Arachnophobia

[slvsaris]

Could you create several different unattached cells that do not have a specific location (I say several to give variety) When the player gets carted away, just randomly choose one of the spider cells. Then when the player escapes and finds an exit, just teleport them to a random spot ( or a random spot from a list of known spots)  That way no conflicts with the vanilla maps, and you can have as many spider lairs as you wish to make, hell, people could even make their own and tag it as a spider lair so your mod could recognize it.

 

I also love the idea of having a spell that wrapped like the spiders do, then my character could do the collecting!

 

Great work on the mod, this mod was the mod that brought me to Skyrim!

 

 

[bleeb]

good idea slvsaris

[Kazyn]

Well that was one of the ideas I was considering but it goes back to having to create entirely new places which can get pretty tedious and time-consuming. I may instead do a bunch of smaller dens and, as you said, slvsaris, have them be detached from the world. I'm a little iffy on the the player reappearing at various locations, but I'll try it and see how it goes.

[Storms of Superior]

Maybe ask for a level designer to help? I would, but I don't have experience to do great things, despite ideas that I have.

 

For those who are interested and have an easier time following instructions than I do, here is a link to the CK tutorials, which includes level design.

 

 

If people were really interested in seeing good mods develop, there would be more interaction among the community; we would have a lot more community projects, and, therefore, many more well rounded mods.

 

Let me encourage someone to step up to this challenge. I have wanted Arachnophobia to be a great mod since I found last year. How many other mods would be great, but for the lack of direction and cooperation? Let me use the APPS Development Team as an example; this is what I'm talking about. It is team work that is going to produce something different and fresh to all of us.

[slvsaris]

I have always wanted to take the plunge into the CK, maybe mow is the time!

[bleeb]

Well that was one of the ideas I was considering but it goes back to having to create entirely new places which can get pretty tedious and time-consuming. I may instead do a bunch of smaller dens and, as you said, slvsaris, have them be detached from the world. I'm a little iffy on the the player reappearing at various locations, but I'll try it and see how it goes.

 

by dens, do you mean small caves? or something like a small grove of trees? (like a thick ring of trees, with webs and such all over).

 

the separate lair idea sounds like the best thing I think.

[Guest]

Hey Kazyn. how goes the update from 0.21 to 0.22? (Or whatever the next version will be) Anyways. I've noticed some stuff in 0.21 that should be looked at:

 

1st: After the pc gets dragged to the spider lair, The cocoon won't equip and I can still run around like i'm not stuck at all.

 

2nd: The spiders still attack pc while cocooned.

 

 

 Now for some recommendations for the next version:

 

1st: If the player is trapped in the cocoon for too long after being dragged to the cave, the spider(s) will go to the player and LITERATELY eat him/her alive.

 

2nd: Please bring back the spinning Animation and the hanging upside down animation as well. If that can't be possible then can you at least post the version before 0.10 as a download? (The version on shinji72's video of this mod).

 

That's all for now   

[Kazyn]

I've been messing around with this mod off and on as I go through my many Skyrim playthroughs. Meanwhile, I've said I was doing a number of things with this mod that ended up not coming out for you all to experience, however, what I told you was not entirely untrue, it's just something that I thought I was going to finalize and ended up not liking it enough to include it for next time. So just what have I done, then, you ask? Well I made a list:

 

-Experimented with three or four different methods of escape... none of which I'm too happy with... still trying to find my happy place there...

-Attempted to make like... two or three different dungeons (mini-dungeons) throughout the months to try and come up with new spider lairs but they're just forgettable... so those got scrapped...

-I've been kicking around image space modifiers for potential inclusion of an entanglement scene playing that would go something like:

  1) Victim is hit by an entangling attack of some sort

  2) Screen fades out, then back in but with the victim spinning with the spider nearby

  3) This would occur three times, one for each stage of the cocoon, fading in and out updating to the next stage whenever the screen is faded out

  4) Control and escape options return to the victim at which point they can try and struggle out

  5) The screen slowly begins to fade out, serving as a sort of visual timer to indicate time remaining before the victim is dragged off. (gotta figure out how to gradually apply a darkening screen, like what SD+ or DA captured did)

 

Again, that's just something I'm trying to experiment with at this time. No promises.

