Mixed feelings on Hard Mode (bosses).

[Shady C]

Preface: I've only played this game on Hard Mode, co-op with 1 friend (2 players total).

The problem I'm about to describe is a problem that seems to exponentially grow as you progress through Story Mode, peaking at Winter, and then seemingly fine for the Trio and the Mushroom. (Am I forgetting a fight?)

Boss fight mechanics are pretty fun. They add a good challenge, give an element beyond "tank & spanking" a health bar, and function well enough for the most part.

But that's actually my problem. "For the most part."

While playing through the game's areas, we would often get carried away trying new skills & stuff on the endlessly-spawning enemies. We'd gain levels until our experience gain was basically hard-capped for the area. I declare this statement to illustrate the fact that we can rule out "being underleveled" as a cause for anything at all.

Our first handful of boss fights were extremely challenging, but in the "right" way. For example, GUN-D4M. After each individual failed attempt - and there were MANY total - we clearly knew that we were dying because we had yet to perfect the execution of the battle. Each hit was a mistake, whether immediate or a lack of preventative measures, or et cetera, whatever. And when we beat it, it was like, "YES, finally, we had a good enough performance to win!"

But this effect was dwindling as we moved on. At least for me. By the time we got to Hydras, something else was taking place. The fight had its mechanic, and we had to figure out patterns and whatnot, but there was also a little bit of a quirk going on. Certain things had RNG to them. Like when a Hydra would start raising its head. Sometimes delayed, sometimes not. Very rarely, the active season Hydra would headbutt. A welcome change, but just another RNG example.

Well, there would be certain occasions that would arise. Aside from sometimes being able to have a spore projectile hit a Hydra head, you'd otherwise have to shield them. But the problem came when the spore would be timed in a way where it would hit you if you moved away from a headbutt, but that headbutt would crush you if you blocked the spore. Yes, I know you can do preventative things for this, but honestly? Not always. Sometimes you would just... be forced to take free damage. The underlining point for this entire thread.

We beat the Hydra. But by that time, I could feel the mixed feelings. There was a slight taste of the satisfaction from beating Gundam, like, "we did it! We had the well-executed run!" But that was much fainter now. The predominant feeling I had was the one that I feel underlines the next boss fight.

Winter is the shining example of this "free damage" issue that I have. Good lord, I despise this guy more than anything in this game. I get all his mechanics. I get what I'm supposed to do, blah blah blah. I get it.

But this guy has so much crap going on, that you'd be crazy to think there's not gonna be cases of free damage all over the place.

Sometimes, his 5x ice spike attack can literally leave you with no floor space. Just by itself, let alone mixing in either blizzard winds, or snowball fists.

Sometimes, during vertical & horizontal blizzards, the snowballs will actually push you out into the blizzard, and/or cover up the whole safe square you're supposed to be inside, and you have nowhere to go.

Sometimes this, sometimes that. Sometimes a lot of things. Sure, I get hit by something that makes me mad, but I'll also know I could have avoided it in some way. But I also know when I had no safe place to step on, or when I couldn't get to something in time (usually due to ice spikes) before the blizzard takes away 100+ HP within less than 1 second (at ~20 a tick, even).

Winter became something different for me. Opposite end of the spectrum as Gundam. He has a tiny bit of, "I need to perfect my performance." But he has a lot bit of, "I need to grind out attempts until I get one where there is minimal free damage setups on me. Only then can I have a chance to win, if I also play it really well."

Because Hard Mode boss fights feel like they just have a big ol' health bar, and the challenge for you is how long you can endure "bullet hell". Each boss seemed like their health was getting bigger and bigger, thus giving more and more windows of opportunity for free damage setups to randomly show up. That's where the increased difficulty seemed to be rooted... rather than increasingly difficult/complicated mechanics.

That's basically the TLDR.

Due to the "improperly" scaling health bars of Hard Mode bosses, fights become more & more about "free damage" windows, and hoping your run has a lower amount of them rather than a higher amount.

 

[The G-Meister]

Welcome to the forums! While I may be about to debate your points, I do mean that - it's always nice to see a fresh face and some fresh opinions

I'll start by pointing this out. Hard is really designed for a second playthrough. It says that when you pick the difficulty (although it may have been your friend picking that option and they didn't inform you, but still) and for that reason it's pretty much been balanced around you exploiting most all of the mechanics in the game to your fullest advantage. Some skills fair horribly, certain gear is better than others, and hybrid builds don't do all that well. For the most part it seem that you've realised that and treated it that way, and continued on to complete the game, so I respect the commitment. However, going in without that experience can eventually start to wear people's commitment (and therefore enjoyment) down, so try to bear that in mind

But the problem came when the spore would be timed in a way where it would hit you if you moved away from a headbutt, but that headbutt would crush you if you blocked the spore.

The exploitative mechanic in the Hydras fight is to sit in one of a few spots on the ice season, where the repetitive pattern of the beam will never hit you (and occasionally doesn't have ice on). Having used this strategy to death I can't comment in too much detail here, but I will bring up this - it's possible to perfect guard a hydra head and have it not break your shield. Timing the guard correctly for the head would mean that the projectile would hit your shield and the hydra would bounce off, leaving you with an intact shield. I don't know if you tried that, but from my experience of perfect guarding, I believe that would be a possible (even if difficult) solution. Overall I don't think the Hydras fight is as bad as you might suggest.

Having said that, I mostly agree on the stuff you brought up about Winter. It's possible to be pinned against the wall, have nowhere to move for snowballs and I won't deny that, unless you kill him too quickly, there's usually the odd couple unavoidable hits when he has winds from both directions and then throws three fists at your when you're in that tiny square.

