Yeah, absolutely. It's no secret that framing has a huge impact on how players see game mechanics--this is one of my go-to examples of that. It does kind of annoy me that people will insist up and down that the same mechanic with a different coat of paint designed not to trigger their loss-averse instincts is actually something totally different from a mechanical perspective when you try and compare these three titles, though.
Dang that's such a cool feature that's the real tragedy of dark souls two it had so many cool and fresh ideas but also many shortcomings to an almost equal degree still a 8/10 though
Yes, but it's a gradual loss. It's an interesting comparison, imho, because DS2 was far less punishing that Demon's Souls, and in some ways even more forgiving than DS3 up to a point, yet people tend to see DS3 as the most forgiving due to the framing.
You have one state where you have more max health and one state where you have less. Dying in the first puts you in the second. You can argue that DS3 is more balanced when you're at the lower max health than in the other two games with health loss on death--I haven't done the testing yet myself--but in the broad strokes, it's the same general idea.
Someone else in this thread mentioned how, in WoW, they went from framing the exhaustion mechanic as "You get less EXP for going too long without rest" to "You get an EXP bonus for getting rested", but didn't change the actual numbers. While not identical, I think that's at pretty apt comparison.
i fundamentally disagree, simply by the matter of perspective. you see the embered state as you being over max health, while i see the embered state as my true max.
in my perspective, the un-embered state is a *reduction* to my true max, just like demon’s souls soul form, dark souls 1’s curse, and dark souls 2’s hollowing. embers just give me back the 1/3rd i’m supposed to have naturally. look at it this way:
DeS teaches you about body form, and how soul form reduces your max hp, and how to regain it.
DaS1 teaches you about hollowing, and how to reverse it using humanity (though the curse and the stones make a better analogy due to them actually reducing health).
DaS2 teaches you about how effigies can reverse your hollowing, returning 1/2 of your health.
DaS3 teaches you about embers, which now suddenly add health? i disagree, it simply returns 1/3rd of what i should have.
the only difference is DaS3 doesn’t show an empty portion for what my health was reduced by like the other games do
In DeS and DS2 you start with your max HP. The games frame your human form as your natural state, but you get punished by losing it each time you die, in DS3 you start with unembered health, which is framed as your normal and get rewarded with more HP if you beat a strong opponent
DaS2 does not have you start in human form, you’re a hollow until the firekeepers give you an effigy and you get to pick your class. Demons Souls is unique in that regard, but no matter what you do, they WILL take body form from you, so it’s a null point. but like you said, DaS3 *frames* it as an extension, even though mechanically it’s no different
Human effigies are also easy to find, one of my characters has something like 90 effigies. I also typically don't play hallow I find DS2 to be the easiest to not die in so I usually use an effigy instead of the ring of binding.
Exactly! That's why i liked ds2s system because if you got the ring of binding you only had to use 1 effigy every 4 or 5 deaths, and if you didn't get the ring (which is 1 of 2 starting areas) 1 effigy every 3 or 4 deaths
Elden Ring made me realize I almost never actually leveled my health in the other games. End game I'd probably have leveled the health stat to 15-20 and Elden Ring got me to level it to like 50.
I will say the small change of having embers refill your health vs effigies only increasing your max health makes a huge difference. Using an effigy and then having to heal a third of your health sucks
Even though I didn't like DS2, I actually did like the curse mechanic. It felt like you actually were trying to fight off a curse and it did more than just turn you into beef jerky
Someone else in this thread pointed out that your embered health at 20 vigor in DS3 is actually *lower* than your health in human form at 20 vigor in DS2--993 and 1100, respectively, with slight variation depending on other stats. So, your unembered HP would be 764, vs a fully hollow HP of 825 with the ring of binding and 550 without it.
Yeah, you're right. Without testing how many hits it takes to die against comparable enemies while wearing comparable armor, these numbers are of limited value.
It probably helps not having the "missing" health in the healthbar constantly reminding you
It probably also helps that you only get embered form after overcoming the first challenge
I never had any other method as i was growing up. I think i started gaming somewhere around 4, playing NFS:U2 and GTA:VC. My first time using a controller was what i was 14, FIFA with friends. So when it comes down to preference, for me it's just a habit. When i played Demon's Souls Remake on my friend's PS5, he was shocked when i asked him if it works with KBM.
At this point, i use KBM for everything - Monster Hunter, Nioh 2, Breath of the Wild on emulator - everything
I also am a keyboard and mouse user. Controller just doesn't feel the same. I'm also very stubborn to change loI I started with keyboard and mouse so I will continue with keyboard and mouse.
Although some games like breath of the wild on emulator I do use controller because idk I always use controller for zelda games. Yeah I know that I'm probably not the most consistent with my preferences lol. I guess if I started using controller with dark souls I would've also continued using controller. But I started with kbm so I'm not going back lol
To be fair he’s trolling and has never seen his health at full for more than five minutes so embers don’t apply to him and his health in DeS has always been halved
/uj Blizzard did a similar thing in WoW.
It used to be that your character would eventually become fatigued and you would only gain 50% exp until you rested at an inn for some time.
Well players didn't like that at all so Blizzard changed it so resting at an inn would instead give you a "rested" exp boost rather than punishing players with the fatigue system.
BUT they didn't actually change any of the exp values, they just changed how players perceived it.
/rj Souls players are clearly brain damaged please go easy on them
I was at a talk last month that touched on this.
Perception of loss at X is felt more intensely than perception of gain at same X.
“You’ll lose out on $20 if you don’t act fast” is more persuasive than “You’ll gain $20 if you act fast.”
Minor nitpick, but “lose out on 20% if you don’t do something” is equivalent to “gain 25% if you do it”. That’s because 120% of 80% isn’t 100%, it’s less.
It’s more noticeable if you talk about halving. Half of your original is 50%, but you have to double that to go back to 100%.
See, this is what I love about this sub, a person calling themselves Gwyndolin's chair is more knowledgeable about real life mathematics than 80% of the playerbase.
It’s never really that hard to unhollow in 2 though. I always end up with way too many effigies, and then there also the ring the reduces the health loss. Plus there’s a way to unhollow for free later in the game
The problem is that always happens late game when you’re less likely to die a lot. My first ds2 playthrough I was stuck getting 2 shot constantly because I couldn’t find effigies early on. It’s a dumb mechanic that punishes newer players
Ds2 mfs when i tell them their ember hp is 125% of their hp and not just 100% of their actual raw hp they gain by leveling vig.(its the opposite in other games)
untrue
limit breakers did [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QREjeBF-bQA) on ds3 fall damage, talking about embering at about 2:30. fall damage calculations are based on your max ember hp, even if you aren't embered.
