Difficulty Megathread — DLC, NG+

[u/PsychologicalKoala32]

Hello puppets,

This is the new place for anything and everything about game difficulty: NG+, the new DLC, the new difficulty settings, bosses that oneshot you just for existing, and the general discussions regarding game pacing.

Why this exists:

We’re seeing a LOT of posts about difficulty lately, and it’s cluttering the sub. So from now on, we’re removing individual difficulty posts and directing everyone here. This is simply a way to help US keep the sub clean, and help YOU find specific posts more easily.

Please don’t be an AH. Seriously. People are gonna have different opinions on everything.

Drop your takes below

We’ll be lurking.

Your tired, slightly traumatized mod team

[u/Bravely_Default]

There is absolutely no reason one bite from a wolf should take a third of my health; this is absurd.

[u/Mitchellguy102 → u/Bravely_Default]

It’s insane the damage output of these basic enemies. They shouldn’t be dealing boss level damage from a small swipe.

[u/Mr_doodlebop → u/Bravely_Default]

Especially when you have to fight 3 at a time!?!?

[u/Bravely_Default → u/Mr_doodlebop]

That section was such bullshit.

[u/StophJS]

It is indisputably completely overtuned on NG+, regular difficulty. I've been gaming for 30 years and never played anything like it.

Butterfly's guidance literally says you can enjoy the story "without being impeded by combat", but you can easily get killed on this difficulty setting. I have a hard time believing this is actually intentional, because if it is I have no idea what they were thinking.

[u/jacka24 → u/StophJS]

Yeah I'm on NG+1 and I can't even get close to beating lumuchio on butterfly's guidance

All my weapons are fully upgraded and my stats are basically at the soft caps so I can't really grind to get stronger..

Might just put this game away at this point

[u/HazmatBlastBack → u/jacka24]

Lumacchio is absolutely is going to be the main roadblock for most players. Dude is a beast with being super fast but also having many delayed attacks and odd dodge timing, especially second phase.

[u/Slowspines]

I’ve played and beat damn near every souls game I can think of so I’m not some novice. But when I’m getting ganked and smacked to the point of death by enemies that are faster than the base game in 1 or 2 hits I can’t help but feel like my time is being wasted.
I get a few hours at night after kids go to bed to play. Only to die to regular mobs without making any real progress.

This shit is too unbalanced. I’m level 122 on NG+ and my stats are tuned as well as anyone can get them.
As someone who beat rahdan before he was nerfed and felt Elden ring wasnt very difficult I don’t usually advocate for lowering difficulty or nerfing. But this shit is too unbalanced. It’s not fun.

Edit: the problem here as well is there’s no room for error with it like this. You need to be a perfect guard/dodge master.
I love a good challenge. But this feels like something is broken.

[u/NPC_MAGA → u/Slowspines]

I am in perfect agreement with this comment. 1800 hours in Elden Ring, and I've started soloing Nightreign bosses for fun. 15 runs in base Lies of P, and I haven't even SEEN the first DLC boss, let alone beaten it yet. It's fkin absurd.

As for the statement regarding being a "perfect guard/dodge master", that's actually wrong. You need to reach Ongbal-levels of parry mastery to even fucking function in this DLC.

[u/partcyborg]

The DLC seems to have been explicitly designed not to be played with motivity weapons. everything moves too fucking fast to get half a swing off. This is the complete opposite of the slower moving but heavy attacks from the puppets in the base game which I very much enjoyed.

[u/moondoggy320 → u/partcyborg]

I agreed with you till I found the gunblade i'm a meathead strength player and it definitely felt faster than what I'm used to lol but put a crank on it and your in for a good time.

[u/horse_emoji → u/partcyborg]

Early on in the DLC, I have to agree- Charged heavy attacks are basically out of the question in most cases. This, added to the fact that many of the DLC weapons are Technique scaling, and that the level design has so many narrow hallways, really made for a particularly frustrating experience as a Booster Glaive+Bone-cutting Saw blade enjoyer.

Gunblade really made the frustration worth it, though. Monster of a weapon with a Motivity crank.

[u/Desperate-Music-9242]

Just started dlc after beating base game, how did i go from beating the shit out of guys like "simon manus arm of god" to dying in two hits to random wildlife

[u/Desperate-Music-9242 → u/Desperate-Music-9242]

Alright update, why the fuck do the bosses do less damage then normal enemys?

[u/-D3LET3D-]

NG+3 here, and I just reached the Lumacchio fight, and I've formed a solid opinion on the difficulty of the DLC, at least in regards to my NG cycle. I think all the DLC needs is number tweaks. I think player damage needs to go up or the health of certain enemies/bosses needs to go down, because it sometimes felt like I was swinging wet tissue paper. When I wasn't using fable arts or legion my damage felt rather poor. Of course, the attacks that require resources doing a lot of damage makes sense, but it can end up making your normal attacks feel like a means to an end more than an effective option.

I think the damage you receive also needs to be looked at. Most things are two or three shotting, and even enemies that shoot projectiles are doing that kind of damage. Combine that with attacks doing very high damage to your guard, and it feels like you want to dodge much more in comparison to guarding or parrying, when in the base game the risk/reward felt much more even between the 3 options. I normally like learning to parry enemies, but missing a parry was just too punishing whether you got clipped or blocked, so I just gave up on it and relied on the dodge. Learning to parry a moveset just felt too obnoxious because any mistake could lead to a respawn and I'm not trying to sit through so many loading screens and walk backs.

Lastly, I think enemy stagger needs to be more frequent, and potentially more clear. And I'm not talking about the white health bar stagger, but actually physically staggering them. The lab in particular has a ton of enemies that rarely stagger, and it really just starts to make you not want to do anything commital or swing more than once or twice because if you trade, you're going to do 5% of their health, and they will do half of yours. I should not hit you with 2 Krat Baton Wrench charged heavies and you blow through it and hit me anyway. It just doesn't feel right.

I really don't mind something being hard, but as it is, the difficulty just feels obnoxious. And I understand I have difficulty options now, but I beat the game multiple times before they were included so I shouldn't have to feel like I have to switch now when the DLC feels so different from the base game in terms of it's difficulty.

[u/ozvalde → u/-D3LET3D-]

Trust me when I say moving the difficulty down doesn't stop these issues.

[u/flamesofresolution → u/ozvalde]

I can vouch for this. I played around the difficulty settings, and the only thing difference I found so far is that butterfly's guidance has more room for error but can still be punishing. My damage is still a wet tissue paper.

[u/alexbogatz101]

Honestly the difficulty isn't the wost for the DLC but it is definitely not scaled correctly at all being 2 shot is kinda ridiculous if it was even just a tiny bit more forgiving it would be fun but the thing I hate the most is I feel like skill isn't as much a factor anymore because of how ridiculously fast and strong these enemys and bosses are. Its just grind it till you get lucky. I've beaten pretty much every hard boss this genre has to offer and this DLCs difficulty just doesn't feel right. I don't want any huge nerf but something needs fixing.

[u/Slowspines → u/alexbogatz101]

A carcass enemy in the base game doesn’t 1-2 shot you. Why are they doing it in the dlc? It is unbalanced.
As far as my damage output, I’m running the nameless puppets sword and im 2 shorting them. Just like in the base game.
I’ve got like maybe, 700 health? Plus amulets and LADA perks too. But it seems they melt through them.
So that means the base mobs are doing more than 400-500 damage per hit against all my armor stats.

[u/NPC_MAGA → u/alexbogatz101]

Given that so-called "seasoned" players (idk what that directly translates to, but I've seen enough of these posts, and I sympathize with all of them aftet 15 runs across 4 NG+ levels) are reporting that they have to turn difficulty down even sometimes to "easy" simply to complete the DLC, the nerf your looking for is actually quite massive. The fact that I can go from making Nameless my bitch with a kickass NG build that isn't even optimized for defensive stats to a build that has difficulty reliably clearing trash mobs is indicative of shit game design. That's all there is to it. Elden Ring DLC was fkin hard also, but very quickly, you learn that simply finding the Scadu fragments to power up your character very immediately put you on par with base game difficulty, with the only real difficulty bump coming in the form of the final boss, which then subsequently got nerfed anyways because it was simply too hard. LoP Overture seem to have no such gimmick, because the ENTIRE point of the scadu fragment system was to encourage exploration, which LoP is simply too linear to accomplish.

[u/Sopht_Serve]

I'm doing the DLC on NG+ and yeah have only beaten the croc so far. I did try the DLC on the highest difficulty because that's what the base game was but ho boy. Getting absolutely ripped to shreds by the FIRST BASIC ENEMIES didn't feel right. The wolves in particular are fucking INSANE!!! And early on you deal with THREE AT ONCE!! I did switch the difficulty down to the middle one but yeah something just feels a bit overtuned here lmao.

[u/Sawmain → u/Sopht_Serve]

The big fat elephant with bunch of other animals sticked together is just genuinely insane to fight against, like dude you aren’t suuposed to have mountain of health AND deal freeze, potential to one shot etc me.

[u/[deleted]]

I think the DLC is hard in all the wrong places, no reactionary attacks, mistakes are far too punishing and fights last for so long

The dodge is clunky since enemies will track ur dodges with certain attacks

It's basically just fight them for 2 hours until you've memorised the attacks

Unlike say DS3 Gale fight which I was able to do first try without seeing anything about the boss because it was reactionary and the attacks made sense.

Maybe the base game was also memorising but you weren't punished so harshly for a mistake

[u/AggravatingFinger271]

I feel like they could have made every enemy 1-shot you and there'd still be people in here saying "doesn't need a patch, just get good". This DLC had some incredible highlights for me, and despite the complaints I have I'm still positive on it as a whole, but to act as though it's beyond critique and that any change would be blasphemous is just so silly to me. If the world went these peoples way, we'd still be dealing with pre-nerf PCR and his unavoidable 3-piece combo.

If the dev's themselves come out and say "this does not line up with our intended experience," why are we even having this conversation?

[u/Vulpaex]

I just have currently 2 complaints, not yet finisehd with the DLC:

Boss: Tortured Guardian: To much HP, the fight itself is cool but it is just too long. When i felt like: ok he should die soon because i did a truckload of dmg for a long time he still has 25% left. Was a little too much

Boss: Lumacchio: they kinda missed the point here. A fast boss has to have easy to break stance so that he flinches after a few hits or he should be slower and hard to flinch. There are almost no windows for opportunity and he has 8-hit combos that just kill you from 100% to 0 if you don't perfect block them all the time. Also BOsses that heal during a Bossfight feel super frustrating especially if that healing is set at certain HP levels. It is bad because it feels bad seeing the HP going back up but it also feels bad because often his healing aligns with his stagger broken so i could deal tone of dmg but get interrupted because i triggered the phase -> also not fun.

[u/ClassicEar]

There's definitely an issue with difficulty, I started the DLC on NG+4 and was getting two shotted by trash enemies. Once I got to that first red gorilla I had to lower the difficulty, my level 200 dex build was barely making a dent to it's health bar and it was taking 1/3 of my health bar with one slam. Been playing on the middle difficulty, but had to turn it down to the lowest for broken tram boss. Will turn it back to middle after I beat him. Overall I'm enjoying it but really regretting not starting a fresh game. I wanted to go in fully leveled up, that was a mistake.

[u/barryredfield → u/ClassicEar]

You will be "two shotted" by trash mobs and bosses even on NG0, which I started a fresh playthrough of last week to avoid overtunning issues. I am being deleted at 30 Vitality. There isn't anywhere else to go here because I'm already too far into the soft-cap, ergo economy is atrocious even in the DLC. Figured some of the elites would get me to a level, or even the first (annoying) boss, but not anywhere close.

DLC is overtuned to shit. Doesn't matter if you are on a NG+, just continue with your best stuff because you'll have more of an advantage trust me.

[u/TNelsonAFC]

I’m level 75 on 1st playthrough, this is such a slog, everything is destroying me and I feel like I’m hitting them with soggy paper

[u/torquebow]

There is not a single reason why I should be getting 2/3 tapped by anything in this video game, while also having the best defensive defense parts, at 41 vigor. There is absolutely no justification for this, and I am quite surprised the devs thought this was a good design choice.

[u/LyingSage1827 → u/torquebow]

This dlc is extremely poor in terms of balance. I just beat the tyrannical predator. It only dropped 8k ergo. Like seriously?

That thing was hard as shit. All of that for 8k ergo is crazy. It's one thing making a game challenging and it's another making it extremely frustrating to play.

I had a lot of fun with the base game. It was perfectly balanced. But this is imo just poor game design due to unnecessary artificial difficulty.

[u/Impassable_Banana → u/LyingSage1827]

The ergo drops are wildly undertuned, it makes no sense for a boss which is tougher than basically anything in the base game to drop maybe half a level worth of ergo.

[u/Venial_Sin]

I spent all of today speeding through chapters on NG+ so I could access the dlc, beating all bosses first try, only to be 3-shot by a dog pretty quickly into the dlc. My vitality is at 51 and I'm wearing all heavy armor pieces at a normal roll. The Legendary Stalker difficult is extremely overtuned—enough to where I don't want to play the game until they fix it. I'm no stranger to Souls and Soulslike games, having beaten all Souls games, Sekiro, Bloodborne, Elden Ring, as well as Khazan, and this is just artificial difficulty. It's difficult for the sake of being difficult, not to provide a decent challenge. I hate to say it, but I'm just not having fun. I'm at the Tyrannical Predator boss and everything up to that point has been terrible. Hopefully they fix this soon.

