Reading the modding Discord, it looks like the boss changes are fairly substantial nerfs:
- Balteus's missiles have worse tracking and a smaller blast radius
- Sea Spider's defense is substantially lower
- Cel 240 has lower HP, deals 15% less damage for most attacks and 25% less for some
To editorialize a bit: I think the weapon buffs are really good here. The power delta between the best weapons in the game and the median weapon quality was really substantial, and closing that gap a bit with buffs makes sense to allow a wider range of viable ACs, especially in multiplayer. I'm a little surprised that it's mostly machine guns that got buffed (I've found energy weapons as a class to be fairly weak right now), but I haven't played when them much so maybe they were a bit underjuiced as well.
The boss nerfs I'm less thrilled about. And I say that as someone who really struggled against all three of the nerfed bosses my first time through the game! At risk of opening an old discourse can of worms, part of the joy of games with actual friction is knowing that you climbed a difficult mountain, the same mountain everyone else did with the same tools available. Sometimes small tweaks here and there are necessary, but these are major debuffs, especially for Sea Spider and Cel 240, and I think that's kind of a shame.
The thing about the bosses in this game: they're hard at first, but as you learn their ins and outs and develop your build appropriately, they eventually become easy. They already did, even before this patch. I think this is even more in effect than in the Dark Souls lineage, because of the way the stagger system works and the fact that most attacks are high-frequency and low-impact. It took me two days and a dedicated build to beat Cel 240 the first time, and the second time I just walked all over her. While I already had that experience and that's fine, I'm sad that others won't get to have it in the same way, and I hope this doesn't signal a broader move on From Software's part away from their focus on (and skill at) the use of friction in game design.
