Sidekicking powerups
 

I was talking about this with Naps recently but thought it would be a better idea to open it up to public discussion.

When you destroy a powerup monitor using a buttstomp, sidekick, uppercut, or spinkick, you're supposed to get +25 ammo of that weapon in addition to powering up that weapon.

A JJ2 bug, however, means that the powerup takes an additional tick to count as fully destroyed. In many cases, this means that you will actually collide with the monitor two ticks in a row and get +25 ammo twice, for a total of +50, which is coincidentally the maximum ammo in multiplayer.

"In many cases" is important here: this doesn't happen all the time. It happens most often with Spaz, but even then it doesn't always happen, sometimes you start pretty close to the edge of the powerup and move away from it. Jazz has a harder time, especially in local games where powerups are solid: he has to stand on top of the powerup to uppercut it, and is very unlikely to get +50. Lori I don't even know. So in addition to feeling random, this mechanic seems to be a Spaz advantage, and Spaz doesn't really need advantages.

The way the game was intended to work would be for destroying powerups to always give you +25 and never +50, but I don't think people would like that, it's contrary to all our experiences. Instead, I think it would be better if kicking and uppercutting powerups always gave you +50.

Buttstomps, though, should still give you +25, there are levels that rely on that assumption.

Thoughts?

Agreed

I think it's safe to assume that the majority of multiplayer levels uploaded to j2o have these monitor power-ups placed with +50 ammo in mind when using the special move. Shooting a PU monitor should always give +20. If you really want to play it save, a command toggle could be made for this.. but then again, levelmakers can specify the amount of ammo a PU monitor should give by using Angelscript.

Agreed!

Fine by me!

As the old saying goes, after a while it's no longer a bug but a feature, so making the "bugged" behavior more consistent is a fine way to go.

Sounds like a good change for this specific use case, but I honestly don't really prioritize it that high on the jj2+ request list. I don't think it's completely random when you collect +25 instead of +50 because it's consistent with where you are positioned when using a special move. If it were it would be a lot more urgent. I guess it would still be nice not to worry about pixel perfect positioning (especially for Jazz) when collecting powerup ammo.

Adding another command for +50 is the opposite of playing it safe in this use case I think. It's such a tiny detail. Another command just needs maintenance on top of the pile of many commands plus already has. If really necessary someone can make a mutator to bring back the other behaviour, but I really doubt anyone would even think to go there for this use case.

If you mean powerups giving +20 specifically, I actually would like that a lot from a gameplay perspective, but less from a game preserving perspective. It might be a bit controversial. I agree it's annoying to collect a powerup with <5 ammo. But it also allows applying some game knowledge of little quirks that jj2 has had since the beginning. Like I remind myself to shoot away my last ammo to then gain +20 for a powerup. Many games have little quirks like this and I guess it could be seen as a feature by now.

On the other hand, a) it's a very easy fix, b) the number of replies indicates that it's something that has much more community interest than most other threads, and c) there's a specific branch that is being held back from release by not having this question settled.

Sure, it's not actually random, it's just difficult for the player to predict in a way that can feel random to our flawed human brains.

Good points! I have nothing more to add and I hope to see this change soon

Agree.