Is there no true penalty to dying?

[Judeo-communism]

Since this game has no Humanity to lose, and Souls aren't that hard to get anyway. Are there any true stakes to death in this game?

[Sonnenbank]

Originally posted by Sabaithal:

Losing progress+runes. Also rune arc if you have one activated.

you do not lose runes on death...
they are stored on the place you were killed.

This is one thing that always gets painted incorrect in any game magazines that describe how punishing souls games are...

Dying 1 time does not matter... you need to die 2 times in a row to really lose runes.
Of all my 1000+ ER deaths in 340h.... i think only like 2% did actually lose me the runes
98% i could regather

[Judeo-communism]

Originally posted by Sonnenbank:

Originally posted by Sabaithal:

Losing progress+runes. Also rune arc if you have one activated.

you do not lose runes on death...
they are stored on the place you were killed.

This is one thing that always gets painted incorrect in any game magazines that describe how punishing souls games are...

Dying 1 time does not matter... you need to die 2 times in a row to really lose runes.
Of all my 1000+ ER deaths in 340h.... i think only like 2% did actually lose me the runes
98% i could regather

Dying 1 time in the first 3 Souls games mattered because you lost your active Humanity/Embered status and had to consume another, even if you did Retrieve your Souls. In Dark Souls 2 in particular, Humanities/Human Effigies were actually finite and you could potentially run out of them permanently with no way to get more.

[Alby]

https://darksouls2.wiki.fextralife.com/Human+Effigy

human effigies can be dropped by certain mobs

[Sonnenbank]

Originally posted by Judeo-communism:

Originally posted by Sonnenbank:

you do not lose runes on death...
they are stored on the place you were killed.

This is one thing that always gets painted incorrect in any game magazines that describe how punishing souls games are...

Dying 1 time does not matter... you need to die 2 times in a row to really lose runes.
Of all my 1000+ ER deaths in 340h.... i think only like 2% did actually lose me the runes
98% i could regather

Dying 1 time in the first 3 Souls games mattered because you lost your active Humanity/Embered status and had to consume another, even if you did Retrieve your Souls. In Dark Souls 2 in particular, Humanities/Human Effigies were actually finite and you could potentially run out of them permanently with no way to get more.

Honestly i have 130h of DS3 and 0 hit all main any % bosses
never have i ever cared about humanity (being emberd)
30% more hitpoints ... no big deal.. using summons ? (never did this anyways)

[Judeo-communism]

Originally posted by Alby:

https://darksouls2.wiki.fextralife.com/Human+Effigy

human effigies can be dropped by certain mobs

But mobs don't respawn infinitely in DS2 like they do in the other games. After being killed about 10 times, they stop respawning. You can use an item called a Bonfire Aesthetic to refresh this counter, but you can only use those 10 times per Bonfire. Meaning, all Human Effigies are finite and cannot be farmed forever.

[Alby]

Originally posted by Judeo-communism:

Originally posted by Alby:

https://darksouls2.wiki.fextralife.com/Human+Effigy

human effigies can be dropped by certain mobs

But mobs don't respawn infinitely in DS2 like they do in the other games. After being killed about 10 times, they stop respawning. You can use an item called a Bonfire Aesthetic to refresh this counter, but you can only use those 10 times per Bonfire. Meaning, all Human Effigies are finite and cannot be farmed forever.

bonfire ascetics can be acquired by beating invaders or hosts in a specific location and i don't see anywhere where it says you can use 10 max per bonfire. meaning there *is* a way to acquire effigies infinitely, though time consuming.

if it was 10 max, the giant lord farm wouldn't be a thing

edit: double checks. https://darksouls2.wiki.fextralife.com/bonfire+ascetic
"Bonfire intensity caps at 99, but you can still burn ascetics past 99 to respawn the boss or farm loot."

[Judeo-communism]

Good, they patched it. But that doesn't fix the fact that every time you burn one, the mobs get exponentially stronger and harder. So it's definitely not "farmable" on standard NG with many builds unless you're a hyper specific wiki reading guide following video watching sweat tryhard using OP builds. Your standard Longsword quality Elite Knight set build isn't going to cut it.

