My first playthrough sitting at 32 hours...

Oh look, a boss fight. Will this be a fair-and-balanced skill-based experience? Or will it be a DPS race against the clock and hoping I get good RNG on the enemy attack patterns so I don't die to mostly unavoidable or unreactable damage?

If you want to play the game as a glass cannon DPS machine, you can do that with the right parts. But there's nothing stopping you from actually reading boss patterns and dodging them. The only boss this doesn't apply to is the first one, and I suspect it will get nerfed because of how many people are complaining about it. Some damage is unavoidable but it's minor, every big attack is dodgable and even accompanied by a loud warning sound. I don't think it's unfair.
- But there’s nothing stopping you from actually reading boss patterns and dodging them.
  
  Is there enough information to do this on the first time through, if you have enough skill? Or is it necessary to try and fail multiple times to see and learn each pattern?
- I think the boss is fairly readable and I can take it down quickly, it's just annoying that it can fly out of bounds where I can't hit it but it can still fire at me. That and your starting mech isn't the best either but I got an S rank on that level after 4-5 attempts.
- In my experience, you don't have to compromise. You can take meta dual shotguns and two heavy hitting shoulder mounts and just vaporize enemies. Almost trivially, in fact.
  
  The problem is, the game is not more fun if you force yourself into something like a melee hybrid build. It's significantly harder and there's less room for error when piloting lightweight ACs, so it's no surprise that most people find the most comfortable build to be one where you have high health and damage mitigation, insane burst DPS, and stunlock potential.
  
  In short, there's not a good balance between the different playstyles and difficulty. Some bosses are actually really fun to fight, but two or three of them have made my shit list already just due to the nonsense you are forced to put up with. Juggernaut, Balteus, and Sea Spider are the three biggest offenders right now.
I've felt this, too. But actually I just hadn't figured out the right response to any given attack.

Manage your EN right, and everything is avoidable.
I guess we are playing different games if this has been your experience.
I haven't played AC6 yet but the fact that you're bothered by unreactable damage makes me think you're playing this like Souls. But it's not Souls, it's a shooter. Be preemptive? Make your own movement pattern hard to follow.

A very glorified DPS race is more or less what a duel is in a shooter.
So it's a Fromsoft boss
- Fromsoft bosses are ALWAYS incredibly fair. They may require practice but you can absolutely learn every boss and master them.
- It's a Dark Souls boss, not an Armored Core boss. AC bosses in previous games were usually (with the exception of For Answer) just other ACs with really good AI piloting them, not giant, unique things with mechanics that you don't see anywhere else.
  
  That alone is enough for me to wish they'd called it something else.

This is how we know they really nailed it on AC6, this is exactly the experience. Well, whenever I didn't say FUCK IT, and equipped dual Zimmermans and the stun nail launcher.

sounds like AC3 all over again. Can’t wait to play.

Maybe it's just the only way I learned to play, but armored core 3 I found only the floating legs were very viable. Then I would equip self aimed missiles and found arena quite simple. The missions you could use different set ups, but I could never win arena much with any other legs.
- They did away with floaters in this one :(

I'm loving the experience, but fuck me some bosses are a pain in the ass. I'm stuck on the sea spider, does anyone have suggestions?

Don't overuse dodges, a lot of attacks will miss if you're just boost-moving around the boss, so save the dodges for stuff that you actually need it for, so you always have EN to spare.

Don't be afraid to burn your EN on flight when warranted, the spinny thing that the Spider does in its final phase is really easy to avoid if you just fly over it.

Don't stop doing damage, consider having something that you can use to at least poke at the enemy just enough to keep the stun bar from decaying, so you can build it up to get a stagger. Or switch to weapons that have a high impact stat to build stagger faster.

Don't sleep on melee weapons. They do MASSIVE damage if you can land the hit.
Pile driver, 2 songbirds and some other high impact you can carry

Open with charged pile driver, immediately unload all your cannons into it, slap another charged pile driver while it's stunned

After that only go for pile driver when it's stunned

I played with reverse joint, but i reckon quad would be the best, as you can just stay above it, outside its melee range.

If it pounces at you while you're on the ground close to it, dive under it

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Wow sounded interesting so I checked in steam - the new one needs minimum 12GB ram???!

sir this is 2023
16GB is the new 8GB of 2014. Even so, we're starting to see top triple A games use upwards of 20GB.
I somehow read this as 128GB and was ready to share your shock.
Dude you're seriously still stuck with 8GB?

If you're still on DDR3, I have a spare 8GB 1600MHz stick in my old PC. I'll sell it to you for a good price.
- It's not worth the shipping!
That's not unusual. Or do you mean vram? Still not surprising with the detail level in the game.
- Definitely doesn't need 12gb of vram so they mean ram which 16gb should be the minimum for anyone's system nowadays.

New to AC myself. Having a lot of fun with it. I don't get why people are upset about it. Like it isn't the greatest game I've ever played but I'm definitely enjoying it

Watched some gameplay on youtube and the like, don’t see the appeal personally

Ok.