But I don't believe those odd situations take up a significant proportion of your health bar unless repetitively handled badly. Sitting in the middle of the room often helps when he's doing the five ice ground-pounds, and it's possible to perfect guard a snow fist sent at you during that if you're a little short on space. Furthermore, the smaller area you're trapped in, the less likely it is you'll get another row of spikes through it.

Finally, may I ask - what skills were you using, and what cards did you have before you went in the fight? They're usually quite a large factor in determining how well you're going to do, and I ask because many don't card grind before bosses on Hard, and a build that is good against standard grinding may not be too great against bosses, and can impact enjoyment (so much that I originally switched builds when I switched to hard and found out my grinding build didn't like Winter too much).

 

[Shady C]

Thanks for the reply. In an attempt to go in order...

Hard Mode, I think, labels itself for two things. Replay factor, or a challenge for new players. I'm actually the one that decided on Hard Mode, lol. And that being said, yeah of course knowing the mechanics from a Normal Mode playthrough would have helped the Hard Mode playthrough when looking at it isolated. But overall, what better way to learn? Also, I kinda hate second playthroughs, so there's that. But mostly, it didn't take us too long to learn everything each time a new thing came up. It was always about practicing and performing what we learned, instead. Tiny mistakes add up when the bosses have all that health. Also, I was using a garbage build, and he was using an Ok build. So we had no real "high tier" damage push at any point, which holds relevance regarding boss health bars and room for player error. (I was playing Meteor/Stone with 40% cost reduction from alternating. Hadn't tested other things yet. After we beat the game, I tried Phoenix/Insects, which was vastly better. Then I briefly tried out the fire cone, which is probably the best spell. But right now, I'm using Shadow Clone auto attacks, which might be the best IMO.)

I wasn't aware of the Hydra spot for winter season. I know I looked for such a spot, though only very briefly, and didn't immediately find such a spot so I gave up on it. I also didn't even know the ice grip boots existed at that time, so that was also out the window. What we did was alternate the other two, and declared blue the ultimate "never hit this" button. Actually, that's why this is my avatar. It's become a joke with us We lost so many close attempts because my friend would panic, hit blue, and it became an utter shitshow. But yeah, summer was easy enough, but had to be swapped out as soon as able. Autumn lasted as long as we could handle the blind spots. Our winning attempt was with Summer Hydra remaining. He painted most of the ground in fire, at which point I think he hit his cap, and then spammed headbutts. I worked in the tiny floor space I had, and beat him. With my crap Meteors

So, for Winter... When we tried him together, my friend was a summoner and I was still Meteor. This made it extremely difficult to get anything done with the guy. I think the best we could really get done was about half of Winter's HP. Eventually, I caved, and I suggested we drop him in Normal Mode real quick then get back to Hard Mode, which we did.

La de da, cut ahead to current day, and we've both played a little bit without each other. He himself had replayed Winter with another friend, and they double-teamed Winter down with duo fire cones. I, however, have been attempting him solo, which I now believe to be harder than with teammates (which I guess makes sense). Fire cone worked Ok for me. But I've had the best success with Shadow Clone. Among many attempts where I've got him to about an inch of HP, my best attempt was when he had 1 pixel left. And he was doing a vanilla-ass ice spike series of attacks, not even the kind where they all remain. Just some isolated ground slams with no blizzards or anything. Really weird that he was doing that. But I had about 12 HP left, myself. Each time he finished a slam, he had a window of weakness. I would move up to him and swing, but I stopped too short and whiffed! And I did this... five times!! And then I died to a blizzard tick. OMG I was so mad...

So, I know I can do it, but I also know that my closest attempts simply felt like they had less "free damage" setups against me. On a counter-example attempt, Winter NEVER went into the "safe phase" with the spike maze. I was chipping his HP down here and there between his attacks, getting him to half HP, and he never once went into the safe phase. This upset me greatly, as I realized even the phases had an immense RNG layer to them. Who can have a successful run against Winter if he never does a single safe phase?

Eh. Well, that's kinda where I stand on it. I really dislike the free damage windows. And I guess in addition, the lack of equal build viability (which is expected this early), which can make boss fights exponentially harder for lower tier builds.

What I'd wanna see in the future is less RNG to boss fights, and more straight-defined mechanics that can be expected more consistently while still being hard to perfect and perform.

Side note:
Winter is extra hard for me because I'm color blind. Something to consider. The light blue cues against a white background is INSANELY hard to see a lot of the times. (Biggest problem being the blizzards.)

 

[Own]

So, I know I can do it, but I also know that my closest attempts simply felt like they had less "free damage" setups against me. On a counter-example attempt, Winter NEVER went into the "safe phase" with the spike maze. I was chipping his HP down here and there between his attacks, getting him to half HP, and he never once went into the safe phase. This upset me greatly, as I realized even the phases had an immense RNG layer to them. Who can have a successful run against Winter if he never does a single safe phase?

Winter not going into his safe phase is actually not RNG-dependant, it's something you intentionally disrupt. Winter's programmed to go into his safe phase at certain cycles, but he also has a lot of HP %-based super attacks that take priority. So if you're damaging him too much, too quickly, the super attack will cancel out the safe phase. A lot of bosses have these %-based attacks. Like Gundam getting his first barrage at 50-60% HP.

In Arcade Mode with our flamethrowers, we never get a safe phase from Winter as a result.

 

[Shady C]

But how can I get him to 50% HP without him ever going into safe phase? There's no way to miss that trigger.

Maybe it was a bug, I suppose. I think it only happened the one time.