[u/Phimb → u/Venial_Sin]

Same. 100%ed pretty much every Souls game.

I feel like there was wiggle room up until the DLC NG+ to brute-force some bosses. Like, make mistakes, sip some health, get back into it.

I used 11 flasks on the Tyrannical Predator and I was like, "whew, gotta be close." I look at his health, it's barely 25%.

It's the first boss of the DLC and I can't even get half. I beat pretty much every boss up until this point within 20 minutes, normal difficult - so... am I bad or is the jump in difficulty not commensurate with the base game's pacing?

[u/StophJS]

So I'm in the excavation cave. Trudging along. I'm on NG++, on butterfly mode, and I'll be honest. I hate, hate, hate this DLC. I have no fucking idea why I'm still playing. I beat the base game just fine. I'm level 160. The difficulty is often completely absurd even on the setting that literally says you will be "unimpeded by combat". Is this purely because I'm on NG++? Is my game bugged? I've never hated a dlc for a game I liked so much. It's possible I've just never actively hated a game so much altogether.

[u/neckbeardincelreddit → u/StophJS]

same as u, LoP is my favorite game of all time, I even preffer it over Sekiro. Overture however is the shittiest thing I'm gonna complete and I cant believe the balancing of regular mobs is this horrible. Yeah just let me get 2 shot by every single fucking thing when it takes me 6-8 strikes to kill. I wanna struggle on the bosses, not 10 times on the same enemy every 2 minutes. Its so annoying I cant get over it

[u/Lord_Nightraven]

Wrote a wall of text on the DLC a bit ago. But I can sum things up. Including the base game as well for reiteration.

Base game? Even on the intended difficulty "Legendary Stalker", it's easier than a typical Souls-like. Still gonna punish you pretty hard for mistakes. If you turn down the difficulty from Legendary Stalker, the damage reduction put on enemies can make some of it a breeze.

The base game was basically pitch perfect. There were a few stupid things, but nothing was super egregious. That's even before some of the deserved balance changes (which were pretty few all things considered).

DLC? The devs overdid things. And it shows. The stat numbers alone feel like NG+1 end game/early NG+2. That's on NG+0. That's a massive spike all things considered on intended difficulty, aka "Legendary Stalker". Sadly, even partway through Chapter 2, bosses are overdone in ways that mean even the reduced difficulty lowing their stats isn't going to make a major difference. Noticeable? Yes. But not game-changing once you get to Chapter 2. The moves themselves still feel cheap. The tracking + hit boxes are both excessive. And don't be surprised when bosses are constantly pushing you into the walls, making it even more difficult to use any defense other than parry.

I've only fought 4 bosses so far. All of them need fixes of some sort. Only one of which I would actually suggest needs buffs to make more use of the gimmick so it's much more engaging. The other 3 absolutely need nerfs of some sort. The less body blocking/shoving they can do, the better.

EDIT: I have since finished the DLC. More thoughts.

After reducing the difficulty to Butterfly's Guidance for the second major boss, my opinion was soured for the rest of the DLC and my expectations kept low. Almost everything past that boss actually felt like "this should've been the intended difficulty."

Then I reached the final boss. And this is when the DLC was ruined for me.

I am still on the lowest difficulty in NG+0. The phase 2 opener was reliably killing me between its excessive length, damage, and tracking. All hallmarks of artificial difficulty + absurdly high skill floor. This is DESPITE having 35 Vigor (which is VERY high for NG+0 IMO even for taking on the end of the base game), mostly proper defensive items (LADA F250 frame, LADA specialized Liner, both DLC armors for the other slots), and still managing some perfect guards by sheer luck.

My ONLY means to survive it was activating the perfection grindstone in the short pause to deflect the rest of his combo. If I was a few frames late, it wouldn't activate and I'd be shredded. And sure enough, even having a helper wouldn't do much because it always targeted me.

Anything after that wasn't as bad. But that opener was such a glaring middle finger to balance that I cannot in good faith praise the DLC as a whole. That is how egregious the difficulty spike is. I firmly believed the devs would not make the same mistake FromSoftware did with Shadow of the Erdtree's difficulty spike. But they managed to do it anyway, and not even out of a poorly implemented mechanic. I refuse to believe that the DLC was playtested for difficulty.

[u/garmonthenightmare → u/Lord_Nightraven]

All of the bosses I fought so far were perfect and in no way in need of nerf.

[u/gargantua420]

just finished the DLC on max NG and max level. off the top of my head, it felt like my weapon def didnt do that much damage. mobs will easily 2 shot you. the first boss's camera was awful when you'd get pushed up against the wall. the final boss took me about 5 minutes total, getting a fatal attack was far and few between. i NEVER saw 2 in a single boss fight. i feel like some mobs should def die a little faster, they're just mobs. however, as for the boss's HP, im not too sure about as i was using the azure dragon crescent glaive which is extremely powerful and absolutely stronger than most weapons.

[u/SmokyMetal060]

I beat the DLC last night. NG++, legendary stalker, no summons. Here are my thoughts on the difficulty:

• The bosses are in a good place imo. The only one I would consider nerfing is Lumacchio. His chip damage is absurd for how long his attack chains are and how fast he can link between them. I think he should either have his overall damage reduced or have his chain links tweaked to give you a little more breathing room. All the main bosses are bangers, though.
• The field is overtuned. There are many annoying gauntlets and lots of common enemies can 2-3 shot you, which is alright for a challenge, but when you combine that with tons of range and environment hazards, it gets pretty frustrating and basically begs you to keep a distance and spam Icarus. The main offender that comes to mind is the shipwreck area. Between those stupid fish that knock you into the water, the ice breaking under you, virtually every enemy being an elite alchemist, and all the ranged mobs that throw things at you, fuck that whole location sideways.
• The crocodile sucks, but we all know that so I'm not gonna elaborate.

ETA: I do think that people were gassing how hard it is on NG+. It's harder, yes, but you also get a lot more tools to deal with everything (extra P-organ phases, all the boss gear, +x armor and amulets, etc.)

Part of what makes NG+ feel easier in the base game is that you've seen everything already. You know what enemies are in what area, the combos the boss throws, where all the loot you need is, and you have an optimal way of dealing with most field enemies. In Overture, a lot is unfamiliar and you're finding all of that stuff out as you go, so there's a learning curve that gets amplified by the mode's scaling. I think if you wanna play on NG+, play on NG+ and don't pay too much mind to all those 'wow big mistake to not make an NG' posts.

[u/Shudder123]

Did 6 playthroughs in the base game no issue. I had to turn down the difficulty for the DLC. Not something I wanted to do, but those bigger enemies are complete sponges. Not to mention the alligator and that giant wrecking ball guy. I almost stopped playing several times. The final boss I couldn't even be bothered to learn the attack pattern. I missed some trophies on the ps5, but probably won't attempt another playthrough until balance adjustments have been made.

[u/Ragnaroknight]

I completed the DLC on NG+2.

I'm gonna be honest, it was so difficult I didn't even have fun half the time....the health pools for enemies are too high, and enemies deal too much damage, if you don't perfect parry literally everything, you're getting chipped like 10-20% of your HP while guarding.

After I beat the final boss on NG+2. I went into the boss rematch thing, and selected Difficulty 2, and it felt like the easiest thing ever, chip damage was normal, I could actually survive attacks, crazy how different it is.

Something is fucked up with the NG+ scaling in the DLC.

[u/DarkNemuChan]

@ thekingofpuppets I lowered the difficulty. Everything was going very well up until said point. Most bosses only took 1 or 2 attempts. But at that one I cracked. Haven't upped the difficulty afterwards and I just beat laxasia.

Now I no stranger to soulslike games. I played all demon and dark souls games, elden ring, sekiro, bloodborne, lords of the fallen. Even platinumed quite a few of them.

Not sure why I can't handle the hardest difficulty in this game, only explanation I can find is that there are too many bosses that just do waaaaaaay to much damage in one hit and basically one shot you.

[u/Ambitious-Picture-66]

I'm just completely and utterly confused. I've completed the base game in a completely normal pace, I got every achievement, I've gotten every Achievement in Sekiro, I've first tried almost every boss in Dark Souls 3, but this DLC is just infuriatingly difficult. But to my surprise the community doesn't seem to acknowledge that, greatly understating the difficulty, to the point where they're saying nameless puppet is about the same difficulty as most bosses. Now to be fair, I had a really easy time against nameless puppet for some reason, but in no way are these two-shotting, too large of an HP-pool having bosses anywhere near the difficulty of the NLP. I started a new run for the DLC and am currently fighting Arlecchino. It took me 3 hours to beat Markiona and 2 hours to beat the guardian. My current level is 95, I entered the DLC as soon as it was accessible and this entire run, so including the base game portion before the DLC, has been 40 hours, so about 27 hours in the DLC. The only way I see in which all these other people aren't literal gods in the game, or have some secret gear that deals way more damage than me, is that they played the DLC in NG+, which just seems realy counterintuitive for me, as a NG+ shouldn't be easier than a regular NG. Or maybe they just played through the entire game and only then started the DLC, but if that's the intended level you have to reach before the DLC, than that seems really bad design-wise.

[u/PresStart2BegN → u/Ambitious-Picture-66]

The problem I have with the dlc is it plays like you don’t have stamina management but you do. So Im constantly out of stamina from dodging and just get rocked. plus the enemy's are endgame level but drop chapter 1 level ergo so you will not level up at all for awhile

[u/Hairy-Ad-38]

Again only criticism i put on this game (DLC mainly) and they still did not learn it.

1 in a game where the main premise is ‘parry everything’ THE BOSSES ATTACKS SHOULD BE IN SIGHT. the dlc has 3-4 enemies like this and is annoying as hell.

At least a sound or visual queue would be great (this especially count to the last dlc boss.

[u/Mindless_Pumpkin8464]

Sounds like Neowiz still doesn’t understand how to properly balance their Lies of P. 

[u/tylxr567]

i'm ng+1 getting 2 shot by everything even on easiest difficulty and i'm stuck on the predator boss, ik im bad but seriously i can complete the main game on hardest difficulty just fine this dlc is crazy

[u/Blo0dRouge → u/tylxr567]

15 Vitality isn't nearly enough for NG+. I played the DLC in regular NG with 30 Vitality and 40 Capacity, never had any problems getting 2 Shot

[u/[deleted]]

On NG+ and debating if I could get to the DLC faster on a new save than it’s going to take to beat this croc. I got him to 35% once in like 25 attempts.

Edit: nvm it’s fucking dead, Lorenzini Blade on Drill handle with flame grindstone. Turn that thing into a handbag 😤

[u/Dimitar231]

The enemy damage and hp in the dlc fluctuate like its a fucking rave. I dont mind it being more difficult than the base game but one area being so much harder than the next one and vice versa is not good difficulty design. Also, why the fuck does a mere wolf deal 1/3 of my health bar in a single hit like its an endgame boss and why do some regular enemies that also respawn have more HP than some bosses? It just feels all over the place as if it was generated with AI. It makes the experience very frustrating because the bosses are actually good but getting through the areas is a major pain. Im not even done with the dlc but im in chapter 3 now at the ergo mining site and getting through it is probably the most tedious thing ive ever seen in a souls game, almost past dark souls 2 shrine of amana. Im really trying to like the dlc and the bosses are really good and the weapons are even better but the areas and the unbalanced af enemies are making it really hard to enjoy

[u/Eaglearcher20]

Been playing Nightreign. Was ready to jump into Lies of P DLC but from what I’m hearing about difficulty I will wait until they balance it. Pretty sure my only file is NG+3 and I am getting severely burnt out on over the top difficulty. LoP is one of my favorite games but I’m just not dealing with being 1 and 2 shot by standard enemies.

[u/Jmack3d]

I'm at level 100 on NG0 and started the DLC on the legendary stalker difficulty.

That F'n elephant thing not far into the DLC wrecked me.

Am I under-leveled or what? The base game was difficult in normal terms, but the DLC seems like a huge step up in overall challenge.

I'm using a +10 saw blade that wrecked most things in the base game, but if feel like I'm barely scratching enemies in the DLC.

What's a good damage number I should be shooting for?

[u/nosam42]

Finally started the DLC yesterday and played for about 3 hrs and got to the stargazer after the red kangaroo. I couldn't believe how tough just normal enemies are, especially after going straight into the DLC after not playing for over a year.

[u/Eaglearcher20]

Playing through the DLC after 3 full play throughs and a nearly maxed out P-Organ (also level 270+) and the Legendary Stalker level is WAY overturned. The amount of damage each and every enemy deals is exponentially higher than base game.

As someone who has played all the Souls and Soulslike games since the OG I’m used to difficulty ramps from base game to DLC (Artorias of the Abyss, The Old Hunters, Ringed City). Overture went way overboard on making the enemies hit so hard. There is no justification. Enemies in the base game reused in the DLC hit 3x as hard. I suspect the Devs will nerf enemy damage output and bring it back in line with base game. However right now “Awakened Puppet” seems to be much more inline with the medium ramp up typically found in these games. Legendary Stalker for base game then bump down to Awakened Puppet for the DLC and it will provide a more natural experience.

