Intense feelings about PoE's arachnids?

Well, I can understand everything you've said there ... except for one.

To me, the game is definitely better with the spiders, because I actually tripped out on how fucking awesome and frightening they were. It made me shout out a hell yeah to the guy who was in that area with me.

But to others, I mean if the fear really is something that serious, maybe the game would be better without them?

Perhaps this is a more difficult issue than I thought at first. How much time should GGG invest in removing one of the elements for some, that for other players is one of the coolest parts of the game?


Should this effort be extended only to phobias (probably so IMO) or also to dead bodies and other things that some people complain about for what I am much more confident is no good reason.

In my opinion when it comes to fantasy games and our friendly neighbourhood spiders, they have become, in a way, a "cop out" enemy. Like when I was en route in the beta to go fight Merveil, seeing her "children" it made me really anticipate what I was going to run into. It could've been some grotesque, nasty, Lovecraftian nightmare or a contrast could be struck with an otherwise beautiful creature. It was the mystery behind it. When I get a quest to go fight, "The Weaver" I can generally guess not just from the name but from the monsters I am facing (spiders) that it'll be a broodmother of sorts. Even if I wasn't afraid of spiders, I'd say they were a boring enemy type in these games because there are only so many ways you can spin a web before it gets tired, you know?

Not to diminish the quality of these, or other games in terms of arachnid action. The ones here animate beautifully and have a nice visceral look to them which is not cartoonish ala WoW. I simply find them to be a creature that prevents creativity, if you know what I mean? Like, "We need an ugly and hideous enemy. Throw in some giant spiders." I'd rather have something similar to Meveil's Daughters in that it is a very strange, eldritch creation rather than an enemy type we commit genocide against whenever swords and sorcery are concerned.

I don't know what GGG wants to do to commit towards those that have intense phobias towards the spiders in this game. Maybe have people pay for some sort of patch that revamps the Dark Forest/Weaver's Lair areas or replaces them with new monsters? That may turn people off from playing period as they may feel restricted that they have to shell out money in order to play the game without worrying about having anxiety attacks. Make it free? I'm not sure.

This is the issue that if you begin catering to phobias then you may have to limit what you can do in the game. I know when I played WoW, some people would hate falling from a large height. One quest had you parachute off a very high cliff (and dastardly, the parachute buff would run out before hitting land causing you to fall to your death) which I know wouldn't sit well with those afflicted with that phobia.

Luckily it seems most people's phobia seems to be about the spiders so it should not be difficult to reach a consensus with.

Cosmetic Item, Spiders -> Kiwi's

Giant Kiwi's crawling up the walls to get u!

Same! When I first got the spider quest after just getting to Act 2 I made a bee line straight for that mother!

I just had to see it and test my mettle against it, and when I saw it I was so stoked because GGG had made them so freaky!

And then when they came out the pit, wow! My skin crawled but it was awesome!

That's one of the reasons why we play games, so that we can experience emotions that the world just doesn't offer (or offers so rarely).

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Disillusioned wrote:

In my opinion when it comes to fantasy games and our friendly neighbourhood spiders, they have become, in a way, a "cop out" enemy. Like when I was en route in the beta to go fight Merveil, seeing her "children" it made me really anticipate what I was going to run into. It could've been some grotesque, nasty, Lovecraftian nightmare or a contrast could be struck with an otherwise beautiful creature. It was the mystery behind it. When I get a quest to go fight, "The Weaver" I can generally guess not just from the name but from the monsters I am facing (spiders) that it'll be a broodmother of sorts. Even if I wasn't afraid of spiders, I'd say they were a boring enemy type in these games because there are only so many ways you can spin a web before it gets tired, you know?

THOSE spiders were, granted, pretty weak IMO as well. Not that interesting and almost annoying to kill as they just kept coming but weren't creepy in the least or even all that challenging until you go to the boss.


The ones in the dungeon, however, are absolutely A-W-E-S-O-M-E, hehe. There's no comparison at all, except that they're different kinds of spiders.

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I simply find them to be a creature that prevents creativity, if you know what I mean? Like, "We need an ugly and hideous enemy. Throw in some giant spiders."

I can see what you're saying, but the ones in the dungeon were like no other spiders ever seen, hehe. Not just huge, put spiney, and the way they walked... They could have been a little tougher to kill and they'd really make one go "Oh shit..."

