Bonus Boss nuances

I can imagine circumstances where skipping a Skippable Boss would lead to not encountering it at all, yet encountering and fighting it would still be the default. For example, say in an enemy base, you can discover a secret path that leads to the security control center, where you can turn off an alarm that would normally summon the area boss. Assuming the secret path is hidden enough, fighting the boss is still the default, but the alternative doesn't just avoid the fight, but avoids the entire encounter.

SoundCloud

I know an example like this, though it's tied to endings.

In Persona, you get a good or bad ending depending on your choices. At one point you meet a very important NPC in a house, and if you've made the wrong choices, you have to fight a magic monster teddy bear. If you made the right choices, the boss never shows up.

That be said, this and all other examples I can think of (Skippable Boss that you can avoid ever running into) are tied to endings, which adds credit to that Route Boss idea from earlier...

EDIT: Seriously, should I request a thread rename? At this points it's basically "Optional Boss discussion".

Edited by Lermis on Nov 30th 2020 at 7:41:06 PM

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As I understand True Final Boss, the boss doesn't have to be sought out. Instead, it has to require certain conditions—such as, say, killing all enemies, or finding certain items.

As I understand it, it's the manner in which a Skippable Boss is optional that differentiates it from other OptionalBosses: A Skippable Boss is optional because, if it's encountered, the player can do (or have done) something to prevent combat. Maybe the boss can be talked down, or maybe the player can bring along an object that it's afraid of, or whatever.

Put another way, there's a difference, I feel, between a boss that you may never encounter because you just didn't go to its location (A Bonus Boss) and a boss that you pass by or don't encounter because, although you went to its location, you did something to prevent or bypass combat (a Skippable Boss).

That makes sense to me, indeed.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Nov 30th 2020 at 8:11:43 PM

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I don't think a thread rename is necessary.

Superbosses are definitely distinct from regular Bonus Bosses, sheer numbers alone can prove that.

I've played plenty of games that have Bonus Boss fights that aren't particularly more difficult than any other boss fight (Iconoclasts has two, Skies of Arcadia Legends has eight, just off the top of my head).

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I really like the idea of Route Boss, I think it solves the problem of this thread's original question quite nicely.

I've always considered True Final Boss to be analogous to the Omega Ending, i.e. you don't fight it until you've finished all other story-related content the game has to offer, hence "True" Final Boss. Like how the Sonic games from Sonic Adventure — Sonic '06 always had a Secret Final Campaign with an extra boss or two that you couldn't play until you finished all the other campaigns / routes first.

So, how does this work as the distinction?

• Optional Boss: Supertrope; any boss that you're not guaranteed to encounter.
  • Bonus Boss: An optional boss that does not affect the ending or have real bearing to the plot, and has to be actively sought out in order to be fought.
    • Superboss: A bonus boss that is deliberately designed to be significantly harder than the game's Final Boss or True Final Boss.
  • Route Boss: A boss that is only encountered on certain routes of the story, but is required for those routes. Unlike a Bonus Boss, these bosses usually affect the story.
    • True Final Boss: A boss that is fought only as part of the game's Golden Ending route, and it usually has specific requirements you have to meet first.
• Skippable Boss: Not necessarily related to the above; encountering this boss can be optional or required, but it's possible to avoid fighting it if you do encounter it.

Edited by Serac on Nov 30th 2020 at 1:11:30 PM

I don't think you necessarily have to get EVERY ending to get the True Final Boss. Truth be told, this is the very first time I hear of Omega Ending.

It sounds good to me, but I'd still put Skippable Boss as a subtrope to Optional Boss. Since you can choose to fight it.

I brought the Route Boss idea to the trope proposal thread to get a second - or fifth - opinion; let's see if I got any feedback on that...

EDIT: Checked the thread. They think it's a good idea and even bring a non-JRPG example to the table: Shadow the Hedgehog, in which apparently you can avoid boss fights entirely depending on which order you complete the stages.

I think we have something good going on here!

So, Route Boss aside, what's our next step?