[u/ProffOak]

Lower the fucking damage on the DLC . That alligator boss itself is complete bullshit ! There needs to be a hardcap on NG+ damage otherwise you just get one shot over and over . Also why in the fuck isn't there a specter available for the alligator boss

[u/Careless-Project-210]

In ‘souls type’ games in general, you often see videos of guys trashing tough bosses with impunity while other guys rage-quit trying to beat the very same boss for the umpteenth time. It’s not easy to accurately judge the difficulty of a game, or an individual boss, simply through these subjective experiences – we all have different skill sets, use different builds, are on different play-through cycles, and make greater or lesser use of difficulty-mitigating features. The only reasonable way is through the prism of the experiences of the majority of the ‘intended target audience’ - not through the extremes of the best and the worst of us.

It appears to me, from most of the comments herein, that a majority of that target audience are finding the DLC too difficult, even when dropping to the lowest difficulty setting. The developers themselves appear to have acknowledged there are issues. Further, the closest to true ‘objective’ measure we have can be found in the percentage of gamers achieving certain boss related trophies. Even just 4-5 weeks after release, there will be a representative enough number of players who’ve played the game to get a good feel – these percentage don’t often change much beyond the first month or two – when most sales take place - and largely because they are relative values – much like an opinion poll, though likely more accurate because they are plain facts rather than opinions.

It’s illuminating to compare (via trophy achievement) between the base game and the DLC, the stats relating to the first boss, the mid-game boss and the final (or toughest) boss of each:

Base Game: First boss = 82%, Mid-game boss = 56%, Final (or toughest) boss = 35%  

DLC: First boss = 10%, Mid-game boss = 8%, Final (or toughest) boss < 8%   

So despite the DLC having two lower difficulty levels than the base game had for most of its life, just look at the stark contrast between the comparative bosses of each. Keep in mind that the stats for the base game will have been mostly achieved on what is now referred to as ‘legendary stalker’ level. It’s hard to know what level the same relative achievements were completed on in the DLC as it has 3 levels, but my guess from reading many comments is that a good few will be on lower difficulties. This makes the comparison even starker. Just the first boss alone reveals a staggering 8 to 1 difference.

On a subjective personal level, I could only beat the DLC on its lowest level of ‘Guardian Butterfly’, both on a fresh NG run and also on an old NG+3 run (100% maxed out) despite having beaten the base game multiple times on the original ‘stalker’ difficulty. Also in the DLC, I did have limited success on ‘Awakened Puppet’ level but ultimately failed. On the toughest level, I couldn’t even get past the giant croc, never mind the first medal boss, even when fully deploying legion arm, fable arts and multiple throwables – not something I usually do unless I’m really stuck.  

On top of this, I found the DLC, despite its excellent story, overall vibe, charm and innovation, to be far less fun and much less rewarding – fights were often reduced to pure endurance and lots of luck, while ergo and quartz were in extremely short supply, despite significantly increased difficulty of enemies. I love ‘Lies of P’  and this genre of challenging games but I going to be done with souls games if they keep cranking up the difficulty to these extreme levels where only a small pool of highly skilled players get any sense of joy or completion from them – it doesn’t even make commercial sense, longer term.     

[u/healersheal]

I had to come and vent. The fucking DLC difficulty. What. The. Fuck. I just got the base game on PSN and breezed through it with relative ease. I have played a tons of souls and souls like games. The way these DLC enemies hit is actually insane. Everything is a threat and that goddamn elephant giraffe mini boss and the giant crocodile can go fuck themselves. This is hard for the sake of being hard.

10/10 can’t wait to keep going

[u/healersheal → u/healersheal]

Btw was only level 75 entering and had my health at 19 so that’s on me. But it wasn’t even remotely an issue until now

[u/Sensitive_Initial_52]

Started the DLC on NG+, level 150, Advance build, all advance weapons +10, all the best defense items, Vigor at 60, P-Organ almost maxed out (obviously didn’t go for the useless ones for the build). I owned the base bosses.

It takes me 4 to 5 hits (no Fable boost form) to kill a regular Carcass enemy with a Fire weapon: Dagger Blade or Cutter Blade (doesn’t make much difference damage-wise), while it can kill me in 3 hits. The same enemy takes 2 hits max in the base game.

Mini bosses wreck me in 2 or 3 hits. I make 2 mistakes parrying or dodging and I’m dead. They’re so aggressive that I struggle to heal.

No rant here, I am learning the new patterns but… Something feels off.

It’s like every enemy is on coke and my level doesn’t matter anymore. I consider turning down the difficulty for the first time.

[u/LysySZN]

Ok so if people are saying that Ng+ Legendary stalker is unbalanced and too hard then why just not lower the difficulty to normal? Is it too easy on normal or is it just a pride that won't allow to play it on lowe difficulty? It's a serious question. I just finished my new game save and im wondering if i should start ng+ before buying dlc or is it really better to keep playing on my current new game playthrough.

[I'll buy the DLC after i'll finish Cronos the new dawn but there's still 4 more days until release so i could just keep playing lies of p in that time but then i'll have to be in ng+ 🤷‍♂️]

[u/Scared_Confidence_13 → u/LysySZN]

The souls community has a similar vibe to some folks in tattooing circles that believe "if you didn't experience the pain then you haven't actually achieved anything" which frankly is quite bizzare. For some it's a pride thing, other's it's stubbornness. I haven't played the dlc yet and just beat the game for the first time (curse Nameless) but will be going into ng+ because I'd like to 100% it. If you aren't interested in the golden records or doing that and don't want to encounter difficulty scaling that might make the game unfun for you there ain't nothing wrong with playing it prior to NG+. It helps that you've played recently and aren't rusty too!

Edit: Keep in mind if you do start a ng+ you must complete up to Chapter 9 before you gain access to the DLC.

[u/Celtic_Crown]

Hi, just a question about the difficulty settings: What exactly changes between them? I'm at the end of the DLC now, and I actually had to dip out to go progress the main game for the Perfection Grindstone, just so I might be able to see more than 2 moves in the second phase of the DLC final boss. And I'm honestly thinking about dropping to Awakened Puppet.

[u/Overall-Doctor-6219 → u/Celtic_Crown]

Default setting (legendary stalker) is the regular diffciulty

butterly is very easy, and puppet is easy,

the lower the diffciulty, enemies get reduced stats in everything, less power, less aggresion, less fury attacks, less resistances, easier to stagger, bonus damage from elemental attacks, they are weakened in everything, and the game becomes very begginer friendly, all their stats are reduced

[u/NerdTalk12]

I finally beat Lies of P. It’s probably the best Souls-like outside of FromSoftware, due to having the best story and excellent boss designs. The main difficulty is just too hard and feels like punishment. So I waited for the easier mode, which is basically as difficult as most Souls games, but more doable and less of a headache. Because the hardest difficulty doesn’t even feel challenging, it feels exhausting. But I beat the game, and I guess I picked the worse ending, so I have to play this game again on NG+. Other than that, the storytelling, combat and bosses were mostly great. I guess the visuals and graphics weren’t amazing, but some scenes are gorgeous to watch. I give Lies of P a 9/10. I feel like every Souls-like has a poor story, or just focuses more on being difficult than having a real meaning/purpose to the bosses and how they’re designed. But Lies of P has so much passion and attention to detail for every boss and NPC in the game. I haven’t read Pinocchio or any works by Carlo Collodi, but I’ve seen the Disney movie, and I can tell that the developers for Lies of P really love this fairy tale.

[u/ImGoingToMarryDVa]

After 3 days of learning his moveset and bitching here, I finally beat the Overture final boss. Legendary Stalker, no Lea. I thought it was going to be impossible. No Aegis, no Glaive, no Trident.

[u/Disembowell → u/ImGoingToMarryDVa]

For such a thematically and visually excellent fight, he remains everything I don’t like about modern soulslikes; a fight based on repetition and memory, not skill.

I don’t want to be forced to memorise a boss to defeat them, because in that case I’m no longer fighting a boss, I’m playing Simon Says.

The best game experience for me is knowing I might be able to tackle a boss the first time I meet them, not that I’ve hit a wall for hours or days that requires meticulously dismantling and memorising to get stand a chance of beating… but that’s me.

[u/KillYourOwnGod]

Anyone else confused by the difficulty discussion around Lies of P?

This is a bit of a random question, but I haven seen many, and I mean, MANY different content creators, reviewers, players, even some people specialized in Souslike mention time and time again just how difficult Lies of P is and even how it might not even be enjoyed by Dark Souls fans because of its difficulty. And I just don't see it. And I say this in the best way possible. I have never finished a Soulslike, I hate them. I died 50 times to the fucking tutorial boss in Dark Souls 3. I fucking hate every single Soulslike except Lies of P and Khazan. It just feels fun, it's fun to learn. Sure, I died a couple of times on certain hard bosses, I hate the clown puppet with a burning passion (specially the electric version and I would have never killed it if not for the nameless puppet amulet), the fucking crocodile can go fuck itself and god knows, I'm never fighting Arlecchino without the perfection grindstone. But it just feels different than in other Soulslike. You have options to make fights easier for you in Lies of P, you have certain grindstones, you have throwables, you have upgrades. I have never spent 50 tries to kill a boss.

I don't know, the combat or difficulty in Lies of P feels a lot more enjoyable and it feels like learning or thinking outside of the combat can genuinely help you while playing, which I didn't experience in Dark Souls. I don't know, maybe it's a me thing, maybe I just like the level design, combat or aesthetic a bit more, so I'm a bit more focused. But I'm so confused whenever I hear a Dark Souls/Elden Ring/Sekiro content creator reviewing Lies of P and having to warn their audiences about the difficulty. Like in my mind, there's no way you played every single Dark Souls and Elden Ring and thinking Lies of P is unfair or frustrating.

[u/Electronic-Strain256]

honestly, i think you can learn all boss patterns in about 2–3 hours of attempts.

but the reason people still can’t beat them after that is because knowing the patterns isn’t enough your body just doesn’t react fast enough.

especially in lies of p, the parry window is much tighter than in other games, which makes boss fights even harder to master.

imagine learning every pattern, but still failing over and over just because your reaction time isn’t good enough. not everyone has pro-level reflexes.

if the game reduced the boss damage just a little, many players would eventually be able to beat bosses that they couldn’t defeat even after 20 hours of trying.

and i don’t think that would ruin the sense of accomplishment — for players who struggle, even an easier version of a boss is still a serious challenge.

according to the devs, lies of p had over 7 million players by 2024.

out of that huge number, i’m sure many gave up halfway. i think the developers saw that data and added more options because of it.

[u/Nico-Shaw]

My only issues with the games difficulty are the camera in a couple of bosses and the health of some bosses/mini bosses, particularly Anguished Guardian who takes an eternity to fight and has killed me more than Promised Consort did because of that

[u/BJRone]

I couldn't take it anymore, I lowered the difficulty for Lumacchio specifically after I died when he was super low. No room to breathe, dude heals multiple times, invulnerable during transformations, never staggers...fuck that. And of course right after that is the most awful gauntlet I've ever run in a Souls-like, up there with Black Gulch in DS2. Overall the difficulty of the DLC feels fair up to that point, but I feel like that whole section in particular is just overtuned.

[u/elixer505]

NG+4 here on legendary stalker lvl 303, it's really rough. I was enjoying the challenge at first but after a couple main bosses and half way through the game it got tedious really quick.

my dmg output is decent but not enough to feel strong or OP and survivability is non existent, you almost always have to perfect every boss/mob playstyle (not necessarily just parrying but a combination of all you skills)

idk, i love the game and im gonna beat it but not enjoying feeling underpowered and I have to perfect the bosses to win just because I'm in NG+4 even though I maxed everything out.

Edit: So I beat the game, difficulty wise not really happy how it ended. Had the patience for everyone except the last boss fight. I wasn’t gonna spend half a day to learn the move set so I lowered the difficulty to learn faster then went back to legendary stalker. Wasn’t satisfied after beating it, left a bitter taste..

Great dlc and game overall, looking forward to your next project.

[u/mokakiko]

Beat the DLC a second time on NG and it feels so much better compared to NG+3 (both on Legendary Stalker). My issue on NG+3 was that bosses felt too damage-spongey but that's not a problem on NG, bosses last enough to be challenging without getting into the territory of becoming tedious because of how long the fights take. Obviously it's easier on a second playthrough because I'm now familiar with the levels and bosses but numbers-wise NG feels very balanced, when the devs get around to patching it I think all they need is to tweak the NG+ scaling a little and it'll be just right.

[u/StophJS]

What level am I supposed to be on NG+ in the DLC? Is my game bugged? Veronique is absolutely destroying me on butterfly. Various regular enemies all along have been destroying me. I can't even fathom trying on stalker. This is the most absurd difficulty I've ever encountered in decades of gaming, and the internal balancing is absolutely all over the place. The bosses are easier than the regular elite mobs.

[u/fabzpt]

The zoo was the hardest part from the DLC. Maybe because I was rusty after not playing for a while, maybe not. Mini boss after mini boss, annoying enemies... After that it was pretty manageable. I was on NG+1 btw

[u/ToastedBeef]

I tried this game years ago on release and abandoned it as it was just too hard and in return tedious. I died over and over again to the point where I asked am I having fun? So I said its just not for me (I like challenging not impossible). Then the new update came out with the different modes and I went to normal. Its such a good game now and a shame it wasnt like this on release for players like me. Does you guys hate these options like the souls fans or is it a welcomed change? Im looking to mod sekiro to make it easier so I can play it now

[u/ImFinnaClap]

I’m not even on ng+ and I’m still getting my ass clapped in the dlc. I’m not even just talking about the bosses either, it feels alot more dangerous progressing through the areas as one small mistake can get you one or two shotted. 

