How do we determine minibosses?

Wiki Discussion
1

As a starting point of reorganizing Category:Characters, we were discussing in the wiki Discord how do we actually define a miniboss, specifically how do we decide if an enemy is . It turns out that the question is surprisingly tricky, because any criteria other than the one we use now gives us quite different results. I'm organizing this discussion in hopes of clearing up what our definition of a miniboss is, so we can apply the same criteria in the future without having to resort to case-by-case classification.

Criteria

Here are some points we can use when deciding how to classify enemies:

  • Unique: Is one-of-a-kind character, and not an entire type of Darkners.
  • Lore: Has more lore surrounding them.
  • Encounter uniqueness: Can be encountered at most once per location. (This is our current criteria.)
  • Cutscene: Has a unique cutscene surrounding their battle.
  • Dialogue: The game or the game's code explicitly calls them a boss.
  • Unrecruitable: Cannot be recruited.
  • Music: Has a special theme for their battle.

Comparison

Here's how the above criteria compares between enemies we currently have classified as minibosses.

Enemy Unique Lore EncounterUQ Cutscene Dialogue Unrecruitable Music
Lancer Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes[1] Yes Yes
K. Round Yes? No Yes Yes Yes[2] Yes Yes
Clover Yes No? Yes Yes ? Yes No
Susie Yes Yes Yes Yes ? Yes Yes?
Sweet Cap'n Cakes Yes Yes Yes Yes ? Yes Yes
Berdly Yes Yes Yes Yes Maybe[3] Yes Yes
Spamton Yes Yes Yes Yes ? Yes Yes
Tasque Manager Yes Yes? Yes Yes ? No Yes
Mauswheel No No Yes Yes ? No No
Werewerewire No No No[4] No ? No No
Rouxls Kaard Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes[5] Yes Yes
Lanino and Elnina Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes[6] No Yes?
Shuttah No No No Yes Yes[7] No Yes?
Watercooler No No? Yes Maybe ? No Yes
Mikes Yes Yes Yes Yes ? Yes Yes
Jackenstein Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes[8] Yes Yes
Miss Mizzle Yes No Yes Yes ? No No
Sound of Justice Yes No? Yes Yes ? Yes Yes
Titan Spawn No No No Yes? ? Yes Yes

Discussion

What I'd like to hear is which of these enemies you do not consider a miniboss, and why. I'd very much like to avoid minibosses being classified on a case-by-case basis, because it's a recipe for edit wars, so the outcome of this discussion would ideally be some kind of criteria we can use to classify these in the future. Thanks!

  1. obj_lancerboss ↩︎

  2. room_field_checkersboss ↩︎

  3. In obj_berdlyb_enemy, "b" could potentially stand for "boss" ↩︎

  4. But only on a Weird Route ↩︎

  5. "ROUXLS - Miniboss for hire." ↩︎

  6. "Ah, the stars. Charmed. We'll be your boss encounter." ↩︎

  7. amiabossfight variable used when determining whether the Shuttah battle is the Island Board one or a regular one ↩︎

  8. "There's something miniboss-shaped in here!" ↩︎

2

I think rather than using 1 category, all of these (perhaps more?) should be considered, and if a certain threshold of "yes" is met, they're a miniboss. Lets say 4/7 for an example here...

This includes obvious ones like the weather gang, Jackenstein, Kround, Lancer (in his ch1 appearances), but excludes enemies like Mauswheel and Werewerewire, which definitely feel more contentious than the others.

3

I think that the important aspects are "Cutscene" and "does not have repeat full-strength encounters". Werewerewire has no cutscene (and they also do get fought again at full strength in All Stars), while Watercooler has two identical encounters (...and no cutscene). Shuttah's later encounters are an explicitly powered-down normal enemy variant, which doesn't eliminate that first battle from being a boss.

But Titan Spawn doesn't feel miniboss-quality either, so I'm not too sure about that classification.

4

Doesn't the Watercooler have some relation to Mizzle and Miss Mizzle even though there is no dialogue, that's what I at least thought of...

5

I'd be up for using "fits at least 4 of the criteria", too, actually. Going through the table real quick, it looks like all the ones that have 4 or more matches are pretty much all the ones I would've wanted to classify as bosses anyway.

6

It does, but I'm not sure if we can qualify that as the same amount of lore as, for example, Lanino and Elnina.

7

The Watercooler doesn't have encounter uniqueness. You can fight two of them in Chapter 3, and it's the exact same fight each time.

8

well werewerewire is almost unanimously a miniboss, yet it meets NONE!

9

I never thought of Werewerewire as a miniboss. Nor Mousewheel or Tasque Manager.

Before Chapter 3+4 came out, I've always thought of these three as a continuation of the "Elite Enemy" pattern that Chapter 1 set up. That the last region of a chapter would contain powerful versions of earlier region enemies. But since Chapter 3+4 didn't continue the pattern, I'm reconsidering this assessment.