This would transition into some sort of spider den (might use the existing cave for now, but disconnect it from the world and have it deposit the victim near wherever they were caught at before when they leave the cave). Then escape would begin from this point. I'd like for it to be harder to escape from, but not sure how I'd go about that, yet.

 

-Final point on my list for now, I've done a bunch of small tweaks here and there to the code, all of which may yet be ONCE AGAIN rewritten.

 

I'm so indecisive. >_<

 

However, what do you guys think of utilizing "clever" screen fades and all that to make a slightly more convincing entanglement scene?

 

Other things to note:

 

If this were to work, the initial entanglement would begin with the victim completely wrapped. At which point the victim's spider will be standing over them waiting for them to stop squirming or whatever. Struggling would be disabled while the spider is lording over its prey, however, a sort of kick option would knock (yes, ragdoll) the spider away, at which point the struggle could begin while the spider is outside of the victim's range. However, it would come back and try to reapply more web.

 

I think I have an idea as to how this could be properly managed but I'll have to experiment with it. Still, it could make for a slightly more interactive method of escaping.

[essedess]

This Idea pleases me

[bleeb]

I've been messing around with this mod off and on as I go through my many Skyrim playthroughs. Meanwhile, I've said I was doing a number of things with this mod that ended up not coming out for you all to experience, however, what I told you was not entirely untrue, it's just something that I thought I was going to finalize and ended up not liking it enough to include it for next time. So just what have I done, then, you ask? Well I made a list:

 

-Experimented with three or four different methods of escape... none of which I'm too happy with... still trying to find my happy place there...

-Attempted to make like... two or three different dungeons (mini-dungeons) throughout the months to try and come up with new spider lairs but they're just forgettable... so those got scrapped...

-I've been kicking around image space modifiers for potential inclusion of an entanglement scene playing that would go something like:

  1) Victim is hit by an entangling attack of some sort

  2) Screen fades out, then back in but with the victim spinning with the spider nearby

  3) This would occur three times, one for each stage of the cocoon, fading in and out updating to the next stage whenever the screen is faded out

  4) Control and escape options return to the victim at which point they can try and struggle out

  5) The screen slowly begins to fade out, serving as a sort of visual timer to indicate time remaining before the victim is dragged off. (gotta figure out how to gradually apply a darkening screen, like what SD+ or DA captured did)

 

Again, that's just something I'm trying to experiment with at this time. No promises.

This would transition into some sort of spider den (might use the existing cave for now, but disconnect it from the world and have it deposit the victim near wherever they were caught at before when they leave the cave). Then escape would begin from this point. I'd like for it to be harder to escape from, but not sure how I'd go about that, yet.

 

-Final point on my list for now, I've done a bunch of small tweaks here and there to the code, all of which may yet be ONCE AGAIN rewritten.

 

I'm so indecisive. >_<

 

However, what do you guys think of utilizing "clever" screen fades and all that to make a slightly more convincing entanglement scene?

 

Other things to note:

 

If this were to work, the initial entanglement would begin with the victim completely wrapped. At which point the victim's spider will be standing over them waiting for them to stop squirming or whatever. Struggling would be disabled while the spider is lording over its prey, however, a sort of kick option would knock (yes, ragdoll) the spider away, at which point the struggle could begin while the spider is outside of the victim's range. However, it would come back and try to reapply more web.

 

I think I have an idea as to how this could be properly managed but I'll have to experiment with it. Still, it could make for a slightly more interactive method of escaping.

 

awesome! I love your idea of the screen fading in and out, that really works well for what you want to do, and it makes sense if you just want to hide the sudden cocoon equip stages (doesn't bother me personally, but meh.) and I think you could use the disconnected lairs too, for more ease, if you want, though are you going to stick with the laying on the ground animation? and not the hanging one?

 

on the 'other things to note' area- I love that idea too, the spider hovering over the victim, and kicking it away, or waiting until it goes to scout, or search the lair or something, to try and break free, with the threat of it coming back to re-web you, though this would obviously make it harder to get free.

 

great ideas here!

 

 

[Kazyn]

DISCLAIMER: Anything in the following is subject to change on a whim.

