I don't know, there are two ways to look at it. The story rom your were able to just completely ignore the spiders since they were spread out enough that when you engaged rom only like 1-2 were in range to hit you and you could keep any eye on them.
Chalice rom would not allow you to ignore the spiders, there are too many in such a small area, at least for me. The pillars give you cover from his ranged attack so that you could lure out and kill at least some of the spiders before engaging after the first port.