Lies of P | Version 1.3.0.0 Patch

[Dragon Lord]

There's a lot. I'll hide the list of my issues with the game below and you can take a peek if you want:

Spoiler

• Bosses gradually become bigger and bigger HP sponges, causing boss fights to take far too long. A boss fight that drags on because the boss has so much HP and you do so little damage just becomes boring and unfun.
  
• Weapon upgrades feel absolutely worthless. I have a +6 weapon (highest I can get it to right now) with I think 25 Technique and my damage is non-existent, and it feels like I do as much damage with this +6 weapon as I did with it at +0. It is extremely unsatisfying when you upgrade a new weapon and... it doesn't make any difference at all.
  
• As the game progresses, bosses become more and more hyper aggressive and they give you little to no openings for attacks. They tried so hard to copy Bloodborne but missed what made BB's combat so good by light years, and it really shows that they were just hoping that making the game look like BB would bait people into buying it (seems to have worked).
  
• Perfect Guarding is an absolute joke. Not only do you have to perfect guard the entire combo string (which can be upwards of 10 attacks for some bosses), but Perfect Guarding knocks you away from the boss so you can't even punish them if you do get through the whole combo.
  
• The timing for Perfect Guarding and Parrying is way too small. I'm willing to bet it's probably a frame perfect window, and a large majority of gamers are not going to be able to hit that most of the time, especially with how fast most attacks are in this game. It needs to be a little more forgiving so that it can be a mechanic that most players can actually use.
  
• Openings for attacking bosses are far too small. Due to a combination of bosses having little to no recovery time on their attacks, and being able to chain right into their next combo, and also the player having so little reach, which leads into my next point...
  
• Weapons in this game have far too small of reach. Even a weapon like a spear barely hits out in front of you, and it's just plain stupidity.
  
• Stamina regen is far too slow. This is another factor that ends up making boss fights feel like they drag on forever. Especially as you get further into the game and bosses start to use combos that take your entire stamina bar to dodge. Then you're just stuck backing off and waiting for it to regen constantly and never getting an opportunity to attack. Even with an item that increases your stamina regen, it still feels slow as hell.
  
• Two-phase bosses are horribly imbalanced. You are already extremely limited on your healing (especially if you don't invest in the +1 healing item perks) and the first phase of the boss is extremely HP-spongy already... well, hope you like fighting a second, full-HP phase that's just as much of an HP sponge as the first, and unless you had a perfect, no-hit fight against phase 1, have fun not having any healing.
  
• Healing, better dodge, etc., being locked to an extremely crappy and restricting skill tree system is probably one of the most idiotic things I've ever seen a Developer do in a Souls-like game. It makes Dark Souls 2 Adaptability stat look genius (context: Adaptability was a stat in Dark Souls 2 that determined how many i-frames your roll had, so you had to put levels into it to get a better roll).
  
• Bosses have ridiculous attack speed despite having gigantic weapons. One boss has a huge sword that makes Cloud's Buster Sword look like a toothpick, yet the boss can swing it around as if it were a tiny, light-weight dagger. This is something that always annoys the hell out of me in games (and yes, plenty examples of it in Fromsoft games too).
  
• Using that same boss as an example, hitboxes in this game have to be some of the worst I've ever encountered. Not only does the boss I just mentioned have stupidly fast attack speed for the size of his sword, but the hitbox of the sword is also longer than the sword itself is as well. Just one of many instances of that kind of bullshit in this game.
  
• You can get stuck on bosses. I don't mean stuck as in can't beat them, I mean stuck as in you're trying to run away from the boss because it's about to do some big attack, but you end up not being able to move because you're stuck on the boss's toe. Happened to be several times against one particular boss that costs me multiple near wins and it was frustrating as hell.
  
• Throwing items are stupidly overpowered, and most of the time will do more damage than your weapon will. I mentioned my weapon in  a point above, and throwing items still do 200-300+ more damage. I can just buy 5 of every throwing item, which is the most you can hold at a time, and spam them to chunk like 70-80% of a boss's health bar off in mere seconds because you can spam throw them.
  
• It feels like they really wanted to push you into using the summons for boss fights to have openings to attack, and I hate it. I hate when a game feels like it balances around using shit like that (I have the same problem with Elden Ring and its Ashes summons).
  
• While nothing to do with game play mechanics, I also feel like the level design is pretty boring and the linearity of the game is a huge missed opportunity. So far I've been on a rail and have encountered zero optional areas to go explore.
  