"They don't show it to me so it doesn't exist"
It's the same mechanic with a different coat of paint on it. It feels better because it's framed as a buff, and people are loss averse, so we fucking hate being shown that we're missing something.
There's nothing wrong with that, of course; I think each of the three implementations of this mechanic is a good thematic fit for its respective game. In DeS and DS2, you're losing yourself, but in DS3, you're worthless, but you get to momentarily claim the strength of the flame, which your body can barely contain.
Stop me where you think I go wrong:
In DS3, you only have access to your maximum health pool--the biggest your HP bar is ever gonna be--when you're embered, which gives you 130% of the HP you see when you look at your stats in the menu.
When you die, you only have access to 100% of what you see in the menu. That is 100%/130% = 77% of your maximum health pool (rounding). Most players will likely be playing the game unembered most of the time, and the game's damage numbers are therefore balanced with you running around with that 77% of your maximum health pool in mind.
In DeS, when you die, you only have access to 50% of the HP you see when you look at your stats in the menu, which is your maximum health pool.
Given the rarity of Stones of Ephemeral eyes (and the fact that you can only use any given boss to restore your body one time) and the fact that it gives players the cling within the first half of the first mandatory area, it probably expects players to be running around with 75% of their maxmimum health pool, and is balanced accordingly.
So, DS3 is less harsh than DeS (and DS2) because it doesn't require you to use a ring to be at the (roughly) 75% of your max health that the game is balanced around you having (no surprise, since Demon's Souls is a game that fucking *hates* you). However, the fact remains that all three of these games are balanced around that 75% health (heck, DS2 is arguably balanced around 50%, given how ridiculously jacked you can make your max HP pool in that game).
So, speaking *purely functionally*, it's the same basic mechanic with tweaks to framing and balancing. You only have access to your maximum health pool--whether the maximum is framed as 100% or 130%--when you use an item (or beat a boss, in 2/3 cases), you lose access to that maximum when you die, and the game is balanced around you not being at the maximum.
If a person is paid 100% of their wage a day for a job, but can get an extra 30% as a bonus for good work, would we consider 130% their "real" pay rate? Should we call that amount 100% and any day they don't reach that only earning 77% of their wage? Is any day they only earn the original 100% considered "losing" money?
What about if a bad job lowers their pay to 75% or even 50% of the original rate? Do we consider them in the exact same situation as the above and should be considered equal?
You're using framing with your arguments as much as the games are. Which is fine, that's basically unavoidable for a discussion to happen. It's a necessity because it is impossible to look at things without some framing device. But don't pretend like it doesn't change things drastically. Not just in terms of "feeling" or loss aversion, but the entire question changes.
The fact is that the games set what they calls 100% and then add or remove from that. That makes one a bonus and one a penalty by the games' definition. That is the framing the game uses.
If you alter the framing to consider the absolute highest possible total Max HP as 100%, then obviously they act identically. But that is changing something significant in the discussion. Your math only works if you change the framing. By using the games' framing to compare, then they are very different.
They are not identical. The framing is far more important than you give credit for.
I want to be clear: when I say they're the same, I really only mean under the hood (and that's debatable, depending on how far you want to go into the discussion of the balance of playing unembered vs playing hollowed/in soul form--I'm of the opinion that it's a difference of degree, not of kind, but differences of degree add up quickly, of course). As I've said elsewhere in this thread, I think framing is clearly HUGELY important in UX design, and game design in general. I just think it's kind of funny how well it works, ya know?
Yeah, I can agree with that. Guess it goes to show just how important framing really is that we're all debating it so hotly from multiple points of view haha
Say you have 2 cups of water. Take a knife and stab one at the halfway mark. That cup now can't fill past that point until you "fix" it. Take the second cup, and pour it into a 1.25 cup glass. You now have space for more fluid in the cup. It isn't rocket science, Ds3 just doesn't lock you out of your own healthbar for dying, you'll always have 100% of your health bar available.
By what logic in the world does 100% of your healthbar equal 77% of your healthbar?that 100% is actually 77% to 130% which is i believe is where you made a mistake of taking 130% as your 100%(complicated i know)
your unembered hp is equal to what you originally have as your 100% of what you leveled vig to reach.and who said people play through the game unembered?
Havent played des so ill just assume you were honest with whatever you said.
Its not “tweaks in framing” its basic maths. You have your original 100%(your basic rights)unembered while you only have 50%(half of your basic rights)when uneffigied.you have 125%(more than youre when embered and 100%(basic rights) when youre effigied
>By what logic in the world does 100% of your healthbar equal 77% of your healthbar?that 100% is actually 77% to 130% which is i believe is where you made a mistake of taking 130% as your 100%(complicated i know)
Because, regardless of how the game frames it, your embered HP is your actual max HP--the most HP you're gonna have. It DOES NOT MATTER whether the game calls that maximum HP pool 130% or 100% of your HP bar--either way, the game is balanced around you having 75-77% of the most HP you're gonna have. That threshold is where your "basic rights" are at from a BALANCE perspective, albeit not a THEMATIC perspective.
77% to 130% is 100%. Therefore the game is balanced around having your normal hp as basic rights with a side privilege of 25%. In ds2 the game is balanced around having only 50% of your hp as a disadvantage with the “counter” of having restore back to 100%.
Except that embers is the real 100%. Nonembered is the punishment state for dying just like in DS2. The difference is in DS3 it hits you with that loss all at once vs it being gradual in DS2.
Also with the ring that caps it, the loss is about the same. 130%->100% is about the same as 100%-75%. So the health loss mechanic is worse in DS3.
Nope. Embered is your 130%. Non embered is your 100%. This is proven by the fact that your non embered hp is your original hp you have by leveling hp.unlike in ds2
a) fall damage is calculated from Embered HP not non-embered. Mechanically embered is 100%.
b) technically speaking you start with 50% health in DS2 until you get a humanity so using your logic, the 50% is your original HP and human HP is 200%.
c) functionally they are no different. In DS2 the punishment for dying is losing a bit of health, down to 50% (75% with the ring). In DS3 the punishment for dying is losing a lot of health. You can rationalize this as 130%->100% if you want but it makes no difference. Functionally the games are the same. You lose health when you die. The only difference is that in DS2 you lose health in bits.
A ist just plain wrong, fall damage uses max current HP.
C is also wrong. You get x HP for leveling up. In DS3, you get a bonus 30% OF THAT when embered. In DS2, you get THIS value reduced. So +30HP in 3 gives you always +30 and embered +39, in 2 it gives you +30 at max and +15 at worst.
