Arachnophobia by Miss Leeches (OBSOLETE!)

[KomradePavlov]

What a fun clusterf*** this place has become. XD

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've finished drawing the navmesh, but now I have to actually test it by having something follow me around.

 

Keep working comrade!

We're sure you can get it!

 

[Kazyn]

Good news! The navmesh worked without a hitch. Lydia followed me where ever I ran in the cave. She even jumped off the cliff to exit the cave with me. That went surprisingly well.

[bleeb]

What a fun clusterf*** this place has become. XD

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've finished drawing the navmesh, but now I have to actually test it by having something follow me around.

oh wow, that's a pretty big place, I'm amazed lol. how did you make that? the mammoth skeleton is a nice touch. looking complicated though.. hopefully you get through it quickly, or with ease in general

 

just read your post: awesome!! glad it worked. so that accounts for some good progress right?

[Kazyn]

*In a terrible Russian accent* "I am nothing if not thorough!" .... within limits. When it comes to making additional content for games I try to follow the original developers methods as best as possible. I did this for a Starcraft 2 map some few years ago and another map for some obscure shooter even MORE years ago so some previous experience I guess helps somewhat with level designing for Skyrim. I was actually pleasantly surprised with how simple CK is when it comes to level design. I was blown away at how they managed to spice up each cave and dungeon and make it look different despite using the same textures and even more so when I saw how simple it was to pull off in the CK.

 

That's not to say it's easy. It's very tedious, for sure. Those who've been following this know this has taken some 24+ hours to make, and I'm still not done... well I'm done making the cave, but now I have to populate it and work the actual mod functionality in, now.

[bleeb]

heh, so you've got a bit of experience there, of sorts. some what of a resume on this front lol. and yeah, the CK seems to be quite handy and detailed, but relatively simple to use.. gotta love that in a program. oh yeah, that takes some thinking I'd bet, the whole keeping things different, but similar with all the same textures, but it is quite cool they pulled it off.

 

yeah I've been following it since the start. awesome though! sounds like quite a bit of progress, I can't wait to watch this release, especially after the screenshots. thanks for those

[Kazyn]

Back in business!

 

 

 

 

[bleeb]

oh awesome! looks great, and you even made it look like it's hanging, amazing. great work.

 

is there much left to do?

[Kazyn]

All that's really left now (excluding followers) is to design the escape encounter/challenge. I like Stiltzkinator's idea of making it not so much about spider detection, but instead having to face the spider after your escape. I intend to still include some sort of "critical failure" mechanic in that if you fail at escaping the cocoon, the spider will eventually decide its meal time. I'd like to do something a bit more interesting than a standard timer, but I'm not sure what just yet. An interactive escape puzzle is what I'm thinking of, but I need to toss around ideas as to how that's going to happen.

 

If anyone wants to throw ideas my way, I'm all ears. Come up with a challenge that involves solo escape only. I haven't gotten to followers yet. I'll post when I decide what idea I'm going with.

[bleeb]

sounds good to me, yeah I was wondering what you were going to do with the escape methods, outside what actions you can actually do. which I'm assuming are still the same from before right? hmm, so there's no time limit then, it's just a matter if you fail or succeed or not. and you have to fight the spider off if you succeed either way right? escape puzzle?

 

so this challenge is outside what actions you can do to work your way out right? 

[Kazyn]

There'll still be a time limit... sort of... make the wrong choice too many times and that might call it quits. But there's no set amount of attempts before death, if you know what I mean. I originally had four choices the victim can make, and I'm sticking mostly to them:

1. Writhe - Twist and squirm to try and loosen the threads.

2. Thrust - Thrust upward to try and jar the cocoon loose from the ceiling.

3. Thrash - Thrash wildly and hope for the best results.

4. Wait - Don't struggle, but instead attempt to feel around for a possible weakness

 

Wait will always have the same results, which is essentially going to give a hint as to which of the three struggle actions the victim should take next.

The three struggle actions will have assigned to one of three properties: One will progress the victim toward freedom, one will do nothing, and one will further entangle the victim. Getting too entangled will result in being able to do nothing but wait for meal time, which will be the fade-to-black, then kill victim outcome.

