Talk:Boss Endurance

Merge into The Arena

The separation of Boss Endurance and The Arena always baffled me. They're both...boss endurances? It's just that one's a whole lot more brutal than the other. ...Right?

Going by the article's own words:

Boss Endurance is distinguished from The Arena in that, generally speaking, no Copy Abilities or rest areas are provided between bosses. Additionally, it is not typically required to complete this mode in order to earn 100% completion.

About half the challenges listed as a Boss Endurance break at least one of these rules:

• The Boss Butch in Kirby's Dream Land 3 is required for 100% completion, the only so-called Boss Endurance to do so.
• The Boss Endurance in Kirby & The Amazing Mirror is an Arena in everything but name, featuring Copy Abilities, rest areas, random bosses, and healing. The only one of the above rules it follows is the 100% rule, which Dream Land 3 already breaks.
• The Boss Endurance in Kirby: Squeak Squad follows the definition a little more closely, but it also offers abilities and a healing item at the start.
• The Arena in Kirby: Planet Robobot has you fight bosses in order and gives you healing items at set points rather than to use at your leisure. While it doesn't fulfill most aspects of the above definition, it breaks from the conventions of most Arenas and is actually referred to as "Boss Endurance" in Japanese (unlike the other three Arenas).

Ultimately, keeping these separate just feels arbitrary and unhelpful, as if the entire purpose of this page is to lump together every Boss Endurance that isn't called The Arena. I get that the various Arenas have similarities that should be noted, but this page just feels like a mess as it is. I propose we either merge the two, or reclassify some of the Boss Endurances based on definition rather than name (e.g. move Amazing Mirror's version to the Arena page). --YFJ (talk · edits) 04:49, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

I have to agree with this, as it was something that confused me. Keeping in mind that this article is from 2010, when the only Kirby games that had a proper Arena were Super Star and its remake, it made more sense back then to have a separate page; it feels arbitrary now. StrawberryChan (talk) 04:57, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Also agree for the reasons already stated. In my case, I prefer to merge both the articles into one. Not sure how we'd handle Survival Rush or The Ultimate Choice, though...I mean...they're both Boss Endurance-type modes, if you will... – Owencrazyboy17 (talk) 05:48, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

@Owencrazyboy17: The Ultimate Choice is probably fine as it is, though we should probably add a section briefly explaining it and link to the full article. As for Survival Rush, I haven't played Mass Attack but it looks kinda redundant and could easily be merged. --YFJ (talk · edits) 05:59, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

I actually don't agree at all with the merge. I feel like if we did it, the article will become more of a mess than it is right now. If anything, we should make separate articles for a couple of the boss rushes, like we already have for Survival Rush and The Ultimate Choice.

My main issue with this proposed merge is that "The Arena" is the name of a game mode at the end of the day, also. It just feels really wrong to lump together modes that aren't called "The Arena" into the article just because they work similar to The Arena. If we did that, then we probably need to merge Ado into Adeleine. Moreover, no matter how you put it, Arenas always have more presence in the games they're in than the other bush rush modes, and all games with Arenas but KSS have The True Arena... Which makes me question even more what we would do here: if we merge this article into The Arena, what about The True Arena page? If it's also a boss rush article, shouldn't it be merged too...? And to make things even more complicated, what about Helper to Hero?

For me, keeping pages separate fills this rule in the Article creation policy:

"On the other end of the spectrum, there may be subjects that are extremely similar in appearance, behavior, or both, but officially operate under different names and identities. A good example of this are the pages for Susie, Parallel Susie, and Pres. Parallel Susie. All three of these subjects are effectively the same character and fight in almost the exact same way, but since they are separate entities in-universe and operate separately, they each get their own separate articles."

For me, the many boss rushes and the Arenas fall under that. They are really similar, but ultimately are different modes for different games, with various different names, and worth of separate articles.

