Talk:Infernal Engine

Speedrun Info?
Foremost, I want to apologize for my edit warring behavior in the past few days. I should have taken dispute to the talk page sooner, rather than quarrel via edit summaries. To provide context: a few days ago, an anonymous user made an edit to this article, citing the speedrun notes from an well-known Kingdom Hearts speedrunner named Drazerk. Here is the link he provided: http://pastebin.com/H8axKHBE However, I was unsure as to whether speedrun info was pertinent to this article's strategy section. The document the anonymous user cited contains very specific instructions, and require the player to be a certain level, to equip a certain Gear, and to have already played through the game a very specific way. Would a more general strategy (such as the current one) or a more technical one be more appropriate? Also, if speedrun info is indeed pertinent, should other articles on 358/2 Days bosses be edited to contain such specific info? DAnonymous318 (talk) 02:20, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
 * The ideal strategy should be whatever is cheapest, in terms of time, grinding, and in-game finances such as HP, items, or missables. If a certain strategy, even on a speedrun, requires you to have played the rest of the game a certain way, then the "time" it takes includes the rest of the game. If a certain strategy keeps you from taking damage, but requires playing the battle very tediously for an hour when accepting a few hits could have it over in minutes, it's really not worth it. It could certainly be mentioned, especially if it is efficient during the battle (lord knows that Days is pretty terrible for turning every boss into "just keep dodging and hitting it"), but it shouldn't replace a strategy that a normal player could apply without intense prior preparation. Conversely, if the boss battle can be easily won by spending just a few Ethers to immediately reuse Donald's Duck Flare, or hunting down four Balloon-type commands to create a deck in KH3D, those should be mentioned even though they require a small portion of grinding/spending. The ideal strategy should balance these many "costs" to achieve a strategy that is reliable, generic, and not boring for the user. (Ex: strategies that require you to exploit the Lingering Will's retaliation value by stringing a long series of combos may be successful and result in no damage, but require high levels of skill and can become tedious. Throwing several Duck Flare at him, on the other hand, is easy for the normal player and allows you to actually have some freedom in how you fight, as long as you keep Donald alive.)
 * However, I'm having trouble seeing what exactly you two are arguing about, or at least, the diffs don't paint a clear picture for me. Could you elaborate on what these specific instructions are, and why they are not applicable to a normal player? 14:33, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

I edited because he edited out information on the assumption that RNG manipulation was impossible and that there was varies incorrect data such as when the boss uses the ram attack. The AI manipulation is specific to the fight and isn't effected by what you do previously to that fight. If this needs to be verified by a credible source one of us can message Grampaglasses who TAS'd the game and understands the manipulation or Drazerk whose notes I referenced. However I've done it myself during my last playthrough as it was easier to do the speedrun strategy which are consistent than deal with the hammer / barrels over and over and this was without the Phantom gear and being a much higher level. Given a speedrun is the most basic playthrough which skips the most content pretty much all of the strategies can be translated to a casual playthrough and turns day's bosses from dodging and attacking like you said to fairly quick and easy bosses. - Elussions

Thank you for the quick response, KrytenKoro and Elussions. The specific instructions which Elussions edited into the article, and which I disagreed on whether or not to include, were those which instructed the player to, for instance, perform "11 air combos," take "3-4 barrels" to enter limit range, and so on. I objected to this edir because it replaced valid, more generic information in favor of a refined formula catered toward speedruns. I found this information inapplicable for two reasons. First, speedrun info requires the player to have equipped certain Gear or magic casts prior to the fight. This creates a "time" cost, as you call it, which includes time spent configuring necessary equipment and magic panels, as well as possibly restarting the mission to do so. This is little issue for people who have played through the game in accordance with the speedrun notes; however, players who have consulted neither this strategy section nor the speedrun notes, around which the strategy revolves, likely do not have equipped the exact Gear or magic, creating additional hassle for players and invalidating the aforementioned instructions. Second, some of the added info on manipulating the AI was inaccurate or overly specific. For example, the info called for Roxas to manipulate the Engine's barrel and cannon attacks at the start of the battle, specifically by "stand[ing] still" and "roll[ing] against the back wall." However, the boss performs those attacks first regardless, so long as Roxas stays a certain distance from the Engine. An ideal strategy should work whether a player is speedrunning, playing casually, or going back to do Challenges. I believe that we can and should word the info instead as a strongly advisable or useful strategy (bring Limit Recharges, equip the Lift Gear, etc.) However well a restrictive, formulaic strategy works in the narrow context of a speedrun, having a more generic and applicable strategy on hand (i.e. how to draw out and exploit the Infernal Engine's weak point) helps a greater range of players to cheaply defeat the Infernal Engine.DAnonymous318 (talk) 22:57, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm going to OpenTalk this, because you guys are still talking over my head. Which lines, specifically, are in argument, and how do you want them both to read? Is this stuff that should be in the notes for attacks, as done on Game:Sephiroth? 23:06, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Here are a couple proposals for editing. My original disagreement was on the grounds that the information was too specific: for instance, the number of hits to damage the player into Limit range varies depending on Roxas's HP. We can word that as something along the lines of, "Take damage from the Engine's attacks until Roxas is in Limit range." Also, the number of times to hit the Infernal Engine before it charges its ram varies depending on the Gear the player is using. For that information in particular, I suggest wording it something along the lines of, "attack the Infernal Engine until it begins charging its battering ram, then activate Limit Break." Such changes should resolve the issue of over-specificity, while retaining the strategy proposed by Elussions. I believe the Limit strategy can be included as a useful strategy (a strategy which avoids deliberately taking damage may be more useful for those inexperienced with dodging the Engine's attacks) but I would not object to the Limit strategy, slightly reworded, being the only strategy included in the attack notes. Sorry, does that answer your question, or am I rambling? DAnonymous318 (talk) 23:42, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

I can agree that the red barrel damage count can be changed given how much it would vary. The 11 air combos are literally the most amount of air combos you can do before Infernal Engine will use his next attack since the boss starts a timer after the 3 archers die before he will resume attacking which is probably useful information to have. That said manipulating the cannon / red barrels greatly speeds up the fight compared to normal so I would suggest we keep them in. It'd be like ignoring the fact you can skip Antlion's tornado attack if you force him to charge into a wall or Ruler of the Sky won't submerge into the water if you hit it with a fira.- Elussions.