Weeky Boss Challenge

Developer

Luca

Fynn

Wolfspion

Background to the Challenge

It all started with a bonk.
To be honest, the Weekly Boss Challenge has been around for years. We (Wolfspion and Fynn) started it shortly after Signora was released as a Weekly Boss. So around patch 2.2. At first, it was just on a small scale.
As we were both still ‘relatively’ new to the game, we never had enough boss materials in reserve for newly levelled characters, so we used up all three attempts for discounted loot every week. Signora was a particular challenge at the time, as there were only a few fully levelled characters on either side. A challenge that turned into a sense of achievement when we tried out my (Fynn’s) Abyss team against her in co-op:
Mono Geo!
Sub DPS Albedo, Burst DPS Zhongli, Support Gorou and the one and only Numero Uno Main DPS Arataki Itto (the last one freshly pulled, but already half-built)
With this team, the fight was nothing but: Bonk - Bonk – Phase 2 – Bonk – Bonk – dead.
For a change, not getting fried by the fiery lady, but taking her down on the first try just as she’d always done to us.... Oh boy, we laughed like little schoolgirls. IN YOUR FACE, SIGNORA! And so was born the tradition of climbing Tenshukaku every week with the Geo team in co-op (Tenshukaku is a mountain -.- I know exactly what you were thinking).

Back then, during the series of patches for Inazuma, however, it wasn’t just powerful enemies and weather-sensitive islands that posed a threat to us. There was also the danger of boredom.
These days, it feels like patches are coming out faster than you can blink. Back then, the content was quickly exhausted for dedicated players and looters. Unless, of course, you had to level up that daft cherry tree to strengthen that electric flower and then get it past barriers – by which point you’d already forgotten where they were and had to search for everything all over again.... I digress!
To combat boredom, and since each of us needed different loot and therefore different bosses, we regularly tackled all the weekly bosses released at the time every week. And that’s how the idea came about to fight not just Signora with a mono team, but all the other bosses as well. However, as each weekly boss was supposed to be fought with a different element that was fixed at the time, we faced a problem: we didn’t have enough built characters of the respective element and were therefore far too weak.

But nothing comes more naturally to Genshin players than to face a challenge head-on, bite the bullet and overcome the obstacles. And so, before we knew it, we were building up several characters we’d already obtained, delving into builds and playstyles, putting together teams and testing our newly acquired warriors. The more characters we built, the more variety and fun ideas we were able to incorporate into the ‘Challenge’.
What if we only play Husbandos? Can we put together a Waifu team? Who has to play the supporter this round? Who gets to use only 5-stars, and who has to keep their 4-stars on standby?
And, of course, the endgame challenge back then: no heal!
No active or passive heals, and the food bag couldn’t be used either. That’s actually where the phrase “I’m off to suck on your statue” came from. Unfortunately, there’s no achievement for an empty statue… we tested it. Several times. Very thoroughly.

Over time, however, the ‘challenges’ became easier and easier to master. We fought more fluidly, with better coordination and greater experience. And since we were in the Discord voice channel chatting to each other during every round, more people got wind of the story and wanted to join in. Fighting together is always more fun – and sometimes easier too.
With new people came new ideas for challenges, and since a dice roll could no longer cover them all, we brought in reinforcements in the form of an app that randomly selected the battle parameters for us.
And then Luca arrived....
New to the Weekly Boss Challenge team, but highly motivated, he got straight down to work and launched the Challenge Generator on the World Wide Web. Sometimes unstoppable in his enthusiasm and drive, he incorporated all sorts of variations and ideas. And thanks to an ever-growing team, new ideas for challenges kept coming in – and still do.

These days, the Weekly Boss Challenge isn’t really much of a challenge anymore. Unless your internet and your ping say ‘no’. But it certainly combats the monotony of farming. Personally, I’d call it a beloved tradition.
And nothing beats a traditional Signora Bonk with a Mono Geo team. Not back then, and not today either.
With that in mind: happy bonk time!

Fynn

The Technical History of the Challenge

How it all began with a wheel of fortune
Back when I first started taking part, the challenges for each week were always selected using a wheel of fortune. In mid-2023, I launched version 1 of this site – what is now known as Easy Mode. We simply reloaded the page several times to make the challenges artificially harder for ourselves. At some point, we decided it would be much nicer if someone created new challenges each week and posted them directly on the site.

Version 2: Hard Mode, VBScript and Manual Work
Version 2 was released in early 2024 and introduced Hard Mode for the first time. At that time, a lot of things were still being done on the fly behind the scenes. I created an Excel spreadsheet in which I used a VBScript to generate my challenges at random. Back then, I also had to enter Fynn and Wolfspion’s challenges into the code entirely by hand, as there was no way for them to input these into the system themselves.

The technical rollercoaster ride to version 3.0
I had put a lot of effort into making the Hard Mode visually appealing back then, and perhaps I bit off more than I could chew. Versions 2.0 to 2.5 were essentially a bit of a rollercoaster ride in terms of performance and server load.
But I stayed on it, and version 3.0 was released towards the end of 2024. That was the first time I was truly satisfied with it! All those manually written fallbacks, where every user had to access the database as soon as the page loaded, were scrapped. Switching to AJAX and PDO not only made everything more secure, but also allowed me to drastically reduce the amount of code (by around 5,000 lines). Most importantly, however, there was finally a proper graphical interface so that my team could easily enter the new challenges themselves.

But I stayed on it, and version 3.0 was released towards the end of 2024. That was the first time I was truly satisfied with it! All those manually written fallbacks, where every user had to access the database as soon as the page loaded, were scrapped. Switching to AJAX and PDO not only made everything more secure, but also allowed me to drastically reduce the amount of code (by around 5,000 lines). Most importantly, however, there was finally a proper graphical interface so that my team could easily enter the new challenges themselves.

Another project I'm passionate about and am currently working on: I'm now making the APIs I wrote internally for the website available externally as well. This will allow experienced programmers to write their own interfaces in future, enabling them to integrate the challenges directly into streams, for example.

Milestone Version 4: International & Beginner-Friendly
We now have between 50 and 150 visitors to the site every week, and our team, which helps design the challenges, has grown significantly. As we have consistently received feedback from international players, the next big step was clear: the release of Version 4. With this update, we are now offering the site in English too!
There’s also a cool new feature: the team can now filter specific characters for each challenge. These are displayed graphically with an icon and some information about the character. This makes it much easier for new players in particular to find them in the game.

Thoughts on the design
The design itself hasn’t changed all that much over the years – the new character details fit in seamlessly. I’m often asked what my thinking was behind the visual style. Basically, the idea is that you can identify the boss immediately from the background, without having to read a name first. The small splash art is intended to be a kind of refreshing icon, making the page look a bit more playful. The text blocks are deliberately set apart from the rest to create good contrast and maintain high accessibility for all users.

Luca

Plans for the future

Of course, my plan is to make the site even better than it is right now. I do, of course, have plans to put this into practice. I am currently in the process of making the APIs I use on the site available to external visitors as well. To this end, I am currently writing some documentation.

The following APIs are currently in use on the website:
- Celestia: This is used to display and process data from the Weekly Boss Challenges.
- Visionlink: This API is used to filter and display the characters in the challenges. It is optimised for the Celestia API and can be linked directly to it

More about

Weekly Boss Challenge