Honestly, at the end of this, I'm just really at a loss of what gain we'll get if we merge the articles, other than confuse our readers into thinking these modes are all "Arenas", while making it a really long page. I also see more complications than anything with this merge. Maybe I'm being too harsh, considering I'm the first here to go against it, but I'm really just being honest. My counter suggestion is to make this page cover the two boss rushes called "Boss Endurance" (NiDL and SqSq, if I'm remembering correctly; I could be wrong) while we create separate articles for each boss rush mode, as all have different names and work differently. - Gigi (talk • edits) 11:27, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

I was going to agree since they are so mechanically similar, but now opposing due to the bit of the Article creation policy Gigi cited. ---PinkYoshiFan 11:33, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, now I'm a bit conflicted. Amazing Mirror's boss rush mode is also called "Boss Endurance", but as mentioned it's essentially The Arena all but in name. I'm also not sure how many of these are notable enough for their own article, other than maybe Boss Butch in KDL3. I think it would be convenient to have a page that lists every boss rush mode, including ones like Survival Rush and The Ultimate Choice, which would then link to the ones that are notable enough to have their own pages. That's just me spitballing, though. StrawberryChan (talk) 21:47, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Bump ---PinkYoshiFan 17:53, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Going to reiterate my previous statement of making a page for all the boss rushes and then having them link to the standalone pages where appropriate. StrawberryChan (talk) 20:29, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Bumping and resetting indent. I still say ---PinkYoshiFan 23:59, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Bump 2. Not sure why my previous edit was cut off, but I think I was trying to say that I still oppose due to the article creation policy. ---PinkYoshiFan 15:24, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Bump número tres. – Owencrazyboy17 (talk) 02:08, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Why don't we call a vote count in a few days to not drag this conversation into infinity? Superbound (talk) 07:42, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. So far, there appears to be three options:

1. Keep as is
2. Merge this with The Arena
3. Make a list of all the boss rush modes and link to each from there

I think that a vote is going to be necessary since this debate has been going on for... uh... 4 1/2 months I think? ---PinkYoshiFan 23:22, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

If it were me, I'd vote for option 3. That will allow us to avoid any overly convoluted pages and give each game's unique gamemode the space they need. --Samwell (talk) 23:32, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm the one who brought up option 3, and I still favor that. StrawberryChan (talk) 23:58, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Votecount (January 2, 2021 - January 16, 2021)

Happy New Year everyone, to resolve this issue from the past year, I'll start the votecount. Summarizing arguments:

• Merge with The Arena - Consistency: many Boss Endurance modes listed in the article don't fit the definition provided by it in 100%, so there's no need to keep them split.
• Split all differently named boss rush-like modes into their own articles - Merging would be against Article creation policy; would just create confusion among the readers; merging would cause problematic consequences with The True Arena article; since most boss rush-like are different in some way, they should be split.
• Create list with all boss rush-like modes - Same arguments as option 2; however, some boss rushes are similar enough to not warrant splitting, but a list listing and linking to them all could be useful.
• Do nothing - Same arguments as option 2; however, boss rushes are similar enough to not warrant splitting and nothing should be done.
  

Let me know if I missed/misunderstood something. Superbound (talk) 10:39, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Merge with The Arena

1. ...

Split all differently named boss rush-like modes into their own articles

1. Per Article creation policy, subjects that are extremely similar but are interacted with separately and named separately should be split. ---PinkYoshiFan 12:34, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
2. I'd be fine with this as well, per the article creation policy. I'm sure for the more obscure ones, we can come up with enough info to warrant standalone pages for each. StrawberryChan (talk) 01:29, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Create list with all boss rush-like modes

1. This is my main preference, listing all of the boss rush modes and then linking to full articles as appropriate. It'd be convenient regardless if we decide they all need standalone articles, since it'd have all the information in one place. StrawberryChan (talk) 01:29, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
2. This would also be my preference. Per StrawberryChan. --Samwell (talk) 01:41, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
3. Agreed. In my opinion, this is the best solution. -- Jellytost♡ (talk) 08:23, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Do nothing

1. ...

Comments

Result: Option 3 (Create list with all boss rush-like modes) wins. Superbound (talk) 18:53, 18 January 2021 (UTC)