Stuck with the boss under the Cathedral (spoiler)

[Fafhred]

Basically, it never seem to die...

I read the post from Ixis at http://www.bit-blot.com/forum/index.php?topic=609.0 , but the explanation does not help. Tried that, still does not die. Never even seen the 'eyes explode'
I went back out, re-explored every area I can access (I have energy, nature, and fish forms). Stockpiled potions to the max, went back in.

Last try, I fought it until I ran out of potions.
What I can see is:
- a poisoned frog standing behind its legs and touching it does not appear to cause it any damage.
- the nature form spike does not cause any damage, either (at one point, I kept 3 or 4 at a time superposed to its legs, no apparent damage.
- his attack bounced back to it using shield appear to damage its chest, but I kept at it for 30 minutes without noticeable result.
- energy attack: a full hour of it (until I ran out of potions and died) did not do the job.

So, what gives? is this a bug, or is it really supposed to take hours to kill ?

EDIT:

Ok, in the meantime I did some search through the internet (NOT just on this forum), and found a list of recipes.
So, unless I can find a solution to my immediate boss problem, I will be thinking out of the box:
1) Make EVERY potion I can with the ingredients I can obtain.
2) Try to get BEHIND the boss and up to the save stone. I have a suspicion that I can pass behind it just over its head, just below the strong current, if I am in fish from and do it just when it is as far right as it will go. Anybody tried that ?

2nd Edit:

Now, going systematically though the old posts (search is not really useful in this case since I did NOT know what this boss was called, BEFORE searching. AND the name is not consistent through posts), I eventually found the answer in post http://www.bit-blot.com/forum/index.php?topic=711.0

I do have a comment, though:
This is REALLY annoying, because some of my attacks DID land visible damage (chest going red on bounced balls, face going red on energy attacks).
So it really annoys me to find out that ONLY a certain attack would hurt it, and that visible damage displayed is irrelevant.
If NONE of my attacks appeared to cause damage, I would have wasted a lot less time trying them for a longer period.
And I take it that he is supposed to swallow the poisoned frogs, when the one I did that way stayed happily behind the boss leg (causing me to discard this option) while I was trying other options.

[Xiagan]

Well, the visual effect of your attack is supposed to be yellow ( = not damaging) and not red. Maybe some of your settings are wrong.

Are you now able to kill Mithala or do you still need any tipps?

Note: Every player has a few bosses he founds incredibly hard and annoying and he/she wants them to get changed or better explained, etc.. BUT no one nominates the same bosses, so it isn't helping to say boss x is too hard, because other people killed boss x the first try but have big problems with boss y.

[Glamador]

Quite true.  I'm not claiming I figured out Mithala quicklky, but I figured him out and it was very satisfying when I did.  Now the Sun Temple worm...woo there's a hard one.

Anyway, there have been several tips (some of them by me) to give more clues on how to beat Mithala.  Adding a clunk sound but keeping the flash would help to show that you're pushing him back but not damaging him, making it more obvious in the passage leading up to Mithala that the gas turns mutants into poison mutants.  And making the player bind the frog for an earlier quest (maybe a large cracked rock blocking the passage to the boss room.  That would go hand-in-hand with explaining the gas transformation.)

Bottom line.  You're not alone, alot of people had trouble figuring him out.  But the game was made, that's one boss, and these guys didn't have the resources to put their game through 200 people playtesting it like a huge company does.  Would you be telling Ubisoft to change one of THEIR bosses because you thought it was too hard?

[Fafhred]

Well, answer to you both:

1) No, I did not kill it yet, because I was already away farming ingredients for all the cooking recipes I have added.
2) I know this is an independent developer, but even at a late stage, pointing out an issue and WHY this is an issue can lead to this being improved later.
As you mentioned, there are ways to give hints to the player that ONLY the frogs will do.
I understand that the runes are one, but I only found out about them AFTER the issue, since I was heavily reading the forum today.
Which leads to a second improvement: giving an early hint that the runes are ACTUAL useful writing, rather than pure decoration as in most games (which is why I did not catch up on them).

[Xiagan]

giving an early hint that the runes are ACTUAL useful writing, rather than pure decoration as in most games (which is why I did not catch up on them).

You mean like, runes changing into actual letters like it's done on the main screen?

You don't have to do much farming for Mithala. Some tough cakes or equal stuff should do. And prolly some food that increase your shooting power for later on.

[Fafhred]

giving an early hint that the runes are ACTUAL useful writing, rather than pure decoration as in most games (which is why I did not catch up on them).

You mean like, runes changing into actual letters like it's done on the main screen?
Well, THAT is done so often in various games introduction and movies, without being significant elsewhere, that it does not draw attention other than in hindsight... but if the programmer find it a good idea, he could add a translation tool coming as a tablet.
I would work like this: when you see HOME, the runes would morph, and the tablet tool would open and add those 4 runes and letters.
When new runes messages are found, they would be added as untranslated, their text kept in a log, and the player adding manually the letter matching a give rune past the first 4...  and the rune text found would use this as a key to key full or partial text for the rune messages found.

[Glamador]

Ok, you quoted him.  Was there a message in there?  As for "pointing it out" well...there are many threads about it.  Anyway, it's a valid complaint so there's no need to dwell on it further.  You're views are known, if you want to see other peoples' views just look around, there's all over.

[Xiagan]

Ok, you quoted him.  Was there a message in there? 

Yes, he just mixed up the quote-tags. Haven't noticed that there was a lot more text in it?

giving an early hint that the runes are ACTUAL useful writing, rather than pure decoration as in most games (which is why I did not catch up on them).

You mean like, runes changing into actual letters like it's done on the main screen?