Edited by Lermis on Nov 30th 2020 at 9:49:16 PM

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1. Bonus Boss will need its definition rewritten to reflect its now narrower scope and have any of its existing examples that fit any of the new tropes moved to the appropriate ones. A TRS thread may be required, but I myself have done this without one in the past with no objections. The Trope Description Improvement Drive may be of help.
2. Optional Boss as a Supertrope, and Superboss and Route Boss as subtropes will all need to be proposed through the Trope Launch Pad, which you can do right now.
3. The current image on Bonus Boss should be moved to Superboss, once it's launched. An IP thread may be required, but you may be able to get away with just bringing it up at the IP discussion thread. Just explain what's going on and you should be fine, but wait until the Superboss draft is up.
4. Skippable Boss and True Final Boss will likely remain as they are, we'll just need to list them as subtropes on Optional Boss once that's launched.

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Since I don't think anyone else has brought this up, bosses fought during Sidequests would fall under Optional Boss and not Bonus Boss, right? They're not required for progress, but they're also neither hidden nor particularly difficult, they're just... there.

Depending on your definition of "affects the story", I could maybe see sidequest bosses fit under Route Boss, but I personally wouldn't file them there. Maybe Sidequest Boss could be split off from Optional Boss.

Also, I don't think that Superboss needs TLP; as it is, the description for Bonus Boss is about what we want Superboss to be (and I suspect that a lot of the examples are as well), meaning we can just do a Trope Transplant instead of launching a new trope from scratch.

Edited by Serac on Nov 30th 2020 at 7:00:29 AM

I don't think a Sidequest Boss trope is necessary, there's no real meaningful distinction there.

Same here, bosses from sidequests basically ARE bonus bosses.

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I like it, aside from the point made above that I would include Skippable Boss as a sub-trope of Optional Boss. It's just optional in a different way to a Bonus Boss.

And as mentioned below, I'm still not sold on the Super Boss idea, but see below for that.

I mean, that's just a difference in degree, not kind, it seems to me. That is, it looks to me like a case of The Same, but More.

At most I might see it as a crossover of Bonus Boss and Nintendo Hard (or some other such difficulty trope).

Still, I won't scream if consensus is against me on this!

I would say so, yes. As I see it, a sidequest can be viewed as its own little story, and if there's a boss at the end, then it's the Final Boss to that story. But since the quest/story is optional, so too is the boss.

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I suppose so. Sidequests in most games tend to add to the world building or plot of the game.

That said, I feel that a trope such as "Sidequest Boss" would gather a few TOO many examples. And by that I mean borderline Chairs.

Edited by Lermis on Dec 1st 2020 at 11:17:03 AM

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Yeah, I was thinking it would be reserved for sidequests with a plot to affect rather than generic "go kill this optional boss" sidequests, but I can see how it would be easily misused, not to mention it would also just be "Sidequest Sidestory, but it has a boss fight". I'll retract my sidequest boss idea.

Anyway, I listed Skippable Boss as orthogonal to Optional Boss because I always thought OB meant that encountering the boss is optional without saying anything about the actual fight, and there's a difference between "encountering this boss is not required" vs. "fighting this boss is not required"; I guess it depends on the definition of OB that we use.

Where do bosses like Soul Master (Hollow Knight) fit into this? Just examples of Optional Boss but not any subtrope?

(Soul Master is optional because he guards an ability that you don't strictly need. Nearly all players do fight him on their first playthrough because it's very easy to find him while exploring the world trying to find the bits and pieces you do absolutely need.)

TBH, Bonus Boss was going through Trope Decay anyway. I've seen a lot of people use it as THE go-to trope for optional bosses in general without considering the requirements for what makes those bosses... well, Bonus Bosses in the first place. It doesn't help that there isn't a clear distinction between it, Optional Boss and Skippable Boss to begin with, making people think they're redirects or duplicate tropes.

Edited by DivineFlame100 on Dec 1st 2020 at 6:28:15 AM

Still optional. If you don't have to fight it, you don't have to fight it, it doesn't matter how many players DO fight it.

So I guess we do need a TRS.

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To put it simply, people just think Bonus Boss is THE Supertrope of Optional Boss battles and not the other way around. It has gotten to the point now where people just use Bonus Boss to define every single non-mandatory boss fight, regardless of how hard, moderately difficult or easy they are.

And we need to fix that. OK, got you.

But why is Optional Boss a disambiguation page in the first place?

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Optional Boss was created in 2011 as a redirect to Bonus Boss, but MyTimingIsOff made it into a disambig in 2014. I don't know if it was discussed anywhere.

On the subject of TRS, looking at 67 wicks for Bonus Boss shouldn't be that difficult. I can work on it tomorrow.

