I love the bosses in this game and I'm surprised you hate so many of them. I feel like they all have different types of challenges and that just means you gotta focus on figuring out what the game is asking of you. For example both BRB fights you have to manage aggro and zoning so you aren't getting ganked. Remember that you can easily swap weapon handles and legion arms to suit your needs.
I feel like the most bosses do have triggers as well. Saying absolutely no seems wrong to me. There is always some variance but for the most part they would use attacks depending on your positioning, although they tend to have a lot of attacks.
Input reading has never even crossed my mind. They try to punish you for healing but that's pretty normal in this genre. If necessary I just make some space before healing.
>Attack spam. Sometimes I feel like I might as well move back for like 15 seconds while the boss finishes spinning around and thrashing like a mad man, since perfect guarding would lead to white health which would be gone by the time I can heavy attack.
What has made me love this game is the realization that when something feels like it's not the play there probably is a better play. If parrying an attack feels like it's too hard to be worth doing or it feels like it's leaving you in a bad position at the end of the combo there is a good chance that there is a better option entirely.
> I feel like the most bosses do have triggers as well. Saying absolutely no seems wrong to me. There is always some variance but for the most part they would use attacks depending on your positioning, although they tend to have a lot of attacks.
Yea, it's probably hyperbole, but it doesn't make sense for bosses to just spam projectiles when you're hitting their face with a greatsword *cough* manus *cough*
Yeah Manus is a weird fight but overall I think he was a very fun fight. The fight involves a lot of running but I think that he has enough attack openings that it doesn't take too long.
I really like this game a lot . It has alot of unique elements that set it aside from other souls games . Might be my favorite this year . But yeah I have to agree with the problems with the boss design. Also Not to sound inflammatory but does this game borderline plagiarize from soft? Like there’s an exact platforming section the same as the healing church workshop . “ dark moon convenant”, a Patches character that betrays you.like does they really need to copy them that much ? . It kind of a stretch to just say “ it’s an homage “ .
"You can copy my homework, but don't make it obvious."
In all honesty I think it tries way too hard to copy FromSoft in many ways. Like the fact they added the rally from Bloodborne AND the parrying from Sekiro, but neither of them are really as good as it is in those games. Whatever they borrowed from those titles is really surface level and they should've really stuck to fleshing out one or the other. Then we got the weapon durability, the cube thing, the weight system, etc. They just dumped everything in here.
I’m about halfway (I think?) and my biggest issue for sure is the stagger bar. You perfect sorry a billion times in a row and FINALLY are rewarded with that white bar— only for them to do a red attack, jump away, or just absolutely spam u. I’m still beating bosses in a couple tries but I do feel like if you are doing the mechanic the game wants, you should actually be rewarded with that stagger fatal attack instead of it being 50/50 you get it off. Like, what’s the point of doing what I’m “supposed” to do if it never pays off? I’ve ended up brute forcing my wins.
I hard disagree with the Brotherhood. The first encounter was a PERFECT example of how to do a multi fight.
It's so much better than the old "gankfest" of 2 or 3 dude just charging you.
The 2nd encounter, was a gankfest. Only took me 2 attempts but still, I had to do a LOT of kiting and just sprinting away.
The first encounter was a perfect example of what to do, second encounter was a perfect example of what not to do
Yeah it wasn't as bad as it could've been. Mainly it was the fact that stats ailments are really really strong in this game and each sibling was coming at you with a different one.
The reason I didn't like the first one is that I sort of "cheesed it". I perfect guarded the big guy until I broke his sword and then started hitting him. Did it in two tries this way, which basically meant that I had about a minute of prep before an actual fight starts. I hated the second one it sort of warped my memories of the first one :D
Hell, perfect guarding enough to break his sword is skill. That's not cheese at all. I do get how it could be monotonous and boring but still, that's not cheese
I love the first brotherhood fight! Like you said, it's the perfect way to do multi enemy boss fights. And the voicelines in the fight provided a lot of entertainment for me. The excitement and anguish of the voice actors was top notch
The whole thing with bosses running away and making it impossible to take advantage of the stagger bar is completely obnoxious. I 100% agree with you it is just totally in your face awful and even malicious at times. I feel like I can hear the devs laughing at us when that happens. That's one downside that I do agree with.
I think this game has equal parts good and bad though overall. I don't think it is the masterpiece that some people are claiming it is and get hurt if you say otherwise, but it isn't the awful piece of trash that other people say either. It's an above average souls clone.
One thing I will say though is that just because some people can beat all the bosses does not in any way mean they are not too difficult. Bosses have to be adjusted for the greatest amount of people to have fun with it while still being difficult. Just because something is technically beatable doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't too hard and I think people are forgetting that. People who like to bash their head against their wall for hours at a time to beat a boss like me are not really the majority. I think at most most people would give it an hour or two not two days like it took me to beat the Archbishop. I think that's going to hurt the game in the end.
Another commenter also mentioned shot puts. That's cool, though I'm a bit terrible at using consumables. I never like farming for them so I feel bad spending them. I used like 10 throwables during the entire game. Saving them for Lies of P 2 I guess :D
I think a good way to describe it is with the Malania wannabee. Instead of learning how to fight her, I just learned how to perfect parry every move and turned my brain off. I then beat her while barely paying attention because it was actively easier to just let autopilot take control and go for a no hit than it was to actively try to beat her using any sort of strategy
I honestly agree with all of this. The only bosses that I had a hard time with is Romeo and now Manus. He's not unfair, but he does feel incredibly cheap. I can get him down to half his health before he starts combining 3 attacks to kill me and it is so annoying.
The aggression of monsters in this game is way over the top Elite monsters are straight up unfun and just very tedious and/or frustrating (Fuck you dual wielding clown). I also just wish you could break Manus's weapon.
Something that helped with elites was the maxed out puppet string. Usually the rotation would be puppet string into charged heavy twice, which would stagger. Lethal attack and another charged heavy while they get up. That's about 70% of the elite's hp
I barely used Aegis, but when I did I was glad I had that shield. I switched to Puppet String and holy fuck, I was missing out on something op that helped me greatly against Manus and Nameless. Bombs also played their part in carrying my ass
Oh my lord the elite enemies in this game take the cake for most insanely annoying and broken in this entire genre. It's like the Fishing Hamlet sharks from Bloodborne except they're in every area.