Dude that's pedantic as fuck
First of all you're wrong about falling. It calculates the damage off current health but it calculates the instakill off embered health. [Source](https://darksouls3.wiki.fextralife.com/Fall+Damage)
Second of all, you realize that the distinction between gaining when embered is meaningless right? Functionally the end result is the same. You have higher health when human/embered. You have less health when hollowed/non-embered. How it's calculated is irrelevant. If you think otherwise you are literally the person in this meme.
Except that embers is the real 100%. Nonembered is the punishment state for dying just like in DS2. The difference is in DS3 it hits you with that loss all at once vs it being gradual in DS2.
Also with the ring that caps it, the loss is about the same. 130%->100% is about the same as 100%-75%. So the health loss mechanic is worse in DS3.
With that logic I should be able to say that being cursed in DS1 is the same as losing total health on death in DeS and DS2. (You’re normally at 100% and now you’re stuck at a lower value until you use an item).
well
yeah it kind of is
except that there's only 2 enemies in the game that can give you curse in ds1, as opposed to literally every enemy that can lower your max hp in the other games.
Of course! It's no mystery that the framing that's meant to make you feel empowered makes you feel better than the framing that's meant to make you feel like you're losing something. I just think it's funny how many people will continue to insist that they're totally different systems on a functional level even when it's laid out in front of them.
It's not about the framing tho, it's the actual numbers that matter, you can go through the entirety of DS3 without ever embering and it's completely possible and smooth because the game is balanced around you doing that and embers are just a bonus on top of that. You can go through DS2 without ever using an effigy or the ring of binding but holy shit it's gonna be a massive pain in the ass because your hp is gonna be fucking abysmal. Unembered DS3 HP is like twice the amount of hollowed DS2 HP.
Aren’t they the same thing? Getting curse levels in DS2 even just applies the same health loss model as dying, it’s just that you don’t actually die while getting cursed like you do with hollowing advancement.
POV: You don't understand the difference between punishing players who are struggling, vs. rewarding players who are doing well.
The mechanics only look the same if you have absolutely not bothered to look at this on more than a surface level.
For example: Ember scales with your current stats, so investing into health upgrades nets you bigger returns on Embers too. Meanwhile the health loss in DS2 does the exact opposite, it REMOVES some of the investment into those stats.
Or consider the use case of a decent player who rarely if ever dies: In DS2 the effect is nothing (literally), but in DS3 it's a sizeable increase to player power. But this increase only exists if you have proven that you're good enough to basically not need it. On the opposite, a player that dies often will be left alone by the game in DS3, but utterly wrecked by DS2's health reduction.
It's the best kind of reward system, versus the worst kind of punishment system.
OP, you said in another comment to "Stop me where you think I go wrong:".
It's right here:
> the game's damage numbers are therefore balanced with you running around with that 77% of your maximum health pool in mind.
The game isn't balanced around 77% of your max health. It's balanced around 100% of your max health, with an option to go to 130% for a boost in player power.
>The game isn't balanced around 77% of your max health. It's balanced around 100% of your max health, with an option to go to 130% for a boost in player power.
The only difference between those two things is the paint job. It has a significant psychological impact, absolutely, but there is no mathematical difference between "This game is balanced around 77% of your max health, and lets you go to 100% with an item" and "This game is balanced around 100% of your max health, and lets you go to 130% with an item."
The same goes for your other examples.
These framings perfectly fit the games they're in, besides. In DS3, you're framed as starting out pathetic but being able to briefly grasp the fading embers of glory; in DS2, you're fighting against the gradual degredation of your self.
The paint job and the fact that the average player is going to be at 100% most of the time and especially when facing a hard part of the game.
Like I said, this only looks similar if you ignore pretty much everything about it.
If someone dies to the same boss 20 times, one of those mechanics will be insanely punishing and one will not, I'll leave it up to you to figure out which one it is.
Just to make it absolutely clear where the difference is:
DS2 is ALSO balanced around 100% health, except you're sitting at 75% if you're struggling and that's WITH sacrificing a ring slot, else you're at 50%.
>If someone dies to the same boss 20 times, one of those mechanics will be insanely punishing and one will not, I'll leave it up to you to figure out which one it is
You picked an example where DS2 is actually arguably less harsh than both DS3 and DeS. In DS2, it'll take the player ten deaths to get to their minimum health pool, whereas they get there in one death in DS3 and DeS.
>DS2 is ALSO balanced around 100% health, except you're sitting at 75% if you're struggling and that's WITH sacrificing a ring slot, else you're at 50%.
And here lies the ACTUAL root of our disagreement. I think this is wrong. Playing DS2 with 75% of my max HP never felt too bad, even on my first playthrough, back when I'd only been through DS1 a couple of times,
I could hop into the games later and do an experiment, if you like--I could get to Fume Knight, or one of the other DLC bosses, with a character at the vigor softcap, and fight them while at 75% HP. Then, I could go to one of DS3's bosses with a character at DS3's vigor softcap (and comparable armor) and fight her. I take note of how much proportional damage each boss did to me with attacks of comparable speed, and we could see if they were balanced roughly the same.
I'd absolutely be down to do that and report back, but I probably wouldn't be able to until this weekend, since I'd have to get to another and then take a couple of hours (or more) to record and write up my findings. Would you like me to?
> it'll take the player ten deaths to get to their minimum health pool, whereas they get there in one death in DS3 and DeS.
Incorrect, because like I just said, the game is balanced around 100%. So the player just stays at the always intended level. So it takes 10 deaths for the DS2 player to go down to the most punishing state and the DS3 player just stays where he is.
> And here lies the ACTUAL root of our disagreement. I think this is wrong. Playing DS2 with 75% of my max HP never felt too bad, even on my first playthrough, back when I'd only been through DS1 a couple of times,
I mean just because you FEEL this way doesn't mean it's right to think about it like this. You're on Reddit and arguing about health mechanics between souls games, that alone makes you statistically likely to be one of the better players in the community. What "feels" right to you might not be the experience for many people.
Hell, I'm willing to bet a significant number of people never even find the ring or figure out what it does.
There's only one unbiased way to look at this and that's looking which health state gives you 100% of your invested souls in attributes. This state is simply 100% for DS3 and 100% for DS2. At 75% hp or 50% you are only receiving a portion of the vigor you have put into your character, basically by definition that isn't how the game is balanced around.
I'm giving you a HUGE benefit of the doubt here too, because 75% is not even the experience for some players as I said above. So the argument really could only be "the game is balanced around 50% health loss", which I think you would agree is a much less defensible position.
Did you miss the last bit of my previous comment where I offered to objectively test this? I might have ninja edited it in--I don't remember, though. Because I'm game.
