Episode 16: Correction, Urbosa is the Survivor Goddess, Ask Them Anything

Look I'm not a big fan of jigsaws, like there are many challenges that sometimes it feels like "oh x is just gonna win this" or "well I guess I'm not winning this" and jigsaws I feel are the biggest offenders. Like unlike many other challenges there are no really many workarounds aside from maybe the screenshot method which I use and well, is probably the main reason I did alright with those other jigsaws. There are small optimizations but none that feel well, super rewarding from my perspective. So jigsaws are for the most part just a challenge where you can say "oh I am not D3fender, Cheery Dog or Menno, guess I lose this".

I also am not a fan of challenges that say "get a low score as possible in 24 hours" because well, look, this is an online game that we use to take a break from the real world. When you have that added onto a challenge it advantages people who just, have more free time, and encourages that if you have any free time, guess what you are spending it on, that's right the challenge. And it feels kind of bad when the correct strategy to approach a challenge is "spend 10 hours trying to do as well as possible for what can easily be a wasted effort". And like that just kind of feels bad in general. At least now someone who is only good at jigsaws has a chance against someone great at them, but I feel the cost is too high.

But like hey, challenges are hard to design for games like this, there's a reason most challenges you see are either staples or recycled from previous games and given the most common challenges are puzzles or something else, you are just going to have that issue with a number of challenges. You can try and control for it, but you will not completely eliminate either of them, especially the former.

Now the Final Immunity Challenge is kind of big, and you want it to be a couple things. First you want it to be thematic, which this one does do, it is thematic because it was set up before, that's cool. The issue is the latter two problems are especially bad for the final immunity.

Another thing you probably want for your FIC is for it to feel significant, like a cool final battle before the actual final battle. After all typically at F4 you either have a bunch of people vying for their spot at the end who are equal footing, or someone who likely wins if they get to the end and everyone trying to compete with them. As such, having a final immunity where people can go "oh well X just wins this" is something you really don't want. All the fun tension is ruined from the reveal of the challenge. Like Urbosa probably wins this, they're really good at jigsaws, I mean good at everything but jigsaws especially. And like, Mipha already said they're not even gonna try, yayyyy what a finale. You need the suspense and there just is none. Like this is in fact even worse because at least if we didn't have 2 more jigsaws before this then you might be like "well maybe X is or isn't good at jigsaws" but we literally know who is good at this particular challenges cause you already did it twice.

Also just imagine for a second Urbosa wasn't here and instead it was Epona, do you know how crushing it'd be for Epona to fight so hard to stick around, play an incredible game walk up to the FIC and be like "Oh so I'm not winning this one, and I have to wait 48 hours".

Thirdly, FICs should probably just feel grand. The puzzle challenge was grand, the F5 challenge was grand, this is a big jigsaw. It is simple, which can be good in an FIC, but it is not grand.

Also, like I get what this was going for but it's improved by a simple thing. Make this the F5 challenge, maybe change up the F5 challenge and make it the F4 challenge OR make F4 rupees. Like you still get all the bonuses of a thematic challenge without the issues of putting it at FIC and well, look, Ancient Arrow would actually be able to be used effectively, since it's purpose seems to be to be used against someone you are afraid of winning immunity so either they don't have it or you can get it instead, and well a challenge where you already have a good idea who is winning it is perfect for it (then again I don't like the idea Ancient Arrow exists anyway so *shrug*).

Secondly Rupees can be resolved fast, has tension as you know exactly how everyone is doing and can allow people to do well either by applying themselves at the end or over the course of the entire game. Like, it would have been so much cooler.