Edited by Serac on Dec 2nd 2020 at 10:49:08 AM

I would agree with that—save that the definition that you've given for "Optional Boss" instead fits (if I have it correctly) "Bonus Boss". That is, a "Bonus Boss" is one that the player may or may not encounter. On the other hand, an "Optional Boss" is any boss that is in any way optional.

Indeed, what you say above is pretty much what I've been saying about "Bonus Boss" and "Skippable Boss"—that the two are orthogonal, and could even theoretically exist in the same boss.

While I haven't played the game, and am thus just going on my interpretation of the description above, I would say that the boss in question sounds like a "Bonus Boss": a boss that may or may not be encountered.

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We need to agree on a definition for every trope discussed here.

And speaking of definitions, how would Route Boss relate to True Final Boss? I think it's a supertrope or sister trope. Not sure.

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Alright, here's my take on the tropes featured here and what their definitions should be.

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• Optional Boss: The Supertrope. Essentially acts as an index for all non-mandatory boss tropes.
  • Bonus Boss: Describes optional bosses that are not mandatory to fight, are not relevant to the main plot whatsoever, and need to be sought after. They're usually relegated to sidequests and such.
  • Skippable Boss: Bosses that you will encounter in the story but can be skipped through various means (except glitches and exploits). May need a rename to make it distinct.
  • True Final Boss: Final Bosses that are locked out until the player meets the requirements to fight them, and are usually required for the Golden Ending.
  • Superboss: Should be made a separate trope from Bonus Boss. This is for really hard optional bosses that truly test the player's mettle, and are more difficult than the Final Boss or True Final Boss.
  • Route Boss: New trope. Bosses that can only be fought in a particular route.

Edited by DivineFlame100 on Dec 3rd 2020 at 3:34:18 AM

Sounds good to me.

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I would suggest that Route Boss be a supertrope to True Final Boss: one could consider the route that includes a "True Final Boss" to be a variant of the normal route—one that includes whatever steps are required to activate the new boss. Thus a True Final Boss is a Route Boss that requires special steps in order to activate its route, and which appears either after or in place of the usual final boss.

I agree on Optional Boss, Bonus Boss, and most of Skippable Boss, and the definition if not trope-relationships of True Final Boss, but not really on the rest. (However, I won't reiterate my arguments, for the sake of reducing the degree to which I'm doing so ad nauseum. ^^;; )

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After thinking about it, I think Bonus Boss should be renamed to Secret Boss, and only cover bosses that you must seek out and encounter on their own, with no prompt or sidequest build-up. Bosses that are fought as part of a sidequest should only be listed on Optional Boss. Without this distinction, there's no real difference between Optional Boss and Bonus Boss.

Note that there's a difference between "part of a sidequest" and just "need to do something to unlock it".

To elaborate on the examples I gave earlier (Iconoclasts and Skies of Arcadia Legends):

• Iconoclasts has two Optional Bosses:
  • The first boss requires you to find an NPC at various points in the game and listen to a story she tells you. Once you've heard the whole story, a new section on the map opens up, one that you can't reach by fast travel. There is no indication that this has opened, you just have to stumble upon it.
  • The second boss requires you to find four notes on the dead bodies of four NPCs. Once you have them all, the notes will point you to a spot where it turns out the boss is hiding. There is no indication that there is a boss fight up ahead or any prompt to collect these notes. Again, you just have to stumble upon them.

I would consider both of these Secret Bosses and not sidequests.

• Skies of Arcadia Legends has several Optional Bosses:
  • Near the start of the game, there is a Most Wanted list that is posted near the first Hub Level. Two of them are actually fought as part of the story and cannot be avoided, the other six though are completely optional. They are not particularly difficult to find, they're always just hanging around various Hub Levels that you frequent, and the most wanted list gives you clues to their locations anyway.
  • Another boss appears just before The Very Definitely Final Dungeon and requires you to revisit an area of the game you've had no real reason to revisit. No indication that it exists. Also a Superboss.
  • Yet another boss appears at your Home Base once you've accomplished 100% Completion, plus a couple of other requirements like "defeat a certain amount of enemies". Once again, no indication that it exists.

I would consider the first group to be Optional Bosses, and the latter two to be Secret Bosses.

Make sense?

Edited by Primis on Dec 3rd 2020 at 6:53:33 AM