Lost all money

[Moojuice]

I am in the fungus realm now and died horribly. After that my game crashed and I started again at the bench. But there is no dark spirit to kill anymore so I lost 700 geos or so.. How is that possible?

[.//slayer]

If you die the second time without recovering your shade, you lose the money. Since you crashed, the game probably considered that a death or an exit without save. Anyway, 700 is not too much, don't let it bother you.

[Moojuice]

It doesn't but I thought it is a bug. The game is excellent and I have a ton of fun. Only wanted to figure out how that runs.

[Mo0?]

I lost 3.5k earlier - Heartbroken

[Melodia]

It wouldn't be so bad, except not only does it autosave, but it you can't even make a copy. This is one of the most rediculous game mechanics I've ever seen and I'm about to stop playing because of it.

[john.r.moser]

Wait, what? You get money back when you kill the shade? I only get my soul container fixed.

[AuburnRDM]

Originally posted by john.r.moser:

Wait, what? You get money back when you kill the shade? I only get my soul container fixed.

You have to make it back on your first try. If you die again, you only recover what you had on the life you most recently lost.

[Kyutaru]

Originally posted by Melodia:

It wouldn't be so bad, except not only does it autosave, but it you can't even make a copy. This is one of the most rediculous game mechanics I've ever seen and I'm about to stop playing because of it.

So the Dark Souls death penalty is the most ridiculous game mechanic ever to you?

[Bubblegum Witch]

Originally posted by Kyutaru:

Originally posted by Melodia:

It wouldn't be so bad, except not only does it autosave, but it you can't even make a copy. This is one of the most rediculous game mechanics I've ever seen and I'm about to stop playing because of it.

So the Dark Souls death penalty is the most ridiculous game mechanic ever to you?

I love the mechanic, but the OP does have a point that it's unfair for you to lose the chance to recover your lost souls on exit / crash. Death is usually so quick that closing to avoid it would not be particularly exploitable. It's better to err on the side of generosity over user frustration with these sort of things, Dark Souls or not. Being screwed over by a crash is a good way to get people to stop playing your game.

[Melodia]

I've never played Dark Souls.
Again, the issue is the auro-save that makes it unfair. It'd be one thing if it were like Shovel Knight (what I first thought of when I saw this) where you can simply go back to last save but the fact that you're permanenmtly penalized for this is just horrible game design (now of course if this were a rogue-like or a rogue-lite that would be a different story, but it's NOT).
The place I lost it was a very dangerous spot with a lot of exploding mines. So I had to fight the ghost while avoiding explosions that do two damage (I believe).
I thankfully had a backup save from last night which I used to recover the majority of my money. And now I'm going to be copying the save every time I die because of this.
I later died in a spot because the lag caused me to be unable to move, and it actually put the shade in another spot a bit over.

And the issue of it being so punishing to die means it's harder to take risks. There's a some places with some tricky spike jumping -- I've already passed up trying one because your tries are limited unless you can grind back health easily, and then I came across what turned out to be the way to actually advance the game.

Let me reiterate this -- there's a difficult spike jumping puzzle that you have five tries to get through or you're sent quite a distance back to the save point. At this point you have to get back there or you lose your money forever. How does this make any sense?

Difficulty is fine. I like the spike puzzles. I like the bosses so far. And the visuals/sound/etc are amazing and the gameplay in and of itself is fun. But between this whole thing, the ease at which it is to waste spirit energy (oops, you didn't hold B long enough and you can't heal now), a number of enemies that you can't see because the background is in the way, and the stuff with the map (see other thread)....well I'm almost at my limit. It's even more disappointing as the devs clearly put a huge amont of love into the game, but there's just so much little BS here and there that make it hard.

Again, for NOW I'm coninuing to play....while making a backup save every time I die (and note, again, you cannot even do this in game. You have to physically copy the save file).