• Durability is a joke. A huge chunk of weapons can't even make it to the end of a one-phase boss fight, but two-phase boss fights? Pfft. Have fun trying to find a safe time to use your grinder to restore your durability. Did they forget they were trying to copy Bloodborne and ended up copying Monster Hunter for a bit?
  
• The weight is also a joke. Despite having put more points than I would have preferred in Capacity, I'm still struggling to stay in the light category of weight. The defensive equipment is far too heavy than it has any right to be.
  

The devs missed everything that made games like BB good and took everything bad about the Souls games and compiled them into one huge pile of cow dung. Shame because the first three or so bosses of the game are fine, but then you progress further and further and the game just nosedives into the ground. Each new boss I get to ends up being "Ugh, time for another shitty boss" instead of "Alright! Time for another boss, can't wait to see how amazing this fight is!" because I know it's going to be another slow, boring fight because you can't be aggressive at all, and the bosses have such long combos that you just stand around waiting for that one attack you can get it every 10 minutes.

tl;dr version: They tried to copy Bloodborne, missed the mark by a comedic amount, and just ended up making a game that takes everything bad about the Souls game and compiles it into one place. Extremely disappointing because I thought this game was going to take home the crown for my personal game of the year, but instead it's going to be a game that I get the platinum for and then forget it ever existed. They went heavy on artificial difficulty and it just makes the game boring and unfun.

[Moonface]

I looked through your whole spoiler DL and quote replied to each point where I had something to say. Keeping it in the spoiler tag though just for anyone else who doesn't want to see (the spoiler is purely about game design and mechanics, nothing about story or anything like that, for anyone wondering what might be in it but feels apprehensive).

Spoiler

Weapon upgrades feel absolutely worthless. I have a +6 weapon (highest I can get it to right now) with I think 25 Technique and my damage is non-existent, and it feels like I do as much damage with this +6 weapon as I did with it at +0. It is extremely unsatisfying when you upgrade a new weapon and... it doesn't make any difference at all.

I don't think I have anything beyond a +2 right now (maybe one thing is at a +3) but generally I've found increasing damage in any form seems very minor in the game so far, whether it be through upgrading weapons or levelling up. I've been noticing that when I level up any stat that affects my weapons, it'll increase by 1-4 points at most. I don't know if that's also due to the weapons I've been running (Greatsword of Fate, Salamander Dagger, Electric Coil Stick) since the last two are the ones that I've noticed get negligible increases whereas the GoF at least goes up by like 11 points per upgrade/level up. But it does make it discouraging for me to care to upgrade a weapon when the number goes up so little that it doesn't feel like it'll make a difference and I'd be better off waiting to see if I find another weapon later that I like that benefits more from upgrades.

Perfect Guarding is an absolute joke. Not only do you have to perfect guard the entire combo string (which can be upwards of 10 attacks for some bosses), but Perfect Guarding knocks you away from the boss so you can't even punish them if you do get through the whole combo.

Yeah I've found Perfect Guarding to be hit or miss when it comes to where you end up after doing one successfully. Against King's Flame, Fuoco I would stay in place when PG'ing the red overhead smash, but when it would perform the red thrust along the ground attack I would sometimes remain directly in front of the boss, get pushed aside, or I wouldn't move an inch and the boss would just keep moving as if I never blocked the attack. I wonder if it's an issue with the hitboxes trying to not overlap and sometimes it pushes the player and enemy apart because the game thinks clipping is occurring, especially for attacks that smash you into the ground and can put you beneath the boss.
As for the combo strings, I haven't really come across anyone with combo strings apart from the one enemy I encountered for the first time last night, which is the chunky Decay dude with the armour plate arm you first fight at the top of the wooden room with all the gears and cogs in it. PG'ing those combos wouldn't be too bad if not for that the enemy would be pushing me backwards each attack until we end up at the walls and then the camera can't cope with it. Sekiro has enemies with 6+ combo strings (it might be higher but I know 6 is a good actual number) but you aren't moved when blocking and those attacks are done in a rhythm of sorts so you can naturally pick up the timing for blocks. I don't know if this game does that or not, but if it is failing to make the PG mechanic work well with combo strings that's definitely a case of the game failing to make the mechanic work rather than bosses having chains that are too long since other games like Sekiro managed it fine.