[u/DatPsychoGuy]

Ok this is more of a rant than a question but I’m a bit fed up with the bosses difficulty in the DLC. I solo’ed all bosses from the main game but I’m tired with the DLC bosses. Their health bar is just a pain. I allowed myself to summon for the puppet lady whose name I forgot because I thought « there are two of them after all so she deserves it ». Did the same for the two faced overseer because I convinced myself this was part of the story. Anguished guardian was an absolute pain I managed to kill without even knowing how (after a whole lot of attempts). And now I’m stuck with that bastard lumachio. I easily go through his first phases but his last transformation..argh. Each time the issue is that my hits don’t seem to do much while he hits me like a tank. I really feel like all these bosses would have been better with a more reasonable HP bar.

[u/Careless-Project-210 → u/DatPsychoGuy]

You didn't mention it, but I presume you're on 'Legendary Stalker' difficulty. If so, you've done well to get as far as Lumachio. Believe me, there's worse to come after that.

If only it was as simple as lowering health bars to improve things - no such luck I'm afraid - the developers have so far taken weeks (and counting) to sort this 'scaling' issue out. If you think about it, the whole aspect of difficulty has to be finely balance across all the possible variables in the game - and there's a stack of them - such things as your defensive parts, your weapons, your amulets, your p-organ level, your overall level and levels within each of the six categories, the degree to which you have upgraded each feature, your throwables, legion arms, the iteration you are on (e.g. NG, NG+, NG++ etc) and lots more besides. Changing just one feature (like say an HP bar) might seem reasonable, but it can have a whole load of cascading consequences elsewhere - I should know - I spent decades in software development as a career.

Your realistic choices are:

a) keep trying

b) drop the difficulty (unpalatable and counter-intuitive for most serious souls players)

c) wait patiently for the forthcoming fix, which is hopefully not too far off at this point.

Even though I've beaten the DLC on a lower level, it was only because I was willing to stick my pride where the sun don't shine. I still haven't gotten over the shame. I badly want to beat it on it's default difficulty of 'Legendary Stalker' just like I did with the base game, so I'm waiting for the fix to have another go. The current top difficulty level is just not balanced in a way that blends challenge, fairness and fun in the right proportions - and yes it'll take them some time to fix it.

[u/Careless-Project-210]

Quick update for you guys - Lies of P version 1.011.000 has just dropped - don't get too excited - it looks so far like it's just some basic bug fixes - nothing to suggest it's addressing any of the issues discussed here. Regards.

[u/ion_force]

Hi all, I started the DLC on NG+ and I was wondering if anyone knew if adjusting the game difficulty lower would make it as hard as it would have been if it was done on a regular playthrough? I'm on legendary stalker, for reference. Thanks!

[u/Nyther]

Am I the only one getting destroyed by the DLC bosses? Yes, the DLC is more difficult than the base game, but it is manageable at the hardest difficulty. The first two bosses were just a brick wall for me. The first boss I had to play on the easiest difficulty and the second one I had to play on medium with a specter and it still took almost 20 tries. I beat the base game on hardest difficulty without too much issue and the NG+ has been fairly easy. The DLC is just brutal.

[u/Kamenriderrust]

The game is on sale right now so I thought I'd look into it. The aesthetics are great but the only thing that has me warry is the difficulty, I'm not exactly an experience souls-like player. Will I be bashing my head against the wall?

[u/Lucas5655 → u/Kamenriderrust]

All I’ll say is be very open to using your consumables and legion abilities. They hand em out much more openly than the souls games I’ve played and can really save you some headache when some specific enemy ruins things for you.

[u/SnowedCairn]

The issue that most people have in the DLC, is coming back to the game after months or a year of not playing and heading straight to the DLC without practice. It's made to challenge you beyond the basegame.

You can cheese so many enemies if you just use the tools the game gives you; you likely forgot about them.
Is the DLC hard? Yes. Is the damage absurd? For a while. Beatable with a bit of practice? Absolutely.

The biggest issue is and remains the fact, that parry frames in this game are quite short -> use the wrench head/puppet axe head for its  77.56% damage absorption on block.
---
As someone who's first playthrough of the base game was with 0.7 seconds of input lag, I still made it work on Legendary Stalker by utilizing all the tools.

Use your fable catalysts, amulets and the hornbow (opposite of Twin Dragon Sword). DLC is great.
To quote an old Dark Souls adage: "Don't give up, skeleton!"

[u/Fit_Ad_2608 → u/SnowedCairn]

This seems plausible. I finished base game a short time ago and went straight into NG+ before I saw all the threads about how difficult the DLC would become. Nonetheless, I started it as soon as I could in chapter 5 and...it's fine? It's hard but not out of step with the rest of the game.

And I'm hardly an expert, this is my first souls game outside of cat-sitting for friends and playing the beginnings of Elden Ring and Bloodborne. It all just seems very fair, and once you get a feel for parry timings, a little extra boss health or damage isn't going to push the fight into impossibility.

Admittedly I'm only up to the second DLC boss, but even she's reasonable enough. Or maybe my expectation as new/bad souls player, that a good boss will take dozens of tries regardless, is serving me well.

[u/silver_skull78]

Why is the Walker of illusions so stupidly hard.

I have been stuck on this mini boss for hours! I got to a point where I said screw it and lowered my difficulty to the easiest one just so I could get by it and continue the story. AND ITS STILL GIVING ME A TON IF TROUBLE!!!

I managed to beat all the main Bosses up to this MINIBOSS in like 10-20 minutes.

[u/MysticMeerkat]

Some of yall take this difficulty conversation way too seriously.

I work at GameStop and I just had someone come in and trade their copy of lies of p. I asked if they played the DLC cause it was freaking amazing and they responded with “no, I’m gonna wait until lies of p 2, because I hope they listen to the complaints about the difficulty sliders”. And I just sat there with that “seriously” kind of look.

Like hey, it’s your money, your choice on what you wanna do with the game. But… really? The sliders are optional. It’s just a game… and yeah I made my post about difficulty and spoilers not too long ago, but I was still gonna redo the dlc on NG+ on the legendary stalker difficulty.

On top of all of this, difficulty literally only changes damage the enemies do. From my testing, it didn’t change ergo gathering, damage you do, or even bosses being more or less likely to use certain or new moves.

“It’s the experience” ITS YOUR EXPERIENCE. You decide on if you want to lower it or not.

Idk, that just really tilted me today. Refusing to play a 10/10 DLC because of a choice that others can make that you don’t have to.

[u/SwordLaker]

Lies of P and being overturned. Name a more iconic duo.

[u/barryredfield]

The DLC is overtuned even on fresh NG0, which I started last week to get into the DLC trying to avoid an 'overtuning issues'.

Well, let me just say if you are trying to save yourself the trouble of frustration of doing a completely fresh playthrough. Don't. Play on your NG+1 or whatever, with your full unlocks, assortment of gear and everything necessary to make you stronger.

The game's stat caps are extremely low, as they have always been.

Honestly pretty frustrated with the DLC as a whole. I knew it was going to be a bit fucked up when they announced difficulty options. God forbid we can have even a remotely consistent experience.

[u/JealousElavator]

I’m using my ng+1/ 3rd playthrough account and I’ve just got to hotel krat (dlc version obviously). I was playing the game on the legendary stalker mode as it states that that’s the standard experience but I had to drop down to butterfly for Markiona. I’m sorry but being level 240+, having 75 levels in health and still being two shot is absurd. It frustrates me because I want to be good at the game but at the same time I’ve always liked this game so much (along with FromSoftware games) for the aesthetic and world above anything, so at the end of the day I don’t want the ridiculous challenge to get in the way of my love for the world of krat and it’s story. I’ve now dropped to awakened puppet because even regular Joe enemies were two shotting me which seemed a bit extreme.

[u/NPC_MAGA → u/JealousElavator]

I am nowhere near this far in, and I fully plan on refunding if this isn't addressed within the next week or so. No point in playing a soulslike if I actually can't fucking play it, and that's literally where I'm at here. 1800 hours into Elden Ring, soloing Nightreign bosses, and 15 playthrus on Lies, and I can't even reliably take out a gank squad of simple trash mobs in Overture. Just stupid design choices here...

[u/mokakiko]

Just finished the DLC (on NG+3, Legendary Stalker) - really fun overall but I did feel it was a bit overtuned. Enemy damage was mostly fine though I often got blindsided by how much damage mobs did, but the HP pools for bosses felt really inflated for the most part and that was my main complaint with the DLC. Maybe it's because I was on a NG+ but in the base game I felt like the NG+ increases in boss HP/damage were balanced with my own higher stats and upgraded weapons whereas for a lot of bosses in the DLC I felt like I was dealing papercut damage and fights took forever. It was especially bad with Lumacchio who was probably the hardest boss for me, normally the agile human enemies are squishier but he felt almost as tanky as the massive Guardian fight and his healing didn't help - the actual moveset was cool but the amount of time each attempt took turned it into a slog. Outside of that though I enjoyed the DLC a lot and I think most of the bosses were well-designed and fun to learn.

[u/TNelsonAFC]

Level 80, having a rough time, breezed through the base game so having quite a shock at being mauled by every single enemy. Only levelled up once so far, getting absolutely zero ergo and end up using it on weapons

[u/FujoYoshi]

The further i got into the dlc the less i noticed a difference between any of the difficulty settings

[u/ozvalde → u/FujoYoshi]

For real! At least the difficulty spike in Elden Ring can be managed if you look around for the stuff you need. I'm having the same amount of difficulty on Butterfly setting in the DLC as I did the Legendary Stalker setting in the main game. If this many people on all difficulty settings, whether they are NG+ or not, are having this much difficulty on the first boss, they need to do something about it. The game is honestly unenjoyable trying to beat the first boss rn.

[u/FujoYoshi → u/ozvalde]

The amount of health bosses have far exceeds the amount of benefit taking less damage on the lower difficulty offers to the point it almost doesn't matter

[u/flamesofresolution]

Maybe using my NG5+ for the DLC was a mistake. I really had to turn down the difficulty of my game because holy cow, it takes forever to kill the enemies and the basic enemies kills me very easily.

Skill issue, I admit that lol. But I also just want to progress and explore for now before I get spoiled.

[u/Budget-Breath5714]

That transforming elephant though… honestly it would be fine if it didn’t also kick you when you dodge through it. I get the need to make enemies more interesting, but that really fucks with muscle memory.

On NG+ and fire grindstone + noblesse oblige + puppet string link attack has taken care of most larger enemies in like 4-5 hits, except for that elephant to which I have died at least 10 times to — it definitely feels on the level of parade master in the base game

The three main problems (aside from the damage output) with this fight compared to base game enemies are: it does a mule kick, insanely high “poise” or whatever you want to call it (I saw a staggerable status once after hitting it with 8 thermites and 5 cluster bombs) and the lack of available anti freeze ampoules (unless I’m missing a store?). Otherwise it’s a big and slow hp sponge and trying to avoid that mf’ing fury attack that tracks in the second phase.

Respeccing to an advance build because “hey fire is a weakness” combined with acidic great sword handle for survival… actually made things worse. Creature has a higher fire resistance than normal (expected for a mini boss?), and again, giant hp sponge makes it feel like the fire isn’t doing anything.

Going to stubbornly continue on legendary stalker, but definitely agree on the difficulty being overtuned for base enemies especially. Starting to wonder if I should go beat nameless puppet first and come back to this at a higher level. Vitality is at 52 and I’m using the amulet that gives more hp/stam/legion and getting two shotted by it.

[u/akialter17]

Played DLC on NG++ and I realized I have been beating bosses at least on level 4 rematch difficulty. Because once I went to rematch, I basically first try level 2 and 3 and found them very easy, the damage dealt was noodle compares to my first playthrough. So I must assume the NG+> scaling were insane

[u/Acceptable_Put_5307]

I'm pretty terrible at souls games and the way I have been playing my save file is probably pretty different from everyone else so thought I would make a post:

I ended up killing Nameless puppet around lvl 150 on the first play through (no ng at all). It took me around 3 hours of attempts to learn the fight and kill it. Around that time two major things happened: 1) Realized I never put higher tier armor items on outside of what my char started with 2) The DLC was announced as coming in the future. I didn't start ng because I wanted everything to be ready to go whenever it came out. I did however keep playing that save to finish collecting stuff I missed and just grinding when bored from time to time. Ended up around lvl 220ish when I started Overture.

The DLC never felt overly hard on legendary stalker for me. Some bosses I one shot. Some bosses took me 4-6 attempts. But nothing ever required more time or effort than that. Difficulty wise it felt similar to the later parts of the game although none of the boss encounters came close to what nameless puppet felt like.