[Averagedog]

Originally posted by Melodia:

I've never played Dark Souls.
Again, the issue is the auro-save that makes it unfair. It'd be one thing if it were like Shovel Knight (what I first thought of when I saw this) where you can simply go back to last save but the fact that you're permanenmtly penalized for this is just horrible game design (now of course if this were a rogue-like or a rogue-lite that would be a different story, but it's NOT).
The place I lost it was a very dangerous spot with a lot of exploding mines. So I had to fight the ghost while avoiding explosions that do two damage (I believe).
I thankfully had a backup save from last night which I used to recover the majority of my money. And now I'm going to be copying the save every time I die because of this.
I later died in a spot because the lag caused me to be unable to move, and it actually put the shade in another spot a bit over.

And the issue of it being so punishing to die means it's harder to take risks. There's a some places with some tricky spike jumping -- I've already passed up trying one because your tries are limited unless you can grind back health easily, and then I came across what turned out to be the way to actually advance the game.

Let me reiterate this -- there's a difficult spike jumping puzzle that you have five tries to get through or you're sent quite a distance back to the save point. At this point you have to get back there or you lose your money forever. How does this make any sense?

Difficulty is fine. I like the spike puzzles. I like the bosses so far. And the visuals/sound/etc are amazing and the gameplay in and of itself is fun. But between this whole thing, the ease at which it is to waste spirit energy (oops, you didn't hold B long enough and you can't heal now), a number of enemies that you can't see because the background is in the way, and the stuff with the map (see other thread)....well I'm almost at my limit. It's even more disappointing as the devs clearly put a huge amont of love into the game, but there's just so much little BS here and there that make it hard.

Again, for NOW I'm coninuing to play....while making a backup save every time I die (and note, again, you cannot even do this in game. You have to physically copy the save file).

I know which puzzle you are talking about. Yes it is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ annoying to deal with. But as for the actual contention of your post,


The death/ghost system to reclaim geos is a holdover from Dark Souls. The threat of losing your ♥♥♥♥ is, in theory, supposed to make you improve yoru play to avoid dying in the future. As someone that has played several dark souls games, blood borne, Salt and Sanctuary, and Nioh, all this system really does is increase the time it takes to beat a game by punishing you hard. It creates challenge. Being able tos ave any time removes some of this challenge. It is pretty much the equivalent of removing save scumming from a game like xcom 2. However, your point is still valid, I think the devs should add a save system for a super casual mode for people that just want to explore the regions and the vague story without being set back too hard.

[Melodia]

It's not even about being 'casual'. Simply making it not auto-save would go a long way toward fixing it. Right now the save point is more of a 'heal and place a checkpoint here' spot as opposed to an actual save point. Hell you can even so a quick warp back to it by quitting, which doesn't seem like it was intended to be used in that way.

[SIUnit]

The longer trek back from a save point sort of makes sense, as you can fill up your spirit energy while going back to your shade, which theorectically makes jumping puzzles easier as you have more tries due to being able to heal if you mess up.

In practice though I'd much prefer just be able to get right back at trying the puzzle immediately rather than going through the map again.

[Levendi]

Yeah this second death mechanism is total BS since they never mentioned it. I assumed it to be so, but I died in one of those "jump on the backs and attack" pasrts and the shade was PAST the part where i died. It was obvoiusly difficult to do this jump, so now i was completely screwed. If i WANTED to cheat the gaem i could just restart before dyign and re-do over and over, but it was a reall pain. i had 1.5k, was waiting for the lantern. Everyone keeps saying GEO is useless, but not in the beginning.... it takes forever to grind it out. I think i'm putting it down for a while. I feel like startign from the beginning and not spending money on the worthless map upgrades.

[Gecklo!]

Originally posted by Melodia:

It wouldn't be so bad, except not only does it autosave, but it you can't even make a copy. This is one of the most rediculous game mechanics I've ever seen and I'm about to stop playing because of it.