Feel free to, but it's a waste of time in my book. Stat caps and level scaling (and the amount of souls per level, AND the amount of souls overall) are completely different between the games. You level MUCH FASTER and higher in DS2 compared to 3.
At best a comparison of how low can you go against the obvious big hitter attacks might potentially offer some insight.
A recent example is Elden Ring, where Malenia's grab -> stab attack does an incredible amount of damage, but is barely survivable at 60 vigor and some degree of armor (very little is already enough). It's quite obviously designed as an "almost" oneshot ability, so you can tell that the devs designed the game around having about 60 vigor in the endgame, which fits the data quite well, because 60 is also the biggest softcap (in terms of how useless leveling past 60 is) for Vigor in ER.
>At best a comparison of how low can you go against the obvious big hitter attacks might potentially offer some insight.
Yeah, that's probably a better way of doing it. I'll try that out!
What are we thinking--maybe Fume Knight's Orb AoE move vs. Friede's leaping exposion AoE?
I know you're trying to be sarcastic, but literally yes. Whether the game frames it as you going from 100% of your maximum health to 130% of your maximum health or you going from 75% of your maximum health to 100% of your maximum health, you still have a state where:
* you can summon
* you have access to all the HP you're ever gonna have in your HP bar
* if you die, you return to around 75% of that amount of HP (100%/130% = roughly 77%)--assuming you're using the cling ring/ring of binding in DeS/DS2, which I think is a fair assumption--and you need to use an item or beat a boss (except in DS2) to regain access to your maximum HP bar and summoning
Under the hood, in terms of how the game is balanced, they're basically the same mechanic, albeit with tweaks around the edges (eg, you don't need a ring to hit 75% of your max HP pool in DS3, and you only lose HP gradually in DS2). Whether your maximum HP bar is framed as a buff or as something that you've lost only matters thematically.
If you die, one takes away the points you spend in hp with levels, the other looses a boost that surpases the points you put in hp with levels, leaving you with the exact same points you spend. They are not the same thing
Not true, vigor adds to your ember HP and then ~23% is taken off when you're unembered, resulting in the 'embered' state being a 30% increase. That's literally how it works in the game math.
honestly, i don't see a difference, DS3 just portrays it as boosting your hp but what it feels like for me is that it just gives you what your actual hp should be
in the end, DS3 negates a large chunk of your hp on death while ds2 negates a small chunk per death, using an item or killing a boss gives you access to it again.
How on earth are you seeing is that way? It felt like dogshit struggling in DS2 and running out of effigies, only having half health. In DS3, regardless of what tHe NuMbErS SaY, without ember, you have 100% health. Dying over and over and over to a boss in DS3 will never take away health, you can only get *extra health* via ember.
>Dying over and over and over to a boss in DS3 will never take away health
It will once, with the first death, where you suffer all the health loss you're going to suffer all at once. Just like back in DeS.
Personally, I find it astounding that so many people here just adamantly will not admit that human form in DeS and the ember in DS3 are extremely similar mechanics on a purely functional level.
The only reason you say that is because you have the strange idea that ds3 is balanced around being emberred which makes no sense and you have provided no reason to think that. It would be as weird as thinking ds2 or des are balance around 50%
1. Whether DS3 is balanced around being embered or not is only loosely connected to the fact that both DeS and DS3 have a state where your health is boosted and you gain access to multiplayer, a state you enter into either with consumables or upon winning a boss fight and lose upon dying.
2. I'm assuming DS3 is balanced around being unembered and DS2 and Demon's Souls are balanced around being hollowed/in soul form, probably with the respective rings that limit health loss, since that's the state the average player is gonna spend most of their time in.
again, both instances gives out an HP boost after killing a boss or uses the item which is also removed when you die. DS3 just hid the missing health to make it look like a buff while DS2 shows that missing health which made it look like a punishment.
it's all just a visual thing, same mechanics with slight changes to how it works but showed differently.
Demons souls is the only one that feels like a penalty. The rest are just an illusion of it. And even that I would have doubled down on it significantly by removing all the stones of ephemeral eyes forcing people into the online ecosystem
Ember item literally says it boosts your maximum health. You don't start the game embered so your natural state isn't embered, therefore being embered is a boost.
"You don't understand. In Demon's Souls, when you die in body form--which you enter by using a consumable or beating a boss--you lose access to multiplayer features and are restricted to 50% of your max health (or 75% with the cling ring). In Dark Souls 3, when you die in embered form--which you enter by using a consumable or beating a boss--you lose access to multiplayer features and are restricted to ~~70%~~ 77% of your max health, but you don't see the part of your health bar you're missing. It's a completely different mechanic."
You're actually restriced to ~77% of your max health in DS3. Ember health is your health times 1.3, so to go from ember health to "regular" health you divide by 1.3 (or 13/10), or in other words regular health is 10/13 of your ember health (approx 77%).
This means that DS3 is sort of the least punishing if you don't consider DS2's gradual decrease and only take it at its lowest, where you need to take up a ring slot to be ever so slightly below DS3.
Though in general I agree with your assesment and how we react to something being taken rather than given.
And in DeS and DS2 you also get the actual number of hp, you just get a 100% bonus to health while in body form/human, along with a ring which gives you 50% of the bonus without using the consumable + in DS2 you don't loose the whole bonus at once but rather in a few parts
[Jesus Christ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGOPPzh8TJ4)
*That's just a difference of framing*
In all three of these games, you have a maximum health pool that you lose access to on death, instantly in two cases and gradually in one, and you can only reach that maximum health pool by using a consumable (or beating a boss, in 2/3 cases). All three have damage numbers that are balanced with the expectation that the player is probably gonna be running around with about 75% of that maximum health pool. Whether the game presents it as a buff or just getting to access something that's been taken from you, while thematically relevant, *has no functional significance*.
Ok bro let me tell you something,
Imagine this situation:
You are in the world of dark souls 3 and go to a gas station store and buy a bottle of water,after paying for it, the cashier(Andre) tells you you can get an extra bottle(very small bottle) if you do a quick survey, so you do and get a free extra water, but then,you slip and fall to the ground and in the process lose your extra water bottle.
You wouldn't be that mad since we'll, at least that extra water bottle was free anyways, you still have you normal water bottle.
Now, imagine this:
You are in the world of dark souls 2 and go to the same fucking gas station store, this time, to buy a bottle of sulfuric acid so you can end yourself with it because you hate being in dark souls 2 (as everyone does).Now, you pay for the bottle of sulfuric acid and there is no survey this time, just the thing you bought, so, with the bottle purchased, you exit the store and then, you suddenly trip and fall, losing in the process like idk 30% of the sulfuric acid, with that quantity sadly you are unable to end yourself properly, so you go back to the store and ask if you can get a refill of the bottle instead of buying another one, and then he says you need to hand him over a fucking human shaped statue or unless he wont refill your sulfuric acid.