The timing for Perfect Guarding and Parrying is way too small. I'm willing to bet it's probably a frame perfect window, and a large majority of gamers are not going to be able to hit that most of the time, especially with how fast most attacks are in this game. It needs to be a little more forgiving so that it can be a mechanic that most players can actually use.

The only struggle I've had is mostly being able to get the timing correct on attacks that have a weird delay to them or come from an angle such as overhead where it gets hard to track the movement in the heat of the moment due to needing to move the camera upwards to keep it in frame (very notable on the one big robot enemy in Venigni's Factory). I've been heavily relying on the Perfect Guard ability that the Greatsword of Fate handle provides for when I need to block an attack that I'm not managing to block by myself, but that only works if I have the Fable for it. I don't mind using it while I'm learning the patterns of an enemy but it does start to feel a bit shit when it turns from a learning aid to a crutch.

Openings for attacking bosses are far too small. Due to a combination of bosses having little to no recovery time on their attacks, and being able to chain right into their next combo, and also the player having so little reach, which leads into my next point...

This as well as the opening for landing a heavy attack when the Stagger meter is flashing. I know there are upgrades to make that meter last longer but sometimes it feels like the game is punishing me until I pick that upgrade. I don't expect to be able to get a heavy attack in every time that meter flashes, but the risk/reward system of it feels like a blind coin toss sometimes and other times like you're at the mercy of attack pattern RNG.

Weapons in this game have far too small of reach. Even a weapon like a spear barely hits out in front of you, and it's just plain stupidity.

Had this last night actually after my last post in here. That aforementioned Decay enemy had the Stagger meter flashing, and I proceeded to entirely miss a double heavy attack despite being what felt like more than close enough to hit it, and I was using the Greatsword of Fate which isn't even a short weapon.

Stamina regen is far too slow. This is another factor that ends up making boss fights feel like they drag on forever. Especially as you get further into the game and bosses start to use combos that take your entire stamina bar to dodge. Then you're just stuck backing off and waiting for it to regen constantly and never getting an opportunity to attack. Even with an item that increases your stamina regen, it still feels slow as hell.

My gripe with stamina regen right now is just that stamina is used when running outside of battles. After playing Elden Ring where stamina only depletes during encounters it feels like a step backwards.

Two-phase bosses are horribly imbalanced. You are already extremely limited on your healing (especially if you don't invest in the +1 healing item perks) and the first phase of the boss is extremely HP-spongy already... well, hope you like fighting a second, full-HP phase that's just as much of an HP sponge as the first, and unless you had a perfect, no-hit fight against phase 1, have fun not having any healing.

Elden Ring has I think two bosses that are "two-phases w/ full-HP" style, which is Malenia (who also heals health every time she hits you in either phase) and Radagon/Elden Beast (granted this is two separate bosses but given they occur back-to-back they pretty much fall into the style of a "two-phases w/ full-HP" boss) but they work well because you can get like 12+ healing pots and there are upgrades to also make those pots heal more per use too. I don't know how high this game goes with the total number of health pots you can have on you (although I do like being able to always regen one pot by being aggressive when you run out) or if they heal more as the game progresses, but given how I've often run out of pots before getting a boss to half health I can't imagine a "two-phases w/ full-HP" is going to be anything but a slog by the time I fight one of those bosses.

Throwing items are stupidly overpowered, and most of the time will do more damage than your weapon will. I mentioned my weapon in  a point above, and throwing items still do 200-300+ more damage. I can just buy 5 of every throwing item, which is the most you can hold at a time, and spam them to chunk like 70-80% of a boss's health bar off in mere seconds because you can spam throw them.

Oh yeah I've noticed this too. I used one of the basic fire throwables you first get in the game against one of the big titty Decay throwing enemies and it one shot the things, while my Salamander Dagger would take 5+ hits to kill them. It probably explains why throwable items seem to be incredibly rare in this game, whereas in any FromSoft game I've played they felt pretty common and like they were meant to compliment your weapons rather than always be on par or surpass them.

Durability is a joke. A huge chunk of weapons can't even make it to the end of a one-phase boss fight, but two-phase boss fights? Pfft. Have fun trying to find a safe time to use your grinder to restore your durability. Did they forget they were trying to copy Bloodborne and ended up copying Monster Hunter for a bit?

I've not had a fight long enough to encounter this but a streamer I watch who finished the game already was saying that in later fights they were having a real hard time not having their weapon break by the time they got into a bosses second phase and that it was a pain to start ending fights by fixing their weapon before finishing off the boss because they wouldn't know if that boss was going to enter a second phase or not and didn't want to get potentially screwed.

