Spider branch

[nicolae]

Spider branch makes me think of somebody getting dragged off into the darkness by a gigantic spider, clawing at the ground as littler spiders swarm all over them. But there isn't really a "drag kicking and screaming" mechanic in the game.

Also, this might just be me and my spectacularly deficient color vision, but the tiles for redback and trapdoor spiders look pretty similar to me.

[Blade]

That "drag kicking and screaming" idea is actually quite interesting. What if there was a giant spider-type monster that had a "reverse trample" sort of mechanic, where they had a chance of pulling the player back a square?

[mumra]

That "drag kicking and screaming" idea is actually quite interesting. What if there was a giant spider-type monster that had a "reverse trample" sort of mechanic, where they had a chance of pulling the player back a square?

A day or two ago I wrote up a "giant spider" concept on the wiki. It's a 3x3 multiple tile thing with legs in the extraneous squares. An ability that reeled the player towards it into melee range could be useful. For some reason I'm reminded of Mortal Kombat ...

[nicolae]

For some reason I'm reminded of Mortal Kombat ...

Well, Spider's already got scorpions...

[evilmike]

Spider branch makes me think of somebody getting dragged off into the darkness by a gigantic spider, clawing at the ground as littler spiders swarm all over them. But there isn't really a "drag kicking and screaming" mechanic in the game.

Also, this might just be me and my spectacularly deficient color vision, but the tiles for redback and trapdoor spiders look pretty similar to me.

One is just a recolouring of the other, that's why. The colours actually are quite different (one is dark grey, one is green) but this won't help if you can't see colour well. Tiles for the branch are unfinished anyway (still need walls and floor, and new tiles for a few monsters).

[nicolae]

One is just a recolouring of the other, that's why. The colours actually are quite different (one is dark grey, one is green) but this won't help if you can't see colour well. Tiles for the branch are unfinished anyway (still need walls and floor, and new tiles for a few monsters).

I might give making tiles a shot once I've gotten all my Spider vaults out of my system.

Incidentally, is there a reason why an upstair might not appear in a vault even when the vault includes all three? I'm testing it in wizmode with &^R, if that matters.

[nicolae]

Maybe it was replaced with a mimic?

Nah, there was nothing there at all.

I put {([ in the map and then SHUFFLE: {([, isn't that the usual way to do it?

[nicolae]

In other news, I cranked out an Arachne tile.

[Jabberwocky]

In other news, I cranked out an Arachne tile.

Not bad, it looks nice. The torso doesn't feel properly proportioned though.

[nicolae]

In other news, I cranked out an Arachne tile.

Not bad, it looks nice. The torso doesn't feel properly proportioned though.

Yeah, I think I'm going to have to make her torso a little larger, she looks kind of small next to some other unique tiles. Probably not gonna do that tonight, though, I don't think my eyeballs could stand it.

[roctavian]

That's pretty awesome! I could tweak it to make the torso look longer if you're cool with that, I'm fast at this stuff.

[nicolae]

That's pretty awesome! I could tweak it to make the torso look longer if you're cool with that, I'm fast at this stuff.

There's a couple other little changes I was gonna make too, but thanks.

Edit: Okay, here's a new one, with a slightly bigger torso. I tried to make her robe thing look more like it was made of spider webs, but the technical limitations of pixel art (and the pixel artist) made it a little hard to get that across.

[Jabberwocky]

That's pretty awesome! I could tweak it to make the torso look longer if you're cool with that, I'm fast at this stuff.

There's a couple other little changes I was gonna make too, but thanks.

Edit: Okay, here's a new one, with a slightly bigger torso. I tried to make her robe thing look more like it was made of spider webs, but the technical limitations of pixel art (and the pixel artist) made it a little hard to get that across.

Nice, that looks better to my eye.

[roctavian]

I like it.

[nicolae]

Thanks! It's my first tile, so I'm pleased it's not terrible.

[Infinitum]

It's hard to tell without comparing it to existing tiles, but I actually like the proportions of the first one better. The second one looks to much like it's just protruding from the top of the spider parts front segment imo.

[XuaXua]

It works with any monster that has the "web sense" flag.

Web sense... tingling.

[Guppyfry]

I thought Nicolae's spider rune vault was pretty cool. Maybe a bit small, but I think that's fine, the deep water path with tarantellas and orb spiders felt intense enough. I'd take out the permarock just to make it play more randomly with the orb spiders blowing stuff up when they miss.

Here's my first stab at a rune vault. I wanted the access points and terrain to be random to make it play a little differently every time. It might make more sense as a regular vault with loot and toned down monsters though.

