Eidolon boss fight

[Zaph42nd]

18 hours ago, Echo Weaver said:

I guess this is a necro, but this thread was the one that turned up on searches about the Eidolon fight. 

Gotta say I really, really hated it. I get that it's supposed to be tough, but I agree with the folks who say it's tough in a way that doesn't match the tone of the game so far. The combat mechanics feel more like an aggressive platform combat game, with the timed jumps to avoid AOE, the second stage with constant add spawns, and the blocked retreat. If you discover you don't have the right gear, you're screwed because you can't escape the fight without dying, and then you have to jump right back in if you want your gear back. So you better get it right the first time or be ready to cheat. 

Most of these things could be all right, but not together. It's not a fun fight unless you are a gamer who likes a specific kind of unforgiving combat.

ETA: I did absolutely love the archive up until the boss fight. The mood is perfect. I had a bit of trouble with the puzzle, mostly just because it took a while to look around and find the right tooltip to figure out what object you needed for what spot. But the whole place gave me the shivers in the best way. 

Wholeheartedly agree, for me Eidolon feels a little disjointed from all the other combat encounters up until it, but still beats the devastation boss by a long-shot (Mad Crow is just very annoying to fight and feels like it was designed with melee as an afterthought imo)

[Echo Weaver]

5 minutes ago, Zaph42nd said:

Wholeheartedly agree, for me Eidolon feels a little disjointed from all the other combat encounters up until it, but still beats the devastation boss by a long-shot (Mad Crow is just very annoying to fight and feels like it was designed with melee as an afterthought imo)

OK, so obvs I haven't gotten to that one. I guess I've learned my lesson that I should not go in without doing extensive research ahead of time. It'd be lovely to be able to do really targeted research so that the next story location can be experienced as much as possible with new eyes. 

I really hate just cheating my way out of part of the experience, but wow this has been no fun. My daughter and I triggered the Eidolon fight without knowing that's what we were doing. I had chain armor, but I unequipped it while we were running outside getting food and forgot to put it back on (I totally didn't remind myself a half-dozen times not to forget that what are you talking about), and also I didn't know this was the boss. And that just completely neutralized me. I can't stay alive long enough to get the armor on, and I'm not cool enough to dodge while trying to do that and get my weapon to bear. Part of this also appears to be that I'm playing on a Macbook Pro, and the trackpad doesn't lend itself to some of the PvP tricks. I could use a mouse at a desk, but I'd have to build those skills up from scratch. So my daughter has been Leroy Jenkins-ing the whole thing. We had to log out when it was almost dead, so we're not quite done. She's now fighting with no armor too because her leather armor was destroyed from the cycle of damage and death, but she's at least getting a bit of damage in each time before she dies. YUCK.

I cheated my stuff back and will put on my armor and hopefully be useful for the final push.

And apparently the Devastation boss is going to be the same or worse. Maybe something comparatively minor would be useful like just turning keep inventory on. I'd like to come up with some strategies that aren't just cheating the thing away.

[Stralgaez]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

To be fair, unless one has "keep inventory" turned on, they probably shouldn't be dropping into a hole with all their valuables on them, especially when said situation is something of an obvious boss fight. Aside from the boss being hinted at in the Archive's literature and set designs, the player will have had plenty of time to figure out that Vintage Story tends to be a pretty dangerous game. 

In any case, I took a stab at drafting a rework of the fight some time back. I suppose now's as good of time as any to drop a link: 

My general idea was to keep the fight mostly the same, but tweak a few details to smooth out the incoming damage and make the fight itself feel a little better/more immersive.

It's possible to select 'keep inventory' enabled, but we need to balance such things based on the most average setting that gives you the fastest entry to a new game - Standard, without customization, without mods.

I am aware that its generally dangerous out there, but if you can manage the Archives up until the boss .. then the boss itself shouldn't be a massive jump in difficulty. You are already trapped in the room with it until either is dead so no need to to make it extra hard, suddenly requiring Tier 3+ and honey sulfur poultices when you managed to clear the place before the boss with Tier 2 stuff easily. 

Edited yesterday at 06:39 PM by Stralgaez

[Echo Weaver]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

To be fair, unless one has "keep inventory" turned on, they probably shouldn't be dropping into a hole with all their valuables on them, especially when said situation is something of an obvious boss fight. Aside from the boss being hinted at in the Archive's literature and set designs, the player will have had plenty of time to figure out that Vintage Story tends to be a pretty dangerous game. 

Yeah, so we knew there was a boss called the Eidolon that was immobile, and I had some general idea how it fought. We had built a theory that it was related to the pillar at the center of the archive, so I assume that's why my daughter triggered it without realizing that's what it was. But also I made a dumb mistake that wasn't recoverable, and players do that. I generally don't believe in keeping inventory on, but we do use Player Corpse, which made inventory retrieval worse.

I basically don't believe in a boss fight where there's no secure place to mess with your inventory and no escape. Even in a platform combat game boss fight, you can usually get into the fight fresh after screwing up.