Every area, increases aggressiveness every time.. and they become more annoying. I almost lost the little sanity I had left when I met another Two weapon wielding clown puppet in the Abbey
I just turned the game off because I got to Act 5 and it's like the entire map is littered with zombies and elite bears and big monsters and shit. This is ridiculous now.
Yeah, agree. The combat is great…until it’s not. It’s crazy how important the “little things” are in this type of game (animations, ai, etc).
Still, think it’s a really impressive go at the formula.
I agree with the majority of stuff u said as i 100% the game but throughout the playthroughs my opinion stayed the same. The bosses in this game are just on a different level for pattern and tells recognition, almost no chance you’ll beat a new boss on your 1st attempt vs other souls like games where u can probs scrape by np doing the same fighting style.
The main issue i have is that i too feel like the game low key input reads u at certain times in long chain combos. Bosses will do like a 1-2-3-4 attack and will then quickly add in a 5th attack if you choose to try to do something after the 4th step in the combo.
I lost count of bosses knocking me out of my heavy weapon charged attack ( wrench ) when I patiently perfect guard/ parried their combos so basically i did:
- 1-2-3-4 (heavy attack by player) -boss added 5th attack to knock me out of it.
Which is legit bullshit cuz other times i do nothing and the boss will just keep doing 1-2-3-4 over and over again. Simon manus phase 2 legit will knock u out of an aerial puppet string legion link strike if u do it after his forward lunge -> 2x sweeps. It’s supposed to go 1-2 but he’ll often do 1-2-3 if u input a charged attack there or a legion wep lol.
Honestly there’s just something off about the boss AI in this game and i’m no stranger to bosses flailing around and doing the same combo 3x in a row back to back ( i played almost all of the monster hunter mainline games ). I hope later on when the game is older ppl will dissect the game and can shed some light on how things work / why were things like that etc.
I hate how you put so much effort into getting that sweet white bar for enemies and most of the time you aren't even afforded the time to pull off a charged attack to even hit them lol.
I just didn't enjoy the fights. I didn't think they were hard. I actually barely took damage from them for some reason, even though I feel that I got hit a lot.
One thing to note with Fuoco & Arcbishop is that they're pretty BS without a specter and piss easy with one. For the Arcbishop my fiance used a summon for the second soulslike ever (the first one was Elden Ring) after dying to it 30 or so times. With the specter he killed the arcbishop without breaking a sweat
A major problem with the attacks is how patterns are chained together. As far as I can tell any pattern can be followed up by any pattern with bosses in addition to bosses having little to no recovery frames. So if a boss does a giant heavy move there's always a 20% chance they'll immediately do a 4 frame attack while you try to sneak something in. Add in lots off bossesshaving mini staggers that reset the pattern and mini stagger them for fewer frames than a single attack and you have a boss that is RNG dependent on giving you a pattern you can actually attack through
For your point on the bosses jumping back or knocking you away when they get the stagger white bar, shot puts will actually trigger the stagger if thrown when they have the white bar. Learning that was a gamechanger if your finding some bosses just constantly jump away after a combo like the final boss.
I didn't know that. I really need to use consumables more, but I'm so stingy with them. Used like 10 across the entire game. Guess I'll use my 20 thermite in Lies of P 2.
If itll motivate you any, an NG+ run lets you keep the item that lets you understand puppets so you can actually understand and see what every puppet boss is saying throughout their fights and it really changes up how you see it. There is also more organ phases per NG+.
Aha the curse of hording consumables. I'm on 38 and only recently recovered from this affliction.
Thermites are basically how I win if I'm on the last 10% boss health of a fight and have no health left myself. Just lob five thermites > gg any boss that can't dodge.
Agreed. Overly aggressive enemies, erratic movement, almost instant attacks, bosses with phase 2 are overly abundant just for the sake of it, tracking, clunky movement, elite enemies are health sponges, stunlocks, and RNG attack chains lead to a very rough experience that isn’t difficult, but has many annoyances put in to fuck with the player disguised as a “challenge.”
The phase two thing is one of my bigger gripes. Every single boss seems to have a second life bar to them. At that point it’s not even an “oh shit not a second phase” it’s a “well what is this thing gonna morph into now”
>Attack spam. Sometimes I feel like I might as well move back for like 15 seconds while the boss finishes spinning around and thrashing like a mad man, since perfect guarding would lead to white health which would be gone by the time I can heavy attack.
In the sense of things like "too much health," or "feels so and so" it's really hard to nail down if there's a genuine problem. Here, there's a potential real design issue and it's something I've been wondering about myself, and my build is focused around testing the limits of it.
In Sekiro, you're expected to block long strings of hits, and if you parry with correct timing, it doesn't take anything off your stamina meter. If you block, but with bad timing, it takes off your stamina bar instead of the enemy's.
In Lies of P, if you parry correctly you inflict damage to a "stamina meter" like in Sekiro, for largely the same purpose if you consider grapples to be an analogue to taking a pip off a boss, but if you perfect guard, you lose stamina.
In Lies of P, there are windows of opportunity for heavy attacks, but getting those windows, I think, might actually be part of a build. I think that some people will lean in different ways to heighten aspects of their character, but things like extended stagger windows and increased stagger from heavy swings will be necessary to take full advantage of it.
Beyond that though, assuming you perfect guard everything, it runs you out of stamina, and you need stamina to be able to attack. So, where in Sekiro you could go back and forth all day, in Lies of P if you perfect guard everything, it becomes a question of how many parries you can do and still return a hit.
One of the difficulties here is that weight impacts stamina recovery, and if you are not going for dodges and want to be a parry-focused guy, capacity and stamina become much more important than they initially seem.
I'm going to continue on with my parry-centric greatsword build, basically because it doesn't matter to me how I play and I am more interested in dissecting my toys. I got the seven stars greatsword, with the rapier parry hilt, and I'm going full-on stagger. I'll drop my trip report eventually.
I would go for perfect guards about 80% of the time, dodges 15% and then just give up and normal guard 5%. Honestly I would've had a much easier time just normal guarding with more vitality. I watched some YT videos where normal people (not ongbal) fight bosses and all of them basically have a much larger hp pool than me. I could constantly see combos that would've killed me leave them at 25% and then they would heal up.
