How a typo in Terraria means this Skeleton can ignore dodges

How a typo in Terraria means this Skeleton can ignore dodges

You might remember that when 1.4.4 released, the Daytime Empress of Light suddenly got a lot harder. This is because in that update Re-Logic made the Daytime Empress’ attacks ignore dodging mechanics, meaning you could no longer cheat death using Hallowed Armor, Master Ninja Gear, or a Brain of Confusion. Instead of getting a free dodge every thirty seconds – which often meant several dodges through the fight – plus another 25% chance to dodge any other attack, you now had to true no-hit the Empress of Light – no funny business allowed – which is, of course, significantly harder. Although the Empress of Light is by far the most well-known and consequential example, Re-Logic made this apply to more than just the Empress. Their intention was to make any "insta-kill" enemy – like the Empress – bypass dodges, as you know, they should instakill. Due to this, other heavy hitters like Daytime Skeletron, Daytime Skeletron Prime, and the Dungeon Guardian were also brought along and made undodgable. However, if you actually go and check in game, you’ll realize this isn’t quite the case. The Empress is undodgeable, sure, and so is the Dungeon Guardian, but both Daytime Skeletron and Daytime Skeletron Prime are perfectly dodgeable, despite the patch notes saying otherwise? So, what gives? Well, let’s look at the method IsDamageDodgeable(), which controls whether an enemy can be dodged. First, let’s replace these bare NPC IDs with their readable names from the NPCID class. This is now what the code should’ve looked like to the developers before the compiler crushed it. In this switch statement, you can see that by default, enemies are dodgeable, which makes sense. Then, the Empress of Light is dodgeable when it is not day, which also makes sense. Meanwhile, the Dungeon Guardian is only dodgeable when ai[1] (which is one of its internal AI counters) is not equal to 2. Since the Dungeon Guardian’s internal counter is always set to 2, it’s always undodgeable. Still, this makes sense. Then, there’s this case. Since there’s no code for this case, it "falls through" to the next case, using its code if it triggers. This means that just like the Dungeon Guardian, Skeletron should also only be undodgeable if its internal counter is set to 2. Skeletron’s internal counter is set to 2 when he’s enraged during the day, so he should be undodgeable during the day just as intended. But, if you look closely, you’ll realize that this is actually code for the Skeleton, not Skeletron. So, yeah, that’s right, Terraria’s developers missed an "r" in their code, meaning daytime Skeletron is unintentionally dodgeable due to a typo. The effect of this is that Skeletron, even during daytime, is always dodgeable, since, well, there’s no exception for him in the code. However, this also means that the common, blue-shirted non-bone-throwing non-boss Skeleton can actually ignore dodges, if its AI counter is set to 2. While this is normally not the case, since fighter AI uses the ai[1] counter to track door breaking progress, it is possible to create an undodgeable Skeleton. If a Skeletron were to bang on a Tall Gate once, its counter should be set to 2 – and so if you run into it with a dodge, it will actually ignore your dodge. Just like that, a mere Skeleton can mirror the undodgeability of the Daytime Empress – and all because of a lost "r" in typing. Oh, and if you’re wondering, remember how we said Daytime Skeletron Prime is also unintentionally dodgeable? Well, he is, but not because of a typo or anything fancy. It’s just because the developers forgot about him. He’s not anywhere in the code. Just not there. Fat L for Prime, I guess. By the way, thank you to Amaboye for bringing this glitch to my attention. There’s no way I could’ve found it otherwise. Either way though, thank you for watching, and good day and good bye. See you next week.

How a typo in Terraria means this Skeleton can ignore dodges
it’s always the empress of light!
pointless dead discord: https://discord.com/invite/yJrCt9YFz5
Credit to Kellam Yoshikage (amaboye) in #video-suggestions for the idea!

Chapters:
0:00 Intro: the undodgeability mechanic
0:52 Uh oh, something’s wrong… why the hell are the daytime Skeletrons dodgeable?!
1:10 The code behind undodgeability (Empress & Dungeon Guardian, normal)
1:44 Skeletron’s code
2:04 Oops someone forgot an r
2:26 How the Skeleton can “steal” Skeletron’s mechanics and ignore a dodge
3:00 Oops someone forgot a prime
3:17 Outro

Music:
Terraria – Windy Day
Terraria – Underground

Mods and Packs:
Foundry & Alchemy (Pack) – https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2440505684
Stanberry Font (Pack) –
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2559652586
Stormdark UI (Pack) –
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2448259079
DragonLens (Cheat Mod) –
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2939737748
Better Zoom (QoL) –
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2562953970
Character Stats (QoL) –
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3033200611

How a typo in Terraria means this Skeleton can ignore dodges