A Critique Of The Bileworm
Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2022 6:12 am
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:
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.
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.