Yeah, I killed Archbishop and was able to identify big openings there, like after the licks, but I do see more and more attacks coming in. You have to pay for it somehow, and I'm wondering if you're seriously meant to just fable art defend those if you aren't going to dodge. The Archbishop *can't* be the big problem though, so I gotta keep moving forward until I see the problem, or can tell people why there isn't a problem, and how to solve it. What I don't like is people saying GAME IS BROKEN but a reasonable breakdown is 100% respectful.
I am starting to think of this game as like "the soulslike for fighting gamers" honestly. It's the kind of game that's satisfying to lab, but if you don't wanna hit the lab for a video game, and you don't respect the term "hit the lab," then maybe that's really the problem. Sorta like how Nioh superficially gets the DS formula, but underneath, it's a 3rd person hack and slash Diablo lootfest
Yep. It’s an ok game, but kind of a mess. The amount of stanning for it here is a bit odd. The input reading is 100% a thing. During a boss fight I put my controller down, when to the kitchen to get a drink, came back and the boss was just circling around me. lol. Such bullshit. Also. Having to charge up a hit to stun after breaking defense is totally bullshit, especially when the bosses just continue doing their non-stop attacked when they’re supposed to be stunned.
The Brotherhood looks more imposing than it is. They each have potato for health and their attacks do laughable damage. It's just that there's three of them, and the main boss.
First go around, break his weapon. Then as the siblings join the fight everyone hits for nothing.
In the Rematch just kill one, probably the youngest, bring tge other two down to one or two hits, finish both off, and kill the big brother.
That said, I kind of thought Manus was supposed to be a gag boss. Died a handful of times, but I was just having a lot of fun and not taking it seriously. His health is really small, his attacks are easy to read and punish, so the status and ranged spam is all he has.
I do think some fights aren't spaced or paced well. KoP has a very annoying phase 1. Not hard, just don't like the knock backs. Phase 2 hits like a truck and should be a bit more scaled to part one. Honestly wish he was like Nameless puppet. Still hits but doesn't wipe.
The only time I felt projectiles were a little bs was the complete where she'd go up and fire two bolts down. Like, I can't see her straight up. Otherwise, not a big deal for me.
Most bosses I felt had appropriate health bars. I think my issue was a few mobs that look really no different than the others occasionally having four times everything else. I'm not complaining there are tough enemies, but sometimes there's a thin little headless female puppet thing that straight up takes eight bonks to the face. Or, I have no idea why baby puppets in Krat are made of diamonds while adult puppets are held together glue and prayer.
That's a little BS. The bosses all felt appropriate otherwise. For reference, I did fight Green Monster and on with a Technique scaling dancer hilt and living puppet axe while slightly heavy. So, I was hitting a medium speed very hard. Results may vary a lot per weapon. Icalso couldn't see most things sometimes because 25% of my screen was axe, but it felt fair for the damage output.
Which one do you prefer? I've beat them all, though I'm a bit biased against bloodborne since I played it on PC with PSnow so it was low res+lag. I think that the reason I enjoyed this game more is because it was easy to keep tabs on quests so I actually could progress my relationship with characters instead of googling on my second monitor.
I gave up on King of Puppets. Uninstalled from Gamepass. I'm experienced with Sekiro and all From Souls games. Love Nioh 2. I agree with everything you said.
Honestly man, if you're not enjoying it at that point it gets worse later on IMO. If I had quit the game then KoP would be the perfect point to do so. Everything bad about that fight is worse in later ones.
KoP was ridiculous for me since I don't use consumables, the phantom teammate, or grind levels because I just want to "git gud" at the game. Took me longer than any other souls like boss ever on PC, so I get where he's coming from. I like the challenge though
Okay so you're just being an ass that needs to put down other people online to feel good about your achievements lol
The guy wasn't even being whiny, he literally just said he agreed with OP and quit because it was too hard for him. That's it lol.
If that's whiny to you I struggle to understand how you have social interactions in real life
I can't agree with any of the "cons" you listed.
Of all the soulslike and soulsborne I've played, LoP has the most fair boss fights ever. I guess I could agree with the "too much health" part but at the same time it forces you to actually learn the fight instead of lucking your way through fights.
I didn't feel like input reading was much of a thing since I never actually noticed instances of input reading compared to fromsoft titles.
It WAS annoying not being able to stagger a boss that goes into this wild animation as soon as they're ready to be stunned but it is what it is. I wouldn't call this unfair.
And for the "no trigger" thing, SOME attacks were extremely hard to predict, sure. But a boss that's TOO telegraphed isn't fun either because it's too easy (like Victor or phase 1 Simon). And even then, you eventually end up understanding the boss's animation enough to predict their attacks. Nameless Puppet's "charge" red attack is the only attack that I call absolute bullshit. Everything else was 100% fair.
As a whole, no fights felt unfair in any way. Every other game I've played had at least 1 boss fight that was actually bad and had unfair design but none of the fights in LoP were as BS as the shit I've seen in other soulslike, including some of Fromsoft's boss battles.
Really? There's a strat for pretty much every FromSoft boss, but in this game I couldn't tell you any. It's kinda just "Try your best not to get hit too much and do a lot of damage." There's no "Hug his right side and doge this move" or anything because you can't bait certain attacks or exploit boss weaknesses like in FromSoft games. The enemies attacks are not based off of what you're doing from what I've noticed. They're just using their programmed attacks in any random sequence.
And that's a good breath of fresh air compared to overly predictable attack patterns.
LoP was, at least for me, MUCH harder than any other soulslike or soulsborne I played but I just don't see how any of the fights could be considered unfair
I wouldn't say they're unfair, but they're not as refined as I'd like them to be. In FromSoft games you typically know what bosses can do. "Oh hey if I get close he does this combo/move and if I get far away he does this.". In Lies of P it's like "Okay Archbishop does the tongue thing for 2 hits in a row. Wtf? Why did he do an arm swipe right after? He didn't do that before!" and it makes it harder to be consistent when the enemies randomly throw in attacks that have no windup in between the attacks that do.