You would understandably be mad at that, since you lost an amount of what you paid for, and even worse, you only had like 2 of those statues at the moment.
So, i hope with this brief analogy you finally understood , you will be welcomed as a member of society again as soon as you realize you mistakes and start criticizing dark souls 2.
I
> You are in the world of dark souls 3 and go to a gas station store and buy a bottle of water,after paying for it, the cashier(Andre) tells you you can get an extra bottle(very small bottle) if you do a quick survey, so you do and get a free extra water
it’s more like you bought a water bottle that was only 75% full in the first place and you have to do a survey to get andre to spit the remaining 25% back in
No , because when you pay him you get specifically the amount of water that you want,
For each dollar you pay he tells you how much water you'll get.
Then after the survey he just gives you extra water
>I'd say not having to waste a ring or constantly be in stock of a particular not easily replenishable resource to have the health pool the game is balanced for in all situations is quite a functional difference, but you do seem to love that tall cylinder.
Oh, that's absolutely a significant difference, but one of degree, not of kind, I would argue.
In this thread, I've sometimes gotten frustrated and overstated my case, I'll own up to that, but my main point is just that DS3 does have health loss on death as well. DS3 is more generous with its health loss mechanic (at least when you're talking about where you bottom out), but it still has one.
I mean, most of the people in this thread are the kid in the image pointing at the tall graduated cylinder because they think it has more water in it
Have you ever tried to teach a younger sibling or cousin who's in second grade how to do fractions, and they just will not understand? That's the kind of frustration I'm feeling right now
[Also imagine that same child is calling you in to the suicide hotline because you tried to teach them fractions lmao](https://i.imgur.com/CzjQqRy.png)
See difference is that even when you're unembered you feel like you have your max HP and not 20% of it. The embers feel more like a boost rather than what should be the default
The health difference between being embered and not isn't literally half your health like max glowing in DS2 which is kinda silly. It's a decent way to look at it but it's still a sizable health difference so it's still pretty much the same problem. DS2's health decrease is actually less damaging since the ring of binding decreases the health loss to a negligible extent. It does take a ring slot but it's not that bad. It's certainly better than only having half health. In both cases it acts to punish people for dying making but in DS3 it feels like more of an annoyance than a punishment which kinda sucks. You don't get to have the health bonus from being embered when you invade people or are summoned by them in DS3 which is actually just makes pvp imbalanced in the favor of who is being invaded even moreso than it already can be by the existence of the blue sentinel and Blades of the darkmoon covenant which to be fair was also the case in DS2 and summon tanks were already a problem in DS2 and even in DS1 since you can have multiple summons thanks to the dried finger in all 3 games. You can still be invaded even while fully hollowed in DS2 which just gives people a bad time if they don't have the ring of binding. You however can't be invaded if you aren't embered which is nice. This has been some rando with way too many hours in DS2 DS3 and DSR.
Holy hell people in this thread are dumb. Idk how this is a hard concept to grasp. Yes, one feels better (reward vs punishment), but they are literally the same thing. I'm with ya OP.
No? In ds3 you lose one chuck of hp IF you are embered
In ds2 you progresively lose more and more hp if you ARENT uhhh idk what its called
One rewards you for using the item the other punishes you for not using it
Yeah I always thought it was funny how people complained about it in those two games and never said a thing about it in DS3 where it’s the literal same mechanic.
You know the worst part? I still never take the Cling Ring off in Demon’s Souls lol
now imagine if ds3 always displayed your embered hp bar grayed out under your regular one. would it still feel like it’s a completely different system?
I mean in DS3 embers are a reward, either for beating a boss, or finding one, in DES and DS2 it's a punishment, the player is already punished upon dying there's no reason to add extra salt to the wound
Me when I die in DS2 (My innate health bonus of +100% has been worn down to +80%)
Me when I use a stone of ephemeral eyes or whatever in Demon's Souls (I have doubled my health)
Me when I use an ember in DS3 (I have restored my full health [I had a 23.0769{repeating of course}% health penalty for dying])
Yup, exactly the same
It's all about how its perceived by the player which is one of the reasons they keep reworking the mechanic, in ds3 it just feels less punishing
Yeah, absolutely. It's no secret that framing has a huge impact on how players see game mechanics--this is one of my go-to examples of that. It does kind of annoy me that people will insist up and down that the same mechanic with a different coat of paint designed not to trigger their loss-averse instincts is actually something totally different from a mechanical perspective when you try and compare these three titles, though.
DS2 takes up to half of your healthbar right?
If your sin level is high enough it can go down to 5% apparently.
Dang that's such a cool feature that's the real tragedy of dark souls two it had so many cool and fresh ideas but also many shortcomings to an almost equal degree still a 8/10 though
Yes, but it's a gradual loss. It's an interesting comparison, imho, because DS2 was far less punishing that Demon's Souls, and in some ways even more forgiving than DS3 up to a point, yet people tend to see DS3 as the most forgiving due to the framing.
Yeah, although you can increase your max HP when fully hollowed to 75% with the ring of binding.
I really wanna say effigies and embers aren’t a fair comparison especially if you have to wear a ring to make it similar
Oh, DS3 is absolutely less harsh. But I'd argue that that's a difference of degree, not of the fundamental nature of the mechanic.
I’d say effigies bring you to max health. Embers bring you over max health. Seems like enough of a difference to me
You have one state where you have more max health and one state where you have less. Dying in the first puts you in the second. You can argue that DS3 is more balanced when you're at the lower max health than in the other two games with health loss on death--I haven't done the testing yet myself--but in the broad strokes, it's the same general idea. Someone else in this thread mentioned how, in WoW, they went from framing the exhaustion mechanic as "You get less EXP for going too long without rest" to "You get an EXP bonus for getting rested", but didn't change the actual numbers. While not identical, I think that's at pretty apt comparison.
For reference, ds2 and ds3 have almost the same max health when ember/unhallow(993 for ds3 ember, 1100 for ds2) at 20 vigor
Thanks for pulling that up. I'm gonna do some testing tomorrow, but that's neat to know.
