I'm with
@Yoruichi here, at least on the topic of the score nerf. You guys know my stance on it already, but I'm not the only one now and so I'll pipe up about it a bit more.
A problem that comes with considering the laziness in game design and such is that arcade's purpose has evolved over time -- even beyond the original intentions of the mode. And it's still unique, as it has aspects like rewarding you for avoiding damage. Now obviously some people have feelings about damage rewards being placed in, but it does reinforce the now-present idea of arcade being intended to test your skill, intended to improve your skill, and intended to rank players
according to their skill. The current treats penalize you according to the "amount of effort" (vaguely measured) it takes away from the gameplay. The problem that everyone misses is that the aggro is OP. And people who aren't so good at the game (no I'm not trying to dab on people) won't understand since they can easily die on any lower floor with frosty on anyway. That's why I suggested the score nerf, as it was [arguably] consistent with the game's existing arcade mindset. At the time, things like earth spike were nowhere near as OP without frosty. In fact, that spell was quite difficult to use alone.
Without the aggro draw he effectively becomes Cloud Strike. I think something should be added to distinguish him. What the something is I don't quite know yet.
For one thing, it's not too big a deal to me if summons are similar. lol. Ultimately all summons are the same at their base: They give the player the safest form of dps. But realistically, frosty would still have unique abilities if his hp and defense move were removed. He has his happy ground pound and his angry consecutive punches. Moreover, there are other things that can be added to both frosty
and cloud to make their abilities unique. You can make the cloud more than a floating dps. Maybe let him buff the player or debuff enemies. You can add things to frosty (that preferably don't include chilling/freezing because that would be a little crazy lol). So on and so forth.
Regarding your suggestion, even if frosty became left for dead in a battle until the next room, it still raises questions. Aggro is still extremely insane. As it is, you can still do crazy things at the beginning of most rooms with just frosty and earth spike spam. You can do the same at the end of rooms too. Frosty can easily outlive those first few hits so it would have an extremely large impact on arcade runs. Of course, frosty can be used with other builds as well. A few players who left arcade some time ago are bringing frosty back in with full force.
Using your suggestion also strongly affects story mode. What you end up with is a frosty that's pretty trashy because he's dead most of the time in fast-acting spawn rooms (where you don't have time to go for the revive) and insane boss battles (where even if you could revive, it probably ain't worth it...yes frosty is useful for some bosses).
And he's still too stronk in arcade because he affords cheesy players those few seconds of aggro at the beginning of the room (possibly more if the player is smart).
People have to remember that the meaning of arcade has vastly changed since the beginning. At first it was just supposed to be some fun side stuff that gives you a "grindy feeling". Now it's some competitive skill-testing aspect where this idiot rages all the time. Any build can still be used to
complete a run. But the idea of
every skill being viable and competitive is long gone. You can try to balance all classes in this regard, but not all skills/spells. (Thankfully, 2H, 1H, and mage all have their own strong metas...though there's room for improvement, of course.) If certain things like frosty get removed from a competitive play, that is a
good thing. Why? It's because anything that significantly makes the game easier and negates the current purpose of arcade should not be competitively viable. It is very easy to argue that frosty friend is a better asset than a time crystal for an experience player. And experienced players (the good kind) are the only ones who should be on top of the leaderboards (minus the amazingly good rookies...but none of those really exist right now). The fact that so many people who have no idea what they're doing in arcade are on the leaderboards or close to it is ridiculous. It's not a measure of good competitive play or impressive use of spells/skills. It's legitimately hiding in a corner and spamming spells while frosty aggros and/or using frosty's aggro at the very beginning as an opening to wipe out the room.
Barrier
should stay how it is. And frosty
should be nerfed. We have to get out of the mindset of closely tying story to arcade because at this point they're completely different worlds. In a place where survival and skill are stressed, the much larger barrier cooldown in arcade is completely reasonable. In a story mode where you can heal and rely on other survival tactics, its barrier cooldown is reasonable. The awesome thing is that both skills where balanced without putting collateral damage in arcade or story. Barrier is still 100% barrier and 100% usable, only with some variation in cooldown time. It's time to consider the same thing for frosty. The score nerf provides a way for players to still enjoy him. And it prevents collateral damage to story mode.
No skill that aggros enemies should be allowed on the leaderboards. Again, it's the strongest and most ridiculous thing in the game. With aggro, a score nerf is non-negotiable. Without aggro we can talk about frosty changes, but there will be collateral on the story side of things. And the changes will have to make sense without feeling awkward. This is not a result of devs being lazy after they made a spell intended to be used in arcade (because they didn't). This isn't like when Bayonetta was first released into smash 4. Why? It's because the framework of the meta didn't even exist yet.