  Code:

############################
# Spider Rune Vault
#
NAME: guppyfry_spider_rune
PLACE: Spider:5
ORIENT: float
KITEM: O = gossamer rune of zot
MONS: moth of wrath, ghost moth
MONS: yellow wasp /  red wasp
MONS: demonic crawler
MONS: tarantella / wolf spider / jumping spider / spiny worm / brain worm
MONS: trapdoor spider
MONS: orb spider
KFEAT: ^ = web
SUBST: - = ..wWW^
SHUFFLE: O12*
SHUFFLE: W.^
MAP
xxx^o.xxxxxxx-.xxxxxxx.o^xxx
xx...xxxxxxx-.--xxxxxxx...xx
x6Wxxxxxxxxx.oo-xxxxxxxxxW6x
x6.xxxxxxxxxx.-xxxxxxxxxx.6x
xW--xxxO45xx6--6xx541xxx--Wx
xx.--xxx55xxx.-xxx55xxx--.xx
xxxW--xoxWxx.---xxWxox--Wxxx
xxxx.--xx7xxx.-xxx.xx--.xxxx
xxxxxW--xWxx--.-xxWx--Wxxxxx
xxxx-.-xx^-x-xx.x-^xx-.-xxxx
xxx--.-x--.--55--.--x-.--xxx
xxx33333^.-.5445.-.^33333xxx
xxx--.-x--.--55--.--x-.--xxx
xxxx-.-xx^-x.xx-x-^xx-.-xxxx
xxxxxW--xWxx-.--xxWx--Wxxxxx
xxxx.--xx.xxx-.xxx7xx--.xxxx
xxxW--xoxWxx---.xxWxox--Wxxx
xx.--xxx55xxx-.xxx55xxx--.xx
xW--xxx*45xx6--6xx542xxx--Wx
x6.xxxxxxxxxx-.xxxxxxxxxx.6x
x6Wxxxxxxxxx-oo.xxxxxxxxxW6x
xx...xxxxxxx--.-xxxxxxx...xx
xxx^o.xxxxxxx.-xxxxxxx.o^xxx
ENDMAP


[nicolae]

I thought Nicolae's spider rune vault was pretty cool. Maybe a bit small, but I think that's fine, the deep water path with tarantellas and orb spiders felt intense enough. I'd take out the permarock just to make it play more randomly with the orb spiders blowing stuff up when they miss.

"Narrow walkway with tarantellas" was the basic idea I had. I was going to make it just a regular minivault, but decided to flesh it out into a rune vault. I'll probably fix it up a little more soonish, make it a little bigger, and maybe move away from the "room fulla monsters" motif, but I'm taking a break from making spider vaults for a bit.

[thevogonpoet]

This is probably a bit late, but seeing as outside the tourneys I only ever play Trunk, and then feel guilty about not posting more feedback, here we go:

http://crawl.develz.org/morgues/trunk/v ... onpoet.txt

My MiFi just picked up the gossamer rune. Spider was fun. The orb spiders in particular are scary cool. This guy has SInv and rPois, but still burned a few potions of curing due to the confusion effect. I also had to burn a scroll of teleport when I got suprised by Arachne whilst dealing with a group of spiders including a tarantula, but once I isolated her it was ok. Meeting Boris was a shock.

Thoughts:
Without SInv, this would have been really hard, ditto rPois.
The addition of the boss guy will be awesome.
There were not as many spiders around in general as I feared there might be - could be more?

I might edit this post more later, gotta go.

[evilmike]

There were not as many spiders around in general as I feared there might be - could be more?

Thanks for the feedback.

I've experimented a fair amount with the numbers, and am fairly happy with how they are right now (I did increase it a while ago). The number of enemies you get is of course highly subject to the RNG, so you may have simply had a lucky run.

A new enemy will be added eventually, and I will probably make it so it spawns with a band of redbacks (or at least has a chance to). This will increase the number of enemies you'll face, although not by too much (it will be for deep levels, mainly).

The monster distribution will probably be tweaked again. My plan right now is to not make any drastic changes for the next while, so I can gather some statistics. I'm rather interested in stuff like how many people die in Spider:1-4 compared to other lair branches, ditto with Spider:5, the average xl people enter the branch at, and the average xl people get the rune at. These sorts of stats give an idea of how hard the branch is, and how hard people perceive it is.

[XuaXua]

On the other hand having the spiders try and eat everything caught in webs and not only the player would be quite awesome. Would really capture that creepy crawly vibe.

