...and I'm not even done.
this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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Oh look, a boss fight. Will this be a fair-and-balanced skill-based experience? Or will it be a DPS race against the clock and hoping I get good RNG on the enemy attack patterns so I don't die to mostly unavoidable or unreactable damage?
If you want to play the game as a glass cannon DPS machine, you can do that with the right parts. But there's nothing stopping you from actually reading boss patterns and dodging them. The only boss this doesn't apply to is the first one, and I suspect it will get nerfed because of how many people are complaining about it. Some damage is unavoidable but it's minor, every big attack is dodgable and even accompanied by a loud warning sound. I don't think it's unfair.
Is there enough information to do this on the first time through, if you have enough skill? Or is it necessary to try and fail multiple times to see and learn each pattern?
How would the game give you any more information than it already does without worsening gameplay? Like sure, you can make the boss' moves slower and more telegraphed. Put in Atreus to tell you the Boss' weakness or something while you fight him. I'm personally not a fan of that.
I definitely dislike this dynamic in games. If you're only able to win because you built up muscle memory for that specific segment of the game, it doesn't feel like a real win, feels almost as unrewarding as grinding XP to make things easier.
If you don't enjoy practicing bosses, FromSoft games will probably not be for you.
This is not a dunk! There is nothing inherently superior or worthwhile about games that require practice. I personally enjoy Soulslike games, but people who claim they're they're the One True Genre are just fooling themselves.
Probably, though I did beat and enjoy the first three games in the Dark Souls series (if you include Demon's Souls) before I got tired of it, despite having to iterate on some bosses. There are a few saving graces that make it tolerable: effective options for cheesing, being able to grind XP/gear to make it easier, mandatory downtime between fights that punishes trying to brute force practice them, the option to give up for a while and go explore somewhere else, the presence of more dynamics to fights to optimize than correctly reacting to patterns to the point where you can remain mostly ignorant of them and still win another way. Playing DS3 I got the feeling that maybe the issue was getting worse and I was kind of burned out on the gameplay overall so I dropped it.
I would cite Super Meat Boy as a more pure example of the problem I'm talking about, that game left me feeling brain fried and like I hadn't learned or accomplished anything.
Fascinating. This would frustrate the hell out of me - if I'm trying to get better at something, the last thing I want is enforced wait-time between practice attempts! Still, I'm glad you've found other games that you enjoy more rather than being influenced by the Internet's collective fan-boner for FromSoft.
I'd like to direct your attention to the prior games in the series we're discussing, which have no such issues despite being made by Fromsoft. This "hurr durr issa Fromsoft boss get used to it" schtick is fucking insufferable and ignores the 15 years of history that company had before making those godawful Dark Souls games.
Personally I love that! The best bosses are the ones that absolutely demolish me a dozen times while I figure them out.
It makes finally succeeding feel like I've accomplished something.
I think the boss is fairly readable and I can take it down quickly, it's just annoying that it can fly out of bounds where I can't hit it but it can still fire at me. That and your starting mech isn't the best either but I got an S rank on that level after 4-5 attempts.
Yeah the first boss isn't a great first impression. I knew I could beat it in <5 tries but what annoyed me was how boring it was. Basically shoot at the broad side of a barn while hiding behind cover.
I went the other way around. I went all in with my energy sword. Stayed mid air under it as much as possible to use the rockets. When the second blade combo attack hits, it get staggered and you just pummel the boss. Rince and repeat
In my experience, you don't have to compromise. You can take meta dual shotguns and two heavy hitting shoulder mounts and just vaporize enemies. Almost trivially, in fact.
The problem is, the game is not more fun if you force yourself into something like a melee hybrid build. It's significantly harder and there's less room for error when piloting lightweight ACs, so it's no surprise that most people find the most comfortable build to be one where you have high health and damage mitigation, insane burst DPS, and stunlock potential.
In short, there's not a good balance between the different playstyles and difficulty. Some bosses are actually really fun to fight, but two or three of them have made my shit list already just due to the nonsense you are forced to put up with. Juggernaut, Balteus, and Sea Spider are the three biggest offenders right now.
I had very little trouble with Juggernaut once I started fighting him from the air. He has a very low max firing angle and you can get a nice, clear shot on his butthole from directly above him.
My gripe with him isn't so much his fight mechanic, it's his absolutely massive hitbox that activates whenever it moves a centimeter.
Fighting him from the air is the most efficient, I've discovered, but I spent a good few attempts trying to get in close with the plasma blade and would see three quarters of my HP bar disappear because my recovery animation overlapped with the startup of his charge attack that shouldn't have been able to hit me because I was to his side or rear.
The Cataphract has been my favorite fight so far. Really challenging, but really rewarding.