ETA: I think the usual balance for players fighting for a bit, then running off to heal in safety, then coming back to deal more damage is just to make the boss heal slowly.

Edited yesterday at 06:45 PM by Echo Weaver

[Yaffie]

19 hours ago, Echo Weaver said:

If you discover you don't have the right gear, you're screwed because you can't escape the fight without dying, and then you have to jump right back in if you want your gear back. So you better get it right the first time or be ready to cheat.  

Recently I did another run of the game and decided to choose the hunter class, and it turns out that using a bow marginalises the whole fight, so there's also that.

16 hours ago, Zane Mordien said:

This one didn't bother me. It was a fun fight for me but I can see why it wouldn't be for others. The stupid chapter 2 fight is the one I can't stand. I haven't gone back to that cursed tower since I did that fight early after release. I keep trying to force myself to go back and do the updated tower but the memory of the first miserable parkour time keeps me away.

To me the 2nd chapter was amazing, apart from the fact you have to travel tens of thousands of blocks, I get why the parkour can be annoying, it's too long, but the checkpoints make it manageable, as for the fight, again bow makes it way too easy.

15 hours ago, PlatonicNymph said:

Also just patiently enjoy the game until iron age before beginning the story quests - 'tis my humble advice.

While I do agree with that, I'd much prefer if the difficulty of the story would gradually increase so that you could progress both at the same time.

10 hours ago, Stralgaez said:

It does say a lot when people tell their tale about the boss and mostly have opted into a battle of attrition either by throwing themselves repeatedly onto it until you wear the boss down, come back with gear far above what is needed for the place, or resort to cheese tactics.

As Echo Weaver said, once you die in that fight, you have to either give up all your gear you've brought there or just bang your head against a wall, and since you've probably brought your best stuff to the fight, you don't want to lose it.

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

To be fair, unless one has "keep inventory" turned on, they probably shouldn't be dropping into a hole with all their valuables on them, especially when said situation is something of an obvious boss fight. Aside from the boss being hinted at in the Archive's literature and set designs, the player will have had plenty of time to figure out that Vintage Story tends to be a pretty dangerous game. 

True, but if you have to drop into a hole, and expect a boss down there, you would bring your best gear there, and jump in difficulty from exploring the Archives and fighting Eidolon is quite big in my opinion.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

19 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

I basically don't believe in a boss fight where there's no secure place to mess with your inventory and no escape. Even in a platform combat game boss fight, you can usually get into the fight fresh after screwing up.

Someone should create a mod that moves all your stuff from the boss room to the entrance when/if you die. I would look into it but I'm pretty swamped with my current project that turns a bunch of the unused flora in the game into potion ingredients.

[Yaffie]

1 minute ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

Someone should create a mod that moves all your stuff from the boss room to the entrance when/if you die. 

Tbh just turn on keep inventory. Losing all my stuff in VS and the other block game is what usually makes me stop playing, so I decided to use it and had a lot of better time since then.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

Just now, Yaffie said:

Tbh just turn on keep inventory. Losing all my stuff in VS and the other block game is what usually makes me stop playing, so I decided to use it and had a lot of better time since then.

It's definitely an option, just not one that most people would gravitate towards, I think. Definitely not one that I would gravitate towards anyway. But then I always try to make and have spares in case something breaks before I've had a chance to make a replacement for it.

[Stralgaez]

7 minutes ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

Someone should create a mod that moves all your stuff from the boss room to the entrance when/if you die. I would look into it but I'm pretty swamped with my current project that turns a bunch of the unused flora in the game into potion ingredients.

At the risk of sounding like a vanilla-hardliner : This honestly should be balanced without the implementation of mods and/or any changes in the Standard settings to side-step the current problems with the encounter itself.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

1 minute ago, Stralgaez said:

At the risk of sounding like a vanilla-hardliner : This honestly should be balanced without the implementation of mods and/or any changes in the Standard settings to side-step the current problems with the encounter itself.

I mean yeah, but what are mods for except to fill in the gaps left by the game devs while they work on other things?

[Stralgaez]

Just now, Teh Pizza Lady said:

I mean yeah, but what are mods for except to fill in the gaps left by the game devs while they work on other things?

Maybe they should fill those gaps first and future proof them before working on other systems.

And leave the mods for adding other amazing things rather than plugging holes that have been left behind. 

[Teh Pizza Lady]

1 minute ago, Stralgaez said:

Maybe they should fill those gaps first and future proof them before working on other systems.

And leave the mods for adding other amazing things rather than plugging holes that have been left behind. 

I mean maybe, but you're saying that to the wrong person! LOL Don't tell me, tell them!

[Stralgaez]

Just now, Teh Pizza Lady said:

I mean maybe, but you're saying that to the wrong person! LOL Don't tell me, tell them!

I know, and I appreciate the notion to possibly work on something to make it more accessible at some point.

Ideally, you shouldn't need to, alas ... 

[Yaffie]

All things considered, we're still talking about a game that only has 2 out of 8 planned chapters released, I'm sure when the game finally has it's full release it'll be much more polished.

