Just to make for 100% sure about bonfire ascetic

[Flowernose]

Will putting 99 bonfire ascetics in a bonfire make the game harder then placing 1 bonfire ascetic in the bonfire?

Im fine with a area being 1 difficulty above normal if it means "unlocking" farming spots

"Please be aware that any ascetic you burn in a bonfire WILL carry on to the next playthrough! If you want to farm souls using ascetics and then wish to go to NG+, the difficulty of the area will be the number of ascetics used MORE than NG+.
Using a Bonfire Ascetic will NOT respawn Estus Flask Shards.
If you use a Bonfire Ascetic on your first playthrough on a bonfire, it will be NG+ level, when you go to your second playthrough it will stack and will become NG+2, be very careful as this may make it much harder for you to complete NG+'s above what you're at.."

[Bear]

If you need to farm, just join the Covenant of Champions. It amps the enemies up a bit but prevents them from despawning, meaning easy farming without wasting ascetics.

EDIT: read Decker's posts for ascetics, I can't type today.

[Friends 'Til the Hilt]

yes, the game has difficulty scaling up to bonfire intensity 8. after that, the only thing that can make it harder is additional new game plus cycles (which is different to simply adding an ascetic to an area).

[Sir Xorion]

Bonfire ascetic is pretty much the equivalent of making the area by the bonfire ng+. So it will get more difficult if you keep using them up to ng+7 iirc.

[Flowernose]

Alright =/ i used a bonfire ascetic at exile holding cell for extra soul vessel instead of using the memory of the giant

If i keep doing that then everything will insta kill me and take a very long time to kill

[Bear]

Just use the Memory of the Giants for soul vessel farming. The place is easy and as said, after around level 7 or 8 the game doesn't get much more from further scaling. Mine's at level 25 or so and it's not a problem area.

[Hatrix_]

Keep in mind that the only reason to be using a Bonfire Ascetic is for farming:
1. Enemies that spawn only once per NG cycle (e.g. Painting Guardian red phantom in Aldia's Keep; Golden Lion Warrior in Shaded Ruin's, etc.)
2. Item drops from bosses that only drop on NG+ and above (Clear Bluestone Ring +2; Old Witch Soul; things to that nature.)

Otherwise join CoC for farming normal items drops from enemies.