Lies of P | Version 1.3.0.0 Patch

[Moonface]

Dang, at least in Elden Ring when you beat the final boss but go straight to NG+ you don't lose out on the new items you can receive from the Roundtable Hold because all they require of you is to have the boss drop on you to perform the trade, so if you go straight to NG+ you just do the trade at the start of the next run instead of the end of your last one. That's such a ridiculous oversight to have post game content that players won't know about and can miss by being given a NG+ option as soon as they beat the last boss that a lot of people will probably just accept due to not knowing there's anything else to do.

[Dragon Lord]

It wouldn't be so bad if they just at least included something like, "There may be more to find.", but instead it just tells you what you'll lose if you go to NG+ and that's it. No indication at ALL that there's any new items to find in the hotel before going into NG+.

The amount of absolutely mind-blowing dumb decisions in this game are staggering, and completely detract from the few good points this game has going for it. Really did not expect this much disappointment from this game. PRAYING that Lords of the Fallen delivers on being a very solid Souls-like game.

[Moonface]

I wonder if the bad decisions this game makes are due to the developers being based in Korea. Apparently that market is notorious for games being made that just borrow a lot from others and I wonder if maybe they struggle when they do anything more original or less seen in games outside that market? Obviously it could also just be that this singular studio is making some brain scratching decisions but maybe it's a larger issue than one studio?

[Dragon Lord]

I think the biggest problem is that they don't seem to understand what makes Souls games so popular. Like, it's very clear in the story of the game that they were 110% trying to copy Bloodborne as much as possible, but the problem is they didn't seem to understand what made boss battles in BB so good. Yes, Bloodborne also has very aggressive bosses that don't give you room to breathe and are constantly on your ass, but you, the player, also get to be hyper-aggressive and always be on the boss's ass in return. It's a battle between two aggressive forces that are trying to one-up each other.

In Lies of P, they copied how the bosses are, but then they turned around and made the player extremely clunky and janky. That does not mesh well together. Paired up with them wanting players to use the Perfect Guard system, only to make it so stupidly precise. Then you add on the fact that a lot of bosses will spam their longest/cheapest combos constantly, and you're expected to get frame-perfect blocks on each one every single time... nah.

Game has a lot of promise, but the devs lack the experience and it shows, a LOT.

[Moonface]

Yeah I think one of the worst cases with the Perfect Guard is the boss you fight after arriving at the beach area. I fought it last night and while I didn't hate it, I wasn't keen on how you get given the Shock status effect on every hit from the boss unless you PG the hits, especially because unlike any other instance in the game it isn't building you up into Shock status but instead is instantly afflicting you with it. That in turn makes stamina regen practically non-existent so then you can't dodge and blocking gets harder too because that takes stamina too. I resorted to hit and run tactics on it which was fine, but Sekiro has a boss that is intended to be PG'd against but that works really well because Sekiro has a very good sense of rhythm to attacks.

[Moonface]

Lies of P | DLC Planned for Production
No idea what it could be but someone spotted that the developer Neowiz have a new job listing that makes mention of DLC being planned for production for Lies of P:

I haven't finished the game yet but I wonder what they could even do for DLC for this game. The very little I've let myself hear about the ending is that it seems rather definite and maybe makes a tease for what Neowiz's next game in this genre might be, so I don't have an impression it would fit as post-game DLC but anywhere within the rest of the game would disrupt the flow of the story. I guess they could just do a standalone story for the DLC with new areas?

[Dragon Lord]

It's kind of funny because just yesterday I was looking online to see if there was anything you could do with what appears to be a broken Stargazzer on... Pilgrim's Path, I think? It has no use right now, but everyone was theorizing that it'll likely be the entrance to a DLC area, and now behold, a confirmation that there will indeed be DLC coming.

Maybe it'll be a DLC that happens in the past, kind of like the Atorias of the Abyss DLC, where it takes place long before the events of Dark Souls itself, and you get to see what happened when the Abyss overran Oolacile before the area became the Darkroot Garden of the current day in the game. Maybe the Lies of P DLC could be us going into the past and witnesses the beginnings of the Puppet Frenzy/Petrification Disease.

Or it might be the boring and obvious thing where <insert new big bad here> tries to pick up the pieces of the master plan from the final boss of the game and succeed where they failed. There's also another possibility of what it could be, but I won't say anything about that until after you've completed the game/seen the "true" ending.

[Moonface]

It's kind of funny because just yesterday I was looking online to see if there was anything you could do with what appears to be a broken Stargazzer on... Pilgrim's Path, I think? It has no use right now, but everyone was theorizing that it'll likely be the entrance to a DLC area, and now behold, a confirmation that there will indeed be DLC coming.

Oh man I forgot about that Stargazer. That's the golden looking one that's ruined and says you can't use it right now, right? Considering it looks old, I would hope that means we go back in time somehow like that Dark Souls DLC you mentioned does, since then it would explain why that particular one is so much older looking.

[Dragon Lord]

Yep, that's the one. I forgot about it as well until I got back to it in NG+ and was like, "oh no, I never came back to figure out if this did anything."

Speaking of NG+, it's definitely been much easier than the first run. I can actually go face-to-face with bosses and eat several hits before needing to heal, and that allows me to be much more aggressive and get more hits in myself. Of course I expect that to stop with King of Puppets second phase and the late game bosses who are balls to the wall non-stop attack machines, but it's made the first half of the game feel better at least. Though I have also been using the Specter so far so I can get through NG+ as fast as possible and claim my platinum so I can be ready for Lords of the Fallen next week, so that also helps. Using the Specter on all of the bosses I can this time around, it really does feel like this game was made with the expectation that the player would always bring the Specter and I really hate that.

