A Critique Of The Bileworm

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san7890
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A Critique Of The Bileworm

Post by san7890 » #652938

Why the fuck do they group up? It is legitimately impossible to beat them when there are two or more. I have only played shaft miner twice (on lavaland) since they were added these last few days, and here is how I died about... 15 minutes into both of those shifts:

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For lack of a better word, it is abhorrent just how miserable it is to fight these guys. Sure, you can step on diagonals, but those fuckers can come out of legitimately nowhere (you don't even see them) and then two of them flank you in a 1x1 corridor, belch out four acid projectiles (two a piece), and then you are just instantly gone (assuming you already got hit by one of those miserable tubes of piss before you got chased into that alleyway and mugged for your wallet). The bileworm is incredibly punishing in comparison to any other standard lavaland fauna (they make ice watchers look like fairies), follow you for about a hundred tiles (standing on actual built turf does help), and just immediately end your round. They might not be so bad if it was just... one bileworm, but much like the Ice Watcher, they group up. They even avalanche as you try and escape them, picking up more and more watchers to just finally fucking kill you. I don't think it's even feasible to beat them in literally any of the scenarios I've encountered them in, there was only one situation where I was fortunate enough to have an easy escape back to the lavaland base, but I have no idea if anyone has even killed one.

There are a few ways to improve just how fucking bullshit these are to deal with.

A) Bileworms are "territorial". They reside alone, and don't get within a very wide radius of other bileworms. If they do end up getting close, they might start to attack each other instead, giving the miner a bit of time to leg off in their distraction. They might even refrain from choosing a player as their target if another bileworm is already targetting them, lest it incur its wrath instead (this could also be great if ice watchers could later be ported to utilize this system to deal with that on Ice Moons).

B) Bileworms are "tough to aggravate". They typically lounge around worming a bit, but you can typically sneak past them. However, the more they "observe" you destroying their environment, the more hostile they collectively get until they take action. This sort of helps with my concern regarding scaling- how it's very difficult to deal with bileworms in the early stages of a round before you can get your cool pKAs and what-not, and makes sense thematically. You're ripping up their home, man.

C) Bileworms fear light. The more you shine it at them, the more they burrow. This is half-thought-out to be honest, I'm just trying to come up with some mechanic that lets you better separate one from the crowd to tackle a solo bileworm better.

D) Bileworms shy away from tight corridors. I don't know if this is feasible to implement- but think about it. These worms thrive on popping out of open turfs, so any given area rich in closed turfs would be frightening to them, or they might lose aggro faster when encountered in one. Open spaces are "free" for them, so they probably prefer those. However, the tighter it gets and the less places they can pop out, maybe they just don't prefer it as much?

This is both a coding feedback/ideas post because I am madly salty right now. I don't want to not give some advice though, so I gave some ideas that might help? I might implement them myself? I'm not sure, but right now I just don't see mining as being feasible with these fauna in their present state. I apologize if my suggestions have some great conflict with the original design intent of the bileworm, I just wanted to write this down somewhere because I see it as grossly imbalanced.
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kieth4
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Re: A Critique Of The Bileworm

Post by kieth4 » #652946

This seems like an ided, they're fine. You simply got yourself caught in places where a couple of goliath's could kill you too.

TLDR; Get good, you suck.
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Re: A Critique Of The Bileworm

Post by san7890 » #652947

kieth4 wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 5:01 pm This seems like an ided, they're fine. You simply got yourself caught in places where a couple of goliath's could kill you too.

TLDR; Get good, you suck.
Yes but goliaths don't burrow "teleport" to your location, goliaths are manageable because they are constrained to the same movement plane you are on and they can be outpaced since they stop moving during their attack phases. Bileworms just pop up out of nowhere and fucking spew bullshit on you. Goliaths also have a really wide cooldown phase between their special attack and they actually have to physically attack you. Bileworms have (what appears to be) infinite range on it's projectiles, and especially when you have no where to go (in a closed space), you can't fucking escape. For a goliath, you can at least "bait" them towards you, and then go around them based on your situation. Bileworms aren't movable.