This would be thematic, but summoners will manipulate the mechanic to distract spiders.

Maybe not if it produced more spiders (or resulted in a more powerful spider).

[jejorda2]

On the other hand having the spiders try and eat everything caught in webs and not only the player would be quite awesome. Would really capture that creepy crawly vibe.

This would be thematic, but summoners will manipulate the mechanic to distract spiders.

Maybe not if it produced more spiders (or resulted in a more powerful spider).

More slime-creature style mergings would be great, and this is different enough that it wouldn't dilute the slime creature flavor much. But there would need to be something good for the spiders to turn into when they eat enough.

[mumra]

There was an old idea for a spider that laid eggs in corpses, which would then hatch into spider swarms.

That wouldn't really work too well, but instead you could have a spider laying eggs in live hosts ... and after a few turns or when the host dies they hatch. Kind of like an "inner spiders" spell

[Grimm]

I died in Spider:4 in a very enjoyable manner: I was in a very cramped section when a huge number of spiders of all types appeared, and I made the mistake of stepping off the up staircase I was on. Spiders soon occupied that square and every other available space. Individually they would have been popcorn but together they represented a serious threat. I tried to cut my way through to the stairs but was quickly poisoned badly, then done in by an orb of energy.

This death - swarmed by insects - was very much in keeping with the theme and flavour of the branch. It was a result not of a single monster, but of the way in which a set of monsters worked together with a level layout to exploit a weakness in the player's ability. A design success.

[XuaXua]

That's pretty awesome! I could tweak it to make the torso look longer if you're cool with that, I'm fast at this stuff.

There's a couple other little changes I was gonna make too, but thanks.

Edit: Okay, here's a new one, with a slightly bigger torso. I tried to make her robe thing look more like it was made of spider webs, but the technical limitations of pixel art (and the pixel artist) made it a little hard to get that across.

Should have a set of six spider-boobs because that is always kinda gross.

[nicolae]

Should have a set of six spider-boobs because that is always kinda gross.

I wasn't really thinking about the logistics of spider-human-hybrid mammaries. (Also the Arachne tile I made has floated down the bug report page, unnoticed. Is it gauche to bump it back up?)

[cerebovssquire]

This death - swarmed by insects - was very much in keeping with the theme and flavour of the branch. It was a result not of a single monster, but of the way in which a set of monsters worked together with a level layout to exploit a weakness in the player's ability. A design success.

i was camping this thread for weeks waiting for an opportunity to make a smart-ass comment about arachnids not being insects

On a more serious note: having done Spider 4 or 5 times now I think it has a good monster set and an appropriate difficulty level, but far too many webs. Yes, the amount is probably realistic, but right now they are in there in too large numbers to be fun (webs are not fun if you are in them every 10 seconds, almost literally). I think replacing some webs with other ways of increasing difficulty would be nice. If some of the new moths get introduced / the Hellspider gets in, can we cut down on them?
For variety I really look forward to the Hellspider and moths. 1-4 feel too similar right now in my opinion, a boss becoming stronger and stronger and also adapting will help.

[Grimm]

i was camping this thread for weeks waiting for an opportunity to make a smart-ass comment about arachnids not being insects

You got me red-handed. I believe there was a boulder beetle in the mix though.

[smock]

Spider is very nice! It's a bit odd to have another poison-heavy branch. And like all branches I think it could be lose a level or two. But for me it's certainly more fun than swamp.

One note: At present it seems that nonmagical projectiles can pass through webs without the webs being destroyed and without the projectiles being affected. Spider in particular would be more flavorful if webs blocked some or all projectiles. Magic beams and bolts maybe could be handled differently as well. Just seems a bit like cheating - I mean, a player should barely be able to aim a longbow in that web-infested spider hole, let alone shoot through all those webs.

[evilmike]

Spider is very nice! It's a bit odd to have another poison-heavy branch.

The final version will have it so you can never get Snake and Spider in the same game.

[crate]

My comments after a few rune grabs:

There are two main problems with the branch imo:

The first is that there are way too many webs. You could cut webs to 1/5 of what it is now and there would still be a heck of a lot of webs around. The web traps also don't feel like they do a whole lot other than mess with autofight/travel/autoexplore (currently spider is actually more annoying to explore than swamp is because of webs).