 

On top of this, there'll still be a sort of "hunger" progress as well, which will increase by a random amount with each attempt, which turns out to be a sort of time limit, but it won't always be the same. Perhaps it'll be different based on how often you've escaped the cave. Spidey's not going to want to wait around after having caught you for the fourth time!

 

However, the hunger also is something to consider when deciding on potentially wasting an attempt to do nothing but get a hint for the right choice on the next opportunity. This is my current system. I can't really think of much else at the moment.

 

[bleeb]

sounds pretty solid on all fronts to me, you've really ironed out the premise it seems, well done. so I'm guessing there's a status that tells you how entangled you are, or something along those lines. wondering if it'll visually change at all too, so much I'm curious about lol, you've already done a great job.

 

the hunger "level" sounds like an awesome addition too, makes a lot of sense, and it really gives you a reason to try and get out lol. so is the fade to black the same from before? the last grunt/scream, etc I mean.

 

sounds good to me, I couldn't think of what else it'd need anyway

[Kazyn]

I don't intend on implementing any visual effects that show your escape progress because I simply don't have any. I suppose you could look less webbed, but I think the other cocoon armors that ZaZ has is more for showing the process of becoming entangled, rather than escaping. The fade to black will be the same. A quick notification will show up saying the spider's about to eat, the fade out will occur, and the player.killessential(spider) function is called (in case a mod is running that makes the player essential). This kills the player, which makes them give out a death cry. There is no special death cry included with this. It's just whatever death cry happens to be running on your character's voice pack.

 

There's no point in fading back in at that point, is there?

[bleeb]

ah ok, I wasn't sure there lol, so I figured I'd ask. yeah that makes sense too, being stages of webbing. hmm hmm, sounds like a pretty good usage of the game itself then, so it's just like if you were killed in battle sound wise, I'm betting that'll be fitting too. but it'll be blacked out when that happens right? sounds good to me.

 

yeah lol, there would be no point after that 

 

EDIT: just curious, but have you thought about adding other cocooned npcs to the lair later? could maybe broaden things up a bit with that, maybe even, if you free them, you could get a quest, or reward or something, etc. just an idea. or they could help you escape. or even attack you if they're say,  bandit. just an idea though, you can take it or leave it. would add even more dire-ness to the cave too I think

[Kazyn]

We'll have to see. I'd work on follower functionality first, though.

[bleeb]

yeah that sounds like a more likely prelude to what I brought up. I didn't think it'd hurt to bring up ideas prior to anything though, does it?

 

btw, just curious: but, can you get to this cave you made on the map by walking there? or do you have to be brought here by a spider?

[Kazyn]

It's a little bit of both, actually. You can walk to the cave yourself but you won't be able to get very far. Screenshot 4 shows what you see when you first enter. If you look straight ahead, you'll see a hole up there. When you're captured, you'll be taken to the room beyond that hole. When you escape, you'll eventually jump down from that hole. The only way back up there is to get captured again.

[bleeb]

oh wow, sounds like a pretty good lair for the spiders lol, somewhat hard to get in and out of. nice going.

[Ghuraok]

I can't wait to see the next release ! I'm so excited that you decided to work on this mod ! Thank you Kazyn !

[KomradePavlov]

Good good good!

Can't wait to try it out.

[bleeb]

yep, I third that statement

[Stiltzkinator]

I don't intend on implementing any visual effects that show your escape progress because I simply don't have any. I suppose you could look less webbed, but I think the other cocoon armors that ZaZ has is more for showing the process of becoming entangled, rather than escaping. The fade to black will be the same. A quick notification will show up saying the spider's about to eat, the fade out will occur, and the player.killessential(spider) function is called (in case a mod is running that makes the player essential). This kills the player, which makes them give out a death cry. There is no special death cry included with this. It's just whatever death cry happens to be running on your character's voice pack.

 

There's no point in fading back in at that point, is there?

I get what you're going for with a 'limit', but I'd personally prefer to avoid a certain death scenario. But it's also not as fun if you just get to struggle freely until you escape.