Well, THAT is done so often in various games introduction and movies, without being significant elsewhere, that it does not draw attention other than in hindsight... but if the programmer find it a good idea, he could add a translation tool coming as a tablet.
I would work like this: when you see HOME, the runes would morph, and the tablet tool would open and add those 4 runes and letters.
When new runes messages are found, they would be added as untranslated, their text kept in a log, and the player adding manually the letter matching a give rune past the first 4...  and the rune text found would use this as a key to key full or partial text for the rune messages found.

[Fafhred]

That is weird, my message was definitely fine in my browser after I validated it at the time, but now it looks like this, as if I was entirely quoting someone else... looks like a forum bug to me.
And my reply was a suggestion to improve the game... as in 'constructive criticism'.

Anyway, I eventually went back, killed Mithala after a few attempts... then the game froze while he was talking. Had to abort the game with Task Manager.
Going to try again in a few minutes.

Now, my experience is that when you bring the bound poisoned frog towards him, there is NOT enough time to unbind it and go back, if you bring it far enough for it to be eaten.
If you do not bring it far enough, it is simply ignored, and Mithala simply pass him to get close to Naija. So I have to kill it to start again.

As a result, I simply brought it while in energy form, both get swallowed, but Naija get spit back out. Take a bit of damage, but that's what potions are for.
Once its eyes got blown, I tried using the shield from native form to reflect the balls, but that is not strong enough: they get reflected, but still land damage on Nayja.
So I ended up spamming potions (using the escape key to go to potions) while shooting in energy mode (since it now shoots non stop, cannot dodge them AND fight back).

[Xiagan]

Congrats! Yes, it's a bit tricky to make him eat them.
I hope it won't freeze again.

[Glamador]

Watcha mean you can't dodge and fight back?  Sure you can.  And if you use nature form you can charge up a shot, let loose while he takes are breather, then dodge some more.  Or you can just reflect all his bolts back at him.  As long as you keep tapping the shield hotkey (9 i think) you shouldn't take damage.

Also, the trick to not getting sucked in is to drag the frog over to him then cling to a wall.  You can't be sucked in by things when clinging.

[Fafhred]

Watcha mean you can't dodge and fight back?  Sure you can.  And if you use nature form you can charge up a shot, let loose while he takes are breather, then dodge some more.  Or you can just reflect all his bolts back at him.  As long as you keep tapping the shield hotkey (9 i think) you shouldn't take damage.

Also, the trick to not getting sucked in is to drag the frog over to him then cling to a wall.  You can't be sucked in by things when clinging.

Ah, well, until this I did not know about the shield hotkey, only about the forms hotkeys',  so I had to cast shield the hard way...  would bind also have a hotkey, by chance?
And I went to bed instead of trying again, will do in a short while.

EDIT:
Nevermind, experimented and found the bind hotkey: 0
Both only work while in native form (hotkey 1)

I did a search with the keyword 'hotkey' but did not find a list of them, so I will list here those I know so far (for anyone doing the same search in the future):

1 - Native form
2 - Energy form
3 - Beast form
4 - Nature form
5 - Sun form
6 - Fish form
7 - Spirit form
8 - ?
9 - Shield song (ONLY in Native form)
0 - Bind song (ONLY in Native form)

I will fill in 5 and 8 as I discover them through natural playing.
Note: compared to Mithala, getting the Spirit form was, errr.... dead easy  ;-)

[Alphasoldier]

Whoah, Just read the whole topic and you sir need to chill down and stop wasting your bullets on the developers. Many and that's pretty much 90% of the players found out how to defeat Mithalas by them selfs.

Fun thing is, I found out the hotkays after I got 7th form or so, because I pressed on the numbers accidentally, because I tried to use the wasd keys for a second, pure luck I'd say. Conclusion out of this is or I'm way too good at gaming, seeing I played through at least half the game without hot keys, OR you're not that great at gaming as so you shouldn't rant at others for your... lack of skill?

I'm supprised that both Xiagan and Glamador stayed so nice and calm.

Also, the text are most of the time just texts that have to do with the surroundings, they never have any hints on how to beat a boss or anything. I'm also very curious if you can get through the ending part of the game, which also require brain-work. =p

[Fafhred]

Polite reply to Alphasoldier:

You sir, appear to be what would be called a troll in most forums.

If you care to actually >READ< my posts and >UNDERSTAND< them, I did not 'criticize' the developers in any form other than constructive criticism, with suggestions for improvements.
As for me, I am normally a RPG player, NOT by any means of arcade games, therefore I do have some difficulties with the pure action parts of it.
That does not give you the right to question my intellectual abilities, which, unless you are also a member of Mensa, would be quite higher than yours.
Intellect does NOT mean that you automatically obtain the basic information required to make deduction, particularly in presence of contradictory information observed, as was the case if you read the post.

[Glamador]

You sir are sorely mistaken.  Alpha is very much not a troll.  He's as helpful as I am sometimes.  As for mensa, I took one of those mensa tests once, it wasn't a particularly good test of intelligence.
And you are correct, intellect has nothing to do with gaming skills.  If you'll notice he didn't call you stupid, he merely said you lack skill, which is the perfect way to put it.  I've played enough games in my time to know that sometimes you just have to try everything (even stuff you don't think of at first would work) and try them more than once to make sure there wasn't a fluke somewhere along the line.
I'm a fan of old LucasArts adventure games so I'm well versed in "reading the developers" and following their thought process.  By the time you've gotten to Mithala you should have an inkling of how the process works.  I'm not saying you're stupid, as I mentioned above there are MANY who share your complaint about Mithala so you are by no means alone in this view.  But you did come across as overtly critical and Alpha (as I did initially) took some offense to that tone.  No need to start a flame war.