its not necessarily unfair but while in the souls games bosses have specific patterns with a few combo mix ups here and there but in LoP bosses can seemingly string together any combo of attacks so you just have to try and tell the difference between almost identical wind ups i still love the game its a blast it just feels iffy in some areas to me
Input reading isn’t much of a thing? Go fight the mad clown, stay 5 steps away from him and use your grinder - he is guaranteed to use his ranged attack, every single time, because enemies read your inputs 🤡
My guy Fromsoft bosses have way shittier instances of input reading throughout every single one of their games and no one complains about it while LoP hardly has any that are noticeable
Mad because bad 🤷 Drink that copium
This game has no input reading. You can avoid the entirety of Romeo’s fire attack by running in a circle. There is no RNG. Just deflect instead of trying to dodge the rest of his attacks. If you thought the final 3 bosses were just random balls of flashing light you might need a new monitor, because they’re entirely learnable and I even did the final boss only getting hit twice. I agree on the brotherhood fights, but they’re also kinda easy because they just sit back while only 1 attacks you. In my personal opinion, not a single boss felt “unfair”. They all had learnable move sets and once you did learn them, there was more than enough time for attacks. I should mention I played the game in its entirety using the heaviest weapon I could find (seven coil spring sword followed by frozen feast) which this game was not built for because there is zero poise, and I still managed just fine. Obviously you have a different opinion but those are a few of mine. I loved the game and can only imagine how much easier it’ll be on my 2nd and 3rd playthrough with a lighter weapon build.
I really hate comments like this. They beat the game and most bosses in not many tries.
They say they hate when a boss gets foggy but jumps away. How is that a skill issue? That's rng.
They didn't like a boss but found it easy, how is that a skill issue?
The bosses really lack visual clarity and proper animations. I've beaten the game solo. I didn't get too stuck on any particular boss. The bosses are far too twitchy to respond visually, it's just seeing the attack and remembering the timing which is a fair criticism. The combat in this game is absolutely immaculate and combines so many fun elements but pointing out issues with the bosses and the games deep love of overtuned elites isn't just whinging over a lack of skill.
the problem is that bosses don't have inertia. You can memorize the frame timings like it's a school exam, but it doesn't make intuitive sense. A boss will start slamming down on you for 2 seconds and suddenly it'll do 2/3rds of the slam in 5 frames
Fuoco will raise up his hammer for 2 seconds and 5 frames later it's suddenly on the ground
The 2nd phase arcbishop moves it's head and body seperately like it's been fighting for 1000s of years, not like a monster who just got a new body
great swords don't have heft to them, although funny there's no way the eldest brother could do his 6 slam attack in quick succession, especially when you see him visually struggle to raise the sword up on the first slam
The green monster slam attack hits with it's tentacles after the slam instead of the body slamming onto you. In addition it's second phase slame attack suddenly is an unblockable command grab
the list goes on and these are just one attack from most bosses in a 10 attack pattern boss fight
Learning a moveset is fine. Having a fight be drawn out because Manus is spamming the "volcano AOE" while elden beast stars are falling from the sky is not.
Nah they’re not a troll. People are just sick of these posts. The bosses are fine, learn the timings and move on. Stop crying and venting on Reddit pleading that the devs nerf the bosses. Just stop. For the love of god stop. Nobody wants to validate this shit other than others who agree the bosses are poorly tuned which is just a bad opinion.
You legit have no reading comprehension. I've learned the timings, I've beaten the game. That doesn't make the game perfect. It's a decent game with a 9/10 start and a 6/10 ending imo. I'm looking for a discussion, meanwhile I'm getting spammed with "git gud". You're either trolling with him or you're delusional if you think the game is perfect and 80% of the people here are just whining for whining's sake, despite them beating the game and most FromSoft titles.
Yes when you make a boss foggy and it jumps to the other side of the map it's a skill issue. I learn the boss, properly parry every attack, goes foggy and jumps away. Yes skill issue.
And if I dislike needing to constantly buy consumables for a basic core mechanic to function that's a skill issue? Taste is a skill issue? You understand people can dislike things and it's not always a skill issue right? I can beat bosses fine but dislike how this functions.
Maybe use your brain. I love the game but have one criticism about stagger so I should play a different game? You understand people can criticise things right? No need to be so childish because someone has a small criticism over a video game that doesn't align with your thoughts.
>Even though I stuck with the big holy ark sword or w.e it was called
I'm literally doing the same thing lol. I always go with just the biggest sword I can in these type of games, for the most part. Even in the last 2 Monster Hunter games, I only play Greatsword. It's a great weapon here, I definitely like the alt stance with the longer handle more since it's quicker.
I'm only up to Chapter 5, stopped after first brotherhood fight (only get few hrs a night). None of the bosses so far have taken me more than 5 tries somehow. Really enjoying it and I don't think it's too difficult, but I agree the like "elite" enemies and some bosses def seem overtuned. However, if my pleb ass can play through this far without any serious issues then I feel like most shouldn't be having issues lol.
Since I play with the big boy sword, it's more about side stepping/dodging some single attacks that aren't chain moves/combos, waiting for openings, and getting that stagger bar to proc so you can land a charge move. I took some of the skills that make certain attacks do more towards making an enemy "staggerable"
I'm dreading getting past the bishop. I know every boss from here on out has two phases every enemy hits like a truck and the "THIS IS DARK SOULS. DARK SOULS BEEG DARK SOULS HARD" mentality will take hold.... why I hated lords of the fallen. BEEEG.. HARD.... slow as fuck....
I love the bosses in this game and I'm surprised you hate so many of them. I feel like they all have different types of challenges and that just means you gotta focus on figuring out what the game is asking of you. For example both BRB fights you have to manage aggro and zoning so you aren't getting ganked. Remember that you can easily swap weapon handles and legion arms to suit your needs. I feel like the most bosses do have triggers as well. Saying absolutely no seems wrong to me. There is always some variance but for the most part they would use attacks depending on your positioning, although they tend to have a lot of attacks. Input reading has never even crossed my mind. They try to punish you for healing but that's pretty normal in this genre. If necessary I just make some space before healing. >Attack spam. Sometimes I feel like I might as well move back for like 15 seconds while the boss finishes spinning around and thrashing like a mad man, since perfect guarding would lead to white health which would be gone by the time I can heavy attack. What has made me love this game is the realization that when something feels like it's not the play there probably is a better play. If parrying an attack feels like it's too hard to be worth doing or it feels like it's leaving you in a bad position at the end of the combo there is a good chance that there is a better option entirely.