[Moonface]

I assume the Specter is a boss weapon drop from the late game? I don't think I've got that one yet but I also don't give much attention to weapon names.

Also because I was just discussing some stuff about the game with @ShiraNoMai and you're in NG+ to know the answer to my question I had no answer to, can you level up with Stargazers permanently in NG+ or do they put the mechanic exclusively on Sophia until the late game like how it does in your first playthrough?

[Dragon Lord]

Specter is the summon you can bring with you into boss fights.

Yes, you can level up freely at Stargazers in NG+. Very nice sine you get so much Ergo in NG+ that you can level up multiple times per area/boss kill.

[Dragon Lord]

Platinum completed. NG+ was much more fun and enjoyable. When you get to unlock so much more in P-Organs, everything starts to feel much more balanced, which really just goes to show how stupid the P-Organ system is. You can't unlock enough of it in NG to make the game feel good, and that's just horrible design.

In the end my thoughts are: Game had promising aspects, but far too much stupidity in the design/mechanics of the game that it completely ruins the positives the game has. If they make a second game, then I really hope they take much longer to really figure out how to make a fun game, because they fell short in a lot of areas in this game.

[Moonface]

Specter is the summon you can bring with you into boss fights.

Yes, you can level up freely at Stargazers in NG+. Very nice sine you get so much Ergo in NG+ that you can level up multiple times per area/boss kill.

Ah, I didn't know it had a name. I'd agree with your statement of bosses being designed heavily around the summon, purely because of how the Cube and Wishstones are mostly tailored to enhancing your summon rather than yourself. On that note, I think the Cube mechanic is a total waste and may as well not be in the game in its current state.

Good to know levelling up at Stargazers is available all the time in NG+. There's little point keeping it attached to Sophia for NG+ when you no longer need to learn about her character.

Platinum completed. NG+ was much more fun and enjoyable. When you get to unlock so much more in P-Organs, everything starts to feel much more balanced, which really just goes to show how stupid the P-Organ system is. You can't unlock enough of it in NG to make the game feel good, and that's just horrible design.

In the end my thoughts are: Game had promising aspects, but far too much stupidity in the design/mechanics of the game that it completely ruins the positives the game has. If they make a second game, then I really hope they take much longer to really figure out how to make a fun game, because they fell short in a lot of areas in this game.

Yeah, I really dislike how P-Organs aren't really balanced to make you consider what to upgrade carefully. Improving your Pulse Charges is likely the first thing any player will go for, and after that you have to grab stuff like Double Dodge and Grounded Dodge otherwise you'll be open to enemy stomp attacks without the latter. On the other end of the spectrum there's just totally useless upgrade choices like a higher number of consumables when they're already hard to find, or improving the Gold Coin Tree for a feature that isn't really that good.

It'd be nice if the DLC addresses some of the deeper issues with the game. They can definitely improve on the boss design with it for sure rather than waiting for their next game to do that.

[Dragon Lord]

I found the cube to be much more useful in NG+ to keep the Specter alive, especially in the last few boss fights. Having three uses of the Cube to heal him when needed meant he was able to keep the boss's attention longer so I could just go to town and get the fight over with faster. Obviously not much use when doing a no Specter play through, but if you end up like me and you just want to end your suffering and get the platinum done, Specter + being able to heal him three times + 8 of each throwing item = bosses done in no time.

More consumables is actually kind of nice I found out as well. Being able to carry more buff items on you was really nice so I could use them on Elites through out the levels as well. Though the problem is, as you pointed out, people are going to go for more healing items, stronger heals, and better dodge rolls over any of this other QoL stuff (though +1 throwing items is legit amazing so you can just unload an entire inventory of items into a boss's face). Healing upgrades should have been found throughout the game like in the Souls games, instead of being P-Organ mechanics. Dodge rolling should have just not been ass from the start instead of needing to upgrade it. This way people could have focused on ones that are actually important, without having to put them off longer to prioritize heals and dodge.

Instead they should have used those slots in the P-Organ for more optimal enhancements, such as increasing the frame window of Perfect Guard and Parries.

[Moonface]

I wish more Pulse Charges were given via the story, as the only time we ever get one that way is from Gepetto after the Puppet King. Rather than do it once out of the blue like that, we could've got one from Vegnigni after we rescue him at the factory for example.

I forgot until last night that some extra Pulse Charges are also in the sub-category upgrades of the P-Organ too, which is even more of a wasted spot than the parent category P-Organ upgrades that offer Pulse Charges because picking something in the sub-categories locks the rest of that entire category from being used in that parent category upgrade. I will say though, the upgrade that lets Pulse Cells recharge automatically when they're empty is incredibly good. Ever since I got that I rarely find myself waiting long to have another heal available to me nor do I have to get a recharge entirely from attacking, which is nice when I'm low on health or don't have an opening.

I'll probably use the Specter a lot more in NG+ mainly because if I already beat a boss without it originally, I don't need to wonder if I can beat that boss without summons anymore. Any that I did use it on though I'll probably try doing without it on NG+ at first just to see if maybe the fights aren't as much of a ball ache the second time around.

Also, going back to the discussion of the DLC, I wonder how far along they are with it already since not everyone on that development team would have been working on the main game as it got closer to going gold because there'd be nothing for the artists to be doing at that late stage when the environments, characters, etc. have been put together already and it's mostly the core game mechanics and general functionality left to wrap up. Plus the DLC was in mind during development given that they already threw in the broken Stargazer that is likely the gate to the DLC, so they must already have a good idea of what they're doing and what it'll contain. Maybe we'll see something for it at The Game Awards at the end of the year?