V0.133 Released

MikeSlugDisco

MikeSlugDisco

Community Manager
Staff member
Community Manager
Happy Halloween! That and a few more changes to 0.13 make it the perfect time to try out the Hungry Spider level (click the cobweb on the main menu - before it disappears!). We've also made a few other changes. Notes below!


General Updates and Fixes

  • Added warning text above the play button in level setup telling the player what they must click on to allow them to press the play button
  • Fixed an issue where root aphids would be spawned at 0,0,0 (causing ladybirds to fly to a very strange location in top left of Towhead)

Freeplay Balance and Fixes

  • Some balance changes have been added to Freeplay. This should allow players struggling to start a colony to get off the ground before harder creatures are about. For example setting the starting difficulty to zero will give player 15 minutes where only devil's coach horse larvae, wood worms and woodlice will spawn making the surface a lot more manageable.
  • Medium creatures will no longer spawn below 20% difficulty in Freeplay until 15 minutes have passed
  • Large creatures will no longer spawn below 40% difficulty in Freeplay until 30 minutes have passed
  • Removed the word none from freeplay scoreboard
  • The underground spider in Towhead has been replaced by a devil’s coach horse adult
  • Fixed and issue in Freeplay not displaying the green outline of tunnels to surface before dug out
  • Renamed map option in Towhead to Flood
  • Fixed an issue that would flood Towhead immediately at the beginning of every play (removing all food including fish from the lower level)
  • Fixed death sequences on Towhead (and the ghostly queen)

Hungry Spider Balance and Fixes

  • Slightly increased the spider's attack and Venom Strike speed
  • Fixed an issue that would cause the keyboard controls to stop working when trying to use an ability that is on cooldown
  • Fixed an issue with the spider's projectile causing some particles to fly off to the bottom right
  • Fixed a spelling mistake on the hungry spiders bite ability
 
Rayalot72

Rayalot72

Maximum difficulty
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
The underground spider in Towhead has been replaced by a devil’s coach horse adult
Click to expand...

I think you're going about the underground balance wrong. If you returned it to being a medium wolf spider, it would actually be perfectly balanced given the rest of the undergound is worked out. Both maps have a very sparse food supply. You get very limited underground food from the most manageable pockets, with towhead being the biggest offender with only one pocket featuring DCHL. Then, both maps have very little food in the pockets you clear out (towhead provides maybe 200 with the DCHL; this might not even be enough to take on the DCHB, further emphasizing that you're going about this problem the wrong way). Really, it should be possible to, at a reasonable pace, reach 19 soldiers before you exit the underground or even take on any DCHBs, spiders, or tiger beetles. The problem with the strong enemies in Towhead isn't that players might fight them too early, it's that players seeking to clear the underground first will find it to impossible to do so altogether.

To help make it clear what pockets the players should attack, the viable pockets should be the ones that contain visible food (atm, Towhead has an issue where the DCHL pocket doesn't indicate that there are any weevil larvae corpses present), while harder pockets should have the invisible corpses (this design decision is a very effective deterrent imo, as the player's inability to know if they'll get any food from that chamber on a first playthrough adds a sense of risk; I recall you using this in both 1.1 and 2.1, and I'm inclined to believe it works).

TL;DR: The problem doesn't lie in what enemies are present, as stronger pockets of enemies pose no problem in any of the campaign levels. It lies how much food is available in weaker pockets, as that's what permits the player to build up to fighting stronger foes.
 
Rayalot72

Rayalot72

Maximum difficulty
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
The vegetarian ant said:
is the hungry spider possible ?
Click to expand...

Hard to say. The ubers are very very strong, and potentially impossible to kill properly, but you can get quite far by doing them last (kill the minions of each first), and fighting the crab -> DCHB, -> BTB -> BWS. I might hold off on my preferred order for now, as there could be a competition for high scores, but it's very possible to kill almost everything if you're really careful.
 
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