I think the "sense" on bileworms is just wacky enough that they can go seek you out from endless distances, where you can at least see the tendrils on the goliath or the goliath itself and turn the other direction. For bileworms, it's more like you see them (if you are indeed lucky enough to see them), and two seconds later your entire round is derailed as you get ganged up on as they all aggro you instantly.

I also think it is quite telling that I linked this at 11:00 AM my time, and you reply with "skill issue" 11:01 AM. What good did that do anyone?
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Re: A Critique Of The Bileworm

Post by chocolate_bickie » #652949

I agree the bileworm teleport could use some telegraphing. Maybe the ground should rumble before they appear but they fire as soon as they appear.

That way to have time to react.
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Re: A Critique Of The Bileworm

Post by kieth4 » #652950

san7890 wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 5:05 pm
kieth4 wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 5:01 pm This seems like an ided, they're fine. You simply got yourself caught in places where a couple of goliath's could kill you too.

TLDR; Get good, you suck.
Yes but goliaths don't burrow "teleport" to your location, goliaths are manageable because they are constrained to the same movement plane you are on and they can be outpaced since they stop moving during their attack phases. Bileworms just pop up out of nowhere and fucking spew bullshit on you. Goliaths also have a really wide cooldown phase between their special attack and they actually have to physically attack you. Bileworms have (what appears to be) infinite range on it's projectiles, and especially when you have no where to go (in a closed space), you can't fucking escape. For a goliath, you can at least "bait" them towards you, and then go around them based on your situation. Bileworms aren't movable.

I think the "sense" on bileworms is just wacky enough that they can go seek you out from endless distances, where you can at least see the tendrils on the goliath or the goliath itself and turn the other direction. For bileworms, it's more like you see them (if you are indeed lucky enough to see them), and two seconds later your entire round is derailed as you get ganged up on as they all aggro you instantly.

I also think it is quite telling that I linked this at 11:00 AM my time, and you reply with "skill issue" 11:01 AM. What good did that do anyone?
Because in reality that's what this is; a skill issue. It seems that you haven't learnt their attack patterns or how to handle their attacks. You died two times and are calling for a nerf of them with a huge salty forum post. You died two (2) times. You've not faced them with a large amount of experience or anything nor have you faced them for an extended period of time, instead, you plop back in and expect to suddenly be good against the new enemies. Maybe I wouldn't say skill issue if you had experienced them more really but you haven't, this feels very very knee-jerk and thus a skill issue. Learn their patterns, learn how to fight them. Having more challenge in lavaland isn't really bad considering it's farm npcs and get loot and I'm sure that you'll get good.
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Re: A Critique Of The Bileworm

Post by TheSmallBlue » #652951

Bileworms aren't that fun to fight against, and they appear extremely commonly. If they were rarer I think it'd be a bit more bearable.

Also pro tip: you can see where the Bileworm will appear next if you wear a health hud
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san7890
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Re: A Critique Of The Bileworm

Post by san7890 » #652952

TheSmallBlue wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 5:59 pm Also pro tip: you can see where the Bileworm will appear next if you wear a health hud
That’s good advice thank you
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Re: A Critique Of The Bileworm

Post by Rohen_Tahir » #652966

git gud or git hub
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Re: A Critique Of The Bileworm

Post by VexingRaven » #653006

Just FYI these aren't new, their AI was just broken and was fixed in the last few days. And yeah, I agree they're fucking annoying. The best is when one shows up at the mining outpost and breaks windows with its attacks, depressurizing it.
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Re: A Critique Of The Bileworm

Post by Pandarsenic » #653014

I think the mining base should always start depressurized, but these are the next best thing to that
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Re: A Critique Of The Bileworm