Originally posted by Melodia:

I've never played Dark Souls.
Again, the issue is the auro-save that makes it unfair. It'd be one thing if it were like Shovel Knight (what I first thought of when I saw this) where you can simply go back to last save but the fact that you're permanenmtly penalized for this is just horrible game design (now of course if this were a rogue-like or a rogue-lite that would be a different story, but it's NOT).
The place I lost it was a very dangerous spot with a lot of exploding mines. So I had to fight the ghost while avoiding explosions that do two damage (I believe).
I thankfully had a backup save from last night which I used to recover the majority of my money. And now I'm going to be copying the save every time I die because of this.
I later died in a spot because the lag caused me to be unable to move, and it actually put the shade in another spot a bit over.

And the issue of it being so punishing to die means it's harder to take risks. There's a some places with some tricky spike jumping -- I've already passed up trying one because your tries are limited unless you can grind back health easily, and then I came across what turned out to be the way to actually advance the game.

Let me reiterate this -- there's a difficult spike jumping puzzle that you have five tries to get through or you're sent quite a distance back to the save point. At this point you have to get back there or you lose your money forever. How does this make any sense?

Difficulty is fine. I like the spike puzzles. I like the bosses so far. And the visuals/sound/etc are amazing and the gameplay in and of itself is fun. But between this whole thing, the ease at which it is to waste spirit energy (oops, you didn't hold B long enough and you can't heal now), a number of enemies that you can't see because the background is in the way, and the stuff with the map (see other thread)....well I'm almost at my limit. It's even more disappointing as the devs clearly put a huge amont of love into the game, but there's just so much little BS here and there that make it hard.

Again, for NOW I'm coninuing to play....while making a backup save every time I die (and note, again, you cannot even do this in game. You have to physically copy the save file).

You appear to be a big fan of "save scumming". I do it too, I'm not afraid to admit that. But when you talk about Shovel Knight, the reason you call it fair is because you as a player are deciding to abuse the way saving works in SK. In that game, if you do loose the money after dying twice, you arent supposed to get it back. You then choose to break the intention of the devs by reloading a save, so your critique here should be equally applied towards Shovel Knight.

The game mechanic isnt riddiculous. Its just really REALLY tough. I was just doing my second playthrough of the game and lost 2,500 early on, and actually came across this forum trying to see if there was a way to cheat that stuff back through the saves. And it seems sadly that 2,500 has been unfortunately wasted but I cant bring myself to call that mechanic absurd. It has a clear reason for existing and coexists with the gameplay. An absurd game mechanic to me would be one with miniscule to no basis for existing within a game or doesnt compliment the gameplay.

I find that this mechanic perfectly alligns with what the devs wanted this experience to be. Down to how far apart checkpoints can be, the game doesnt want you to play this game through brute force. The game is designed and intended to be played cautiously. And at every opportunity that the player isnt cautious, they are penalized. If your shade is out there with all your Geo, and you are clumsy on your way back, its your fault that you lost it. Just like me, i was clumsy and while Id love to cheat my way out since ive already beaten the game fairly, and im not exactly happy i lost all that, i cant agree the mechanic is bad.

You talked about how it doesnt make sense to loose the money forever if you cant make it back. But the sense here is that youve already told the game you can make it back. The mere fact the shade appears usually a bit earlier than the exact point you died shows that you at least survived to get to that point originally. By the time your shade is made, youve proven that you can at least survive to the point that you died. So when you retrieve it and die even earlier, i think that punishment is justified, as the player as already proven that they could overcome it yet they did not. The mechanic makes sense. But it is none the less quite cruel, which is frustrating.

I thinks its fair to say you dont like it however. Hating the mechanic is another story, as its just preference, and thats more than fair. Sorry for probably pointlessly responding to a thread over a year and a half old but i couldnt help but throw in my two cents.

[Melodia]

Yes well, a bit later THIS happened:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/367520/discussions/0/135511027317306178/