Strayborough Deadwalk's first boss is janky.

[Connor]

I think that if you had to censor every mechanic someone had difficulty with, you'd end up with a very boring and milquetoast game. That's how you get Endwalker content which they've already acknowledged as a mistake.

It's easy to forget, but the point of mechanics existing is to make you fail them. There is supposed to be a risk of failure, and you're supposed to be anxious or frustrated about mistakes you're making. I think that's healthy and fun, and it means that the content is doing its job.

This is looking like an expansion where just like Stormblood, the battle content needs to carry the game very hard. I like what they've cooked up so far and I hope they continue to double down on it.

I feel like you’re conflating people’s irritation with the mechanic and their irritation with the difficulty itself. People don’t dislike the mechanics for this boss because it’s too hard or it might kill me! . They dislike the way in which those mechanics do those things and give misguiding feedback about how players can execute the mechanics (i.e weird ass hit boxes making you get grabbed by something you thought you dodged).

Like, those little assholes could all do 0 damage and the boss just stands there (menacingly!) waiting for you to kill him, and people would still complain about the mechanic if it worked the same way.

Personally the main thing that annoys me about the fight the noggin hats stopping player actions; removing player agency in the middle of combat is almost never a satisfying thing to do, and it feels crap when everyone else is like, lying dead on the floor, their broken bodies wailing in pain, and you’re standing there at full health with a stupid hat stuck to your face lol. Honestly I’d rather they did literally anything else; giant DoT damage, Doom, vulnerability up, damage down, whatever lol.

I guess the best way to say is that people aren’t satisfied with how the mechanic is resolved (and the issues surrounding this), not with the actual difficulty itself.