Enemies that keep adapting definitely stop endless waves from turning into pure pattern memorization. How do you help new players tell the difference between "the pattern I just learned changed" and "I just missed a cue"? Is there a readable tell before their attacks shift?
Great question, thanks!
There's two main things that keep it readable:
First, adapted enemies look and sound different from the moment they spawn, like a different colour, size or voice, and some move a little faster. So if you see a recoloured one, you can almost always expect it to act differently. Second, adaptation changes what an enemy chooses and how fast it moves, not how its attacks are telegraphed. Every attack that comes out still gets its full windup, and bosses can’t spam the same move (period).
When you get hit, you can almost always point to a windup you missed. The frames are just forgiving like that. A pattern change just means a different cue shows up, or the same cue comes at a different speed or order. A missed cue means the cue was there and the player didn’t react to it.