The recent event introduced new variants of existing companions, namely consumed variants. I absolutely love them.

What I don't like, however, is that the variants based on retired companions are not available because they are "too strong". Considering the fact that the devs have 100% control over the stats of a companion, it feels very skewed to use that as a reason for not making them available. If they are too strong, simply nerf them. Edit to add: I never thought to check the stats in the companion overview. They have the exact same stats as the originals, so clearly they are not too powerful. Why would only KS backers be allowed to have powerful companions at their disposal? This makes reason 2 mentioned below all the more important Make them available for the community. And I say this for multiple reasons.

1. The original exclusive companions are already pretty impossible to obtain. Especially in the long run, the closest most people will be able to get is to get a colour variant. Now even that is made impossible.

2. Companions are more than just pretty pictures. Rarer companions give far better rewards for a lot less effort, and they are used in battle. They often have unique stats, synergies and abilities. We are already noticing now that the KS krane is absolutely vital in progressing far into the icerun gauntlet. The majority of the community is hard-locked out of progressing further because the KS krane is kickstarter exclusive, and there is not even a consumed variant to buy as an alternative.

3. All companions are listed in the companion overview. To me it makes absolutely 0 sense to have an overview of all companions that includes companions that are 100% not available to get in any way shape or form. These types of games often attracts collectors, myself included. I hate the idea that I will never have 100%, not because for my lack of trying, but simply for the fact that they have not been made available. It's worse than dangling a carrot in front of a hungry donkey because we will never be able to get them.

So long story short; make the boss and exclusive consumed variants available for purchase.

Oh, absolutely! I thought this would be the event that let's players get KS look alikes and learning that this was intentionally left out was a little disappointing.

Support!

I want to add a point here, I partly support the idea. But I think it would be reasonable to make companions close to equally as powerful to be available to everyone (though not "easy" to obtain). That way there would still be the exclusive companion, but the majority of players aren't locked out of progressing just because they can't get their hands on one. It really seems extremely unfair that we don't even have an alternative way of getting to the same point.

EDIT I agree with what Veradana said above me

While I agree with the basic premise that we should be able to get these companions, what I'd really like right now is more information on their plans for the consumed versions in general. There are a LOT more than just the bosses that aren't available currently. Just a small few as an example:

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Consumed Moorbear

Companion

A Moorbear consumed by chaos.

This companion has a 2h cooldown

Base Health 37

Base Attack 4

Base Defense 7

Base Speed 3

Possible Rewards

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Consumed Basidio

Companion

A Basidio consumed by chaos.

This companion has a 2h cooldown

Base Health 27

Base Attack 6

Base Defense 6

Base Speed 4

Possible Rewards

Designed by Fennelroot

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Consumed Sparklequill

Companion

A Sparklequill consumed by chaos.

This companion has a 6h cooldown

Base Health 31

Base Attack 6

Base Defense 9

Base Speed 8

Possible Rewards

I get that staff maybe don't want to spoil their plans, but a basic overview would be appreciated.

My personal suspicion based on the shop headers of "Icerun Consumed Companions" and "General Consumed Companions" is that the theme of every pack event might be fighting these. That would mean the "Icerun" category comes back yearly and changes selection based on pack, while the "General" category is always available in every pack event's shop.

Is this true? No idea! [While looking to see if I was allowed to ping Quiche and ask directly, I saw that this is indeed confirmed to be the case]

But this still leaves the question of how do we get the bosses and hypothetically non-pack companions like the sparklequill. I highly suspect the "too strong" blurb was intended to be flavor text and not the literal reason they aren't currently available. But will we get them later in some other event? Maybe they want to save them for rare drops in the Mistvale campaign? No clue! Clarification would be appreciated here.

I'd also like to note that the consumed variants do NOT fill the gameplay niche of their regular counterparts, as they have different synergies and passive abilities. Even if we had access to these we would still need proper mirrors.

I had honestly expected the KS consumed recolors to be given out at the end of the event for everyone who was active/participated, or as rare drops from the boss encounters (although I would hate to farm those if that were the case since you know they'd be extremely hard to earn). I'm really disappointed to be finding out this way that as it is currently it's gonna be pretty much impossible to obtain them. :/