Soulslike - Discussion, News, Memes
This is a community for discussion, news, and memes pertaining to the video game sub-genre "soulslike".
Given Lemmy's size, the definition of soulslike may be treated relatively loosely. While games like the numerous FromSoft titles, the recent Star Wars Jedi games, Lies of P, Nioh and similar games should be the focus, games that incorporate soulslike elements - like Hollow Knight and Blasphemous, for example - may also be discussed here.
Basic Lemmy-quette applies. Additionally, since flairs don't exist yet, please do make sure to include a marker to denote what game your post is about in square brackets for clarity's sake. An example could be:
[BB] This enemy is so difficult!
or
[DS1] Anyone struggling with the gargoyles?
Friends:
Should you have any questions, please do let me know.
- Druid
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I was replaying it a bit this week and the loss of max life on death is just annoying. Like, dying to a pack of dogs because I was bold instead of cheesing it is not fun, and losing max health each time is just an insult. It clashes with the whole "keep going until you get it right" motif.
Ugh, and I started as a cleric, which is just weak until you find the Lightning spell, so you lose to gank squads from the tiniest mistakes (aggroing more than one at a time usually).
The mace at least is a surprisingly strong weapon.
At some point they nerfed lightning, sadly. It used to have a lot more casts
Yeah, that can be a bit frustrating. Even though it’s technically less brutal than losing Embered or Great Rune, it just feels worse. In DS3 and ER those feel like/are bonuses. In DS2 it feels more like a punishment. Human Effigies are about as or a bit more plentiful than Embers and Rune Arcs; just use them about as often as you would Embers and you should be fine. You never truly run out, but it’s a hassle to get more.
If I recall, in ds3 you get embered whenever you clear a boss. Not so in DS2. You need to co-op (which is rare now that the game is old, but even when it was new soul memory complicated it), or use a hard to farm item.
I actually never used the great runes in elden ring because I never remembered they were an option. I probably would have if you started powered up and lost it. Feels much worse that way.
Yeah, it would be nice if in ER when you beat a Boss or at least when you beat a Remembrance Boss the game would activate your Great Rune. That would be a small but nice change.
In DS2 you don’t lose immediately 30% of your health when you die and you can mitigate that further with the Ring of Binding. The finite amount of item pick ups is also a bit higher than in DS3 (at least I think so). Enemy drops of Human Effigies are also more common. Also there is another infinite source of Effigies: you can trade Prism Stones with the Birds for them. Tedious but infinite. (You can buy infinite Stones from the cat.)
Still, I stand by what I said initially, the feeling of losing the bonus of Embered is much less bad than slowly losing your max health in Dark Souls 2. Even though it’s nice story telling through game mechanics. The Cursed One losing themselves to the curse and slowly turning more and more hollow.
I think your analysis is correct, and it's kind of just basic human psychology. Humans are extremely loss-averse and losing something you feel like you had the right to (HP bar) feels worse than something framed as a bonus (embered). There are tons of psychological experiments coming to similar conclusions using money for example, where the same end outcome ends up registering completely differently for people depending on how it's framed.
I was wondering what you guys were on about until you mentioned the Ring of Binding! I’m finding that i have enough Human Effigies for the time being.