[Dragon Lord]

Spoiler

To give you an idea of how stupid the damage is in this game, I decided to see just how ridiculous using throwing items against a boss can be. I was stuck on a boss with a VERY annoying second phase, and so I decided to put my pride to the side for once just to test this out. Lost to his second phase a good... 6-8 times maybe. Went in with a full stock of throwing items (there's a merchant you should be finding soon from where you are that sells all of them with an infinite stock) and not only did I first try the second phase with them, I did it in less than a minute. My damage with a +6 normal weapon/+2 boss weapon was like 150-250 damage a hit. Each throwing item did 500-600 a hit. Plus you can spam throw them stupidly fast. I don't see why I should go into any boss fight from here on out and not just plan on spamming throwing items.

I've heard that perfect blocking with that sword is much better, but since I went with a TECH build instead, using it is a pretty bad loss for my already pathetic damage. Perhaps in NG+ when I'm running through to get second copies of the boss Ergos for their other items that I didn't take, I might build up a strength build and play around with those weapons.

Also yes, I forgot to mention how stupid trying to get the stagger on a boss is. They should have just made it so that the boss falls over when the stagger meter is full, like in Dark Souls 3/Elden Ring (and some Bloodborne bosses), instead of this stupid, "Okay, it's 'staggered', but it's still going to go batshit crazy with its endless attack combos so good luck getting that charged attack in kekw".

As you get further in, bosses start to combo more and faster. The next boss you're coming up to (if you haven't encountered it by the time you read this post) can just combo you near infinitely if you stay right next to him. It's pretty stupid. I've already seen some bullshit with bosses, and apparently it just keeps getting worse and worse as you go on.

While the Souls games do have phased bosses that regain their entire HP bar in the next phase, they are no where near as big of HP Sponges as the bosses in this game, and in Souls games when you upgrade your weapons and characters, you actually get stronger and can see the difference. Not in this game where it's like, "Oh, I do 100 damage with this base level weapon. Oh, I do 105 damage with this +200 weapon." So while the FromSouls games do this as well, it's not nearly as imbalanced as Lies of P is with its double phase bosses. Also as you mentioned, getting a decent stock of healing items to last you through all phases, where as in Lies of P, you're screwed if you don't perfect the first phase (or near perfect it) and go into phase 2 with all of your healing items (because so far from the multi-phase bosses I've fought, Phase 2 always ends up being ridiculously aggressive and combo heavy, and you're gonna eat steel at some point).

The devs clearly wanted the bosses to be extremely aggressive like in Bloodborne, the only problem is that the reason why Bloodborne is so damn fun is because YOU are also able to be extremely aggressive. You get this really satisfying system of just going balls to the wall with bosses and getting in their faces and just unleashing all hell on them. Get hit? Get back in there and regain that HP by tearing that boss a new one.

Instead they were like, let's take Bloodborne's hyper aggressive bosses, Dark Souls 2's slow, clunky, awful feeling base level characters, and put them into the same game together. It's like they took all of the wrong aspects of Souls game and meshed them together in this game. Bosses are usually always the highlight of a Souls-like game, but they definitely feel like more of a chore than anything in this one.

Probably just going to start cheesing with throwing items to get the game over with and get the plat. I like the setting and the story, but the bosses just make me sad. Only have a few more days until Fate/Samurai Remnant comes out, so gotta go fast.

[Dragon Lord]

Lies of P: Patch 1.2.0.0

Patch 1.2.0.0 is currently out now for Steam and PlayStation, but will be coming to Xbox at a later time. The changes to the game in this patch are as followed:

Balance Changes

Field Monster Balance Changes

• Decreased the HP of certain field monsters
  
• Increased the chance of breaking some monsters' stance and the frequency of stagger
  
• Increased the staggerable window time
  
• Decrease the HP of all 3 types of Dimensional Butterflies
  
• Increased the Specter's HP and damage
  

Adjusted the rewards for some monsters

• Increased the drop rate of Moonstone type items
  
• Decreased the drop rate of Star Fragments
  
• Increased the drop rate of Ergo items
  
• Increased the Ergo rewards of certain monsters that appear after "Lorenzini Arcade"
  

Boss Monster Balance Changes

• Decreased the HP of 'Fallen Archbishop Andreus'
  