 

Some may agree, others may disagree. Looking at the grand scheme of things (which I'll elaborate on shortly), I have made the decision to transition this mod into a Death Alternative scenario. That said, Death Alternative will be required for all future updates. I'll be reverting the current the spider attacks, bites, spits, etc. back to their original vanilla records. This cleans up a number of compatibility issues that I personally have with my load order and hopefully it'll clean up others as well, meanwhile the cave(s)/den(s)/whatever will therefore be able to receive my full attention, all of which will fire when the player is defeated by anything as regarded as being in the "SpiderFaction" (i.e. Spiders).

 

Again, things are subject to change, but here's what I've been experimenting with these past few days:

 

- The DA scenario hook is firing without a hitch.

- A short "cutscene" of sorts plays at the beginning, where the screen appears woozy, fading in and out between each entanglement stage (supposed to simulate consciousness fading in and out), all while the victim is playing the spooling animation with the spider nearby to simulate being wrapped up steadily and the victim is too tired/disoriented to resist.

- Once the scene concludes, the screen should fade in to see a hanging player victim at which point escape can begin.

 

The Escape System: (Also experimental and not fully confirmed)

Escape will work just like it did in the test build, and also with BralorMarr's DA Captured scenarios, where the player wiggles free of whatever is restraining them. There are added twists, however.

 

Consider that the victim is hung upside down. With all that blood rushing to their head, escape is somewhat more difficult. The player's efforts to escape will have somewhat of a diminished effect (less damage dealt to the cocoon to escape). The ability to escape is also diminished by how entangled the victim is, which is a full cocoon at the start. With that said, it is intended for escape to be the most difficult at the start. As progress is made however, once the victim reaches predetermined thresholds along the cocoon's durability, the player will almost-permanently progress to the next stage down of entanglement (and appear less cocooned as a result). This also means that escape attempts are now more effective at damaging the cocoon, even if the player manages to muck up a few times and increase the cocoon durability, they will not regress back to the tougher stage they just broke free from. The player also has a chance during their struggle to eventually break themselves free of whatever is suspending them over the ground and thus bring them to the ground (where the ground struggle animation takes over). Being on the ground (aka not hanging upside down anymore) will also make escape become that much easier.

TL;DR: Escape is the most difficult at first, but as the player breaks through layers of webbing and yanks themself free of their hanging suspension, escape becomes progressively easier until free.

 

HOWEVER, ol' spidey's not entirely going to be happy when she sees her victim trying to get away. The more progressed the player is in escaping the layers of their webbing, the higher chance there is of their captor coming to re-wrap them and thus start the whole thing over again. The player having fallen on the floor greatly increases the chance of alerting the spider as well, so making it easier to escape comes at a more difficult challenge of avoiding the spider's attention. Pretty much, how I'm trying to make it work right now is: If the player is on the floor, the chance to be detected is increased the most, while each layer of web the player sheds adds a smaller but stacking chance to also be detected.

 

So what happens if the player's detected? The spider's going to come over and investigate at which point I'm thinking a small appearance of the dialog boxes will make a return. Essentially, the player will be presented with the following choices:

1) Continue struggling - It's pretty much a free reset button just to get everything back on track. Trying to struggle is going to make the spider laugh at you (not really, though) and then wrap you back up nice and tight. So pretty much, right now, don't use this unless you actually want to start over.

2) Hold Still - This is more an attempt to make the spider think you're either not trying to get away, or are wrapped too tightly to move. Your sneak skill will affect the success chance of this choice. If you're on the ground and are nearly free, though, this could very well still fail, as this too is affected by how hopelessly webbed you are.

3) Kick the spider - This is an attempt to swing or thrust both of your bound legs at the creature to try and create some distance and buy yourself some time to wiggle free. The less entangled you are, the greater the chance (and force) you have to successfully knock the spider away. Call this a sort of panic button if you will, because holding still is more than likely going to fail as you near escape. However, kicking can still fail, especially if you try to kick while say, fully cocooned. So again, use it to essentially get free again.

 

Assuming the player gets free, they'll have to make a break for the exit. Upon reaching the exit, I'm hoping to have the exit essentially teleport the player to wherever they were defeated at, so as to help get them back on track with their adventure, at which point, the scenario concludes.

