darkSpyro

NOTE: I haven't been very deep into the talkings and discussions of the game series of Skylanders since being done with the mega topic of the first game; I will apologize in advance if such info has been discussed before.

What the title of the topic says. (8:03-9:42)

• Mike Stout (full name: Michael Stout), one of the devs of the Skylander series was prompted by Teal Bald in regards to the final boss difficulty of the first Skylanders game.
  
• UPDATE (2015 Nov 14): I relistened the conversation and found out that in 9:25, Teal mentioned the words "original version", implying that this conversation is about the first Skylanders game. This post and topic title has been changed to reflect that.
  Reveal Spoiler

  NOTE: In the conversation, there was no mention if it is explicitly the first game or not. I will make an educated guess and think they are talking about the first game because there is no mention of the word "Giants" or "Swap Force" at the time the video was uploaded (2014 Jul 21).
  
  
• Teal pointed out that there was only one user testing session on the final boss, and it noted that there wasn't enough time to fix the problem.
  
• Mike and the other devs of the game didn't intend to make the final boss fight be difficult.
  
• The problem wasn't fixed all the way up to the last week of game development of the game until a QA tester typed a "scathing e-mail" on how difficult the final boss is to make the change happen.
  
• The final version of the Skylanders 1 game had the final boss difficulty halved in comparison to the beta testing. What fixed was: 1) The reduction of damage done to a Skylander, 2) The reduction of the amount of boss health, 3) Tweaked how fast the the boss' attacks are, 4) Tweaked attack combinations, and 5) Other unmentioned details.
  

Curious, the only Skylanders game I played is Skylanders Giants. How hard was the Skylanders 1 final boss in the final version? Did you still have trouble even after the difficulty was halved? Is it the original Skylanders game both of them were discussing (or another game)?

Kaos/ Hydra from SSA is only a hard boss in the Wii version because he's a damage sponge in a bullet hell setting - nowadays Traptanium Kaos puts him to shame. I'm almost TOO sure he's refering to that, the one from Trap Team, because the QA for that game is known to have been abysmal.
Shame that the devs could only sit and watch. It was handled by Beenox and Acti and not themselves, and everyone usually blames TFB for him because of how unfair the fight is.

I made an update on the main topic post after finding out that what they are talking is the first Skylanders game.

I'm curious on the difficulty of the Trap Team final boss for the Beenox version, it sounds to me that there wasn't enough time to correct the problem specifically for that version in comparison to the other versions that Toys for Bob did (or as you mentioned, the quality of QAs for those versions is terrible enough for the final boss problem to not be fixed).

There's no Beenox version,they only work on the 3DS versions of the series and do porting/bug testing. Trap Team is notorious for having an embarassing amount of save corruption and freezing glitches, and more bugs than you can shake a stick at. Here's Traptanium Kaos for an example of how frustrating and how much he drags on, spoilers of course:



(ah the memories of getting this VERY video spoiling everyone because they don't have any respect for thumbnails)
I believe this is Medium mode. From experience, Nightmare Mode is easily over 25 minutes unless you're using game breakers like Night Shift, Bumble Blast or Gearshift. That's your average level in Superchargers.



Here's that in all of its thumb-destroying glory.

According to the DarkSpyro page, Beenox also worked on the PS4, Xbox One, and Wii U version. That's why I specifically said the Beenox version; I'm not certain where you got the idea that Beenox did the 3DS version. Can you clarify?

As for the final boss of Trap Team, that looks like an endurance run of how long you can beat the boss without having your head break, with all the crazyness you mentally have to deal with. My only frame of reference is with my experience trying to beat the final boss of Giants with only the Starter Pack Skylanders, and I thought that was fairly difficult enough beating it. Although, it's been a while since I played that game.

Beenox is credited for next-gen but they only do porting, Vicarious Visions and Toys For Bob are the ones developing the main game. Beenox only does the 3DS version of the game which is always different and shorter.

Robo-Kaos is nowhere near that because the arena is MUCH smaller(so even medium range projectiles reach him) and his health is nowhere near - in fact you can also last longer by destroying the actual damage sponge,the spell crystal he summons, which then heals you.

Quote: Drawdler

Wait, what, a TFB final boss only had one playtester? Well, that explains a lot about TFB's final bosses. Those are NOT the kind of thing you should toss together, yet Hydra feels lazy and repetitive, Traptanium Kaos drags on way too long and Robo-Kaos was kinda repetitive while being too brief (esp. after his incredibly long buildup level- which is really the problem, the level felt thrice as long as the boss fight, which made that battle feel very underwhelming). Well. :/

Now I wonder how much QA the vehicle sections in SC got.

I'm guessing for the SSC Q&A that it was mixed but mostly positive, and VV just stuck with it.

Talking about SA boss difficult, I have SA on Wii, so I experienced the worst. It's not impossible, it's just a little difficult. Like, the first time, with my 5 characters at level 5-9 (don't remember the upgrades), it was not something impossible, but I was defeated various times before I defeated him.

The Wii version of SSA seems harder, but it's the same level as the HD versions, I recall noticing during my Giants hype the differences between those two.
Yes in the Wii version Kaos regain all his health once the Hydra is done, but thing is, in the HD version, you wait an entire cycle of Hydra spells before getting a chance to hit him, while on the Wii version, Kaos stays on the ground for a long while, flies up for a few seconds of cooldown then slams into the ground again, you get a lot more chances for hits on the Wii version than the HD, to balance the fact his HP is refilled.