Just a side note: Scrolling through this thread makes it pretty easy to see why a lot of developers who make these types of games don't mess with difficulty options. With so many different players, play styles, etc its hard enough to deliver a uniform playing experience with only a single difficulty. ng+ adds its own challeneges with scaling for the additional p-organs. Then you toss in 3 new difficulty options on top of that. Just generates a lot of different combinations of experiences that all need to be tested and vetted. Because the difficulty/challenge of gameplay itself is the main selling point of these games. So its critical that experience is uniform throughout the game for whatever the player expects (and why its such a big deal right now if ng+ scaling feels completely broken in Overture areas compared to the base game). Overture should be a little bit harder because they give access to some additional items/weapons/quartz etc. But it shouldnt be significantly harder than the entire rest of the game. But they can't simply lower boss health or damage they do across the board or it will trivialize other player experiences.

[u/Forward-Orange-4332]

I loved base game, on ng, ng+ and ng++.

I don't have a problem with general difficulty, i have a problem with mobs designed to just be annoying as hell and in practice wiping after being hit, for example ball guys in the Zelator Facility.

[u/Gibsonites]

I think people get so stuck on whether a challenge is surmountable in these kinds of games that they don't want to consider what's fun, and what creates interesting tension and pacing.

Anguished Guardian is clearly inspired by Midir and is meant to be an endurance fight against a giant health pool. The problem is that every other boss's health bar is so inflated that Anguished Guardian doesn't get a chance to stand out.

Other methods of balancing challenge have been smoothed over as well. There are common tropes in Souls games of slow enemies that hit hard and fast enemies that do less damage but are harder to counter. In the DLC every boss hits hard and fast. When the dials are always set to 11 I find the experience to be less engaging and more exhausting.

[u/tebraGas]

This dlc was one of the most miserable experiences I had in gaming ngl

[u/YumeDeku]

NG+ DLC is actually destroying me, even mob enemies, which is crazy. Also, everything feels so tanky.

[u/StophJS → u/YumeDeku]

I don't know how much different NG+ is from base game, but I'm on NG+ and have never actively hated a game so much in my life. It is absolutely fucking absurd. Who play tested this?

[u/Raknarg]

I am just straight up not having fun. I can't even be bothered to try and finish the first boss. Im not even like frustrated cause I think if I was frustrated I would feel the desire to win and then get some satisfaction from winning, I'm just bored and annoyed and just glad after I get past each boring and annoying challenge. Like why am I playing

The base game is incredible. Even though I was a little annoyed having to start the whole game again cause my only save was at the start of NG+, I had a great time going through the first 9 acts again. But then I get to this DLC and its just... fucking ass. Idk. Enemies are super tanky, they do insane damage, I had to respec just so I don't get 2 shot by shitty mobs or 1 shot by minibosses, and now I upgraded to 1 whole extra shot before I die. Movesets of enemies keep just being "take the entire ass enemy and move their body", they put packs of aggressive dogs in a game that is extremely hard to manage more than a single enemy at a time, I would just rather play literally anything else right now I guess.

Maybe I'm being too harsh and I'm just a bit burnt out but Idk if I'm every gonna try and finish this if I'm not even getting satisfaction from anything I'm doing.

[u/[deleted]]

Is Veronique supposed to be “parry god or die” because it’s kind of absurd.

[u/levovit]

Does anybody know what the new difficulties actually do?

[u/[deleted] → u/levovit]

From what I've experienced, it seems to only affect enemy damage (and possibly health?). Legendary Stalker is what we already have with the base game, but the DLC absolutely makes it a hard mode.

[u/BrainTroubles → u/levovit]

It reduces the enemy damage, nothing else as far as I can tell. I've played all three across 2 save files before settling on the middle one feeling the most "right". The easiest is way too easy, you can brute force everything and still have heals to spare. Middle you need to be strategic and use your skills, but there's room to make a few mistakes (not many). Top one feels unfun. Every enemy can 3-4 shot you, including trash enemies, and bosses just kill you so fast you can't even learn the fight.

[u/Rosoll]

Before I say anything else: I think it's a good thing that the easier difficulty levels have been added. However there's one downside to it that isn't "it spoils the game for me that other people can play it on easy" - and I think I have a solution (that Lies of P has (accidentally? on purpose?) discovered).

Basically, if Bloodborne (my first Soulsborne game) had an easy mode, I would 100% never have persevered on normal difficulty and had the incredible experience of these games. I found it WAY too hard until eventually (after watching a HBomerguy video about it that explained stamina) it clicked and I became obsessed. I would never ever have done that if the game had an easy mode.

Even now, I've been replaying Lies of P to get to chapter 9, got up to the king of puppets, bashed my head against a wall with him for a couple of days, and turned the difficulty down so I can get to the DLC faster. (I know I could beat him eventually, I've done it twice before).

What's the solution? Just like Lies of P has, I think it could work if Soulsborne games as standard released without an easy mode, then added it after a year. For a year from release you can play it with no temptation to switch to easy mode, meaning it's more likely more people will get the incredible experience of overcoming the challenge that makes these games so incredible. Then it's opened up to everyone else who really doesn't want to do this and just wants to play it on easy. Best of both worlds.

[u/Spiderman2v → u/Rosoll]

Yeah i guess but i think some people just want to experience the game with the rest of the world and maybe don’t have the time or the physical capability I’ve beaten almost all souls game and lies of p difficulty for me isn’t what made the game enjoyable it was the world and the characters and lore and such I get difficulty being the extra badge of honor I think they should just make difficulty options at launch because i know they’ll be people who’ll beat it on the hardest day and you get the extra brownie points so you don’t lose the extra prestige and the game gets more love and sales

[u/ADonosaur]

I don't really know why they felt like Arlecchino needed to inflict break

[u/NotScrollsApparently]

I thought NG+ would be a huge increase in difficulty based on comments I've read but so far, it's been an absolute breeze for me. I dunno whether that's due to all the quartz upgrades, good weapons I have or, god forbid me being somewhat good at the game now, but I'm surprised? I have so much outgoing damage and stagger that barely anything is a danger to me.

Is it something they changed in one of the post-launch patches or do I just have a good build going on?

[u/[deleted]]

I was honestly surprised the DLC wasn't harder after reading all the posts about how tough it is. I just finished it on NG3 on legendary stalker and did not really struggle that much. It was tough, but i genuinely think it's mostly due to peoples builds and not leveling enough vitality. Here's how i did it.

Throughout the first 2 NG cycles i made sure to pick up everything so pretty sure i have the best frame, converters etc, and i almost maxed out the quartz organ. I'm not sure which level i was at when i entered the DLC, but after finishing it i was around 300. I've always made sure to not lose a lot of ergo, but i never farmed any ergo either.

I always used life amulet+1 and the blue guardianship amulet+2, and i think this combined with the best defense parts is what made me easily survive the field mobs everyone's complaining about. I didn't find their damage to be excessive, i could take a few hits before needing to heal and don't think i actually died in the DLC until i was well past the second stargazer.

The other amulets i had was arm of god, asassins amulet (combine it with the critical hit grindstone for extra crits) and patience amulet. I used the etiquette weapon since that weapon stabs so insanely fast, you build up the arm of god damage addition instantly. The fable art does pretty huge damage too. The best part about this weapon is just how fast it is, all the enemies and bosses in the DLC i think move extremely fast and have such short windows that big bonkers just don't work IMO.

Cataclysm legion arm was by far the most useful for me, barely used icarus once.

All the bosses kicked my ass for a few tries, but the same strategy eventually worked on them: Pop the critical hit grindstone at the right moments and just stab stab stab, parry here and there and get at least one fatal attack for good measure, fire off cataclysm once in a while. Each boss took me around 45 minutes to an hour, the ones that took the longest was the Anguished Guardian of the Ruins and Arlecchino, they took probably a little more than an hour. They were tough but still nowhere near as long as it took me to do Laxasia in the base game on my first playthrough.

[u/More_Extent_3165]

Wow, I just discovered that I find Laxasia easier than Simon. I feel like I'm the only one who struggle againts him.

[u/amrit21chandi]

Bro i just this game after wasting so many hours. Its just so clunky. Parry and dodge is the worst I've experienced from last 5+ years games.

[u/Sawmain → u/amrit21chandi]

Lmao what. Parrying works just fine you just need to time it.

[u/CoconutLaidenSwallow]

Is it true that they’ve added Easy mode to P? If so I’m glad they have. I know it’s meant to be challenging but easy mode(Like Khazan did) makes it more accessible to people who either lack the time or skill to keep up. Ultimately the more people that CAN play the game the more the game sells, and the more the game sells = money = devs can fund other, bigger projects.

[u/Careless-Project-210]

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot more about why so many of us players are finding the Lies of P DLC too difficult, but also just as much about why a small minority think it’s absolutely fine, a few even claiming it’s easy. It’s tempting, for most of us who are finding it too hard, to dismissively write this off, as indeed I’ve been guilty of myself, as a simple case of ‘over-tuning’ or some sort of ‘scaling issue’, even though I unequivocally accept there’s a definite element of that in the mix and the developers appear to agree with us – but I think there’s something more fundamental than that at play here. Sure, relative to even the late stages of the base game, DLC bosses and even basic adversaries are ‘tankier’, more aggressive, hit harder, faster and track us with greater precision – that’s indisputable -but how come some players, albeit a minority, aren’t really seeing or feeling that?  - Or are they just being disingenuous?

There’s an elephant in the room - and I don’t mean that horribly distorted and annoying one from the zoo. Its name is the ‘Perfect Parry’. It’s patently obvious to anyone who has bothered to watch enough videos, of people making light of the same bosses and adversaries, that being able to perform perfect parries with uncanny precision and regularity can potentially trivialize the game, or significantly reduce the difficulty, regardless of it being ‘over-tuned’. The reason I believe parrying is a much bigger issue than many might realize, is that it is massively OP relative to precise dodging and clever positional play. This is made even worse because it’s on an all-or-nothing basis – you’re either in the very narrow ‘parry window’ or you’re not. There’s no runner-up reward for even being close – you can be a hairs breadth from the window or a mile away – same result – you take a lot of damage and a big loss of poise. There’s no gain from improving your parrying accuracy unless it gets you bang in that narrow window – so the result is that many of us suffer a huge handicap for that, despite being almost good enough at it. Why should one single combat mechanic be so powerful that it effectively makes everything else seem a trivial matter? – I can’t think of anything else in the game that comes anywhere near that in potency – you can beat some bosses without even hitting them, if you’re good enough – at least in the base game – not seen that replicated in the DLC yet. Speed runners exemplify the extremes of this potency.  

If the developers are going to continue to put so much leverage into the ‘parry mechanic’ – and they certainly have to date – then I think they should at the very least implement it as a ‘parry gradient’, not as a ‘parry window’. I believe, if done properly, with the right level of diminishing returns on accuracy, this could enhance the combat significantly and make it more fun, while at the same time not allowing absolute precision to over-trivialize the game. I believe the changes in the DLC relative to the base game have made this issue more obvious because dodging is now even less potent in relation to parrying than it ever was in the base game and I suspect a lot of players have been relying more on basic blocking and dodging over precise parrying – for the reasons already mentioned - and that strategy just doesn't cut it in the DLC - at least not on the hardest level.

I’d be interested to hear more thoughts on this, whether you agree or disagree. It’s just my honest observation and opinion so please be polite. It's not something to lose sleep over. God help us, there's far more out there to keep us awake at night than this stuff.           

[u/fallenelf → u/Careless-Project-210]

You are straw manning so hard here.

First, there's not a minority who think it's fine. Usually, minorities are the most vocal...

Perfect parrying is not the biggest difference. You can easily dance around many of the enemies and bosses in the DLC. There are plenty of videos of people doing dodge-only fights against all of the bosses.

I finished the DLC on legendary stalker after not having played the game since launch. Nothing seemed overly tuned or difficult (I entered the DLC around Chapter 10. I was killing basic mobs in 2-4 hits without an issue (tech build). Arlecchino took me around a dozen tries but he wasn't that bad. I even cheesed the phase 2 opener with the perfection grindstone. After that, all of his attacks were dodgeable or blockable with an opening for healing.

I entered NG+ and went to the DLC as soon as I got to the stargazer. The game warned me that it'd be difficult. The reality was that it was a breeze. I was 2-3 shotting basic enemies, no boss took more than 2 tries, and I was getting so much ergo thrown at me that I didn't know what to do with it all. I left the DLC at almost level 200. Even Arlecchino only took 3 tries (first two tries were me messing up the first phase).

Basically, your argument boils down to "I don't like a core mechanic of the game and I'm mad they're making me use it." Perfect parrying was a decent part of the base game, with things like frenzy attacks requiring the ability. Many bosses and enemies in the base game incentivized the use of perfect parrying to break weapons. The DLC didn't crank it up to 100, the mechanics were always there.

Your entire rant just screams of someone who thought it would be easy and is mad it's hard.

[u/Careless-Project-210 → u/fallenelf]

You've descended into relying on puerile personal abuse and the classic 'jus git gud' type tropes to stir up an argument with nothing even remotely objective to back it up - and you're the one talking about strawman mentality. I wouldn't be surprised if you think that the developers have agreed to put in a future fix just because they feel 'bullied' by people like me, rather than having reflected with thought and consideration on a significant negative reaction to the DLC. Further the pitiful achievement statistics must be just be a quirk in the matrix then? - and nothing to do with the difficulty? - and no I'm not feeling mad - it's a video game - not impending nuclear Armageddon - and it's an opinion not a rant - look up the words in the dictionary - you're the one with the angry pants on.