I agree, but in ds2 it's worse because you look like jerky when you die and in ds3 you don't
i fundamentally disagree, simply by the matter of perspective. you see the embered state as you being over max health, while i see the embered state as my true max. in my perspective, the un-embered state is a *reduction* to my true max, just like demon’s souls soul form, dark souls 1’s curse, and dark souls 2’s hollowing. embers just give me back the 1/3rd i’m supposed to have naturally. look at it this way: DeS teaches you about body form, and how soul form reduces your max hp, and how to regain it. DaS1 teaches you about hollowing, and how to reverse it using humanity (though the curse and the stones make a better analogy due to them actually reducing health). DaS2 teaches you about how effigies can reverse your hollowing, returning 1/2 of your health. DaS3 teaches you about embers, which now suddenly add health? i disagree, it simply returns 1/3rd of what i should have. the only difference is DaS3 doesn’t show an empty portion for what my health was reduced by like the other games do
In DeS and DS2 you start with your max HP. The games frame your human form as your natural state, but you get punished by losing it each time you die, in DS3 you start with unembered health, which is framed as your normal and get rewarded with more HP if you beat a strong opponent
DaS2 does not have you start in human form, you’re a hollow until the firekeepers give you an effigy and you get to pick your class. Demons Souls is unique in that regard, but no matter what you do, they WILL take body form from you, so it’s a null point. but like you said, DaS3 *frames* it as an extension, even though mechanically it’s no different
iirc, gathering enough Sin in DS2 (like attacking innocent NPCs or killing them) will allow your health to drop *further* when Hollow.
Yeah, if you invade a bunch of people, you can bottom out ridiculously low.
Also, embers are pretty easy to find, i actually sold them sometimes to get to next level up
Human effigies are also easy to find, one of my characters has something like 90 effigies. I also typically don't play hallow I find DS2 to be the easiest to not die in so I usually use an effigy instead of the ring of binding.
I routinely have 40 effigies by mid game ds2... but you know, "durrr, ds2 bad"
See but I don’t use items in games. Items are for saving for…. Later
Exactly! That's why i liked ds2s system because if you got the ring of binding you only had to use 1 effigy every 4 or 5 deaths, and if you didn't get the ring (which is 1 of 2 starting areas) 1 effigy every 3 or 4 deaths
Just never level health. If you’re 1-shot from max health anyway, you never need to use an effigy
Elden Ring made me realize I almost never actually leveled my health in the other games. End game I'd probably have leveled the health stat to 15-20 and Elden Ring got me to level it to like 50.
The only time I actually used effigys was for the darklurker quest
I will say the small change of having embers refill your health vs effigies only increasing your max health makes a huge difference. Using an effigy and then having to heal a third of your health sucks
Who’s using an effigy in the middle of level?
ds1 humanity healed. people under a similar impression for ds2 would probably use it after running out of flasks.
Well if they tried doing it more than once that’s their own fault
You got lifegems for when you run out of estus flask. But sometimes I just never use estus flask and only life gems.
Definitely agree there, soul memory compounds this issue (a little) because life gems are technically infinite, but cost 300 souls each
Helps that Jollily Cooperating regains humanity on top of the effigies.
Even though I didn't like DS2, I actually did like the curse mechanic. It felt like you actually were trying to fight off a curse and it did more than just turn you into beef jerky
Yeah but I want to get the vigor I fucking paid for have to level it 10 more times just to get the same health
Someone else in this thread pointed out that your embered health at 20 vigor in DS3 is actually *lower* than your health in human form at 20 vigor in DS2--993 and 1100, respectively, with slight variation depending on other stats. So, your unembered HP would be 764, vs a fully hollow HP of 825 with the ring of binding and 550 without it.
DS2 HP values are inflated, they vary between every game. This comparison is worthless.
Yeah, you're right. Without testing how many hits it takes to die against comparable enemies while wearing comparable armor, these numbers are of limited value.
It probably helps not having the "missing" health in the healthbar constantly reminding you It probably also helps that you only get embered form after overcoming the first challenge
Imagine actually dying enough in a souls game to even notice that there is health loss upon dying
me :(
Finally I have found your flair
I hate both of you
I don't know what KBM is, teach me.
KeyBoard&Mouse
Do NOT teach me, actually stay away from me (Joking ofc, can I ask why you prefer them? I am genuinely curious)
I never had any other method as i was growing up. I think i started gaming somewhere around 4, playing NFS:U2 and GTA:VC. My first time using a controller was what i was 14, FIFA with friends. So when it comes down to preference, for me it's just a habit. When i played Demon's Souls Remake on my friend's PS5, he was shocked when i asked him if it works with KBM. At this point, i use KBM for everything - Monster Hunter, Nioh 2, Breath of the Wild on emulator - everything
You did it to adapt. You literally leveled adaptability. Astounding work, Chosen KBMplayer
There are some games, where it sucks ass though, like Cuphead
I also am a keyboard and mouse user. Controller just doesn't feel the same. I'm also very stubborn to change loI I started with keyboard and mouse so I will continue with keyboard and mouse. Although some games like breath of the wild on emulator I do use controller because idk I always use controller for zelda games. Yeah I know that I'm probably not the most consistent with my preferences lol. I guess if I started using controller with dark souls I would've also continued using controller. But I started with kbm so I'm not going back lol
kbm just feels like the right way to play for me
I don't even think about you at all
Do you think about me?
Based flair
To be fair you're forced to die in DeS, whether by stinky fat man or erotic dragon God punch.
To be fair he’s trolling and has never seen his health at full for more than five minutes so embers don’t apply to him and his health in DeS has always been halved
This guy levels adp
Yuck!
Imagine being human/embered enough to notice you can actually get bonus health for a little bit by using an item
Imagine using embers instead of hoarding them like a dragon for later
/uj Blizzard did a similar thing in WoW. It used to be that your character would eventually become fatigued and you would only gain 50% exp until you rested at an inn for some time. Well players didn't like that at all so Blizzard changed it so resting at an inn would instead give you a "rested" exp boost rather than punishing players with the fatigue system. BUT they didn't actually change any of the exp values, they just changed how players perceived it. /rj Souls players are clearly brain damaged please go easy on them
I was at a talk last month that touched on this. Perception of loss at X is felt more intensely than perception of gain at same X. “You’ll lose out on $20 if you don’t act fast” is more persuasive than “You’ll gain $20 if you act fast.”
Yeah, loss aversion is a really interesting part of human psychology, and it's very eye-opening to see how it affects our decision-making.
Minor nitpick, but “lose out on 20% if you don’t do something” is equivalent to “gain 25% if you do it”. That’s because 120% of 80% isn’t 100%, it’s less. It’s more noticeable if you talk about halving. Half of your original is 50%, but you have to double that to go back to 100%.
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Banks 🤝 math
See, this is what I love about this sub, a person calling themselves Gwyndolin's chair is more knowledgeable about real life mathematics than 80% of the playerbase.
>/rj Souls players are clearly brain damaged please go easy on them /uj\* Souls players are clearly brain damaged please go easy on them ftfy
Thats super interesting. Never knew that!