 

How about a serious penalty system? If you don't escape successfully, the spider comes back to feed on you...but it sadistically keeps you alive. Instead of dying, your character has its stats lowered. These would be applied like diseases are in the game (basically long-term, negative enchantments), but their effects would be much more severe, since they are pretty much the effects of the spider slowly killing you. The more times you fail at escaping, the more times you have this severely debilitating condition applied. It could either be a random ability affected each time by a large amount, or all abilities by a smaller amount (with max health, magicka, and stamina also at risk of being affected). This way, the player can eventually escape, but even when they do, they have to fight the spider possibly with a severe handicap. Even if they defeat/avoid the spider, their blunders in trying to escape will have lasting effects.

 

Note that for gameplay purposes, the stats probably shouldn't be lost forever. Like diseases, it'd probably be best if there was some way to cure it. If you treat the condition the same as a normal disease, it would make sense for the most part, except that the player could trivialize it with a simple spell or potion of cure disease. Maybe there is a way to add a special potion which would only cure these particular effects? Have it provided at a place that's out of the way (and not easily reachable by map travel), and so that you can only get a potion if you are under the effects of spider feeding, don't already have one, and/or have it reset/respawn upon getting sent to the spider cave. This is to keep the player from stockpiling them, so they would have to journey to get the potion while debilitated every time they muck up escaping from the spider cave.

 

Of course, anyone using console commands or other methods of cheating can easily get around lost stats, but if that's how they enjoy using the mod, why stop them?

 

As for visual effects, I think simply removing pieces/layers of the cocoon as you struggle would be fine, honestly. Start from the inside-out, first removing the web 'blocks' that encase the player (as for how many to remove at once, it depends on how many 'stages' you want the struggle phase to go through), then thin the outer webbing until the player is finally free. And of course, it goes the other way if they start failing attempts to escape. It's pretty basic, but it would be a helpful gauge to see how close you are to getting free.

[Kazyn]

I'll have to kick the penalty system around for a bit and see where that goes. There wouldn't be any permanent detriments, of course, though I'm not willing to go to that length to create extra content to cure the stuff either. It'd probably just be a several game-hour long effect. It wouldn't be harsh either, but it would be noticeable. As I said, I'll kick it around.

 

The visual effects are more or less limited to what's available to ZaZ. There are four different cocoon "armors" and only one can be equipped on the player at the same time because they share the same equipment slot. So removing web from the inside isn't quite going to work, because it's a matter of swapping armors, which will make it look like you're shedding the outer portion of the cocoon, meanwhile your limbs still look snug as ever. With what's available to me, all I can really do is indicate progress through little notification messages (I'm trying to avoid dialog boxes as much as possible).

[bleeb]

sounds good Kazyn, I do think permanent penalties would be overly harsh too, since I don't think this is a "hardcore" mod. temporary could be fine though, as it'd be sort of a punishment for getting caught, and put you at risk for it again, but it wouldn't basically start sapping your character into a noob again.

 

yeah, I've noticed the 'armor' swaps in game myself, and I've used them before it, so I can see why you wouldn't have cocoon "stages" when you're unwrapping yourself. just curious though, if you get loose, do you just drop to the floor, out of the cocoon? also, have you started on the follower stuff at all yet? or are you gonna release before the followers?

[Stiltzkinator]

Yeah, extra stuff like cures is a real chore if you were to fully implement it. Definitely not the kind of thing to start working on here, but I thought I'd throw it out in case you decide to stick this mod out and take it to its logical extreme (though you've already gone above and beyond with the cave, so only do as much as you're comfortable doing).

Looking forward to where it progresses from here.

[bleeb]

like a hardcore version or something you mean? lol. maybe he'd do something to that affect in the future, but he's still working on releasing it fully first, so yeah, first things first so to speak. I can see how some that like the more hardcore penalties, though I don't think everyone would be so keen on using Kazyn's mod if it permanently damaged your character lol, so yeah, if he does eventually go down that route I think it should be a separate version of some sort.

 

as for the cave I don't know how "above and beyond" that is, he stated that he did it because scripting and setting it up for several different caves all over Skyrim would be more complicated, so instead he made his own, special cave for the mod's purposes, and thoroughly decked it out with ambient clutter to make it REALLY look like a spider lair, more so than any cave I've seen in game, which really helps immersion. also this way, as a side bonus there's no interfering with any quests existing in game that might take place in caves his mod would have used.