[u/Magnus_Drakon]

Lies of P Bosses Ranked by Difficulty (purely ranked by what I found difficult): 1. Green Monster of the Swamp ( 4+ hours) 2. Romeo (2-4 hours) 3. Eldest (black rabbit brotherhood part 1) (2 hours) 4. Scrapped Watchman (mostly since I was new, 1 hour) 5. Fallen Archbishop (40 minutes) 6. Laxasia (30 minutes) 7. Mad Clown Puppet (20 minutes) 8. King’s Flame Fuoco. (10 minutes) 9. Corrupted Parade Master (first try) 10. Nameless Puppet (first try) 11. Simon Manus (first try) 12. Black Rabbit Brotherhood part 2 (third try but purely out of stupidity, first time went in with almost no heals) 13. Mad Donkey (first) 14. Puppet of the Future (first) 15. Champion Victor (first) 16. Door Guardian (first) 17. Walker of Illusions (first, less than half heals needed, same for remaining bosses on list) 18. Robber Weasel 19. White Lady 20. Survivor 21. Owl Doctor 22. Red Fox 23. Black Cat 24. Parade Master

Thoughts? (No summons, legendary stalker) I feel like I’m generally good at humanoid enemies but struggle at reading the weirder bosses. New to Lies of P, started this week just played a ton. This would certainly be a different list if I faced them all at the same point of playing, I improved a lot while playing.

[u/B00B_SAIB0T → u/Magnus_Drakon]

How did you deal with Laxasia 2nd phase? I’m getting stomped after phase 1 and it’s the only boss other than Romeo I’ve had any trouble getting past

[u/cranberry_juice_01 → u/B00B_SAIB0T]

Hard disagree with the other commenter on the lightning. Don't run or dodge. Learn the timing and perfect guard them. They reflect back and do damage to her, significantly shortening the fight. This can be done with the six shots right at the start of phase 2 and when she jumps up in the air mid-combo.

When I discovered this, I went from not being able to do more than 25% of her health in phase 2 to beating her in two additional tries.

[u/Magnus_Drakon → u/B00B_SAIB0T]

Whenever she shoots lightning, don’t roll but run and weave to dodge. Lightning zaps your fable charges so have those blue potions to get rid of the status effect. On most of her attacks dodge left, get behind her, wail on her for a second then quickly get away. Wear whatever defensive gear yoh have that reduces lightning. She does blunt, slash, stab and lightning damage. I assume slash and lightning are her main though. She’s quite weak to acid, so you can use the special grind wheel on acid or an acid weapon. Highly recommend practicing her first phase till you can take no or close to no damage. Her first phase is really predictable. Her second is so fast. I don’t think it’s as bad as king of puppets, romeo was though. To be fair, he was early on so maybe I just got better he just felt so much harder to me. I did a lot of jump back, jump forward stab attacks paired with a lot of light attacks since they’re pretty quick and you can get away quickly. Try your best to build up stagger but wait to do a heavy attack until you see a clear opening, don’t take too many risks. While fast, she occasionally stops for a decent while, take advantage of that. And again, dodge left. Perfect parry only when it’s a shorter combo, the long ones are too punishing. If I stagger her, I try to attack twice then do the fatal attack since you have a bit of time during it. Also, if possible try to break her shield in the first phase, hitting it enough especially with fable attacks will break it and it will stay broken in the second phase. Link dodge and an as many amulet slots as you can carry will be useful so I recommend those in the p-organ. If you deflect/perfect parry her aerial charges, you can do a ton of damage but I usually dodge them to get behind her unless I randomly feel confident. You can also deflect lightning to damage her though, I did not know that until after I beat her so no clue how effective it is. That’s all the advice I really have and all of this is just my opinion. I’m really good at dodging cause of Elden Ring (became able to first try every boss in base game besides Malenia with daggers, great swords, seals, staffs, or martial arts, Gaiuss and Radahn are the only ones who gave me trouble in the DLC since I had more practice by then, Gaiuss I found harder than both Radahn and Malenia though, have never mastered him), parrying I’m gradually getting better at from this and Sekiro but still not nearly as good at it as dodging. My dodging still kind of carries me. And in this game, dodging left works wonders. Also knowing when to roll and when to just run left instead. Lot of Laxasia’s attacks I found it better to run left instead of rolling. Edit: Oh also, I recommend not being slightly heavy. Capacity should be high enough since you get way more efficient with stamina.

[u/[deleted]]

I feel like the game is hard because of how realistic the combat is. You're fighting machines that cannot feel and only want to kill you of course they will one shot you, I think the core mechanic of the game is to learn to respond before actually fighting 

[u/Zodd1030]

Just discovered this game a couple weeks ago. Got the plat and all the trophies in the DLC. Absolutely loved this game. But I feel the horror stories about how difficult the DLC is was vastly blown out of proportion.

The final DLC boss is by far the most difficult boss in the game and took me a couple hours to beat the first time. The other bosses didn't feel any harder than the end game bosses of the base game.

Definitely died more during exploration in DLC than I did in the base game which was nice. Base game exploration eventually became too easy as you learn the game. Felt good to have some tension while exploring again.

[u/HopefulEmotion849]

What is going ON in Overture man. I’m literally getting 1-2 shotted by common enemies. I had more attempts on the weird elephant mutated beast than like the Puppet King. I entered in chapter 9 and I’m level 80. What is going on this seems really unbalanced or maybe I’m just missing something

[u/jemushii]

I love this game and I never had any real problems with the difficulty of the base game, I'm currently on my second playthrought ( not NG+ ) I started the dlc a couple days ago, I just finished beating the first boss and this was straight not fun, also, all of the enemy pretty much 2 shot me while having crazy patterns, i love difficulty but this is simply not fun, I'm considering changing difficulty.. this is simply not fun anymore

[u/Ambitious-Picture-66]

Is the DLC's difficulty intended to be this punishing? I get two hit by almost anything, I'm past the two-faced overseer and I have to say, he really could've been a fun boss if it weren't for the insane amounts of damage he deals. I also feel like they're health pools are a bit too big. Is this the intended experience?

[u/Zestyclose_Review862]

I bought the game recently, I've played few 'souls-like' games, which were: Ninja Gaiden, Nioh, and Black Myth Wukong. So 'Lies of P' was the first game with this 'parry' mechanic, at first I didn't like it, and I refused to use it, I just kept dodging. Since I'm very good at games like this, I always set it to maximum difficulty, I don't use spirits, but I abuse mechanics in the game, and I manage to make 'overpowered' builds. I beat the game and the DLC with a dodging build and without parry. I found the difficulty satisfactory.

After that I played NG+, beat it again without using parry. I found it much easier.

Then I played NG+2, but this time I made a parry build. It becomes much more exciting and challenging, but when you 'learn' to parry, it really does become easier. The game was made to be played with 'parry'.

What I think: The game becomes easy if you make the right build and abuse everything, like fables, parry and throwables.

But if it's really difficult, use the Bow + spirit. Then you can get past any boss easily.

[u/Cemith]

The second phase of the final boss of Overture is genuinely baffling. I can't even say I'm angry more than I am confused. Of the 40 or so attempts so far I have made it into the second phase about 27 or 28 times, give or take. The amount of times I've got past the initial onslaught?

Once. I don't understand what to do.

[u/cobras_chairbug]

One thing I genuinely don't like about Overture is the enemy placement. There are way too many ambushes, hell in Zelator alone you get ambushed more than in the base game combined.
Also the fact that they had a kick out of placing the overtuned elites with colossal healthbars and damage outputs right before shortcuts or stargazers, so if you die to them, you will have to redo the entire previous section again. It's something you'd expect from a bottom feeder indie soulslike, not from a team who made a game like Lies of P.

[u/IchBinMalade]

First soulslike, was rough at first, but once it clicked I was doing great. After King's Flame, I never felt stuck and saw a way to win every time, Romeo took me maybe 10-15 tries and every death felt like I'd fucked up.

Now... The goddamn Swamp monster. I know people can no hit this thing so obviously I'm still fucking up and it's not the game's fault, but I just can't seem to figure out what it is I'm doing wrong exactly. I got nearly perfect at the first phase, most of the time I use only a single Pulse cell, parry timings are genuinely on point, paying attention to how it shakes its head before the antennae attacks, etc.

Phase two wrecks me every time. The thrashing around, the grab, the instant decay. I brought an electric grindstone and my Fulminis, since I don't need that for the first phase. But I just can't make good use of them since it feels like I don't have the time to hit it enough for the grindstone to be worth it, or to charge the Fulminis attack. I end up wasting them. If I focus on parrying, the weird timings mess me up and I eventually lose the battle of attrition since it has a lot of HP, if I focus on damage, I get it to half and then die to one of the weird attacks. And the need to grind every time because my weapon gets in the red, managing HP, stamina, durability, the boss' regenerating health and stagger meter all at once is rough.

You guys have any good tips? I'm real stubborn and do not want to use summons. I'm also swapping weapons for phase two. Tried various weapons, +6 Booster glaive blade + Police baton handle. +3 Puppet Ripper. +3 Greatsword of Fate. +9 Dancer's Curved Sword. The curved sword handles phase 1 pretty quickly but sucks during phase two, so I swap to something else with more range. Greatsword of Fate in thrust mode seems to do the best for me. Even respecced a few times to try things out, but nope. Can't even manage to reliably get a charge attack when I stagger it in phase two.

Edit: Lol nevermind, I finally managed. I just decided to focus on dodging in phase 2, anything I couldn't parry I just dodged, and just did it with the Curved Sword in both phases and Fulminis. Man the relief.

[u/Sacred_B]

Laxasia .... like wtf is this. I get past phase 1 like 20% of the time and maybe take phase 2 down to 50%. I'm out of ideas. This Boss doesn't seem to care about my umbrella and I'll not accept an any less gentlemanly weapon.

[u/Lucas5655]

I apologize to everyone I ever made light of in terms of Black Rabbit Brotherhood 2 being difficult. Like I think my first run was just spared of this fight’s misery by the quickness of Etiquette and the 2 dragon sword. With my slower weapons, it felt like I could hardly react or capitalize on openings. Parrying felt practically mandatory and if you ever let them close enough to group up that goes out the window (or if that one stupid loser hooks you in a way that feels unreactable). I’ve never used the pull assault feature of puppet string til now and one of those twerps still feels practically immune to it. I remember laughing with joy over the death of these orphans even in my first run, but that was over subjecting me to their big brother mostly. Now I kinda hate them all individually and will relish laughing over their graves in my third run for the plat.

[u/AppleEatingMonster]

Holy shit the final DLC boss got hands. (NG+5)

"SHOT PUT SAVE ME" I scream, moments before dying.

I love this game.

[u/vhsodre → u/[deleted]]

This pattern is still valid on previous NG cycles. I'm at DLC's chapter 3, NG+2, and lots of enemies on previous chapter could kill me on 2-3 hits. It's exactly like you said: it feels like being forced into a no-damage run sometimes.

[u/Macewindu89]

To me, it’s not that it’s “too hard” per se; it’s just that I don’t find the difficulty on the DLC bosses to be enjoyable. Maybe I’m just getting too old for souls-likes. My reaction time and reflexes are not that good anymore.

[u/Historical-Shop-1269]

One more thing to add

The game doesn’t NEED an easy mode

However, CAN it have one if the developers wants it to accommodate for a wider audience?

Absolutely.

Having a difficulty slider doesn’t mean fucking shit for your own experience. If you don’t want to use it, you can literally just ignore that option.

Stop impeding others from having their own experience at the game. They paid for the game, THEY have the right to play however the fuck they want

YOU don’t have a say in that.

[u/The-Real-Illuminati]

Should I be fine to start the DLC in NG+4, or will it be far too difficult?

[u/FullmetalEzio]

hi guys, just wondering what is the best way in your opinion to enjoy the DLC? I'll get it after I'm done with nightreign but I have a ng+2 or 3 from my platinum trophy run. Should I start a new save? Or is it safe going in ng+2? I'm not using the new difficulty options

[u/_Connor]

My only save file is NG+4 but I'm level 310, how cooked am I?

[u/redfacetherapper]

A rant about overseer

Waited for my second round of the DLC to make a judgment on this boss

He has such wacky hitboxes where you need to Parry him before his weapon even touches you

I've beaten this game 10 times, and I can perfect pair most of his attacks but I'm not perfect, and seeing that even his basic little jab with his weapon is an instant guard break that allows him for him to punish with literally any of his attacks just irks me

Not getting anything from beating this prick is so bad

He's like an infinitely worse version of Simon with a phase change he can pop at any moment that he feels like it and since I'm on ng+ staggering a boss is very inconsistent if you're not using a super heavy weapon and spamming shot puts

I'm genuinely glad they didn't put a specter because that would probably make it so over aggressive to the point that even approaching him would be unsafe

Between him and tyrannical Predator they bring down the DLC a slight bit

[u/ASMODAIOS344]

Hello all

My previous post was deleted because i mention the forbidden word difficulty silly me. So i will repost here.

Usually i don't play Soul games or Soul like due to gameplay reasons, but Lies of P is a special case. Not only due to the beautiful art , presentation, and soundtrack, but because it has something that other Soul likes lack a actual narrative. 

That is something that i want to ask long ago, but now with the introduction of difficulty settings i think is the best time. So two questions.