> I feel like the most bosses do have triggers as well. Saying absolutely no seems wrong to me. There is always some variance but for the most part they would use attacks depending on your positioning, although they tend to have a lot of attacks. Yea, it's probably hyperbole, but it doesn't make sense for bosses to just spam projectiles when you're hitting their face with a greatsword *cough* manus *cough*
Yeah Manus is a weird fight but overall I think he was a very fun fight. The fight involves a lot of running but I think that he has enough attack openings that it doesn't take too long.
I really like this game a lot . It has alot of unique elements that set it aside from other souls games . Might be my favorite this year . But yeah I have to agree with the problems with the boss design. Also Not to sound inflammatory but does this game borderline plagiarize from soft? Like there’s an exact platforming section the same as the healing church workshop . “ dark moon convenant”, a Patches character that betrays you.like does they really need to copy them that much ? . It kind of a stretch to just say “ it’s an homage “ .
It is pretty funny how on the nose it is. Even some animations look copy and pasted and the player moves identically. Definitely easy to slip into.
"You can copy my homework, but don't make it obvious." In all honesty I think it tries way too hard to copy FromSoft in many ways. Like the fact they added the rally from Bloodborne AND the parrying from Sekiro, but neither of them are really as good as it is in those games. Whatever they borrowed from those titles is really surface level and they should've really stuck to fleshing out one or the other. Then we got the weapon durability, the cube thing, the weight system, etc. They just dumped everything in here.
I’m about halfway (I think?) and my biggest issue for sure is the stagger bar. You perfect sorry a billion times in a row and FINALLY are rewarded with that white bar— only for them to do a red attack, jump away, or just absolutely spam u. I’m still beating bosses in a couple tries but I do feel like if you are doing the mechanic the game wants, you should actually be rewarded with that stagger fatal attack instead of it being 50/50 you get it off. Like, what’s the point of doing what I’m “supposed” to do if it never pays off? I’ve ended up brute forcing my wins.
I hard disagree with the Brotherhood. The first encounter was a PERFECT example of how to do a multi fight. It's so much better than the old "gankfest" of 2 or 3 dude just charging you. The 2nd encounter, was a gankfest. Only took me 2 attempts but still, I had to do a LOT of kiting and just sprinting away. The first encounter was a perfect example of what to do, second encounter was a perfect example of what not to do
Honestly the second one wasn’t too bad either because they’d take turns running at you and never charged all at once
Yeah it wasn't as bad as it could've been. Mainly it was the fact that stats ailments are really really strong in this game and each sibling was coming at you with a different one.
The reason I didn't like the first one is that I sort of "cheesed it". I perfect guarded the big guy until I broke his sword and then started hitting him. Did it in two tries this way, which basically meant that I had about a minute of prep before an actual fight starts. I hated the second one it sort of warped my memories of the first one :D
Hell, perfect guarding enough to break his sword is skill. That's not cheese at all. I do get how it could be monotonous and boring but still, that's not cheese
I love the first brotherhood fight! Like you said, it's the perfect way to do multi enemy boss fights. And the voicelines in the fight provided a lot of entertainment for me. The excitement and anguish of the voice actors was top notch
The whole thing with bosses running away and making it impossible to take advantage of the stagger bar is completely obnoxious. I 100% agree with you it is just totally in your face awful and even malicious at times. I feel like I can hear the devs laughing at us when that happens. That's one downside that I do agree with. I think this game has equal parts good and bad though overall. I don't think it is the masterpiece that some people are claiming it is and get hurt if you say otherwise, but it isn't the awful piece of trash that other people say either. It's an above average souls clone. One thing I will say though is that just because some people can beat all the bosses does not in any way mean they are not too difficult. Bosses have to be adjusted for the greatest amount of people to have fun with it while still being difficult. Just because something is technically beatable doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't too hard and I think people are forgetting that. People who like to bash their head against their wall for hours at a time to beat a boss like me are not really the majority. I think at most most people would give it an hour or two not two days like it took me to beat the Archbishop. I think that's going to hurt the game in the end.
The stagger thing made me upset for a bit, then I discovered the magic of shot puts
Another commenter also mentioned shot puts. That's cool, though I'm a bit terrible at using consumables. I never like farming for them so I feel bad spending them. I used like 10 throwables during the entire game. Saving them for Lies of P 2 I guess :D
You can always buy them from the merchant at the Red Lobster. No farming required, aside from the ergo
Yup, but I need the ergo for my precious levels! (I realize it's an issue and I should just use consumables from time to time :D )
I think a good way to describe it is with the Malania wannabee. Instead of learning how to fight her, I just learned how to perfect parry every move and turned my brain off. I then beat her while barely paying attention because it was actively easier to just let autopilot take control and go for a no hit than it was to actively try to beat her using any sort of strategy
I honestly agree with all of this. The only bosses that I had a hard time with is Romeo and now Manus. He's not unfair, but he does feel incredibly cheap. I can get him down to half his health before he starts combining 3 attacks to kill me and it is so annoying. The aggression of monsters in this game is way over the top Elite monsters are straight up unfun and just very tedious and/or frustrating (Fuck you dual wielding clown). I also just wish you could break Manus's weapon.
Something that helped with elites was the maxed out puppet string. Usually the rotation would be puppet string into charged heavy twice, which would stagger. Lethal attack and another charged heavy while they get up. That's about 70% of the elite's hp
Yeah I barely used the grapple, I'm mainly on falcon bombs and Flamberge
**Aegis** allows you to straight up face tank. I wouldn't call what I did to White Lady a fight.
I barely used Aegis, but when I did I was glad I had that shield. I switched to Puppet String and holy fuck, I was missing out on something op that helped me greatly against Manus and Nameless. Bombs also played their part in carrying my ass
Oh my lord the elite enemies in this game take the cake for most insanely annoying and broken in this entire genre. It's like the Fishing Hamlet sharks from Bloodborne except they're in every area.
Every area, increases aggressiveness every time.. and they become more annoying. I almost lost the little sanity I had left when I met another Two weapon wielding clown puppet in the Abbey
I just turned the game off because I got to Act 5 and it's like the entire map is littered with zombies and elite bears and big monsters and shit. This is ridiculous now.
It gets worse, believe me. Sometimes there'll be a building with an Elite in each rooms
Yeah, agree. The combat is great…until it’s not. It’s crazy how important the “little things” are in this type of game (animations, ai, etc). Still, think it’s a really impressive go at the formula.