The other is that if you have anywhere near decent AC (like, 20 AC is good enough) most of the spiders are pretty harmless even if you're webbed since they just don't deal much damage (as long as you have either rpois or the cure poison spell or enough curing potions ... letting redback poison tick off can hurt quite a bit). My TeNe did spider quite comfortably with about 18 AC/40 EV plus a buckler and even when I got webbed I wasn't taking much damage. I could also tab demonic crawlers to death with my staff of death despite the fact that was me hitting with an unenchanted 5 damage weapon. So the problem here is that either the damage of the spiders should be upped a bit or there needs to be some incentive for doing spider earlier.

The actual rune vaults feel ok as far as difficulty goes (emperor scorps are still dangerous) though.

[XuaXua]

Instead of generating so many webs, there are spiders that apparently hit you with webs.

If the Nest generates fewer webs from the get-go, if it isn't doing anything better, would it be so wrong for a spider to opt to take a turn to generate a web on the space it is occupying in order to create a trap?

Also, are there rules for web generation? I'm of the mind that every web grouping should connect to at least 2 walls or 2 webs or 1 wall and 1 web and any grouping of webs size should be restricted between 1-3.

[mumra]

The logic for the webs is probabilistic, so they tend to collect in corners and next to other webs but they can appear anywhere. Otherwise, depending on geography, you could trivially avoid them all just by staying away from walls.

Currently the only monster that fires webs is Arachne. Personally I think it'd be good to have a standard spider that spits webs, and give Arachne a different unique ability.

[nicolae]

The logic for the webs is probabilistic, so they tend to collect in corners and next to other webs but they can appear anywhere. Otherwise, depending on geography, you could trivially avoid them all just by staying away from walls.

Currently the only monster that fires webs is Arachne. Personally I think it'd be good to have a standard spider that spits webs, and give Arachne a different unique ability.

Jumping spiders sometimes put a web on you when they pounce at you, which is kind of similar.

[XuaXua]

Currently the only monster that fires webs is Arachne.

What? I thought it was jumping spiders too.

[claws]

Currently the only monster that fires webs is Arachne.

What? I thought it was jumping spiders too.

Jumping spiders sometimes put a web on you when they pounce at you, which is kind of similar.

[evilmike]

Yeah, they don't *shoot* webs, but they do jump (basically blink) towards you and have an ensnare attack. If they deal damage with a pounce attack there is a 50% chance you'll get caught in their web.

I'd rather not add a web-shooting spider, since this is Arachne's thing, and since I think the number of webs is high enough already... what I'm more interested in would be what I'm calling a "Goo spider", and has been talked about a bit. It would shoot a web-like venmous goo that slows you. This would be similar to the regular Slow effect, but it would be non-magical and shorter lasting. This is based on a real spider.

Not to say I have a real plan for adding one of these right now, just that I think it's more interesting than yet another web enemy.

[Blade]

A few thoughts once more on spider difficulty after my last couple of xl20+ clearances:
-at that point, spider:1-4 are almost completely ignorable; even if I got swarmed, I could just tab my way out of anything
-at that point, spider:5 still has potential to be incredibly deadly. Groups of orb spiders can be really nasty for berserker-type chars, because the maintain_range makes them really annoying to reach; I had one point on my latest spider:5 (with an xl22 ddbe who had already cleared d:27 effortlessly) where a group of 5 orb spiders got me down to 14 hp. Ghost moths are incredibly deadly for midlevel guys without strong melee, since it's difficult to kill them without running out of mana.

Of course, it's incredibly easy for stabbers and ely worshippers, but that's a different matter (it would make a whole lot of sense in my opinion if more things in spider saw/sensed invis; shoals already fills the "nothing can touch you if you have invis" niche).

Overall, Spider is mostly easy with a few startling difficulty spikes. I like it a lot, but it would help if the difficulty was smoothed out.

[evilmike]

If you're clearing it at xl 20+ it's going to be easy. The difficulty can be smoother but at a certain point it's not going to be a challenge for anyone, especially if you're doing it after D:27. This isn't a problem with the branch, it's a problem with crawl allowing you to put things off like this. It would be a very, very bad thing if this branch were balanced for lategame characters. 1-4 should be doable somewhere in the range of xl 14-19 on most chars, and balanced according to that. This applies to all lair subbranches that aren't Slime, in my opinion.

High AC is especially helpful, since (as you say) it allows you to autofight most stuff. Orb spiders help with this. I'm not sure if it's a huge problem that AC is so helpful here. Certain types of characters tend to have an easier time with certain branches. See Snake for anyone with a ranged attack, or Shoals for anyone with invisibility, or Elf for anyone with a cloud spell, or Swamp for anyone with flight, for examples of this.

It's good to hear the branch ending was at least a challenge though, previously I've been hearing a lot of comments about how the jump isn't big enough compared to other lair branches.