Regarding followers, the same "hit-them-to-free-them" will probably still be in place, but in the event they are forgotten about, I'll see about possibly having the mod kill them... you left them to die. If they're essential, though, which I can check for, then I'll just remove the effect, dismiss them from the player and they can be found again at their default location. Again, though, this will only work on vanilla followers because I don't know how to interface with the other follower mods and frankly can't be bothered to learn about each individual one at this time. Once I'm happy with the core functionality, then I'll look into expanding followers some more.

 

So why Death Alternative?

I know I said that Death Alternative was going to be optional, and here I am now saying it's not going to be optional. However, I'm wanting to make other similar scenarios for other monsters and other threats that put the player into a sort of capture and escape scenario as well. All of these are intended to be further Death Alternative plugins. I'm merely just trying to prepare this mod to be uniform with everything else I've been working on. I love Death Alternative and the narrative it continues to tell. I believe it to aid in character development from a role-play standpoint, and that some of the most developed characters have their own tales of defeat which, in the end, only served to flesh them out further. I know a lot of you have problems with the mod, though but I personally have not despite my 220+ mods in my load order and with Mod Organizer.

 

But, again, let me finish by reiterating that everything in here is subject to change at any point, and I'll try to keep it updated as much as possible. Right now, all I'm trying to do is get the AI packages for the spider organized and get the last bits of code written and eliminate as many loopholes as possible within it. After that will come some testing, then quite possibly a new release.

 

Final Summary for this post:

- Death Alternative will be required. Sorry.

- Spiders no longer entangle on-hit as a result.

- Escape's going to be a bit more intuitive (hopefully)

- Escaping the cave will hopefully deposit the player back to where they were when they got captured.

 

EDIT #1:

DA Trigger: Complete

Quest Setup: Complete

Escape Mechanics: Complete

Spider "AI" and interaction: Mostly Complete

Follower Functionality: Untested

Bring player back to old defeat spot after escaping cave: Complete

 

EDIT #2:

- Death Alternative is going to be a "soft" dependency, meaning that the mod won't require DA to be installed or else crash, however the quest will not fire without something else firing it externally as a result.

[Terra848]

Awesome!

[iorelsan]

Hmmm okay giving my 2 cents after reading the last update.

 

First of all I am really happy that this project is finally integrated with DA!!! It's definitely one of my favorite mods since for me its a game changer. That being said I only have 1 issue with this idea from the design standpoint, and this assertion will show some of my ignorance of Skyrim... but are there really that many spiders on Skyrim that could end up killing you (hence triggering DA)? I don't think there are. I mean that can be fixed by using other mods to tweak random encounters and others to buff their stats, but dunno... I say maybe make their poison more potent than vanilla? or make them hit harder? because as it is I doubt I'll ever see this mod trigger unless I lose on purpose to them. I approve removing the 1 shot entangle idea, but maybe keeping the slowing poison would help (since it would make spiders a ranged character/caster a nightmare if they get slowed, which makes sense). Once more this could be ignorance from my side.

 

Second so... basically once you get DA to trigger its a matter of time to get free? there's no risk or peril involved? I ask this because from a role play perspective it kinda breaks immersion to know that my character is in no real peril, and she just happens to be tied up by a pervy spider =p. Maybe add an optional setting that after a random X range of time (somewhere between 5 to 15 RL minutes?) the spider will do what spiders are supposed to do with their prey and maybe fade to black into death, or make her come on random intervals to poison or bite the player, after X amounts of bites you are toast. I mean even on the new Bralormarr additions to DA, actual death is placed where it makes sense (the Thalmor/bandit scenarios). Once more this comes from an immersion/role play perspective.

 

Edit: Now that I think of... being only bound by the spider would have some neat synergies with any needs mods, since if you take too long to escape you are going to starve to death

 

Third... and this is more of a question. After you get free, what happens if you lose again to the spider? Also... is it going to be the same as it was and you are going to be naked running around looking for your gear? or are you going to be bound in your armor?

 

Anyway that was the nitpicky iorel, I am really excited to see this mod finally getting DA integration =).

