IMHO loosing runes permanently upon death makes game boring and grindy and punishes exploration.

[Centurion(HUN)]

I think it is very bad game design to make loosing your runes permanently upon death.
That makes the game boring grind, same enemies, same locations... going around and exploration is punished by loosing runes, and you can not develop your character - and have to grind, and it makes game boring. Parry mechanics is just ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up, as it is linked it is framerate a lot, thus sometimes it works and sometimes it does not - so playing with heavy knight where roll is usually not an option makes fight not so tactical as it can be... at least blocking works for most of the time.... To be honest this game is shooting in its leg by some stupid and unreliable mechanics.

[Centurion(HUN)]

Originally posted by Virtuous Saint:

the developers think so too, that's why they try their hardest to give you your runes back. if you die to certain bosses the first time you encounter them, your runes will be placed in front of the fog wall, so you don't even have to enter to get them back. and then there are the twigs you can use to get your runes from arenas if you can't beat a boss.

anyway, they know it's not a very good way of raising tension but they obviously don't know how to make a better system. don't go too hard on the poor dudes.

Not sure about certain bosses, never had problems with bosses. Twigs as they are limited is not the solution - MOD is a good solution for now.

And these dudes are not poor for sure :). Also this does not build/raise tension - it raises regrets of spent time due to unnecessary grind. Anyway I've got a solution now and I do not play online, due to another core mechanics of invasions - the most idiotic out of all in this game. This game can be a masterpiece, but doubtful and lazy solutions are keeping it from developing and based on reviews DLC look like put even more grind in it. As for me I will get to the end of this game and will put it on the shelf or mod it to my liking.

[Chibbix]

You really shouldn't be playing these games, and definitely shouldn't play DS2, if you think a core mechanic of the game, that other games attempt to imitate it's so successful is so "punishing".

Kingdom of Amalur, Enshrouded, Outward, Dragon's Dogma, Mass Effect Andromeda, King's Field. Those all sound like your types of games you should look into.

Avoid: Salt and Sanctuary, Salt and Sacrifice, Nioh1/2, Wo Long, Dark Myth Wu Kong, Blasphemous, Dead Cells, Sifu, Absolver, and any RPG made by From that isn't King's Field.

[Nemerlight]

There is probably a mod or something you could to change that too. Its your game do what you want