Post by DaydreamIQ » #653106

I don't tend to have too much issue with them but they're responsible for way too many newbie miner deaths. The problem is that they're a more annoying version of the Demon watcher with their AI being able to chase you relentlessly. There isn't really an option to disengage with a bileworm unlike most other lavaland mobs. Also killing them is pointless cause their loot is hot garbage
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Re: A Critique Of The Bileworm

Post by san7890 » #653149

Relevant issue I'm collecting into this thread here: https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/issues/69244
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san7890
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Re: A Critique Of The Bileworm

Post by san7890 » #653178

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Re: A Critique Of The Bileworm

Post by ToastGoats » #653240

Look I can deal with bileworms on their own, but there's a solid three of these fuckers for every other lavaland mob. And good fucking luck using public mining if just one of them gets aggro-ed.
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Re: A Critique Of The Bileworm

Post by Jacquerel » #653257

They're not all that bad (die in two crusher swings) I think people are just experiencing that bug we've had for a few weeks where 5 times as many mobs spawn as are supposed to.
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Re: A Critique Of The Bileworm

Post by MetalClone » #653302

I'm fairly certain their spawnrate has been bugged for about a month now along with Necropolis Tendrils, Drakes, and Colossus. Tendrils and When they were first added to the game they didn't spawn nearly as much as they do now. That being said yeah they're really boring to fight, I never die to them as a veteran miner but for most other people they're a major problem as they have really poor ping/have no clue how to position vs them when they get swarmed by more than 2 of them. I will gladly hold the title of the only person to survive a bileworm attack of 6+ bileworms and kill them all with a crusher and using no healing tools though. All of that being said the armor pen gives them slightly weaker death bolts that don't destroy walls and very easily creates collateral damage (these projectiles hitting other mobs makes them aggro YOU and can aggro bosses on you from very far away, the crusher trophy projectiles can also damage other players for some reason).

I hated their lousy attack pattern so much and for so long I made a little crappy mspaint drawing and .txt on how to improve them around a month or two ago. Even just one of these attacks would make them slightly more fun to deal with by making them slightly slower.

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Bileworms attack by popping up out of the ground 2 tiles away from the player, completely perpendicular to them either vertically or horizontally.

Bileworms have 3 different kinds of attacks, each aimed at the player, take 1.5/2 seconds to fire after surfacing, range about 3-5 tiles, and they fire only one attack every 5 seconds. They do not 'follow' the player's movement, their attack is aimed in the direction of the player's position when the bileworm surfaces.

Each attack should do damage-over-time burn or toxin damage, each attack should roughly do about 15 damage total. Armor values should be accounted for.

They have 3 different attack patterns:
-poison spit: three projectiles of toxic waste shoot out in a conical trajectory, these travel 5-7 tiles
-poison belch: a quickly moving cloud of toxic gas that doesn't need to be inhaled to take damage, just touching the gas itself does damage
-poison vomit: the worm spits out a pool of toxic waste which quickly spills in an area, if a player stands in it they take damage. It can be avoided with flight.

Last edited by MetalClone on Mon Oct 03, 2022 4:55 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: A Critique Of The Bileworm

Post by san7890 » #653305

MetalClone wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 11:59 pm -poison vomit: the worm spits out a pool of toxic waste which quickly spills in an area, the player must stand in it, so it can be avoided with flight.
This doesn't read clearly, would you mind elaborating?
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Re: A Critique Of The Bileworm

Post by MetalClone » #653308

san7890 wrote: Mon Oct 03, 2022 12:31 am This doesn't read clearly, would you mind elaborating?
Oops sorry about that, I had (months later after making it and sharing it) realized the error in the sentence and edited it just as you responded lol.
What I meant to say was that the vomit would pool out from the bileworm slowly moving a tile away from the worm per second/.5 seconds. If the player stands in the pool they should take Damage-over-time burn or toxin damage. If they are in some kind of flight via wings/modsuit jetpack with anti-gravity modules/jumpboot movement I think it'd be fair that they would take no damage.
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