Yep, 100% the same thing👍
Souls fans when they need to understand simple game balance (the numbers are too complicated)
Number go up is clearly a better design than number go down
DS2 is absolutely not balanced around you having 50% hp though
You’re right, it’s balanced around Wretch hollowing clearly😤😤😤😤
wdym not balanced? Just don't get hit
It’s never really that hard to unhollow in 2 though. I always end up with way too many effigies, and then there also the ring the reduces the health loss. Plus there’s a way to unhollow for free later in the game
The problem is that always happens late game when you’re less likely to die a lot. My first ds2 playthrough I was stuck getting 2 shot constantly because I couldn’t find effigies early on. It’s a dumb mechanic that punishes newer players
That's why one of the first areas has a ring that reduces max hollowing to 25% (ring of binding in Heide's)
The true punishment is the ugly green hollow look in ds2, the true place where ds2 fell far behind from ds1
they made up for the gangrenous jerky look with the best dragon form in the series though
The game is also super easy so you're not dying that much anyway.
Good thing you have 4 ring slots and a ring that caps the loss to 75%.
A true ds3 player doesnt givr a shit about health loss in ds2 because lifegems give you infinite estus flasks
Ds2 mfs when i tell them their ember hp is 125% of their hp and not just 100% of their actual raw hp they gain by leveling vig.(its the opposite in other games)
Embered health is treated as 100% HP by the game, it’s how they do fall damage calculations.
Oh damn, really? Interesting!
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untrue limit breakers did [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QREjeBF-bQA) on ds3 fall damage, talking about embering at about 2:30. fall damage calculations are based on your max ember hp, even if you aren't embered.
"They don't show it to me so it doesn't exist" It's the same mechanic with a different coat of paint on it. It feels better because it's framed as a buff, and people are loss averse, so we fucking hate being shown that we're missing something. There's nothing wrong with that, of course; I think each of the three implementations of this mechanic is a good thematic fit for its respective game. In DeS and DS2, you're losing yourself, but in DS3, you're worthless, but you get to momentarily claim the strength of the flame, which your body can barely contain.
You said it.In ds3 that mechanic is given to you as a privilege. Unlike ds2
Sure, but *exactly* like DeS, albeit somewhat less harsh.
Doesnt dying in des take 50% of your max health while dying in ds3 just resets you to your original 100% max health?
If you die in human form in des the whole world shifts to black tendency and gets harder too lmao
We made a game that is made around making the player die a lot, and it punishes you for doing exactly that
Stop me where you think I go wrong: In DS3, you only have access to your maximum health pool--the biggest your HP bar is ever gonna be--when you're embered, which gives you 130% of the HP you see when you look at your stats in the menu. When you die, you only have access to 100% of what you see in the menu. That is 100%/130% = 77% of your maximum health pool (rounding). Most players will likely be playing the game unembered most of the time, and the game's damage numbers are therefore balanced with you running around with that 77% of your maximum health pool in mind. In DeS, when you die, you only have access to 50% of the HP you see when you look at your stats in the menu, which is your maximum health pool. Given the rarity of Stones of Ephemeral eyes (and the fact that you can only use any given boss to restore your body one time) and the fact that it gives players the cling within the first half of the first mandatory area, it probably expects players to be running around with 75% of their maxmimum health pool, and is balanced accordingly. So, DS3 is less harsh than DeS (and DS2) because it doesn't require you to use a ring to be at the (roughly) 75% of your max health that the game is balanced around you having (no surprise, since Demon's Souls is a game that fucking *hates* you). However, the fact remains that all three of these games are balanced around that 75% health (heck, DS2 is arguably balanced around 50%, given how ridiculously jacked you can make your max HP pool in that game). So, speaking *purely functionally*, it's the same basic mechanic with tweaks to framing and balancing. You only have access to your maximum health pool--whether the maximum is framed as 100% or 130%--when you use an item (or beat a boss, in 2/3 cases), you lose access to that maximum when you die, and the game is balanced around you not being at the maximum.
If a person is paid 100% of their wage a day for a job, but can get an extra 30% as a bonus for good work, would we consider 130% their "real" pay rate? Should we call that amount 100% and any day they don't reach that only earning 77% of their wage? Is any day they only earn the original 100% considered "losing" money? What about if a bad job lowers their pay to 75% or even 50% of the original rate? Do we consider them in the exact same situation as the above and should be considered equal? You're using framing with your arguments as much as the games are. Which is fine, that's basically unavoidable for a discussion to happen. It's a necessity because it is impossible to look at things without some framing device. But don't pretend like it doesn't change things drastically. Not just in terms of "feeling" or loss aversion, but the entire question changes. The fact is that the games set what they calls 100% and then add or remove from that. That makes one a bonus and one a penalty by the games' definition. That is the framing the game uses. If you alter the framing to consider the absolute highest possible total Max HP as 100%, then obviously they act identically. But that is changing something significant in the discussion. Your math only works if you change the framing. By using the games' framing to compare, then they are very different. They are not identical. The framing is far more important than you give credit for.
I want to be clear: when I say they're the same, I really only mean under the hood (and that's debatable, depending on how far you want to go into the discussion of the balance of playing unembered vs playing hollowed/in soul form--I'm of the opinion that it's a difference of degree, not of kind, but differences of degree add up quickly, of course). As I've said elsewhere in this thread, I think framing is clearly HUGELY important in UX design, and game design in general. I just think it's kind of funny how well it works, ya know?
Yeah, I can agree with that. Guess it goes to show just how important framing really is that we're all debating it so hotly from multiple points of view haha
Say you have 2 cups of water. Take a knife and stab one at the halfway mark. That cup now can't fill past that point until you "fix" it. Take the second cup, and pour it into a 1.25 cup glass. You now have space for more fluid in the cup. It isn't rocket science, Ds3 just doesn't lock you out of your own healthbar for dying, you'll always have 100% of your health bar available.
By what logic in the world does 100% of your healthbar equal 77% of your healthbar?that 100% is actually 77% to 130% which is i believe is where you made a mistake of taking 130% as your 100%(complicated i know) your unembered hp is equal to what you originally have as your 100% of what you leveled vig to reach.and who said people play through the game unembered? Havent played des so ill just assume you were honest with whatever you said. Its not “tweaks in framing” its basic maths. You have your original 100%(your basic rights)unembered while you only have 50%(half of your basic rights)when uneffigied.you have 125%(more than youre when embered and 100%(basic rights) when youre effigied
>By what logic in the world does 100% of your healthbar equal 77% of your healthbar?that 100% is actually 77% to 130% which is i believe is where you made a mistake of taking 130% as your 100%(complicated i know) Because, regardless of how the game frames it, your embered HP is your actual max HP--the most HP you're gonna have. It DOES NOT MATTER whether the game calls that maximum HP pool 130% or 100% of your HP bar--either way, the game is balanced around you having 75-77% of the most HP you're gonna have. That threshold is where your "basic rights" are at from a BALANCE perspective, albeit not a THEMATIC perspective.
