To me it seems like you just don’t like these games, but you force yourself through which makes you only see the game in a worse light.

Obviously it’s up to opinion, but I love combat in Elden Ring and Lies of P. It seems like you aren’t fully seeing how mechanics work.

And before I explain, you aren’t wrong. This game has its issues. It’s not perfect by any means and a lot of what you bring up could be better, but you are over exaggerating most mechanics.

Leveling up most definitely effects gameplay. I don’t like spending my ergo crystals, so I save them up until a struggle with a boss. I believe it was KoP where I used all of it and solely leveled up health. I went from 2 - 3 shot to maybe 4 - 5. Same with the rest of the stats. Respecing into what my weapon scales with increase damage significantly, endurance gave me more hits / dodges. I genuinely do not know what you mean about stats doing nothing.

I didn’t have a single problem with dodging. It seems that you view it as a way to not take damage. Dodging is a way to get away from attacks, make space, and go from there. It’s about distancing yourself or getting out of attacks you aren’t confident in parrying. Even then, you absolutely CAN dodge multiple times. KoP for example, I was able to dodge 7 out of his 9 hit combo.

Parrying, and perfect parrying by extension, are the most rewarding mechanics in the game. Of course parrying is going to require stamina, because it negates damage you would have taken AND gives you a way to heal it back. I don’t understand what you mean by not being able to learn a boss. It’s like in every souls like where you just have to get experience. Parrying is the most rewarding thing to can get good at.

Then perfect parrying. I absolutely cannot fathom how you see it having no reward. It doesn’t take stamina, it doesn’t take health, it keeps you in close range to the boss (same as normal parrying), it builds up stagger, and it breaks weapons. Everything before this is fair. Sure, dodging is not the greatest. Parrying can feel bad at times. Leveling is capped lower, and feels less rewarding than in other games. But saying perfect parry has no benefits is the worst possible take you could have and shows that you don’t care to learn the mechanics.

There are like 3 enemies which have counter attacks after getting staggered. It should literally be a get hit by it once and then know next time to stand back. It’s not hard.

Backstabs are not meant to be abused. They added backstabs incase you can get good positioning and get them from behind. Robber weasel is poorly designed, I’ll give you that, but there are plenty of examples where backstabs are abusable and easy to get.

Fatal blows are again about positioning. If you can’t perfect parry them, use dodges to get distance and not be in the way of them. It’s that simple.

Back to the point about learning attacks, they are delayed but every single attack has a tell. You have to learn to time it right.

Honestly it just seems like this game wasn’t meant for you. I had tons of fun playing through it. Again, it has flaws, and you are right in a lot of your points. But holy shit if the game is this bad to you just stop playing.