10

I’d say the Mikes are bosses, while Werewerewires are just enemies
I think the best criteria to consider is if they appear in the overworld and fight when you touch them

11

It does have encounter uniqueness by the definition of encounter uniqueness I outlined above, which is encounter uniqueness per location. But it probably makes more sense to count it as distinctly different battles - K. Round, Berdly, Lanino and Elnina can all be fought more than once, but their encounters are different.

12

Clover, Tasque Manager, Watercooler, Miss Mizzle, etc... don't feel like they belong in the same category with K. Round, Sweet Cap'n Cakes, Lanino and Elnina, Jackenstein, etc... They're special enemies, but not enough to be classified as minibosses.

I think I found a way to tell them apart. How about this as a requirement:

A miniboss must start it's battle with a cutscene AND end it's battle with a cutscene.

The end cutscene can happen in the battle screen itself or in the overworld.

So if the battle ends in a normal way[1], you see the "You won! Got 0 EXP and X D$." flavor text, and the game immediately returns the controls to you in the overworld, then that wasn't a miniboss, just a special enemy.

  • Minibosses: Lancer, K. Round, Susie, Sweet Cap'n Cakes, Berdly, Spamton, Rouxls Kaard, Lanino and Elnina, Shuttah[2], Mikes, Jackenstein, Sound of Justice, Titan Spawn.

  • Non-bosses: Clover, Tasque Manager, Mauswheel, Werewerewire, Watercooler, Miss Mizzle.

  1. Enemy has 100% MERCY and you click SPARE. Enemy is TIRED and you click PACIFY. Enemy's HP is depleted and it flees. ↩︎

  2. Doesn't have much of a cutscene, but it does have dialogue followed by an auto-SPARE as soon as it reaches 100% MERCY. ↩︎

13

If we're counting dialogue then auto-spare, surely Mauswheel would be similar right? It has a Tasque Manager cutscene.

I think my personal view is they're all bosses. They're all significantly more difficult (or more time-consuming) to fight or spare than regular enemies, and they're unique, in that they can't be refought an infinite number of times (Werewerewire excluded, but that feels a special case, especially given you can also refight Lanino and Elnina at the dojo).

14

maybe we really should just run polls for all of them... (no)

I think "unique" is a criteria that's important for talking about them as characters, but less important as battles. Like, Spamton and Spamton NEO are the same character, but two very different battles.

I'm definitely against a 4/7 because i think it would be more arbitrary and more complicated to explain. The current system is objective and simple to explain, even if it has a few odd fits. plus some of these category are kinda vague. Like, what constitutes lore? Miss Mizzle is holding the BitterTear, isn't that a lore-relevant item? The rudinns are associated with mancountry and the forgotten man, doesn't that make them lore relevant.

What I'd like to hear is which of these enemies you do not consider a miniboss, and why.

Ok, i should actually answer the question.
In terms of characters: Werewerewire, Mauswheel, Shuttah, Watercooler and Titan Spawn are not Minibosses because they're not unique characters (they're a species).
In terms of gameplay: Werewerewire, Shuttah and Watercooler are not Minibosses because they can be encountered again with no difference. Characters like K. Round and L&E can be fought again, but each time is different. By this definition, Shuttah is not a miniboss, but has a miniboss variant. what does that mean for classification? ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

15

I think we shouldn't count enemies with unique music as minibosses.

Susie and Lancer's fight has unique music, so I wouldn't count them. Rouxls Kaard also has a unique theme, so he shouldn't be counted either.

Of course then it gets tricky with the watercooler, which I personally wouldn't count as a miniboss, but it can be recruited so it could be an exception.

16

Unique music is the last column of the table I posted.

17

Sorry, just updated my reply.

18

We should also be considering spare conditions as well. While every nomal enemy and miniboss have unique spare conditions, spare conditions with bosses often don't involve actually pressing the MERCY button.

For example, Jevil. You have to use Ralsei's Pacify as opposed to SPAREing regularly. There's also Susie and Lancer. Susie can't be Pacified even when put to sleep, and ending the fight peacefully doesn't involve SPAREing.

19

Additionally, I'd like to add I've found a trend in what we consider minibosses and the Party Dojo. Every enemy that's appeared in the Doho so far would fall under our current criteria for minibosses. All of them are recruitable, have rather standard spare conditions (Elnina and Lanino could be an exception, as their initial battle has scripted ending), and lack unique music. You could say Elnina and Lanino break this rule, but at the same time, Shuttah's battle theme is also Ruder Buster.

I think it'd be safe to say anything thing that appears in the dojo is a miniboss.

20

Jackenstein has unique music and the game explicitly calls him a miniboss.

We aren't trying to separate minibosses from bosses. We are trying to separate minibosses from non-boss enemies.