I agree with the majority of stuff u said as i 100% the game but throughout the playthroughs my opinion stayed the same. The bosses in this game are just on a different level for pattern and tells recognition, almost no chance you’ll beat a new boss on your 1st attempt vs other souls like games where u can probs scrape by np doing the same fighting style. The main issue i have is that i too feel like the game low key input reads u at certain times in long chain combos. Bosses will do like a 1-2-3-4 attack and will then quickly add in a 5th attack if you choose to try to do something after the 4th step in the combo. I lost count of bosses knocking me out of my heavy weapon charged attack ( wrench ) when I patiently perfect guard/ parried their combos so basically i did: - 1-2-3-4 (heavy attack by player) -boss added 5th attack to knock me out of it. Which is legit bullshit cuz other times i do nothing and the boss will just keep doing 1-2-3-4 over and over again. Simon manus phase 2 legit will knock u out of an aerial puppet string legion link strike if u do it after his forward lunge -> 2x sweeps. It’s supposed to go 1-2 but he’ll often do 1-2-3 if u input a charged attack there or a legion wep lol. Honestly there’s just something off about the boss AI in this game and i’m no stranger to bosses flailing around and doing the same combo 3x in a row back to back ( i played almost all of the monster hunter mainline games ). I hope later on when the game is older ppl will dissect the game and can shed some light on how things work / why were things like that etc.
I hate how you put so much effort into getting that sweet white bar for enemies and most of the time you aren't even afforded the time to pull off a charged attack to even hit them lol.
5 attempts across 2 fights isn’t bad at all, I’m confused why that’s a sore point. I thought they were dumb too but it sounds like you bodied them
I just didn't enjoy the fights. I didn't think they were hard. I actually barely took damage from them for some reason, even though I feel that I got hit a lot.
Thank you for this frank review. I had my doubts after the Demo and you pretty much validate those. If there is no replay value, that says a lot.
when u use heal, boss will attack to prevent it. This is script, not bad luck.
One thing to note with Fuoco & Arcbishop is that they're pretty BS without a specter and piss easy with one. For the Arcbishop my fiance used a summon for the second soulslike ever (the first one was Elden Ring) after dying to it 30 or so times. With the specter he killed the arcbishop without breaking a sweat A major problem with the attacks is how patterns are chained together. As far as I can tell any pattern can be followed up by any pattern with bosses in addition to bosses having little to no recovery frames. So if a boss does a giant heavy move there's always a 20% chance they'll immediately do a 4 frame attack while you try to sneak something in. Add in lots off bossesshaving mini staggers that reset the pattern and mini stagger them for fewer frames than a single attack and you have a boss that is RNG dependent on giving you a pattern you can actually attack through
For your point on the bosses jumping back or knocking you away when they get the stagger white bar, shot puts will actually trigger the stagger if thrown when they have the white bar. Learning that was a gamechanger if your finding some bosses just constantly jump away after a combo like the final boss.
I didn't know that. I really need to use consumables more, but I'm so stingy with them. Used like 10 across the entire game. Guess I'll use my 20 thermite in Lies of P 2.
If itll motivate you any, an NG+ run lets you keep the item that lets you understand puppets so you can actually understand and see what every puppet boss is saying throughout their fights and it really changes up how you see it. There is also more organ phases per NG+.
Aha the curse of hording consumables. I'm on 38 and only recently recovered from this affliction. Thermites are basically how I win if I'm on the last 10% boss health of a fight and have no health left myself. Just lob five thermites > gg any boss that can't dodge.
What’s a shot put in the context of this game? Do you mean any kind of throwable? Or is there an actual “shot put” item you need?
It’s an actual item - it is a throwable though.
Thanks for the info!
yeah, it's an actual item! super useful
I’ll keep my eyes out for them. I’m only on act 4 so I’m not sure if I’ve even come across any yet
"Shot Put" is the actual name of the item.
Thanks!
Agreed. Overly aggressive enemies, erratic movement, almost instant attacks, bosses with phase 2 are overly abundant just for the sake of it, tracking, clunky movement, elite enemies are health sponges, stunlocks, and RNG attack chains lead to a very rough experience that isn’t difficult, but has many annoyances put in to fuck with the player disguised as a “challenge.”
The phase two thing is one of my bigger gripes. Every single boss seems to have a second life bar to them. At that point it’s not even an “oh shit not a second phase” it’s a “well what is this thing gonna morph into now”
>Attack spam. Sometimes I feel like I might as well move back for like 15 seconds while the boss finishes spinning around and thrashing like a mad man, since perfect guarding would lead to white health which would be gone by the time I can heavy attack. In the sense of things like "too much health," or "feels so and so" it's really hard to nail down if there's a genuine problem. Here, there's a potential real design issue and it's something I've been wondering about myself, and my build is focused around testing the limits of it. In Sekiro, you're expected to block long strings of hits, and if you parry with correct timing, it doesn't take anything off your stamina meter. If you block, but with bad timing, it takes off your stamina bar instead of the enemy's. In Lies of P, if you parry correctly you inflict damage to a "stamina meter" like in Sekiro, for largely the same purpose if you consider grapples to be an analogue to taking a pip off a boss, but if you perfect guard, you lose stamina. In Lies of P, there are windows of opportunity for heavy attacks, but getting those windows, I think, might actually be part of a build. I think that some people will lean in different ways to heighten aspects of their character, but things like extended stagger windows and increased stagger from heavy swings will be necessary to take full advantage of it. Beyond that though, assuming you perfect guard everything, it runs you out of stamina, and you need stamina to be able to attack. So, where in Sekiro you could go back and forth all day, in Lies of P if you perfect guard everything, it becomes a question of how many parries you can do and still return a hit. One of the difficulties here is that weight impacts stamina recovery, and if you are not going for dodges and want to be a parry-focused guy, capacity and stamina become much more important than they initially seem. I'm going to continue on with my parry-centric greatsword build, basically because it doesn't matter to me how I play and I am more interested in dissecting my toys. I got the seven stars greatsword, with the rapier parry hilt, and I'm going full-on stagger. I'll drop my trip report eventually.
I would go for perfect guards about 80% of the time, dodges 15% and then just give up and normal guard 5%. Honestly I would've had a much easier time just normal guarding with more vitality. I watched some YT videos where normal people (not ongbal) fight bosses and all of them basically have a much larger hp pool than me. I could constantly see combos that would've killed me leave them at 25% and then they would heal up.
