It's about the finale of a boss battle actually feeling like a finale and not riding a segway across the finish line.
If I'm at the end of a boss battle and the boss is looping the same action over and over that couldn't even kill the most inexperienced player unless they were standing perfectly still, that is not a finale. It's not even really a fight at that point. If a boss has to be reduced to such a simplistic and pitiful state, it needs something to not give the sensation of "That's it?"
I'm failing to see anything memorable or enjoyable about a single hydra getting an AI-lobotomy and helplessly smacking it's head against the wall while it waits for you to put it out of it's misery.
One fact that's very much being missed here is that the "excitement" and "rush" of the finale fade away once a player is familiar with the boss fight. I'll be repeating that a few times here.
And you and Chaldo feel strongly that the Hydras need to be changed in a different way, complaining about how they current exist. A way which I have disagreements about and present alternative options. Welcome to the suggestions forum. Were you trying to make a point here?
Yes. I was trying to make a point here, actually. Chaldo and I have concerns that deal with things that are
factually problems. The issue is that hyrdras being able to spam boring attacks is a waste of time. It can create a difference between S/A time rank, A/B time rank, etc. And that difference has nothing to do with the player's skill. It has everything to do with the rng of whether or not the hydra spams a seasonal attack.
Because the spam contributes next to nothing to the fight, it might as well be removed to
prevent a poor mechanic from ruining players' time ranks.
Admittedly, another option is just to strongly increase the time expectations for the fight in case seasonal spamming occurs. However, this gives
all players, skilled or unskilled a much easier time S-ranking the boss. And it still doesn't solve the problem of a room potentially being filled by fire.
This is different to your suggestion, which -- to me -- seems completely opinionated. You're concerned about "an amazing finale" that no longer exists after you've fought the boss 100 times over. And you're concerned about "the boss not getting stupidly easy over time" despite the fact that the boss is incredibly easy at the end compared to the beginning. And none of your suggestions actually fix that. (I don't consider the increase in ease over time a problem though.) So it comes off as a desperate attempt to add something burdensome to the fight just because you think it makes the fight "a better designed one". Flashiness is fine if it doesn't inhibit a fair fight that lacks stupid random situations that screw you over. That's why I said the summer idea was decent. But there are still flaws in it.
I guarantee you that players are still feeling a rush/urgency once the final head is left. That's how my friends and I felt during the hydra fight -- after our many, many deaths. Of course, as I've said, that rushing experience fades away after you've mastered the fight.
You could say the same exact thing about Mimic 3's final barrage. It doesn't necessarily need to light up the room with fire and slowly corner you in the middle with rockets launching everywhere, but it does because having the Mimic just die and spit out his crown when HP=0 is not enjoyable from a gameplay experience standpoint.
You actually have a point there. The final explosion isn't "necessary" per se and is quite avoidable. You are correct. I have nothing else to say to that.
I will point out, though, that the final barrage is consistent. (As a result, I'm sure it's been considered in the time expectations.) Seasonal spam, by contrast, is inconsistent and leads to the problem Chaldo and I have. Moreover, you are not required to attack the mimic during his final explosion. This allows the player to focus on (very easy) dodging. It's quite different from a hydra fight, where attacks are for the most part aimed at you and you still have to deal damage quickly.
You're viewing Mimic as a single boss here. It's not. Mimic is three bosses, each with their own beginning, middle and finale phases. They each have their strengths and weaknesses against different playstyles. Furthermore, people who are better at dodging, shielding and defensive builds with 1 on 1 fighting will have an easier time with 2, people who are more combat-oriented with group fighting will have an easier time with 3. That's assuming you're not a top level arcade player just bursting Mimic to skip phases and actually fighting each wave.
I actually disagree with this. Mimic Phase 1 is literally an Elite Jumpin/Elder Rabby hybrid...but easier.
Any class can just use their weapon and melee him to death...though melee would obviously do the job faster, and zerk would handle it even faster. I don't even consider phase 1 a boss fight.