[Echo Weaver]

3 hours ago, Stralgaez said:

Maybe they should fill those gaps first and future proof them before working on other systems.

And leave the mods for adding other amazing things rather than plugging holes that have been left behind. 

I gotta defend the devs here and say that if they fixed all bugs/issues before working on new content, there would never be any new content.

[Echo Weaver]

3 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

Someone should create a mod that moves all your stuff from the boss room to the entrance when/if you die. I would look into it but I'm pretty swamped with my current project that turns a bunch of the unused flora in the game into potion ingredients.

Gotta say I LOVE the idea of a death mod that puts your stuff someplace safe so you can go get it. It's probably too much work, but it's a great idea.

[LadyWYT]

6 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

Someone should create a mod that moves all your stuff from the boss room to the entrance when/if you die.

Or just make a garbage chute that dumps out into the nether regions of the Archive, and a command block to make sure that loose items get swept into that chute if the player happens to die in the arena. 

 

7 hours ago, Echo Weaver said:

And apparently the Devastation boss is going to be the same or worse.

The Devastation boss is actually easier than the Archive boss, in my opinion. It's easier to figure out what the objective is and what the various boss attacks do, but that being said, the fight also takes a lot longer and standing in the wrong spot can be very unforgiving. The puzzle portion before getting to the boss is rather hit or miss as well, given that it depends on what kind of puzzles you like.

[LadyWYT]

8 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

IMO, this should all be resolved similar to the way Terraria did it -- mini-boss fights that you encounter before the story line. Skeleton warriors defending tombs, for example.

A great niche for some of the procedural dungeons to fill. I do hope that more types are ready soon. The one we have right now is okay, but it does get old rather quickly.

[Stralgaez]

5 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

The Devastation boss is actually easier than the Archive boss, in my opinion. It's easier to figure out what the objective is and what the various boss attacks do, but that being said, the fight also takes a lot longer and standing in the wrong spot can be very unforgiving. The puzzle portion before getting to the boss is rather hit or miss as well, given that it depends on what kind of puzzles you like.

The path to it is definitely a major time investment, and perhaps not able to be done in a single session, depending on your patience and skill with the said puzzle.

And that's definitely a location you would do good to have a outpost/base nearby set up and to fall back to. 

[CastIronFabric]

18 hours ago, Echo Weaver said:

Out of curiosity -- what do you do to the spawn mechanics? Do you just put keep inventory on?

yes and I use bedspawn and teleporter translocator. So in the case of the RA by that time I would be able to drop a Translocator.

[CastIronFabric]

18 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

IMO, this should all be resolved similar to the way Terraria did it -- mini-boss fights that you encounter before the story line. Skeleton warriors defending tombs, for example.

No, double-headed or nightmares do not count, because they are not anywhere close to the same level of challenge, plus they are swarms. Like Fezzik (Andre the Giant) put it in The Princess Bride, "you use different moves when you're fighting...  half a dozen... people... than when you only... have to be worried... about... one!"

well as I have shared my opinion on this before I think the way it really should be resolved is to remote 'boss fights' completely from the game but I know I am on outlier.

[Thorfinn]

4 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

well as I have shared my opinion on this before I think the way it really should be resolved is to remote 'boss fights' completely from the game but I know I am on outlier.

No, that's my preference, too, for the reason I cited -- there is no way to practice this skill outside of story locations. But this is the game the devs want to play, and they obviously like boss battles. On the positive side, you can simply opt out of the boss battles.

I'm not a huge fan of mario bros jumping from platform to platform, either, but at least that is a skill you can practice in pretty much any cavern. All you need is a stack of packed earth in your inventory, because there are a lot of places you can't "free climb".

[Echo Weaver]

13 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

No, that's my preference, too, for the reason I cited -- there is no way to practice this skill outside of story locations. But this is the game the devs want to play, and they obviously like boss battles. On the positive side, you can simply opt out of the boss battles.

I'm not a huge fan of mario bros jumping from platform to platform, either, but at least that is a skill you can practice in pretty much any cavern. All you need is a stack of packed earth in your inventory, because there are a lot of places you can't "free climb".

How does one opt out of boss battles entirely? Are there other ways to get to the places they guard, or is it a config setting?

I think you nailed it -- you can't practice the skill anywhere, and the actual fight traps you into a difficult thing with high stakes and no practice. But you're also right that the devs seem to want it this way, and they're going to do what they're going to do. For those of us who don't like the vision, there are mods and config options.

I'd rather nerf the bosses than remove them entirely if I can. I think I have learned that I should do a lot of research ahead of the next one, though I guess I'd rather cheat than do so much research I spoil the whole chapter. Keep Inventory On, definitely. Set spawn near the fight (I did that for this one). Make sure I know what exactly triggers the boss so we can stop and take stock before going in and hopefully avoid an embarrassing armor mishap. Be willing to cheat-teleport out to heal. Other advice welcome.

[LadyWYT]

3 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

Other advice welcome.

You could try turning down creature strength before the fight, and turn it back up after. That might help. Could also just make a mod that adjusts the boss health and damage values to something you find more reasonable.