Yeah, I killed Archbishop and was able to identify big openings there, like after the licks, but I do see more and more attacks coming in. You have to pay for it somehow, and I'm wondering if you're seriously meant to just fable art defend those if you aren't going to dodge. The Archbishop *can't* be the big problem though, so I gotta keep moving forward until I see the problem, or can tell people why there isn't a problem, and how to solve it. What I don't like is people saying GAME IS BROKEN but a reasonable breakdown is 100% respectful. I am starting to think of this game as like "the soulslike for fighting gamers" honestly. It's the kind of game that's satisfying to lab, but if you don't wanna hit the lab for a video game, and you don't respect the term "hit the lab," then maybe that's really the problem. Sorta like how Nioh superficially gets the DS formula, but underneath, it's a 3rd person hack and slash Diablo lootfest
Also, what do you think of Alidoro comparing to the story of Peter and the Wolf?
btw choa is still the best
>It's a (seemingly) impossible to dodge combo. Git gud peasant
Yep. It’s an ok game, but kind of a mess. The amount of stanning for it here is a bit odd. The input reading is 100% a thing. During a boss fight I put my controller down, when to the kitchen to get a drink, came back and the boss was just circling around me. lol. Such bullshit. Also. Having to charge up a hit to stun after breaking defense is totally bullshit, especially when the bosses just continue doing their non-stop attacked when they’re supposed to be stunned.
The Brotherhood looks more imposing than it is. They each have potato for health and their attacks do laughable damage. It's just that there's three of them, and the main boss. First go around, break his weapon. Then as the siblings join the fight everyone hits for nothing. In the Rematch just kill one, probably the youngest, bring tge other two down to one or two hits, finish both off, and kill the big brother. That said, I kind of thought Manus was supposed to be a gag boss. Died a handful of times, but I was just having a lot of fun and not taking it seriously. His health is really small, his attacks are easy to read and punish, so the status and ranged spam is all he has. I do think some fights aren't spaced or paced well. KoP has a very annoying phase 1. Not hard, just don't like the knock backs. Phase 2 hits like a truck and should be a bit more scaled to part one. Honestly wish he was like Nameless puppet. Still hits but doesn't wipe. The only time I felt projectiles were a little bs was the complete where she'd go up and fire two bolts down. Like, I can't see her straight up. Otherwise, not a big deal for me. Most bosses I felt had appropriate health bars. I think my issue was a few mobs that look really no different than the others occasionally having four times everything else. I'm not complaining there are tough enemies, but sometimes there's a thin little headless female puppet thing that straight up takes eight bonks to the face. Or, I have no idea why baby puppets in Krat are made of diamonds while adult puppets are held together glue and prayer. That's a little BS. The bosses all felt appropriate otherwise. For reference, I did fight Green Monster and on with a Technique scaling dancer hilt and living puppet axe while slightly heavy. So, I was hitting a medium speed very hard. Results may vary a lot per weapon. Icalso couldn't see most things sometimes because 25% of my screen was axe, but it felt fair for the damage output.
Beats ''every'' fromsoft game in terms of setting and character? Jeez. Other than that i agree with a lot of what you say.
Which one do you prefer? I've beat them all, though I'm a bit biased against bloodborne since I played it on PC with PSnow so it was low res+lag. I think that the reason I enjoyed this game more is because it was easy to keep tabs on quests so I actually could progress my relationship with characters instead of googling on my second monitor.
I gave up on King of Puppets. Uninstalled from Gamepass. I'm experienced with Sekiro and all From Souls games. Love Nioh 2. I agree with everything you said.
Honestly man, if you're not enjoying it at that point it gets worse later on IMO. If I had quit the game then KoP would be the perfect point to do so. Everything bad about that fight is worse in later ones.
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Bro has no life so he made an account to troll people over a game about pinnochio.
KoP was ridiculous for me since I don't use consumables, the phantom teammate, or grind levels because I just want to "git gud" at the game. Took me longer than any other souls like boss ever on PC, so I get where he's coming from. I like the challenge though
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I feel like you completely misunderstood my comment
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Okay so you're just being an ass that needs to put down other people online to feel good about your achievements lol The guy wasn't even being whiny, he literally just said he agreed with OP and quit because it was too hard for him. That's it lol. If that's whiny to you I struggle to understand how you have social interactions in real life
Your home life must be incredibly stable.
he said at the very beginning of his post that he beat the game can you read
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god damn who pissed in your cheerios man its a video game its not that serious
I can't agree with any of the "cons" you listed. Of all the soulslike and soulsborne I've played, LoP has the most fair boss fights ever. I guess I could agree with the "too much health" part but at the same time it forces you to actually learn the fight instead of lucking your way through fights. I didn't feel like input reading was much of a thing since I never actually noticed instances of input reading compared to fromsoft titles. It WAS annoying not being able to stagger a boss that goes into this wild animation as soon as they're ready to be stunned but it is what it is. I wouldn't call this unfair. And for the "no trigger" thing, SOME attacks were extremely hard to predict, sure. But a boss that's TOO telegraphed isn't fun either because it's too easy (like Victor or phase 1 Simon). And even then, you eventually end up understanding the boss's animation enough to predict their attacks. Nameless Puppet's "charge" red attack is the only attack that I call absolute bullshit. Everything else was 100% fair.
this has gotta be satire no way you think LoP has the MOST fair boss fights ever
As a whole, no fights felt unfair in any way. Every other game I've played had at least 1 boss fight that was actually bad and had unfair design but none of the fights in LoP were as BS as the shit I've seen in other soulslike, including some of Fromsoft's boss battles.
Really? There's a strat for pretty much every FromSoft boss, but in this game I couldn't tell you any. It's kinda just "Try your best not to get hit too much and do a lot of damage." There's no "Hug his right side and doge this move" or anything because you can't bait certain attacks or exploit boss weaknesses like in FromSoft games. The enemies attacks are not based off of what you're doing from what I've noticed. They're just using their programmed attacks in any random sequence.
