VERSALIA'S PROFILE

author=S. F. LaValle
1) Not that I consider forcing a battle re-start good design, but is there equipment you can equip to mitigate Confusion or the Cold damage?

There's resist items I did use on the back row who weren't under Prevent Order, but nothing for immunity, and the Cold Resist items don't seem to do very much... :< a little, but not enough.

2) If Head Bind works without fail, and is available constantly enough to make her attacks useless most of the fight, then the only strategy involved is to identify her abilities as Head type, and attempting the bind to make sure she's not immune. Granted, it's not a very exciting strategy. What I would prefer is that the Head Bind goes up to control her ridiculous abilities (which bosses are entitled to have, since they're bosses), then SHE responds by changing up her strategy. Since her best abilities are out, she has a selection of less-effective (easier for you to manage) abilities to choose from, or perhaps chooses a more defensive stance that gives you opportunity to see how to inflict the most amount of damage to her.

Head Bind definitely doesn't work without fail. It's also available to only two abilities off the top of my head - I'm sure there's more (like forging it onto a weapon and hoping it lands some time in the battle) - and I ended up spending 1 skill point in Hanging so my Buccaneer could use it over and over to try and inflict Head Bind. :B I succeeded about every fourth try on average, and it lasted at least two turns every time, so it was pretty advantageous and made me kind of mad. You're absolutely right in how the bind should restrict her but not disable her - what I expected was that her abilities would be split up between the different Binds. This goes back to an excellent point about how players absorb information from games - information is garnered from set examples. Different attacks are already demonstrated as tied to different body parts for binding, and no bosses up to that point do not have a single all-disabling weak point.

And yeah, Etrian Odyssey expects you to grind. It makes a lot of purposely punishing "old school" decisions that I disagree with (if you target an enemy who dies before your action, you retarget, but not if you're healing an ally who dies) before your action). So that one is definitely solved by "gain a level or two" but that answer still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. :<

I'd like to describe a scenario in which I found a particular boss fight with a recognizable pattern to be absolutely and ridiculously horrible and see what kind of feedback it evokes, because I really, really, really hated this asshole.

Etrian Odyssey 3, Fourth Stratum Boss B - Shin
Shin has a recognizable pattern. Shin will use AoE status effects over and over again - specifically Curse (your dealt damage splashes back on you) and Confusion (yeah). When Shin's HP is low, she will occasionally use Demon Kiss, hitting random members of your party something like 7 times and absorbing a multiplier of that damage. And, every so often - completely out of pattern, and extremely rare, so you can't use something like Anticold to prevent it - she blasts you with a harsh AoE cold spell.

Now, I can see the thought that went into this fight. But you know what? IT'S HORRIBLE.

Point: The game gives you lots of ways to deal with ailments.
Counterpoint: They're all completely ineffective in the face of losing all control to Confusion. The only way to really keep up with this fight is to have a Prince/ss spamming Prevent Order repeatedly.

Point: Her powerful Demon Kiss attack only happens when she's low on HP, allowing you to recognize that part of the pattern and plan for it.
Counterpoint: When a boss gets dangerous at low HP, your strategy is always going to be to set up a spike. (Spiking, for those unfamiliar, means suddenly sharply ramping up your damage. Fighting an enemy party with a white mage usually means spiking someone so they die before they can be healed.) However, you have no actual spiking options that you weren't already using - if you brought the Prince/ss for Prevent Order, you are also probably using things like Attack Order already. So the fight gets harder when she's at low HP, but the best strategies to deal lots of damage to end the fight quickly are no different and no more effective anyway.

Point: Every single one of Shin's spells is Head-based. If you use Head Bind on her, she is helpless until it wears off.
Counterpoint: ARRRRGGGGH I FREAKING HATE THIS IN BOSS FIGHTS. Exactly one trick to disabling the entire thing is just plain boring and awful. I could not have anticipated that solution. I mean, I could have - I am aware that Binds disable different kinds of skills - but I would never have expected a single type of Bind to shut her down completely. I tried Bind Legs and it didn't seem to do anything at all.

So there is an obvious strategy to this fight: Ailment mitigation, being healed up for her unpredictable or overpowered attacks, and maybe using Head Bind when it gets tough at the end there. The problem to me is twofold: There's only one effective form of ailment mitigation in this instance, and "staying at high HP" is just plain not clever strategy; the other part is that if Shin's agility is in the same range as yours, and she HAPPENS to get lucky and go a tiny bit faster than your Prince/ss, she can Confuse your entire party before you have a chance to use Prevent. Even though that's the best possible skill for the scenario. So Shin gives you a recognizable pattern, different ways of thinking about solving her obstacles, then reduces them to single-solution problems and punishes you based on bad luck. Did I mention that the AoE Cold attack has no rhyme or reason to it, adding false difficulty by purposely breaking the pattern in a way that you can't possibly anticipate? (I literally wasted all of my MP using Anticold every single round, and then she used it later.)

Worst boss ever

author=PsychoFreaX

author=Versalia

Just because the player should be constantly and instantly thinking about which tools are at their disposal doesn't mean the actual solution is immediately obvious.

Hey you're the one who said that adaptation is INSTANT in ALL C-A-P-I-T-A-L-S. Are you sure YOU know what you're talking about?

I am able to correctly grasp the concept of an end quote tag so I'm going to go with "probably"

(The boss uses Attack Up on itself. I immediately start thinking of ways to adapt my strategy to this turn of events. Adaptation = instant. That's all from me on this topic because now I am just beating a nail with a rock)

author=cho
*lights m.a.d.t.h.i.c.k. blunt*

puff puff pass bro

author=PsychoFreaX

author=kentona
Battles are about identifying patterns and then adapting to that pattern. In fact, that pretty much summarizes all games.

Just make sure that your bosses have an identifiable pattern and you'll probably be okay.

They don't all have to be. The battles I'm talking about are won with wits and understanding of your character's abilities. My boss fights are mainly a test of those. Much like a card game. I do know some other really underrated games that involves wits in battles.

your wits are your capability to recognize patterns and adapt to them, I think you don't have any idea what you are talking about. card games are a series of repeating patterns

"just get used to how the boss fights and you'll be okay" to "understand how the boss fights and find an appropriate counter".

this is the exact same fucking thing. getting used to the boss' strategy = learning how the boss fights