As for sense invisible, jumping spiders have this, and demonic crawlers see invisible. Could possibly give it to another enemy, dunno which one though.

[Blade]

Yeah, I mentioned xl because it's certainly going to be easy at that point. My primary point was that, in certain situations, it can still be dangerous for high-xl characters (which is more than can usually be said for Swamp, at least). I can't really see myself ever doing Spider at a much lower xl than that, though; as I said, it's usually easy, but has enough "this suddenly got scary" moments that I prefer to be comfortably overpowered in it.

[nicolae]

High AC is especially helpful, since (as you say) it allows you to autofight most stuff. Orb spiders help with this.

I had an idea a while back, for a spider-themed spell that would go with a unique or perhaps a spider priest of an arachnid god: it summons tiny baby spiders onto you, which crawl around and bite and do damage and all that fun stuff, represented by a status effect. The status would take longer to go away if you had on more armor, because the spiders would find it harder to crawl out of bulky armor instead of loose flowing robes. Then again, it would encourage disrobing in safe spots to make the baby spider swarm go away, which might be tedious.

[sanka]

As for sense invisible, jumping spiders have this, and demonic crawlers see invisible. Could possibly give it to another enemy, dunno which one though.

What if nets give sense invisible to spiders, like shallow water gives to everyone?

[twelwe]

Clearing out a spider's nest right now. Playing a HOEE that went full melee under Okawaru with heavy armour and axes.

I believe I have the full spider clearing kit: curare, clarity, rPois, shield of reflection, +6 steel javelins, rCorr, and disintegration.

Curare (and slowing wands) are usually my first attack against orb spiders under certain circumstances - If there is a jumping spider around, they get a steel javelin to the abdomen first and usually don't survive. I feel like jumpind spiders + orb spiders have the best synergy between monsters early on - I haven't seen spider:5 yet and am playing unspoilered. Clarity is something I always wished to have when entering a spider portal before this branch was made, but it usually opened before clarity dropped for me. Necessary when you are swarmed and there is a tarantula among the pack. Being confised in a spider portal while surrounded usually just meant you would hit a random spider for a while, not turn a bad situation into an instantly deadly one. Reflection just mitigates what orb spiders can do, and mostly just ends up killing other spiders. Disintegration is great to use in a corner while in danger to limit how many spiders can hit you. This digging-in strategy was hurt in general when reaching was added to the game, but no spiders have reach-like effects, making this a viable and smart way to tackle large groups of enemies. Still, I had what could have been a close call if I waited to disintegrate - I was fighting two emperor scorpions guarding an artefact ring, disintegrated into the closest corner, and all of the sudden my enemies list doubles. I don't think I need to explain what happened. I ran, used a wand of digging against a flat wall, and would have had a safe hallway but it dug into another open area which got the attention of a jumping spider. Lots of fun! Corrosion resistance necessity is sprinkles into the branch with spiny worms, enemies that I don't really agree belong there when looking at the other resists needed to survive. The only other time I attempted spider's nest was a HOpr who had *TWO WARLORDS* wearing rPois artefacts and I died when kirke turned me into a pig. I can't imagine a worst branch for kirke to spawn.

This is all great, great stuff. Even with the appropriate tools, it takes a lot of priority decision making that some other branches lack. I do feel, however, that orb spiders could use some adjustments to their movement AI - it is easy to pelt them with poison and stand in a spot where every orb will hit a wall

[evilmike]

I rather like how orbs hit walls a lot... much of the time this tends to ruin safe chokepoints and corridors where you'd want to do your fighting in.

[Grimm]

That is a great effect. Perhaps that basic idea - territory that deforms for some reason as you fight across it - could be used in other branches to spice them up. Abyss is the extreme case of course, and Shoals has it too. Swamp could have for example appearing and disappearing reed mats. Or new monsters that change the map - right now it's orb spiders and boring beetles. A tree-stomping mokele-mbembe?

[mageykun]

The Lernaean hydra at least can already stomp through trees. Although, granted, this doesn't really lead to tactical considerations from changed geography. It's more a matter of 27 heads of fanged screaming death coming strait at you over the shortest distance possible, obstacles be damned.

It's getting off topic, but if we want to consider more things that mess with geography, I'd suggest a unique with LRD. That'll keep you out of corridors, and mess up any choke point you try to defend!

[XuaXua]

It's getting off topic, but if we want to consider more things that mess with geography, I'd suggest a unique with LRD. That'll keep you out of corridors, and mess up any choke point you try to defend!

A Deep Dwarf Unique.