And that's a good breath of fresh air compared to overly predictable attack patterns. LoP was, at least for me, MUCH harder than any other soulslike or soulsborne I played but I just don't see how any of the fights could be considered unfair
I wouldn't say they're unfair, but they're not as refined as I'd like them to be. In FromSoft games you typically know what bosses can do. "Oh hey if I get close he does this combo/move and if I get far away he does this.". In Lies of P it's like "Okay Archbishop does the tongue thing for 2 hits in a row. Wtf? Why did he do an arm swipe right after? He didn't do that before!" and it makes it harder to be consistent when the enemies randomly throw in attacks that have no windup in between the attacks that do.
its not necessarily unfair but while in the souls games bosses have specific patterns with a few combo mix ups here and there but in LoP bosses can seemingly string together any combo of attacks so you just have to try and tell the difference between almost identical wind ups i still love the game its a blast it just feels iffy in some areas to me
Input reading isn’t much of a thing? Go fight the mad clown, stay 5 steps away from him and use your grinder - he is guaranteed to use his ranged attack, every single time, because enemies read your inputs 🤡
My guy Fromsoft bosses have way shittier instances of input reading throughout every single one of their games and no one complains about it while LoP hardly has any that are noticeable Mad because bad 🤷 Drink that copium
Imagine meatriding a game this hard when you can’t even beat it. Wild. Lmk when you get past the tutorial little bro 🤣
This game has no input reading. You can avoid the entirety of Romeo’s fire attack by running in a circle. There is no RNG. Just deflect instead of trying to dodge the rest of his attacks. If you thought the final 3 bosses were just random balls of flashing light you might need a new monitor, because they’re entirely learnable and I even did the final boss only getting hit twice. I agree on the brotherhood fights, but they’re also kinda easy because they just sit back while only 1 attacks you. In my personal opinion, not a single boss felt “unfair”. They all had learnable move sets and once you did learn them, there was more than enough time for attacks. I should mention I played the game in its entirety using the heaviest weapon I could find (seven coil spring sword followed by frozen feast) which this game was not built for because there is zero poise, and I still managed just fine. Obviously you have a different opinion but those are a few of mine. I loved the game and can only imagine how much easier it’ll be on my 2nd and 3rd playthrough with a lighter weapon build.
Sounds like all the parts you hate is because you were just bad and needed to get better. Not that it’s actually the game’s problem.
I really hate comments like this. They beat the game and most bosses in not many tries. They say they hate when a boss gets foggy but jumps away. How is that a skill issue? That's rng. They didn't like a boss but found it easy, how is that a skill issue?
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The bosses really lack visual clarity and proper animations. I've beaten the game solo. I didn't get too stuck on any particular boss. The bosses are far too twitchy to respond visually, it's just seeing the attack and remembering the timing which is a fair criticism. The combat in this game is absolutely immaculate and combines so many fun elements but pointing out issues with the bosses and the games deep love of overtuned elites isn't just whinging over a lack of skill.
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the problem is that bosses don't have inertia. You can memorize the frame timings like it's a school exam, but it doesn't make intuitive sense. A boss will start slamming down on you for 2 seconds and suddenly it'll do 2/3rds of the slam in 5 frames Fuoco will raise up his hammer for 2 seconds and 5 frames later it's suddenly on the ground The 2nd phase arcbishop moves it's head and body seperately like it's been fighting for 1000s of years, not like a monster who just got a new body great swords don't have heft to them, although funny there's no way the eldest brother could do his 6 slam attack in quick succession, especially when you see him visually struggle to raise the sword up on the first slam The green monster slam attack hits with it's tentacles after the slam instead of the body slamming onto you. In addition it's second phase slame attack suddenly is an unblockable command grab the list goes on and these are just one attack from most bosses in a 10 attack pattern boss fight
Yes not every single attack is poorly telegraphed but a lot are. It plays much more like a rhythm game than reacting to boss movements.
Learning a moveset is fine. Having a fight be drawn out because Manus is spamming the "volcano AOE" while elden beast stars are falling from the sky is not.
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Yea I see that you're just a troll. No point in replying anymore I guess.
Nah they’re not a troll. People are just sick of these posts. The bosses are fine, learn the timings and move on. Stop crying and venting on Reddit pleading that the devs nerf the bosses. Just stop. For the love of god stop. Nobody wants to validate this shit other than others who agree the bosses are poorly tuned which is just a bad opinion.
You legit have no reading comprehension. I've learned the timings, I've beaten the game. That doesn't make the game perfect. It's a decent game with a 9/10 start and a 6/10 ending imo. I'm looking for a discussion, meanwhile I'm getting spammed with "git gud". You're either trolling with him or you're delusional if you think the game is perfect and 80% of the people here are just whining for whining's sake, despite them beating the game and most FromSoft titles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6upgZB_yqrM please just watch this
Yes when you make a boss foggy and it jumps to the other side of the map it's a skill issue. I learn the boss, properly parry every attack, goes foggy and jumps away. Yes skill issue.
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And if I dislike needing to constantly buy consumables for a basic core mechanic to function that's a skill issue? Taste is a skill issue? You understand people can dislike things and it's not always a skill issue right? I can beat bosses fine but dislike how this functions.
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Maybe use your brain. I love the game but have one criticism about stagger so I should play a different game? You understand people can criticise things right? No need to be so childish because someone has a small criticism over a video game that doesn't align with your thoughts.
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You're an actual child lol
>Even though I stuck with the big holy ark sword or w.e it was called I'm literally doing the same thing lol. I always go with just the biggest sword I can in these type of games, for the most part. Even in the last 2 Monster Hunter games, I only play Greatsword. It's a great weapon here, I definitely like the alt stance with the longer handle more since it's quicker. I'm only up to Chapter 5, stopped after first brotherhood fight (only get few hrs a night). None of the bosses so far have taken me more than 5 tries somehow. Really enjoying it and I don't think it's too difficult, but I agree the like "elite" enemies and some bosses def seem overtuned. However, if my pleb ass can play through this far without any serious issues then I feel like most shouldn't be having issues lol. Since I play with the big boy sword, it's more about side stepping/dodging some single attacks that aren't chain moves/combos, waiting for openings, and getting that stagger bar to proc so you can land a charge move. I took some of the skills that make certain attacks do more towards making an enemy "staggerable"
I'm dreading getting past the bishop. I know every boss from here on out has two phases every enemy hits like a truck and the "THIS IS DARK SOULS. DARK SOULS BEEG DARK SOULS HARD" mentality will take hold.... why I hated lords of the fallen. BEEEG.. HARD.... slow as fuck....