(chapter 1 spoilers) Were you aware that when fighting the first boss...

[hstone32]

Spoiler

...that you can jump to dodge the shockwave attack?

I ask because after I defeated the immobilized eidolon last week, I went online to watch videos of other players fighting it. I noticed that in all the videos I watched, all the players just stood around and let themselves be flung around like ragdolls. They acted as though the attack was impossible to avoid. Even the seasoned players were doing it.

I rememper seeing people get mad when the 1.21 update changed the way healing items worked, their complaint being that it would make the eidolon fight much harder. I wonder if those people felt that way because they didn't know you could dodge the attack.

I suppose it could be an issue of differing levels of video game literacy. The games I grew up playing conditioned be to believe that when a large monster attacks by slamming the ground, I'm supposed to jump.

[LadyWYT]

I knew it was a thing, however, I think the complaints about healing weren't quite tied to it. Initially, falling for one second or longer would interrupt the bandaging process and reset the timer, which meant that jumping would interrupt healing. The only exceptions were jumping up a block level, or stepping down a block level without jumping; in both cases, the fall timer was less than one second, and thus did not interrupt bandaging. Likewise, if the bandaging process was nearly complete, it would not be interrupted either.

In any case, the healing was tweaked again and falling no longer resets the bandage timer at all, most likely due to this fight and others becoming more difficult than intended.

[Yerik]

I went in knowing nothing, and yes I was a ragdoll as well. It wasn't until I started reading spoilers after the fact that I learned that. I also didn't know that when wearing full iron plate armor healing was 0% effective and thought it was a bug. lol

[HalfAxd]

To me, the fight is ridiculous... so I just god mode around it.  Being stuck in a room with the boss is just bad game play...  In a game I truly love to play.

[hstone32]

3 minutes ago, HalfAxd said:

Being stuck in a room with the boss is just bad game play...

Could you ellaborate how so?

[HalfAxd]

5 hours ago, hstone32 said:

Could you ellaborate how so?

Sure... and of course this is my opinion (your mileage may vary)... I like that VS is a hardcore (ish) survival game.  I enjoy coming up with solutions to situations you find yourself in.  The game does a good job of letting you work around issues. 

Examples:  

     I dig bear/wolf pits to deal with their threat.   I don't go into forests if I can help it.

     I make liberal use of fire to clear areas for visibility and it doesn't hurt that you can harvest the critters that don't survive it.

     I build false floors to deal with ceiling mounted nests in caves.

These are examples of issues I could work around using what little brain I have

The first boss fight throws you in a room and makes you die many times to figure out the "trick" to winning...  and then magically the door opens for you...

If you are playing hardcore, then you're SOL...

That has frustrated many, including myself who have posted about it in the past.  Having a kill room like that is more akin to an arcade shooter, i.e. Doom or even Half Life.

Maybe that helps explain my thoughts... hope so.

Enjoy 

[LadyWYT]

58 minutes ago, HalfAxd said:

The first boss fight throws you in a room and makes you die many times to figure out the "trick" to winning...  and then magically the door opens for you...

If you are playing hardcore, then you're SOL...

I can see where this would be frustrating for hardcore players, however...I'll also point out that the story isn't designed around hardcore-style gameplay. It is actually canon that the player respawns after dying. How many times the player is actually supposed to die over the course of completing the story, I'm not sure, but it's almost certainly at least once prior to arriving in location 2 of Chapter 2.

That being said, I don't think that the goal of boss fight design is to ensure that the player dies multiple times, but rather to ensure that the player has a tough challenge to overcome before progressing the story. Typically, that means the player will end up dying a few times if they've not done the fight before, but not always.

Edited November 15, 2025 by LadyWYT

[Scorpixel]

First time learning about this. I simply didn't expect VS to have such mechanics and though the hitbox was cylindrical or that jumping simply wouldn't last long enough to dodge the shockwave (other games either make a ripple you can go over or make the ground effect brief and clear in an arcade way).

Edited November 15, 2025 by Scorpixel

[Thorfinn]

Took me a dozen tries to get the timing down, but, yeah. You can apparently get through the fight without it? Weird.

[Bruno Willis]

My first experience with this, I thought the point might be to try and land on one of the ledges and end the fight early by running away. I tried that a lot, and died a lot. Has anyone managed? Is it even possible to be thrown into one of the upper tunnels?

[LadyWYT]

Just now, Bruno Willis said:

My first experience with this, I thought the point might be to try and land on one of the ledges and end the fight early by running away. I tried that a lot, and died a lot. Has anyone managed? Is it even possible to be thrown into one of the upper tunnels?

It actually was possible at one time, as I recall it happening to me in my earlier days of VS(1.18). However, that's also why the devs ended up adding an invisible wall there. If the player got rocketed up onto one of those ledges, they could either skip the boss and go straight to the library, or cheese the boss by shooting at it until it died.

[Bruno Willis]

That seems like a feature not a bug

[hstone32]

Yeah, I was wondering about those. blocked by an invisible wall, only accessible after finishing the fight, yet containing no loot or anything else of interest. What even is the point?

[Zane Mordien]

13 hours ago, hstone32 said:

Yeah, I was wondering about those. blocked by an invisible wall, only accessible after finishing the fight, yet containing no loot or anything else of interest. What even is the point?

Its just for looks. I was tossed up there are least one time before they fixed it. 

The first boss is easy to me, as long as you have healing items and don't wear player made plate armor. It was tougher when healing was interrupted. No armor is better than plate armor in that fight.

[LadyWYT]

14 hours ago, hstone32 said:

Yeah, I was wondering about those. blocked by an invisible wall, only accessible after finishing the fight, yet containing no loot or anything else of interest. What even is the point?

Like @Zane Mordien already mentioned, it's just set design. Albeit poor design, since this would have been a prime spot just add some iron bars instead of invisible walls. That way, it would look like a built-in safety feature to prevent falls, instead of obvious game mechanics to prevent the player from cheesing the fight.