Defensive builds have nothing to do with any of the phases and will only slow you down. Defensive builds are probably the worst in the game because they lower your dps and thus increase the amount of time you need to spend dodging. Most of the "defense-oriented" people that I've seen have done worse on phase 2 than more pro-active people...and that's for obvious reasons. You will be better at phase 2 if you're good at dodging and positioning.
But that's literally every boss fight. Phase 2's final barrage is
easier than that of phase 1. And the only threat phase 2 poses in his regular attacks is the random chance of cornering you if you don't watch where you're stepping.
Phase 3 will always be easier, regardless of what you're good at. You're just beating up regular enemies in a room while avoiding hazards. That's pretty much how regular arcade rooms work. Mimic is nowhere near three separate bosses. Phase 1 is a regular enemy. Phase 2 is hazards. Phase 3 is enemy spawn rooms. And their health is small enough in each phase to warrant them not being individual bosses in their own rite. That's why they're put back to back: It makes them an
actual boss.
Your sense of relief only comes from the fact that you have mastered the enemies and they're nothing more than a series of attack patterns that you know how to exploit. The average player doesn't fight Mimic 3 and feel relief, they're on edge and afraid of dying to it, slogging through wave after wave of enemies, fearing have to relive the entire fight. Finishing it off is a monumental occasion where you're on the edge of your seat. Which, if you're designing a good boss battle, is where you want players to be at the end instead of slouched back in their chair, calmly whittling away the last remaining HP bar.
Yes, I'm comfortable with boss fights because I learned the attack pattern. And I'm very much capable of beating bosses as a melee player without having to rely on exploits or frosty friend or barrier or even a time crystal. Again,
that's literally how every boss works. If a player still has an immensely difficult time with a boss after memorizing its attack patterns, then the boss has been very poorly designed. Again, examples of good bosses are Lingering Will Terra and Secret Phantom Aqua. Examples of bad bosses are Mysterious Figure and Young Xehanort. An average player will have a hard time with most new bosses, especially ones like Winter and Priestess. In fact, average players likely won't make it to the final floor in arcade to begin with. I was 100% scared of Ancient Mimic when I first saw him in story. Now I'm not. Why? Because I learned how the fight works. This is another thing that can
never be avoided with video games (at least ones that are designed well). Players will get more comfortable with a boss once they learn how it works. And that has nothing to do with exploits.
Starting the hydra battle and seeing them pop up one by one fills players with dread because they're gigantic and numerous. It comes with an expectation of a memorable experience from start to finish. The battle being reduced to a headram infinite loops are not enjoyable from any perspective beyond "I want to HP=0 the boss faster and get S-Ranks easier."
Again, this only happens at the very beginning. Once players get familiar with the fight, it's no longer scary. It's impossible to make a player relive the same emotions they experienced the first time they fought a boss fight.
Any boss fight becomes a chore after you've mastered it.
The battle isn't reduced to
"I want to HP=0 the boss faster and get S-Ranks easier." No-damaging the hydra fight is one of the easiest things in the world. You just have to run around. As I mentioned earlier,
this has nothing to do with S-ranks getting easier. It has to deal with the fact that players are stripped of S-ranks that should be theirs when a boss spams a season move 5 times before each individual head slam. And that is what is a poor mechanic in the boss fight in arcade. Even so, the boss fight is reduced to something trivially easy once one is left alone anyway....as I've already said.
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All that aside. You only talked about
a few of my side-points regarding certain boss fights...not even all of them. But those comments about the boss fights are not the foundation of my argument. They're counterarguments to points that you used as lesser, supporting points.
Unless you can refute the statements that have to deal with your suggestions for the hydras, and unless you can address the problem that players are often stripped from a rightful S-rank, then this discussion will indicate that your suggestion should not be implemented.
And before anyone says, no, Mimic isn't a boss getting easier. It's a three part boss rush. Mimic 3 (the third boss) has a very carefully designed ramping up of difficulty in the phases it transitions through, with a final attack. Nor are the Thorn Worm bosses, it's a fight with two phases. When you kill one worm, the AI of the other isn't changed to make it easier or disable attacks. There is a very clear difference between putting the final hydra is a headram-loop and any other boss endgame.