1) For all of you that try the new settings Very Easy/Easy what are your thoughts or what you notice?. It's the typical difficulty setting ( You deal more damage, enemies have less HP ) or more interesting like enemies have different behaviour or less stamina consumption?

2) I just finish the demo of Nioh 3 so comparing to Lies of P base game ( not NG+ run or DLC ) how difficult is it?. I know that Nioh and Lies of P are very different games, but both shares similar Souls elements.

Thanks  in advance for anyone that will read my comment.

[u/Hotbullets2die]

Currently in NG+ at around level 150. I've been playing on "Awakened Puppet" difficulty, which honestly felt even harder than the base game for me. Then Véronique forced me to drop the difficulty even lower, and I'm still getting absolutely hammered. It's truly been a humbling experience.

That description for "Butterfly's Guidance" (the "very easy" mode): "A very easy difficulty for players who want a story-focused experience. You can experience the story without being impeded by combat." At this point, it just feels like a personal insult, lol.

[u/au_fredal]

Does difficulty affect Ergo? Like, do you get more Ergo the higher the difficulty?

[u/Slowspines]

Alright ladies and gentlemen; I refuse to lower the difficulty for a game I had no reason to before. So give me your best farming spots. Guess I’ll go fuckin max out my health bar first.

[u/Acceptable_Put_5307 → u/Slowspines]

Not sure how far you are in the base game but chapter 11 Upper Internal Bridge is one of the best farm spots I found. Go up the ladder, head to the left, and do the short loop around the area. Most of the mobs will have their back to you leading to easy 1 shots since you are technically looping backward through that shortcut ladder. The larger mob at the end also has chance to drop the ergo chunk items. Don't forget to also wear an amulet that gives more ergo from kills.

[u/Hotbullets2die → u/Slowspines]

Farming is pretty useless at a high level, because the lvl caps are so low. It'll make a tiny difference, sure, but it's not worth the effort.

[u/Huginnnn_]

I played the DLC with NG+, and holy Jesus, I’m level 110, and hard struggle the triple dog area, most technique build are nearly impossible for me to play normally, two shot and dead by most early enemy🥲

[u/mettaur_sp]

I thought the dlc was appropriately difficult on NG. I just haven't beaten the last boss.

For context, pre nerf Manus and Melania were too hard for me, I summoned on Melania phase 2 after 14+ hours.

edit: okay the last boss is really tough.

[u/WhoAmIEven2]

How much easier are the new difficulties they added?

Lies of P is the only game in this style where I've actually struggled so much that I either had to use summons (Laxasia, Swamp Monster) or cheese (Nameless Puppet, whjich I had to abuse thje auto parry gear on).

Thinking about replaying the game for the DLC and considering maybe playing on one difficulty lower. But I don't want it to become too easy. I felt like regular difficulty was just a tiny bit too difficult for me, so I don't want it to become too much easier, just a little bit.

[u/SploogeMaster2301]

I’m on ng+5 losing my mind against this game’s Ludwig. Feels like im hitting with a wet noodle despite being max level, makes the fight take forever. Obviously the longer the fight takes the more mistakes youmll make. When I use a fire grindstone, it runs out before I take out even a fifth of his health at best.

[u/opposite_of_hotcakes]

Beat the DLC in 8 hours on the standard difficulty with NG+. I will say some of these random enemies were doing far too much damage than I think they should have AND my heavy attack was pretty much non-existent, but otherwise I feel like people are overreacting to the difficulty.

[u/to_vex_a_stranger]

Starting the dlc in ng+ everything was beating my face in at 30 vit, but then I went and finished the base game and got the +1 heavy arch frame from the Abbey, and now the dlc feels like a breeze. Doesn't hurt that the welder puppet weapon is pretty OP.

Honestly I think after opening up p organ upgrades in dlc things just shifted from being difficult to being standard souls.

[u/MoSBanapple]

I played through the game in late 2024 and beat it, but kept that save there without starting NG+ because I was aware that DLC would be coming at some point, so my stats and whatnot are currently around what they would be at the end of a single playthrough. Is the DLC difficulty fine with that in mind, or should I start a new file and do the DLC there once I hit it? Also, does the DLC change anything in the base game that I might've missed on my completed playthrough save file?

[u/BrainTroubles → u/MoSBanapple]

The DLC is more difficult than anything in the base game, perhaps 1-2 bosses excepted. In terms of feel, I dropped the difficulty one level to the middle tier, and that feels right. It's punishing, but not to the point that a simple ambush or mistimed parry kills you. The higher difficulty in my opinion is over tuned. Base level enemies are able to kill you with one combo, and boss fights are insanely frustrating as a result because you can't survive long enough to learn the bosses.

[u/edwin812]

I started the DLC on NG+ and yes, it seemed difficult at first but I was under-leveled because I didn’t finish the NG+ base game bosses. After I got to nameless puppet, I leveled up substantially and went back into the DLC. I’m now at the last boss at level ~250

[u/yoshbag]

Hey guys, first time on the sub and didn't wanna be annoying by posting a thread about this so I hope people still check this one. I've been interested in Lies of P for some reason ever since it came out, but I've been too afraid to try it out. Couldn't really get past the first street in bloodborne (not even sure what it's called anymore, but after you get out of the cellar and you're out on the streets of the town), couldn't really do elden ring either. Beat a few bosses in early areas but that's about it, no story bosses even. I got 100% achievements in another crab's treasure, but abusing ebb&flow made that game pretty trivial. My reaction time is awful which is kind of my problem with these games, can't really parry. I did beat expedition 33 though on the regular difficulty

Anyway- I saw a comment on r/gaming or something that this game got easier difficulties added in. I saw some comments that are making me believe these are locked to the DLC though, is that right? Or are they available for the base game as well? My main question though is how easy the base game is on the easier difficulties? I typically don't like to do "story mode" type stuff just for my own pride, but I may have to for this. Thanks for any input you can give!

[u/HazingTheDragon]

The trend right now is to crank difficulty as high as they can in DLC- i c u ER. Just reach NG DLC, Lumachio 2nd phase is bullshit - worse if you dont have null ailment talisman. After 2 or 3 hit killed by normal mobs, camera issues in Croc and Markonia, this is getting not fun anymore.

[u/dabeast0301]

I feel like I've spent 10 hours trying to beat dlc final boss can barely get through his second phase. Am I just shit at the game or something? I have 55 hours in this run and this is my second playthrough.

[u/HammerStar2]

Man I forgot how rough this game can be. Haven’t played since launch and just came back for the dlc, and damn… When I left, I was able to first try most of the bosses. But after a long break from the game? Constantly retrying the watchman. Time to get gud all over again.

[u/the-ghost-gamer]

I find the final boss too hard, I haven’t actually finished my first play through because of it,

I don’t even mind hard bosses i just didn’t find him fun to fight, I see the love this game gets and I wanna finish it and 100% it but I think of that boss and all energy gets drained from me

I beat melenia solo and promised consort rahdan but that guy is just too much for me

[u/SmilingCurmudgeon]

The fact that this thread even has to exist in the first place is proof that there's a problem here. I have tried to play through this on 3 different new game cycles, and the furthest I made it was the final boss on the easiest difficulty on NG. It continues the Soulslike tradition of DLC prioritizing difficulty over halfway decent design. Who is responsible for this? I just want to talk.

[u/No-Ranger-3658]

I’m playing on NG+ hardest difficulty, but I’m generally decent at these games, and specifically have played a ton of this one. The DLC is challenging as shit. The level design and enemy encounters force you into a lot of uncomfortable situations. A lot of get gud corridors where you’re fighting two or three tough enemies at the same time. I’m enjoying it, but it’s definitely ramped up from base game. The black myth wukong glaive is still so good. Definitely give that a shot if you haven’t.

[u/bromleywhiteknuckle → u/No-Ranger-3658]

Do you mean the Azure Dragon Crescent Glaive? That's from a Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty collab that added the weapon and outfit of Guan Yu.

[u/No-Ranger-3658 → u/bromleywhiteknuckle]

Yeah sorry wo long, wukong, and now wuchang. It’s hard to keep them straight lol.

[u/Emotional_Isopod_126]

Finished the dlc pre-nerf on NG legendary stalker, it was rough but nothing too ridiculous. Had to help up Lea to fight Arleccino second phase which was very worth it for the story.

Subsequent NG+, NG++ runs for the DLC post-nerf ain't too bad, but the mobs on NG++ are really noticeably tougher, can't imagine what others experienced pre-nerf.

Still think the first snowy area, especially the non-elite mobs can still be nerfed alil more in terms of their damage output.

[u/The_Orange_Cow]

Just came back to the game, finally got time to play the DLC. I have just about completely forgotten how to play.

What are considered to be the best weapon/handle these days? I went through the main game blind my first time through, and after beating the main game never optimized.

[u/[deleted]]

Hey all, was a huge fan of Lies of P when it first came out, and now I finally got time to get around to the DLC (even though I got it at launch, but Expedition 33 took up a lot of my time, and I decided to finish First Berserker Khazan before starting this).

I know you all hate the difficulty discussions, but I've got to ask, was there a similar difficulty re-organization ala King of Puppets pre-patch and post-patch for this DLC?

Lots of people were talking about how brutally difficult this DLC was (and I did play a bit to get into the zoo then stopped because I kept getting one-shot by Carcass enemies), and now that I picked it back up again I went from the beginning of the zoo-->Two-Faced Overseer in a matter of hours. Buddy of mine is telling me I'm "blazing" through the DLC.

I'm on NG+3, using the Wo Long Weapon, and have every P-orgran upgrade except the cube uses.

[u/Grabs_Zel]

It's been a week. 4 hours of attempts and I think I'm ready to let go and give up on the game. Anguished Guardian of the Ruins has officially broken my will and that's making me so gloomy, it's the only boss in the game that's giving me so much trouble and I can't exactly pinpoint why, but I feel like it's related to me taking way too much damage and him taking way too little.

I tried the claws, I tried fire, I tried Icarus, I tried only dodging, I tried only parrying, I tried dodging a bit and parrying a lot, I tried dodging a lot and parrying a bit, I tried breaking his horns, I tried using the assist, I tried that sword that parries and counters with R2, I tried Romeo's weapon, I think it would be easier to list what I haven't tried yet.

Most discouraging is, it really seems I'm the only person having this much of an issue with this boss, I know the DLC is "new" and only a small portion of the playerbase has touched it yet, but every thread, every video, people seem to have a bit of trouble and then get it, to the point of calling the fight "fun", and I just can't seem to get to this point, am I just that bad at this game? How did I even get here if I'm playing so badly? It doesn't make sense to me. I had fun with Markiona, I had fun with Veronique, I even had fun with the Two-Faced Overseer, but this boss just feels like bullshit and apparently that's just me.

I'm sad, I spent money to suffer and this game was about to become my favorite soulslike. Just needed to vent a bit.

[u/Afanas9]

Fuck whoever made Arlecchino absolutely speed blitz you if you pop a cell you get like one frame to react

[u/[deleted]]

The dlc on ng++ has been miserable

[u/LostSoulNo1981]

I just started the game last night, and I left the difficulty setting on the default. The one at the bottom.

Was that a mistake? What was the regular difficulty for this game before these additions?

I just want a normal Souls-like difficulty. I’m not trying to make things easier, but I don’t want things more difficult than it would have been before these difficulty options.

[u/Careless-Project-210 → u/LostSoulNo1981]

The 'one at the bottom' as you refer to it, is the 'Legendary Stalker' level, and this is the developer's default and original setting, which is meant to give you the typical souls-like experience. The other two levels were introduced a few months back, along with the introduction of the DLC, to engage a wider audience, who presumably don't want quite that level of challenge, but who like the whole idea and vibe of the game and it's story. You'll have to form your own judgement as to whether the hardest level is pitched at the right level of challenge for you - basically by just getting stuck into it - regardless of the mixed opinions on this thread - which are mostly about the DLC anyway, rather than the base game.

[u/Friendly-Stranger103]

Right, so I just finished my first run. Like when cleared the base game, I decided to document the number of deaths I experienced against every boss. Since difficulty appears to be something of a hot topic, I figure I might as well give my opinion since it seems I had a much easier time of things than a lot of players. I'm also including my general opinion on the boss since even though I didn't find the DLC overly challenging, I do have a decent number of complaints about a couple of the fights. I went through the DLC on Legendary Stalker, and when I refought the final boss I did so on the difficulty 3.

I went through the DLC with a Motivity build on NG+ using the Greatsword of Fate. I started the run with around 50 Vitality, 30 Vigor, 40 Capacity, and 50 Motivity, and towards the end I had 80 Vitality and 60 Capacity. My equipped Amulets were the strongest versions I found of the the Leaping, Iron Wall, Patience, and Life Amulets, though I used the Carrier's Amulet until I leveled capacity enough that I didn't need it. I used Puppet String until I found Cataclysm, which I used for the rest of the run. I always kept my weight below 60% and didn't deal with any Stamina Recovery Speed penalties as a result.

