Originally Posted by GM4Him
Lol. You just shot your argument in the foot, actually. Thanks for bringing up Firkraag. You are right in that bosses ought to be appropriate based on who they are in the story. Not necessarily based on whether they are end bosses, etc.

That is true to a certain degree, but you've made my point perfectly. Imagine facing Firkraag and he was nerfed and not a legit dragon. Instead, they made him a dragon wyrmling or a young dragon. THAT is what they've done with Ragzlin.

And Ragzlin ISN'T like Firkraag. He IS a final boss of EA. So from a video game perspective, there is another reason he should be stronger. It's poor video game design when you fight a more challenging enemy during a side quest than the final boss UNLESS you get some really good rewards for a side quest enemy that helps you face the final boss.

So, it's fine, for example, if the Gith fight is harder if by killing the Gith you get cool stuff that helps you take Ragzlin and Minthara down.

The whole point is the characters are not appropriate for the story. My characters should not even be able to kill Halsin unless they make him very low health, etc.
I obviously compared the Hag to Firkraag. As they are both pretty optional.
I compared Ragzlin to Aran Linvail, the boss of chapter three if you chose to side with Bodhi.

Also, Ragzlin is not nerfed, he is just not what you expected. That is a difference. You give erveryone a role and that are angry that the game does fall short on what you see as their role and how they, in your opinion, should be.

Ragzlin is underwhelming? Could be, but that does not mean he is nerfed. It just means that he is an underwhelming enemy.
There is no reason every enemy needs to be fought and every quest needs to be done. If the developer want to give people the freedom to skip quests, for rp or whatever reasons, then they can not finetune the boss battles to the level of someone who exhausted all possible content before going into that fight. Meaning it is easily possible that a boss-type enemy is underwhelming.

Also, no, not every hard encounter needs to give you stuff to better defeat other enemies. They can just exist as flavor for the world and an additional challenge.