[Bale]

I guess I'm fortunate that I spent a while ascending before I finally started using mafia. I even went through a grease-monkey phase first.

(First time I looked at mafia I didn't know that there was a relay browser and the UI looked completely alien to KoL. Quite a turn off. Took me quite a while before I actually gave it a fair trial.)

 

[Fluxxdog]

I had heard about both and was tempted to use one or the other, but I looked at it like a Game Shark: I'll beat the game first, THEN I play around with it.

Attitude I still have to this day.

 

[Theraze]

Getting back to the original question, my opinion on this is that if post-ascension, you have the familiar selected there out, then it still has a point... it makes 100% runs easier, as you can choose the next one right there and not need to remember it in 3 minutes when you've finished going through the list and waiting for your postascension script to finish running.

If it doesn't stay equipped... cut it.

 

[StDoodle]

I dunno, 100% runs are kind of supposed to be a pain in the ass. I, for one, think adding extra steps that are useless to most to make 100% runs easier is a poor design choice. Now, I understand that this choice was useful earlier, when which familiar you took mattered, but I still feel that removing it is better. I was just confused in thinking that KoL hadn't done so either. Also, as far as I'm aware, there's no reason someone attempting a 100% familiar run couldn't just swap to the next familiar up right before ascending, manually, if they were worried about remembering to do so post-ascension, is there?

 

[Veracity]

What "extra steps" are you referring to? Ignoring the familiar dropdown on the ascension page? We don't FORCE you to touch it.

My attitude on this is: I like having the familiar dropdown. I can choose - or not - to set the familiar I start out with. I only usually bother for a 100% run, but hey - if I'm NOT going to do a 100% run, I leave it alone; it doesn't cost me one single mouse click.

In other words: if you don't like the dropdown, don't use it. It doesn't hurt you in the slightest, and it (minimally) helps other people.

I'm going to reject this.

 

[StDoodle]

Fair enough, but at some point, extra stuff with little real use would just be clutter. I tend to take a rather minimalist approach, and don't like adding anything that doesn't actually make a difference at that particular point in time. Technically, it would be possible to list every single KoL & KoLmafia choice on the ascension page. I'm just saying that I, personally, would draw the line much closer to a "minimalist" place. *shrug* No offense meant, just giving my opinion.