• Decreased the HP of ['King of Puppets' in the first phase
  
• Decreased the HP of 'Simon Manus, Arm of God'
  
• Decreased the damage of 'Simon Manus, Awakened God'
  
• Increased the chance to break the stance of 'Simon Manus, Awakened God'"
  

System Changes Related to the Character Progression Reset

• Added the feature to reset the character's level, P-Organ, and Legion Arms at the 'Gold Coin Tree'
  
• Characters created after this patch will now receive 8 Gold Coin Fruits instead of 5 for their first harvest
  
• Adjusted the required amount of gold coins to reset the character's level, P-Organ, and Legion Arms
  

Additional Changes

• Players will now be able to carry more weight for each point spent on Capacity
  
• Decreased the weight of Amulets that could be purchased with Boss Ergo
  
• Players will now be able to land attacks better when they use fable arts that consume three or more slots. (includes Fable Arts that stack)
  
• Successfully performing the Fable Art 'Guard Parry' will now break the monster's stance
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug with the Legion Arm 'Pandemonium II - Acid Charge' rarely not working properly.
  
• Fixed a bug that the Legion Arm 'Pandemonium' consumed only Legion guage while using Grindstones
  
• Fixed a bug that Geppetto's face to flicker in the cutscene after defeating the 'Nameless Puppet' with Graphic Quality Presets - Low
  
• Fixed a typo of Carlo Collodi in the End Credits. (We sincerely apologize to Mr. Collodi and that was not a lie!)
  

You can read the full patch notes for Version 1.2.0.0 here!

---

Thank GOD they increased the amount of the weight increase from leveling Capacity. Maybe now I'll actually feel like the points I invested into it will mean something and I might actually not only get to put on all of my best defensive equipment at one time, but I might also be able to equip a secondary weapon! Decreasing the weight of the boss amulets is also A+ change. Also successfully performing a Guard Parry equaling a stance break is just... well, that's how it should have been the entire time.

Glad to see the Moonstone drop rate increased as well. Now it will hopefully be much less of a pain to upgrade weapons, allowing players to experiment more and find a weapon that fits their style the best.

Love that the stagger window was increased. Now hopefully there will be adequate time to dodge attacks and still get in there and get the knock down.

Not sure how I feel about just decreasing some of the boss's HP and not actually doing anything to make it feel like the player is just getting stronger. I'd rather see player damage increased over the boss's HP being lowered. Sure, in the end either change would mean the boss would die faster, but it's much more satisfying seeing your damage be bigger. Like, killing a boss faster, but still doing 100-200 a hit is just... boring. Now if I went into a boss and I was popping 400-500 hits, then we'd be getting some where... you know, kind of like what you can do with throwing items right now, haha.

Speaking of, no nerf to throwing items is kind of sadge. Also sad to see nothing about an increased Perfect Guard window or Parrying window (but at least now Parrying seems to get you SOMETHING for your effort).

Overall a decent patch with some nice QoL changes. Lots of complaining on Twitter from elitists complaining about the boss nerfs though, haha. What's funny is that they're claiming "you don't EVER nerf a boss in a Souls-like", and I'm just like... uhh... several bosses get the hell nerfed out of them in Elden Ring, and Fromsoft nerfed bosses as far back as Dark Souls II, so... you actually don't know what you're talking about at all.

[Moonface]

Just saw this and was coming here to post it myself.

It'll be interesting to see how the HP of that first listed boss will be since I just got to him last night and didn't beat him. I suspect only some bosses got a HP reduction because they were seen as a little unbalanced compared to everything around them or where they are within the game, since making the player stronger overall could lead to making other things around those bosses feel too easy by comparison.

I'm curious if I'll get 8 coins or 5 coins for the harvest though since I've yet to reach that, but my character wouldn't be classified as new since I already started my game pre-patch. Not fussed either way, but I do wonder about it.

Overall nice to see the developers quickly addressing things that will lead to making the experience feel better that couldn't be field tested from the demo content. Given this is their first attempt at a Souls-like it doesn't surprise me things aren't as on-point as they can be (and even then FromSoft couldn't even achieve that with Elden Ring) but at least they can recognize that and address it. Hopefully by the time the game doesn't need anymore patches it'll be as good as it can possibly be across the board.

[Dragon Lord]

Yeah, if they can shore up some mechanics (perfect guard, parry), I think the game can feel much better. I don't think there was anything wrong with the difficulty of the game, I just felt there was a lot wrong with the mechanics of the game that made things feel extremely tedious or unbalanced. They still have a ways to go, but at least this is a good sign of moving in the right direction.