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I don't know what GGG wants to do to commit towards those that have intense phobias towards the spiders in this game. Maybe have people pay for some sort of patch that revamps the Dark Forest/Weaver's Lair areas or replaces them with new monsters? That may turn people off from playing period as they may feel restricted that they have to shell out money in order to play the game without worrying about having anxiety attacks. Make it free? I'm not sure.

Free maybe. I'm still not sure that there are a lot of people who would really be bothered by spiders so much and yet still want to play this kind of game. There's obviously one that made a good case, but are there a lot?

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This is the issue that if you begin catering to phobias then you may have to limit what you can do in the game. I know when I played WoW, some people would hate falling from a large height. One quest had you parachute off a very high cliff (and dastardly, the parachute buff would run out before hitting land causing you to fall to your death) which I know wouldn't sit well with those afflicted with that phobia.

But you made a good point at the beginning of that paragraph. If they were to change the game based on that, we couldn't have ANYTHING that strikes any sort of phobia in any segment of the population. And we wouldn't have a chilling game anymore.

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Luckily it seems most people's phobia seems to be about the spiders so it should not be difficult to reach a consensus with.

Hopefully you are right. But when I see people complaining about dead people and human bodies in the game, which I do, it makes me a little more concerned.


The other thing I should mention is that there are still bigger issues. We can't even *SEE* out attackers if they're standing behind a wall. We don;t know they're even THERE a lot of the time. Surely this should be looked at as it affects everyone and is a gameplay issue, but people complain about bodies. lol.

I had to go search on YouTube for a video of the Church spiders and I will say that seeing the whole mass of them scale up from the darkness was quite cool and a lot better than how many games execute them (let's just randomly place them about and not even touch on their unique characteristics).

As for those complaining on dead bodies and the like, well, see, this is where I think we can draw the line from phobia to "artistic necessity." While we can debate on whether POE really needs spiders to really nail a dark atmosphere, it definitely needs the macabre elements to drive home the gothic horror element it wants to portray. I cannot imagine a self-touted evil world without proof of that from monster design to morbid aesthetics. To remove the feeling of dread and hopelessness is to take away a lot of the soul of this game. If anything, I could use even more of this type of scenery. At the beginning when the zombie awakens and suddenly stabs the man you spoke with, I'd like more randomly scripted events to show other outcasts "failing." It's sort of like in Resident Evil 3 when you'd hear a blood-curdling scream but arrive too late and see a civilian made into food.

Now if this game was like an old PC game called Entomorph where the gist of the game revolved around nasty insects and spiders, I'd say the spiders needed to be in to fit in with the world. Or how Diablo 1 needed the anti-Christian imagery to really sell to the player this is unlike anything they've seen before. I think in POE, spiders are more trivial as opposed to the corpses strewn about.

But I really would not mind sending a sword through one of their repulsive bodies when I eventually get into the beta/it becomes open.

I will talk about my intense feelings for PoE's Arachnids.

I want to kill them. I want to stab them with daggers, swords, staffs, mauls, hammers, spoons, sporks, tridents, pitchforks, torches, Chain Saws, Cacti, glass, fire, a rabid-cat-on-a-stick, a lawyer, a rattle snake and a picture of Charlie Sheen.

At the same time.

Right now

Tomorrow.

I think some people think we want spiders to be removed.
No, no. They are awesome in a terror game. We just try to let the developers think about an alternate way.

As I said, i would rather pay a microtransaction for removing spiders and changing it from other in game model (no work needed) monster, because I can play but I find a very disgusting feeling myself sometimes while seeing spiders, and as I said I had to stop playing a few times.

Terror is great, but when real phobias come, it's just a matter of health. As I said, I can play this game even with spiders (not without some problems at times), but I fully understand people that could move up and go other direction. I would do the same if my phobia were only a bit higher than it is.

I think nobody is demanding a complete remove of spiders. That would be crazy.

Had to post this spider eats bird for all you arachnophobes...

<<WARNING: GRAPHIC PHOTO>>


<EDIT> My bad, I shouldn't be so insensitive to others' illness. Added spoiler to hide image so people don't have a heart attack upon viewing thread...

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Valmar wrote:

And here is an example of a mental illness even worse than phobias.

Nice, it looks fine now, thanks for editing.
As you posted the image, it looks before like you were trolling and going to cause damage on purpose, so I just reacted, sorry for that. I ofc removed my sentence and appology myself.