 

Also.... did I read this part good? "I'm merely just trying to prepare this mod to be uniform with everything else I've been working on." does it mean we are getting to see the Dragur/Mother Wisp DA scenarios? =p

 

Wicked job so far man!!! thanks for your hard work.

[slvsaris]

Awesome idea Kazyn!  I really like DA, and always on the lookout for more additions to it.

[shinji72]

It's a soiund decision to me. Let DA handling the scripts in the background sure will help simplify this mod and also avoid incompatibilities (like with Arachnophobia with Defeat).

Now I'm left wondering how to call the review video: "Arachnophobia 2" or "Enslave by spiders"?

[bleeb]

nice! good to hear about the intended update! so it will require Death Alternative and all its requirements too, sounds like DA will aid in your plans here though, probably for the best.

[Kazyn]

It's a soiund decision to me. Let DA handling the scripts in the background sure will help simplify this mod and also avoid incompatibilities (like with Arachnophobia with Defeat).

Now I'm left wondering how to call the review video: "Arachnophobia 2" or "Enslave by spiders"?

 

Haha, I don't believe you're necessarily made a slave to the spiders so I don't think that's quite an option in that regard. You can probably just call it Arachnophobia if you still intend to do a video on it, especially since I went ahead and dropped the "expansion" tag from it. While you're here though, lemme just reiterate that I'm a big fan of your work.

[Laurn]

Is there going to be beast support for this?

[akroma3310]

I imagine this is what getting lost in Australia is like.

[GregariousGibbon]

I think it's a solid plan that solves a lot of your issues. You could even borrow some struggle animations during the entanglement phase in phase out part to show progression of being bound, something that might ease the abruptness from standing up to spinning like a rotisserie chicken that seems to have been bothering you a lot.

[Kazyn]

Slight update, kind of forgot to add the impending peril that ultimately leads to the victim becoming a meal and permanent guest for its captor.

DA Trigger: Complete

Quest Setup: Complete

Escape Mechanics: Complete

Spider "AI" and interaction: Mostly Complete

Follower Functionality: Written but Untested

Bring player back to old defeat spot after escaping cave: Complete

Peril Mechanics (nom time for the spider): Written but Untested

 

[Laurn]

Looking forward to the new release. Just got da (don't know why I didn't have it before) and I'm enjoying it's new mechanics.

[iorelsan]

Slight update, kind of forgot to add the impending peril that ultimately leads to the victim becoming a meal and permanent guest for its captor.

DA Trigger: Complete

Quest Setup: Complete

Escape Mechanics: Complete

Spider "AI" and interaction: Mostly Complete

Follower Functionality: Written but Untested

Bring player back to old defeat spot after escaping cave: Complete

Peril Mechanics (nom time for the spider): Written but Untested

 

Huzzah!!! yeh the peril bit was like really needed for immersion/roleplay.... and in general for design since it would be weird to not have any kind of pressure to escape.

 

Looking forward to it!!

[Sorinade]

Haven't kept up with recent progress (been rebuilding skyrim). Did the issue with the spiders on the first dungeon get sorted? (the one next to riverwood to retrieve the claw for the traders, where you gut the guy down).

Would love to try this out again when the next update comes out, i've been restarting a lot - that quest kept getting in the way and CTD. Last time got bound... no transportation happened and then another giant spider spawnded... leaving me to reload

If the answer is no, i'll jsut look to load it after i've done that quest each time through.

[Kazyn]

 

Would love to try this out again when the next update comes out, i've been restarting a lot - that quest kept getting in the way and CTD. Last time got bound... no transportation happened and then another giant spider spawnded... leaving me to reload

 

The primary point of using some vanilla locations as potential spider locations was primarily to test the functionality of implementing new keywords to make this mod recognize a potential location to place a captured victim. What this actually allows (should someone decide they want to), is other modders to implement their own spider lairs by placing within their custom-created cells certain objects to make Arachnophobia recognize it as a place to send victims. In this upcoming build I've reverted all of the vanilla locations back to their original unedited form so as to avoid potential conflicts with other mods that might end up modifying those same places. My feeling is a conflict of some sort might've caused your CTD in this case. Well, no more.

 

Also, upon escaping whatever den you end up in, you'll end up around or near the area you were first captured in, that way you don't end up deviating too heavily from what you were doing before.