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.

[Myon88]

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).

I think what makes it irritating to people also makes it difficult, so it's tough to separate them. The hearts in M2 are much slower and have clearly defined hitboxes, they're also a lot less threatening as a result. Some people don't like randomness, or invisible telegraphs, personally I think anything is fair game.

That said, I don't have any strong feelings on whether the punishment for getting grabbed is appropriate or not. They probably figured they were being kind compared to making it kill you directly, but in lieu of locking you out of skills, I could see a heavy or some kind of screen obscuring blindness effect being thematically appropriate.

The fact that I can and have been hit by it is enough for me. That an expert dungeon boss can put you in a situation that - for a few seconds at least - surpasses what you'd be presented with in savage or ultimate is so much fun. I hope this expansion is full of surprises like that.

[Ramiren]

I think what makes it irritating to people also makes it difficult, so it's tough to separate them. The hearts in M2 are much slower and have clearly defined hitboxes, they're also a lot less threatening as a result. Some people don't like randomness, or invisible telegraphs, personally I think anything is fair game.

That said, I don't have any strong feelings on whether the punishment for getting grabbed is appropriate or not. They probably figured they were being kind compared to making it kill you directly, but in lieu of locking you out of skills, I could see a heavy or some kind of screen obscuring blindness effect being thematically appropriate.

The fact that I can and have been hit by it is enough for me. That an expert dungeon boss can put you in a situation that - for a few seconds at least - surpasses what you'd be presented with in savage or ultimate is so much fun. I hope this expansion is full of surprises like that.

I specifically mentioned when creating this topic, that the issue isn't the difficulty, I've never failed to kill this boss. I went out of my way to state that because I wanted to avoid the usual derailing with people shouting "git gud" or debating how "it's not actually that hard because I've cleared ultimates and have experience with XYZ".

The issue is that it feels bad to fail a mechanic when the visual feedback the game gives you, states that you shouldn't have failed it, the stakes don't matter, what other bosses do and the way they do it also don't matter, what matters most in any video game, is that it feels fair, the puzzle has a solution that can be applied consistently, that you can pinpoint a mistake when you fail. Every other mechanic in the game that I've seen has this, even if it takes a few fails before you work it out. This specific mechanic in Strayborough, lacks that.

[Myon88]

The issue is that it feels bad to fail a mechanic when the visual feedback the game gives you, states that you shouldn't have failed it, the stakes don't matter, what other bosses do and the way they do it also don't matter, what matters most in any video game, is that it feels fair, the puzzle has a solution that can be applied consistently, that you can pinpoint a mistake when you fail.

Like I mentioned, it feels completely fair to me. If the issue is discrepancy in 'visual feedback', that's something intrinsic to the entire game that's not going away anytime soon. If you think the discrepancy is disproportionate relative to other mechanics, I can't say that's been my experience either.

Every time I've gotten hit, I've fully understood why it happened. In fact, it's way more common that I attempt a dangerous maneuver and not get hit despite expecting to - sometimes the sluggish tickrate works in your favour too.

I don't know about you guys, but at some point hearing "I got hit by the AOE when I wasn't in it" gets really old. That's the oldest complaint in the history of this game, and basically what this boils down to.