Sadly there's nothing they'll be able to do about the terrible hitboxes in the game, so that's just something we'll always have to live with.

[Moonface]

I'm sure hitboxes could be resized if that's the only real issue that they have. I know DbD has redone hitboxes at times on things so I don't see why this game can't do it too.

As for boss HP tweaks, I just beat the boss I was talking about and his health is definitely less. I will say that as the first two-phase fight of the game, weapon durability running out was very very noticeable. I was having to repair even during phase one, and although it's a neat idea to juggle repairing during a fight I'm not sure if I like it. Feels more like an annoyance than an approach to resource management.

[Dragon Lord]

One thing I wish they would have fixed is the extremely annoying issue of the game eating inputs. Like, there are times when I have to hit square 4-5 times to get a heal used. I thought maybe it was just my controller at first, but I've seen a lot of other people talking about it as well, so not just something I'm experiencing. Very annoying when you need to heal in a hurry and the game is just like, "Nah, I don't feel like it right now."

[Moonface]

One thing I wish they would have fixed is the extremely annoying issue of the game eating inputs. Like, there are times when I have to hit square 4-5 times to get a heal used. I thought maybe it was just my controller at first, but I've seen a lot of other people talking about it as well, so not just something I'm experiencing. Very annoying when you need to heal in a hurry and the game is just like, "Nah, I don't feel like it right now."

Ha, I always spam the heal button like a madman in any Souls-like game so I would never be able to tell if inputs are being eaten.

I do wonder just how high I need to level up Capacity to get out of Slightly Heavy status. I tried throwing five levels into it and it didn't change anything so I just threw the levels into other stats instead.

[Moonface]

So I just beat the King of Puppets boss and got fed up of not being able to learn the attack patterns of the second phase due to dying too quickly during it so I used a summon to give me some breathing room to actually get to observe and learn for more than three seconds. Gave me a good enough idea of things to be able to beat it without having to go through phase one a million times up learn what I needed to know.

The only boss I hate so far at all is the one before this involving the Black Rabbit Brotherhood. That fight is just straight bullshit and I used a summon for it in the end because I'm not spending hours on a fight because it wants to do 2v1, or up to 4v1 if you decide to only focus on the actual boss and ignore the people who join in.

I also learned that capacity also impacts stamina, as being lighter means you use less stamina and recover it faster. It makes sense but I've only ever associated weight in Souls-likes with dodging and nothing else, so if weight affects stamina even in FromSoft games I've never noticed/realized it before. XD

[Dragon Lord]

King of Puppets is the boss I did the throwable items testing on, mainly for the same reason I got tired of having to go through the bulky first phase just to get back to phase 2 to try and learn a completely new attack pattern. Good two-phase bosses don't really change much, they get an additional attack or two, but in this case you're fighting two completely different bosses with vastly different attacks and patterns, with the second phase being very hyper-aggressive and having combos that can end you instantly. Just not a very well though out boss, probably should have had it so when you got to second phase and died, you'd start back at second phase when you went back in.

Black Rabbit Brotherhood is also another stupid fight. He's the boss I was talking about when I mentioned has a reach far greater than his sword actually is and swings his sword faster than a dagger, which is utterly stupid considering the size of it. I ended up beating him by just running in circles to bait him into using one specific attack that he was slow to recover from (probably the only one he's slow to recover from) and run in and poke him real quick, run back out and repeated that until he was dead. When one of the siblings joined in, I would focus on them. You can backstab them, so I'd just abuse that and get them out of the fight quickly. Was not a fun boss in the end though, had to fight him in a very boring way.

I don't believer Demon's Souls (original, not sure about Remake) or Dark Souls had a stamina regeneration penalty for using heavy armor, but Dark Souls 2, Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring do all lower your stamina regeneration based on your armor/weight. I think Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring are purely based on weight, while Dark Souls 2 is actually based on how heavy the armor itself is. So even if you have enough Endurance to fast roll in full heavy armor, in that game you'll still suffer a stamina regen penalty just for having heavy armor on.

[Moonface]

I wouldn't mind KoP being what is essentially two separate boss fights if the phases weren't both full health bars. At least then you're less likely to walk into phase two with the shit already kicked out of you. Or at least make the second phase use attacks that you've seen before, which is something Sekiro does with its final boss fight which is like four phases long.