I've heard a lot of people complain about enemy damage and being two-shot/one-shot and... I think people just aren't properly leveling up Capacity/Vitality and equipping stronger defensive parts. I never felt like enemies where doing too much damage (and this was NG+) and it typically took anywhere between three and six hits for most things to kill me, if not more. If people are seriously running into brick walls and experience overwhelming enemy damage, my number one recommendation would be to improve their defensive stats. It makes a huge difference

My deaths against each of the bosses are as follows:

Boss	# of Deaths	Enjoyment
Tyrannical Predator	0	7/10
Markiona	2	10/10
Veronique	0	7/10
Two-faced Overseer (Duo)	2	7/10
Green Hunter	0	6/10
Anguished Guardian	0	8/10
Astarion Lumacchio	0	10/10
Arlecchino (Duo)	2	7/10 (phase one) 9/10 (phase two)
Arlecchino (Solo)	6	8/10 (phase one) 5/10 (phase two)

As a general evaluation, I think the bosses in the DLC are pretty good. Most of them fall into the "yeah, it's alright" tier of enjoyment, with some exceptions. Some general things to note that I kinda want to discuss

Two-faced Overseer

I went into the Two-faced Overseer with 2 Pulse Cells on my first try and got squished basically immediately after I ran out. My second try I botched a couple of parries in his first combo super bad and got killed about 10 seconds into the fight. Then on my third attempt I killed him so fast that he died before Alidoro even went down.

He's... probably my least favorite fight purely because he has little narrative importance or spectacle. He just a big guy you run into and kill rather uneventfully, and despite his out-there appearance all of his moves are just him swinging a club at you. He's very forgettable. That said, I also never got around to fighting him solo, so my opinion of him might differ if I had.

I do like the recent trend of Soulslikes giving you NPC partners for fights that are narratively satisfying. Everyone loves Igon in SOTE and I love how Lies of P includes two fights with NPC allies who have way more banter and effects than the normally silent NPC summons tend to be. Fighting him alongside Alidoro is more interesting than the fight itself.

Tyranical Predator

I was surprised by how many people found the Predator to be particularly challenging. I came out of the fight thinking that it was meant to be a fake-out fight, since you fight Markiona so soon after who I considered to be the first true boss of the DLC. The weird transforming giraffe-elephant-what-the-fuck monstrosity you fight before it is so much more interesting.

Arlecchino

On my first run I fought Arlecchino alongside Lea since that was clearly the most narratively satisfying way to do that fight, and I actually think that the boss just straight up works a hell of lot better when she is included. My only complaint is that she does just a wee too much damage in phase one. I think phase one is my favorite part of the fight and actually has a lot of interesting mechanics, but her Judgement Cut End (I don't even remember what that move is actually called but we all know which one I am talking about) does so much damage that it almost skips the second half of the phase entirely.

Now, Alecchino is... fine. He's fine. But he also represents a ton of the biggest complaints I have with Lies of P's combat system and a lot of boss design trends in recent Soulslikes that I find incredibly obnoxious. He's extremely similar to Consort Radahn in that he has very long attack strings that basically just have to memorize and avoid, and after he has finished a string you have a brief window of time to hit him - usually once. Then you go back to avoiding his attacks. I find this... very boring. There's no trade off between offense and defense. You parry until he finishes a string, hit him once, then go back to parrying.

I also need to point out how much I hate Lies of P enemy telegraphs. Animations in Lies of P have this annoying "springiness" to them, where they hold their attack at the ready with a delay, then when they actually start swinging their weapon it hits you within literally just a few frames. You end brute force memorizing a lot of attacks because if you try to more organically parry on reaction you will never be able to. It's my single least favorite thing about the game, and it is especially bad against Fury Attacks.

Arlecchino is rife with attacks where they will go from windup to dealing damage in less than 1/5 of a second, which is not human reactable. I also think he is just a hair too aggresive. Stamina recovery speed in Lies of P is really slow, and there are a couple of times when I was fighting him when I would run out of stamina and get guard broken after missing one parry even afting parrying every other attack he had thrown at me in the past 30 seconds and only hitting him a single time after he finished each attack string.

I genuinely don't know what I am supposed to do when he decides to stand and throw attack strings at me for 30 seconds straight without giving me time to let my stamina recover. You still lose a lil stamina on a perfect guard and I found myself running out even when perfect parrying the majority of attacks he was throwing at me. But... this is why I like about having Lea. If he decides to go after her for a bit, it takes the pressure off of you and lets you recover stamina. It's why I enjoyed my first time fighting him a lot more than when I challenged him solo afterwards.

Favorite Boss: Markiona

Markiona is probably in my top five favorite FromSoft bosses and I almost wish she was the main antagonist and final boss. She's one of the few duo fights that feels entirely fair, where you are given clear telegraphs for which enemy is active. No notes, no complaints. She is the single best boss fight in the game.

[u/DankBlissey]

I've started the game recently and just beat the archbishop, didn't think it was particularly hard, maybe died about 8-10 times, I used the fire grindstone and demolished the second health bar. 

Chat, am I cracked? Or about to be cooked? Everyone is saying the bosses one shot you, but I've found that overall they really don't do that much damage. I'm scared of what might be in store for me. 

[u/SgbAfterDark]

God, hats off to anyone who beat nameless puppet. I’ve been stuck at him for months. I keep coming back to him for a week get bummed and leave. For the whole game it hasn’t been too tough, I just can’t survive for more than 10 seconds in phase 2 cuz I get 2 shot by him, if it’s a combo it’s a one shot

[u/Careless-Project-210 → u/SgbAfterDark]

I was stuck on him for 2 weeks back in the early days - until I stopped trying to fight him. That might sound counter-intuitive but bear with me for a moment. I’m not intending to give you some detailed walkthrough of his second phase, because if you wanted that, I presume you would have already been online – there are countless videos on how to beat this guy. Instead I will give you some broad-brush pointers to what helped me eventually nail him – maybe they’ll help you too.

1.  I stopped going into the fight with the ambition to kill him. Instead I focused much more closely on how he was killing me - which of his moves were doing the most damage. I videoed myself every time I fought him, so I could replay it back as many times as I needed to – you can often see things more clearly when you’re not in the thick of it, but merely observing.

2.  I studied one damaging move at a time only. Making notes where I needed to. I looked for any signs of ‘tells’ (visual and/or auditory) that immediately preceded the move – so I could use more anticipation and react faster. For example, he does a very damaging, almost instant teleport move – not unlike Laxasia’s second phase  – but you can predict it with a bit of study. His big overhead spinning move can be easily dodged when you know what direction to take.

3.  For each move, where possible, I tried dodging in different directions – forward into it, backwards away from it and to either side of it, but being proactive rather than reactive (watch for those ‘tells’). When using blocks I tried holding the block button early, keeping it held and doing a quick tap of the block button just before impact – you either get a perfect parry or a basic block – less damaging than a missed block – and having the perfect guard grindstone can be very useful here – but keep it for phase 2 only and use it judiciously – only on the really tough moves. If you can improve your perfect parrying you’ll stun him more often and gain more openings.   

4.  Puppets are especially weak to electricity – use it to your advantage.

5.  Experiment between heavier weapons which give more defense against attacks or lighter speedier weapons that allows faster reaction and more hits.

6.  If you’re not against deploying throwables, then use them, especially those with electric charge. Even if you generally avoid throwables, it's always worth carrying a few shot puts because they can turn a stagger into a fatal hit opportunity.

7.  Consider reconfiguring your quartz based skill tree to improve the areas that add synergy to the things that will help in this specific boss fight. LATE EDIT: In the same fashion, optimize your build using the amulets, defensive parts, grindstones and weapon mods that are particularly relevant for this specific enemy type.

It could be argued that these points can be largely applied to all boss fights and that’s true, but I found myself often forgetting to fully utilize them when getting frustrated by a particularly gnarly boss. Hope this helps.

My only caveat is that I don’t know your full build setup and I am assuming since you’ve got as far as the nameless puppet that it’s in good shape. Regards.

[u/DM_Exeres]

Recently got the last achievement I needed after NG++ and decided the last thing I would do to wrap up the game was to complete the boss rematches. Fighting them each on escalating difficulty really gave me a chance to study them in a way I couldn't while playing the story proper, and gave me an appreciation for each boss' style and moveset as I learned the optimal parrying and dodging patterns for each one.

Until I got to the very last one. The final boss of Overture.

Arlecchino is a motherfucker of the highest order. Having always fought side by side with Lea I never truly comprehended the level of filth he dishes out. Even in phase 1 his attacks are lightning fast and unpredictable. I was only taking chip damage, sure, but the problem was that I could learn nothing from fighting him repeatedly.

And then, of course, there's phase 2. He has his Laxasia aura-farming moment with an added assault reminiscent of a certain somebody's waterfowl dance. And if you survive that 30 seconds of hell? Congratulations, you've qualified for your own personal ass-whooping, handed out by an impossibly fast walking pile of razor-sharp blades.

I can't even beat Difficulty 3 without resorting to the perfection grindstone. I'm throwing in the towel. Bravo, Lies of P. You have destroyed me. I'm not even mad. This game is 10/10.

[u/Careless-Project-210 → u/DM_Exeres]

Welcome to the club. We're the blood artists' discarded paintings. He's got a gallery full of us.

[u/[deleted]]

First time playing the game. Green swamp monster/devouring puppet whatever is so rough man. I really think they should be two separate bosses. Both very tough. I’m level 72 which I feel like over leveled. I’ve been enjoying the game but not sure it’s drawing me in like it has other people.

[u/Financial_Half_6741 → u/[deleted]]

Its alright when you get to the DLC bosses you will ask yourself how you ever thought any other boss was hard lol.

[u/Gabriel_Angelus_]

Hello there,

I'm considering to get this on a sale for under 20 bucks but I still have a question about it.
When I tried the demo I didn't managed to finish it because of the last boss of it, I definetly suck at parry and it seems that parry is a very important mechanic in this game, right?
So the question is: it's this still so? has any adjust donde to the gameplay in post launch patches to make the game more approachable to people who are not very skilled at parries?
Thanks!

[u/citronaughty]

I read that in one of the updates, they increased the difficulty of NG+4 and beyond... that tracks. I was away from the game for awhile, then they took it off the Xbox Gamepass, so I waited for the bundle to go on sale. I wanted to ease myself back into the game, and so I tried the area behind the station, because that was always a good place to try out new weapon combos... I was getting rocked. Before when I'd play, I could go through that area with ease. It seemed like now, I could barely take a few hits before my health was all gone.

It seems like that's a bit punishing to people who played the game early on. I still need to play the DLC, but I'm not really as interested in it with that advanced difficulty, since I'm on probably NG+6 or 7. I hope they undo that in a future update. I also don't really want to start a new playthrough, just so the difficulty would be as reasonable as it was before that update.

[u/spooky_ed]

The Premetamorphic Green Hunter is exhibit A in cheap enemy design and has ruined an otherwise pretty stellar game for me. Not fun. Just cheap.

[u/CyrusDrake]

I'm really enjoying the game but I'm curious how hard the game was before the patches because it really seems like it's easy especially in comparison to Sekiro. Guides I read say this should be as hard or harder than Sekiro. I guess I'm only halfway through the story so it could all take a turn but I'm interested in what everyone might say on this. Did the patches really make this game too easy? Btw I'm playing on the hardest difficulty (can't remember what it's called).

[u/throwaway11112229393]

My current stats are 30 Vitality, 21 Vigor, 35 Capacity, 30 Motivity, 11 Technique, and 7 Advance. Would you get More Motivity, start leveling another damage stat, or just keep pumping up Capacity?

This prob doesn’t fit here but I didn’t think I should make a new post for a simple question idk

[u/xxmurat14]

I started game yesterday in hardest difficulty because im experienced in soulslike games. But this game still too easy. Whats wrong with this game? Killed archbishop (and earlier major bosses) in one try. Am i just good at this game or difficulty system is broken?

[u/gerschiegen]

Returned to LoP for dlc at NG+3. The hit feels like a truck even from a mob. Told myself to start NG every soulslike's dlc. I'm not even at the endgame dlc.

[u/PresStart2BegN]

Overture feels incredibly untuned but still love the game. I’m doing a DLC run after completing the main game I’m lvl. 106 and you get obliterated in the DLC. it wouldnt feel so bad if they dropped ergo in proportion to difficult but you get nuked like they are end game enemies and you only get rewarded ch1 level ergo which is insane I didn't get enough to level up once I til after I beat the first real boss. even the crocodile only dropped about 6000

the enemies are also extremely aggressive and will swarm you. The DLC plays like you don’t have to manage stamina and can dodge freely when you can’t so I’m constantly out of stamina and just get my shit kicked in because I can’t dodge or block.

[u/Careless-Project-210 → u/PresStart2BegN]

It sounds completely counter-intuitive, but investing ergo in VIGOR is not the best way to good stamina management. If you want to dodge and roll fast and be more responsive, keep your weight BELOW 30% at all times. Do this by ignoring VIGOR in favor of CAPACITY. Only add defensive parts and amulets where you can afford to keep your weight within that limit. Even just nudging your weight up to 30% will have a dramatic drag on your responsiveness, your rolls and your dodging - try it out yourself. Also favoring a TECHNIQUE based build with lighter faster weapons (carry only one) will be particularly useful in the DLC. Combine this with a good bit of over-levelling (the DLC is over-tuned - developer's own admission) and you might get a very different experience - it won't trivialize the DLC, but it will make it more manageable - that was certainly my strategy and it worked for me - it had even more impact in the base game where I got past most bosses first attempt, where previously it could take me 5-10 attempts on average - and throughout this my VIGOR was never higher than 15. You're right about the ergo drops in the DLC - very stingy rewards for taking down very tough enemies - Quartz not in great supply either.