[Alby]

Originally posted by Judeo-communism:

Good, they patched it. But that doesn't fix the fact that every time you burn one, the mobs get exponentially stronger and harder. So it's definitely not "farmable" on standard NG with many builds unless you're a hyper specific wiki reading guide following video watching sweat tryhard using OP builds. Your standard Longsword quality Elite Knight set build isn't going to cut it.

if you continue to burn one you can just use the souls you get to level up. difficulty stops at ng7. if you can't farm mobs on ng7 with a high level character, you're just a bad souls player. you don't need an op build to farm ironclad soldiers lmfao

[Judeo-communism]

Originally posted by Alby:

Originally posted by Judeo-communism:

Good, they patched it. But that doesn't fix the fact that every time you burn one, the mobs get exponentially stronger and harder. So it's definitely not "farmable" on standard NG with many builds unless you're a hyper specific wiki reading guide following video watching sweat tryhard using OP builds. Your standard Longsword quality Elite Knight set build isn't going to cut it.

if you continue to burn one you can just use the souls you get to level up. difficulty stops at ng7. if you can't farm mobs on ng7 with a high level character, you're just a bad souls player. you don't need an op build to farm ironclad soldiers lmfao

But I don't play NG+ at all. Nor did I ever come close to running out of Human Effigies in my only two playthroughs of the game. The problem isn't what actually happens, the problem is I have a burning pressure in the back of my head that my Humanities are finite and limited because I don't want to change my build or playstyle to fit bad game design and mechanics. That pressure leads to a far less fun experience. I finished both of my playthroughs with at least 30+ Humanities still in my inventory, and could've easily farmed more, but knowing that they are finite regardless still was bad. I enjoy DS1 and DS3's Humanity systems much more because they are actually infinitely farmable in a viable way, but still require a time investment to do so, so there are actually stakes and consequences for dying that are punishing.

I'm only 12 hours in ER so far, so I have no idea what this game's version of "Humanities" are, I've never heard of a Rune Arc, and we clearly have Humanities much earlier in Souls games so I'm skeptical to think they matter at all. I've died a few times and felt no punishment at all.

[Alby]

Originally posted by Judeo-communism:

But I don't play NG+ at all. Nor did I ever come close to running out of Human Effigies in my only two playthroughs of the game. The problem isn't what actually happens, the problem is I have a burning pressure in the back of my head that my Humanities are finite and limited because I don't want to change my build or playstyle to fit bad game design and mechanics. That pressure leads to a far less fun experience. I finished both of my playthroughs with at least 30+ Humanities still in my inventory, and could've easily farmed more, but knowing that they are finite regardless still was bad. I enjoy DS1 and DS3's Humanity systems much more because they are actually infinitely farmable in a viable way, but still require a time investment to do so, so there are actually stakes and consequences for dying that are punishing.

I'm only 12 hours in ER so far, so I have no idea what this game's version of "Humanities" are, I've never heard of a Rune Arc, and we clearly have Humanities much earlier in Souls games so I'm skeptical to think they matter at all. I've died a few times and felt no punishment at all.

if you don't want to play past ng+ then that's you, but effigies aren't finite. that's what i'm trying to say. i understand how you may think it's a bad design decision, though. mobs not spawning at a certain point makes farming unnecessarily tedious.

regarding rune arcs, you can farm those from rats and mobs don't stop respawning. there are many locations where a gaggle of rats hang out, namely in one particular location within stormveil castle. no need for anything past ng+

[nfinite.recursion]

Originally posted by Judeo-communism:

I'm only 12 hours in ER so far, so I have no idea what this game's version of "Humanities" are, I've never heard of a Rune Arc, and we clearly have Humanities much earlier in Souls games so I'm skeptical to think they matter at all. I've died a few times and felt no punishment at all.

Yeah, ER's version of humanities are the Rune Arcs. You won't really start finding them until you progress beyond Limgrave. The reason being that they are useless if you don't have any Great Runes and for most, their first Great Rune is acquired from defeating Godrick at Stormveil Castle.

You can farm Rune Arcs through online play or killing rat mobs. Rats, however, offer a very low drop rate.

[Kalameet]

Originally posted by Judeo-communism:

Originally posted by Alby:

https://darksouls2.wiki.fextralife.com/Human+Effigy

human effigies can be dropped by certain mobs

But mobs don't respawn infinitely in DS2 like they do in the other games. After being killed about 10 times, they stop respawning. You can use an item called a Bonfire Aesthetic to refresh this counter, but you can only use those 10 times per Bonfire. Meaning, all Human Effigies are finite and cannot be farmed forever.

You forgot mentioning Bonfire Ascetics causes the current area to advance to NG+ difficulty, which can destroy a player's progression to a halt, if used without knowing its consequences. Totally a tiny detail

fixed item name

[psheue]

I love it when people call them "aesthetics". Anyhow, there's no need to use them for Effigies; just join the Company of Champions (it's in Majula) and boom! infinite mob spawns. Ascetics are only needed for those ultra rare drops like the banana sword.

[Kalameet]

Originally posted by psheue:

ultra rare drops like the banana sword.

The WHAT?

[psheue]

Originally posted by Kalameet:

Originally posted by psheue:

ultra rare drops like the banana sword.

The WHAT?

Painting Guardian's Scimitar.