2024

19 February, 2024. 1,255 words.

Dispatches from @ultrviolet@gts.endgameviable.com:

Monday 02/12

09:27 # Forgot to report that I completed the Door Guardian in Lies of P yesterday. This might come as a shocking surprise, given my glowing reviews of previous bosses, but I found it rather annoying. Less annoying than the Black Rabbit Brotherhood, though, so I guess that’s a net positive. At this point I’m just putting my head down and trying push through the pain to get to the end of the game.
09:30 # I don’t think I’ve had to go back in and edit out so much cussing from my videos for quite some time. That’s going to be the legacy of Lies of P for me.
12:38 # While I had the Superbowl on and muted in the background, I had a weird thought: The viewer of a D&D Actual Play and the viewer of a sports event are pretty much exactly the same. They provide roughly the same kind of unscripted live entertainment. I wonder if the people who are like “I just don’t get watching people play D&D” are the same people who are like “I just don’t get why people watch Sports Ball.”

10:20 # Last night I entered the ring with Laxasia the Unpronounceable in Lies of P. There’s a 13-hit combo in the first phase. It was super obvious there would be a second phase. I don’t know what comes after the second phase, but I just have to assume, because this is Lies of P, otherwise known as Troll the P(layers), there’s probably a third phase with 47-hit combos, and then there’s probably going to be a fourth phase with 192-hit combos, and then a fifth phase where the boss only has 10 hit points but you can’t possibly hit them with a melee attack, and then a sixth phase where the boss is actually immune and underground the entire fight and does earthquakes to kill you, and then when you finally get through that, there’s a long 20 minute lore-heavy cut scene, and then a seventh phase where the boss has a million hit points and can’t be hit by any player attacks. Probably.
- 10:22 # Also, I forgot to mention, because it’s Lies of P, the most anti-player game in history, the long 20 minute lore-heavy cut scene between the sixth and seventh phase will be unskippable.

11:02 # Last night was day two of the Laxasia boss in Lies of P. Not much progress. First phase is super easy unless you have bad luck, second phase you die in seconds with or without a Spectre and you have no opportunity to learn how to fight it. Typical Lies of P trolling. I looked at a wiki and learned you can reflect the lightning attacks with a perfect block, something I never would have expected if I hadn’t read it online. I guess they assumed everyone had just played Sekiro, where they actually explained that to the player. Of course this is the only boss where the perfect block timings are not predictive or uniform and you have to visually see the lightning to react to it, which is hard because of the perspective. Sarcastic slow clap to the devs again.

11:32 # Last night was day three of Laxasia in Lies of P. Not much progress. First phase continues to be brain-dead easy, second phase you die so fast and randomly you can’t practice or absorb any knowledge to make any progress. Typical Lies of P player trolling. I decided to start farming Ergo to level up like 20 or 30 times (I’m currently 69), which is something I generally don’t do in Souls-likes because it’s intensely boring, but this game is absurdly unfair toward the end. Previously I’ve never seen any decent locations to farm Ergo in Lies of P, which I thought was another way the game was trolling players, but I found a spot that’s not too terrible at the Arche Abby Entrance. Put on a podcast and zone out for an hour and it’s about 5 levels worth of Ergo.

15:29 # Oh I forgot to report that victory was achieved last night, on day four of Laxasia in Lies of P. It was the first try on the night. It was mostly luck. The Spectre survived the entire fight. Laxasia didn’t target me with lightning very much. Luck-based boss fights, gotta love them. The luck swing was so severe I went from one fight where I actually died after her very first swing on phase one, all the way to winning the second phase of the fight, within the span of about 10 fights. I spent a few hours farming for Ergo and gained 12 levels of Vitality before that final attempt, which I think turned out to have only a minor effect. I haven’t counted the total number of deaths yet, but it’s probably 30ish.
15:32 # And after Laxasia, I got sidetracked on the way to the next (final?) boss with a trip to the Hermit’s Cave, which I had no idea was going to be a big huge area to explore. Incidentally, I was very disappointed I couldn’t kill Geppetto, for all the suffering he’s caused me.

09:30 # The next boss after Laxasia is not the final boss after all, which might explain why it only took me 9 attempts. Actually the explanation is luck. It was pretty much luck, the same as most all of these fights. Also the random discovery that the Crystal Spear works really well. There’s a trial-and-error phase in most of these boss fights where you try each of your weapons to see which one is uncommonly good in a way that you could never possibly predict.
20:52 # Today I finished Lies of P, although I gave up on the Nameless dude and just handed over my heart to end the game. Give me an option to end Lies of P without having to fight a ridiculous boss and I’ll be taking it every time.
20:55 # Having finished Lies of P, I started into Lords of the Fallen (the new one). It’s … very different from Lies of P. Also very different from Lords of the Fallen (the old one). Though it still has that floaty momentum-heavy camera and movement style. And a weird graphical style where all the stuff in the far distance is sharply in focus, which is a hard 180 against the last 15 years of video game graphics development, which has been working toward a display that looks more and more like a film camera in a movie.

09:30 # Lords of the Fallen is a bit janky around the edges, but I’m not hating it. Only done 3 boss fights so far but they’ve all been manageable and not rage- inducing, which is a good sign that the bosses won’t kill all the fun of the game. (I don’t like Souls-likes where you spend 75% of your game time in repetitive boss fights (like, say, Lies of P)). Have to go back to dodging instead of blocking. Camera and movement is super floaty though.. everything has momentum so you keep moving for a bit after you stop, and it’s the same for the camera. OP PvP invaders suck though. I don’t mind dying, it’s just an annoying interruption and waste of my game-playing time. I went offline after the second one in 30 minutes.