I tried focusing on the sibling as soon as they join, but found that I would constantly get bum rushed by a lunge attack from the main boss from off screen which would become annoying. That or the amount of attacks I had to block from both of them to get an opening would destroy my weapon durability into the red even if it was almost fully repaired beforehand.

Just defeated Victor and I liked this fight a lot. An actual good way to do a two-phase by having it change halfway through a single health bar, and not changing up the move set drastically either. I'm hoping more bosses going forward are this way but I'm not going to be surprised to be disappointed on that front.

Also, the Cube/Wishstone system is utter shite. As soon as I learned you have to keep buying Wishstones due to them being only one use I stopped caring, especially since the Gold Coin Tree system is like some F2P gacha style mechanic that doesn't belong here.

[Dragon Lord]

Yeah, like I mentioned, good two-phase fights in the Souls games always have the boss remain relatively the same in terms of move set. Some additional hits added to the combo, but nothing drastic like the King of Puppets being two entirely different bosses in one fight.

Victor was probably my favorite boss fight so far in the game. As you said, double phase done right and actually felt like a Souls boss and not a mess of bullshit. Unfortunately I can tell you right now that it gets worse from here on out. Much worse.

If the fruits were auto-collected when full, that'd be fine, but man... having to go back to the hotel every time and sit through the loading screens just to go up and collect them and go back to where you were is absolute ass. Just another thing that shows you that the developers had their heads too far up their behinds when making this game.

Also if you haven't checked it out yet, the weapon you get from the King of Puppets Ergo is pretty freaking cool if you're running a Tech build. Though there's a boss coming up that gets you an even cooler Tech weapon, so maybe don't invest in upgrading the KoP's weapon until later. I don't know what build you're running, but if you are running a Tech build, I cannot recommend the spear you get from the Priest's Ergo enough. That weapon is godly and has made so many annoying situations relatively easy with it's ability to poke and dash (running R2 for a lunging stab > roll away). It's also got a REALLY good charged attack, which also has a nice follow up combo. If you stagger a boss with a Charged Attack, you can combo into the rest of the R2 combo to get some nice hits in.

The weapon you can get from a boss that you'll be coming up to in a bit (if you haven't already fought it by the time you read this post) can get you an amazing Tech weapon too. Has S-scaling with Tech when you make the handle Tech. It has the ability to parry with the Charged R2 as well, but I haven't quite figured out how to get that to go off. Either way it's a really cool weapon and if you're running a tech build, I 100% recommend it, unless you really want the amulet (the amulet from this particular boss is also really good, making it so you can i-frame Fury Attacks with a dodge, though I opted for the weapon because I can deal with Fury Attacks other ways and the weapon was just too good to pass up).

Also the... I think it's called Dancer's Curved Sword or something along those lines, is also really good for Tech builds. At +10 it does such good damage (I have 30 Tech and my +10 one does slightly more damage than my +4 weapon I just talked about above... though I assume once I +5 that weapon, it'll pull back ahead), so it's a GREAT option for a normal upgrade weapon. The handle it comes with gives it a pretty good move set, though I also found a spear weapon that is Tech-scaling that I might try it with, to see if I can get the good damage of the sword with some additional distance.

[Moonface]

The weapon I've been running for a while now is the Greatsword of Fate Handle with the Sawtooth Blade, since I love the Absolute Defense ability the handle has that I can use to block red attacks when I'm not confident in my own timing, and the blade choice is just because it does a huge amount of damage compared to most of my other blades. Whatever the last two stats are in the upgrade screen as my lowest with both sitting at like 14 maybe while everything else is above 20 at this point.

[Dragon Lord]

I'm in NG+ now and not too happy. Let me give you a warning right now... WHEN PROMPTED TO GO INTO NG+ OR STAY IN YOUR CURRENT PLAY THROUGH, DO NOT GO TO NG+. There's some additional stuff you can do in the hotel after you defeat the final boss (pending you don't make a certain decision at the end) and the game gives you absolutely ZERO warning that there's new stuff to collect. A couple of the things are required for trophies/achievements if you're aiming for those, but you also lose out on a possible weapon you can get.

So of course I went into NG+ without knowing this, because again, I guess the developers are too fucking stupid to put a warning that there might be new stuff to do before going into NG+, and now I may have to do a complete third play through to finish my platinum trophy. Yay.

This game is so good it's going straight into the trash when I get done with it.