User blog:Zadymek/Musings on Biterblack mechanics

Apart from the two I proposed and am already working on filming, that is the rules of: there are some other interesting regularities at Bitterblack I'd like to discuss here.
 * one [kind of] boss per map
 * one Maneater per map (Pre-Daimon, Post some chests are tweaked)

Stability

Do you know that, at times, enemies of BItterblack will ignore the Augment and the things that shouldn't stagger the Arisen with Stability equipped will stagger anyway? It's more clearly visible when one compares the same monster in Gransys and at Bitterblack. For instance Cyclopes. Cyclopes' fall produces a ground shockwave that always staggers nearby enemies right? Well, wrong: stomps, yes, falls don't stagger with Stability Augment. Unless it happens at Bitterblack, then yes. What about Dragon Roar? Can Stability prevent a stagger from this? Yes, but at BBI it's pretty random.

Enemy re/spawn

Another interesting thing is how enemy sets are cycling. You already know about all the Rotundas there where enemy sets are drawn each time one re-enters, right? It works similar with the whole isle. Especially Post-Daimon when there are enemy sets ascribed to each map of BBI  (prior it's, idk, Gutter of Misery and Pilgrims's Gauntlet?). Like Cockatrice and Corrupted Pawns and Gorecyclopes and Sirens at Vault of Defiled Truth. Well, these enemy sets can be cycled manually. The problem is: So, if you plan on hunting certain enemies at, say, The Forgotten Hall, you better make a checkpoint save prior leaving cause it may be a long way back ;)
 * one has to go back all the way to harbor of Bitterblack to do this. The next time one crosses any of the entrances there the game will draw new enemy sets.
 * the good news is that unlike at Rotunda, Abbey and Sapryard, there are only two possible enemy sets
 * ...the bad news is, the game won't simply cycle from one set to another, but will RNG enemy set, so one may end up with exacly the same enemies at some of maps cause the game draws enemy set for each map separately.

Scent of death

Now this is a hot topic. The notion that whenever you slay some enemy you leave the pile of guts that may bait something more nasty. If you ask me, I saw nothing like it in motion on BBI. I mean, there were some sudden necrophagi spawns, like in the middle of Gorecyclops battle, but more often they were just sitting and waiting there for me, consuming "game-planted bait" so obviously there was no possibility to even slay something not even mentioning of planting the Rancid bait meat - naturally Death and some Cursed Dragons have to have a dramatic entrance so they spawns out of the thin air. Moreover, numerous times I'd slay entire maps hoping for a necrophage spawn and nothing.

Also: I was testing, throughly,  the scheduled necrophagi appearances: I was simply entering the map and if I'd met some scavengers there I'd save and load. And it appears that  necrophagi spawn is determined just like a Maneater in a chest, one can godsbane it, but also there are places where 9/10 loads the necrophage will spawn.

Of course it may also be that there are two, or even more, mechanics at work here: scent of death, random spawn, scripted spawn and bait spawn. Who knows, all I know is that we cannot trust Pawns on this when they say about corpses luring "new foes" as they numerous times said complete bollocks already. These quotes may actually be the remains of some removed mechanics, you know like Pawns warning about the Curse from Siren's song (obvious reference to aknowledge flag inherited from Succubus) or when they warn about Succubus blow inflicting Bilnd - anyone here was Blinded by Succubus?

Death

I have one more thing to add about Grim Reaper himself. He seems to work a bit different than other necrophagi. I already mentioned his dramatic entrance, but he also has scripted appearances Pre-Daimon and also may spawn in the middle of the boss fight (it may be a glitch though especially that it's very rare, I saw this only once).

Also, Death may be the only necrophagi I know that is able to block spawn of other necrophages. Pre-Daimon, Bloodless Stockade: Elder Orge will not spawn if Death is roaming around.

Now, one may think that it's just the scripted Death is stopping Elder Ogre's spawn, but I could swear I was meeting Death at said stage and place numerous times, so either it's some kind of persistent script or Death's mechanics are a bit different. And of course he is set up so he couldn't be slayed in one go while no other necro runs away so there is something into it.

Save/load

You know how in the vanilla the game doesn't allow saving mid battle but one can find a cover/far place and save the game even during a fights? The game will save enemy healthbars and reset everything else. Well, there are special monsters at BBI that don't follow these rules, these not only spawn out of the thin air but also spawn out of the thin air again after one has loaded the save. You know what I'm talking about, right? The monsters [suposedly] attracted to "the stench of dath".

BTW Gorecyclopes aren't one of these, and their status  gets saved, with one tiny detail in mind: their position as a prop.

Now, what THE F*** is this guy talking about?

Well, chained Armored Gorecyclopes act like a props (boxes, chests...rising undead) in our save/load scenario. So upon lading a save made during fighting with one of these, the game will still load their health info right but will also chain them back just like it entombs undead back to the ground. Hell, sometimes it will even chain them back if one moves too far away too, which in case of BBI is glitched so "the far" may be just around the corner. But that's not all. You know how the game usually saves the nearby monsters' possitions so upon loading they will be where they were standing during saving, right? Well, one can arrange that our Armored/Condemned Goecyclops will be standing in the middle of the map with no attachments points for its chains...the game will chain it nonetheless ;)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1400945226 One more thing about enemy sets. The game actually saves "the set's" status so if one reenters from harbor and meets different set of enemies, and then reenters again (and again, and again...) and meets the previous enemy set he fought, the enemy numbers will be right where one has left. Yeah, what's been killed is dead, untill total respawn ofc. This works with Rotundas too.

Loot

Chests' and respawning is another thing the Isle does its own way. Where at Gransys it's a week or so, here it takes roughly 1h 50m realtime (checked at Ward of Regret) for chests/boxes aso to respawn...while for enemies it still takes roughly an in-game week to respawn. If it wasn't for Maneaters I'd call it a farming paradise ;)

Now, you should know another thing about BBI respawning system. It has cycles. So, it's not like one will clear the map of enemies and loot and after [roughly] 1h 50m everything will be renew. No, the respawn happens in 1h 50m increments, so one may end up with new portion of loot/enemies even within 1 minute.

zadymek (talk) 23:43, October 8, 2018 (UTC)