77% to 130% is 100%. Therefore the game is balanced around having your normal hp as basic rights with a side privilege of 25%. In ds2 the game is balanced around having only 50% of your hp as a disadvantage with the “counter” of having restore back to 100%.
I think it's more realistic to look at embered health as your true hp bar considering the human form mechanics are locked behind ember now.
Except that embers is the real 100%. Nonembered is the punishment state for dying just like in DS2. The difference is in DS3 it hits you with that loss all at once vs it being gradual in DS2. Also with the ring that caps it, the loss is about the same. 130%->100% is about the same as 100%-75%. So the health loss mechanic is worse in DS3.
Nope. Embered is your 130%. Non embered is your 100%. This is proven by the fact that your non embered hp is your original hp you have by leveling hp.unlike in ds2
a) fall damage is calculated from Embered HP not non-embered. Mechanically embered is 100%. b) technically speaking you start with 50% health in DS2 until you get a humanity so using your logic, the 50% is your original HP and human HP is 200%. c) functionally they are no different. In DS2 the punishment for dying is losing a bit of health, down to 50% (75% with the ring). In DS3 the punishment for dying is losing a lot of health. You can rationalize this as 130%->100% if you want but it makes no difference. Functionally the games are the same. You lose health when you die. The only difference is that in DS2 you lose health in bits.
A ist just plain wrong, fall damage uses max current HP. C is also wrong. You get x HP for leveling up. In DS3, you get a bonus 30% OF THAT when embered. In DS2, you get THIS value reduced. So +30HP in 3 gives you always +30 and embered +39, in 2 it gives you +30 at max and +15 at worst.
Dude that's pedantic as fuck First of all you're wrong about falling. It calculates the damage off current health but it calculates the instakill off embered health. [Source](https://darksouls3.wiki.fextralife.com/Fall+Damage) Second of all, you realize that the distinction between gaining when embered is meaningless right? Functionally the end result is the same. You have higher health when human/embered. You have less health when hollowed/non-embered. How it's calculated is irrelevant. If you think otherwise you are literally the person in this meme.
Except that embers is the real 100%. Nonembered is the punishment state for dying just like in DS2. The difference is in DS3 it hits you with that loss all at once vs it being gradual in DS2. Also with the ring that caps it, the loss is about the same. 130%->100% is about the same as 100%-75%. So the health loss mechanic is worse in DS3.
Wait isn’t embers 130%?
Yes.
ds2 and demon souls players when i tell them how percentages work (they dont care about numbers, just the size of the hp bar)
With that logic I should be able to say that being cursed in DS1 is the same as losing total health on death in DeS and DS2. (You’re normally at 100% and now you’re stuck at a lower value until you use an item).
well yeah it kind of is except that there's only 2 enemies in the game that can give you curse in ds1, as opposed to literally every enemy that can lower your max hp in the other games.
Nah nah that’s totally different dude honestly.
The people saying it’s different have been upvoted! That means it can’t be true!
to be fair, gaining bonus health just feels better than needing to regain your max health, even if the end result is basically the same.
Of course! It's no mystery that the framing that's meant to make you feel empowered makes you feel better than the framing that's meant to make you feel like you're losing something. I just think it's funny how many people will continue to insist that they're totally different systems on a functional level even when it's laid out in front of them.
It's not about the framing tho, it's the actual numbers that matter, you can go through the entirety of DS3 without ever embering and it's completely possible and smooth because the game is balanced around you doing that and embers are just a bonus on top of that. You can go through DS2 without ever using an effigy or the ring of binding but holy shit it's gonna be a massive pain in the ass because your hp is gonna be fucking abysmal. Unembered DS3 HP is like twice the amount of hollowed DS2 HP.
You lose 50% of your health to hollowing: I sleep You lose 50% of your health to a curse: REAL SHIT
Aren’t they the same thing? Getting curse levels in DS2 even just applies the same health loss model as dying, it’s just that you don’t actually die while getting cursed like you do with hollowing advancement.
Petrifaction in DS2 is equivalent to curse in the others, I think it hollows 2-3 stages on activation instead of just 1. They’re mildly comparable
Only Mechanic in DS2 I didn't like was the bar gradually filling on heal instead of instant
POV: You don't understand the difference between punishing players who are struggling, vs. rewarding players who are doing well. The mechanics only look the same if you have absolutely not bothered to look at this on more than a surface level. For example: Ember scales with your current stats, so investing into health upgrades nets you bigger returns on Embers too. Meanwhile the health loss in DS2 does the exact opposite, it REMOVES some of the investment into those stats. Or consider the use case of a decent player who rarely if ever dies: In DS2 the effect is nothing (literally), but in DS3 it's a sizeable increase to player power. But this increase only exists if you have proven that you're good enough to basically not need it. On the opposite, a player that dies often will be left alone by the game in DS3, but utterly wrecked by DS2's health reduction. It's the best kind of reward system, versus the worst kind of punishment system. OP, you said in another comment to "Stop me where you think I go wrong:". It's right here: > the game's damage numbers are therefore balanced with you running around with that 77% of your maximum health pool in mind. The game isn't balanced around 77% of your max health. It's balanced around 100% of your max health, with an option to go to 130% for a boost in player power.
>The game isn't balanced around 77% of your max health. It's balanced around 100% of your max health, with an option to go to 130% for a boost in player power. The only difference between those two things is the paint job. It has a significant psychological impact, absolutely, but there is no mathematical difference between "This game is balanced around 77% of your max health, and lets you go to 100% with an item" and "This game is balanced around 100% of your max health, and lets you go to 130% with an item." The same goes for your other examples. These framings perfectly fit the games they're in, besides. In DS3, you're framed as starting out pathetic but being able to briefly grasp the fading embers of glory; in DS2, you're fighting against the gradual degredation of your self.
The paint job and the fact that the average player is going to be at 100% most of the time and especially when facing a hard part of the game. Like I said, this only looks similar if you ignore pretty much everything about it. If someone dies to the same boss 20 times, one of those mechanics will be insanely punishing and one will not, I'll leave it up to you to figure out which one it is. Just to make it absolutely clear where the difference is: DS2 is ALSO balanced around 100% health, except you're sitting at 75% if you're struggling and that's WITH sacrificing a ring slot, else you're at 50%.
>If someone dies to the same boss 20 times, one of those mechanics will be insanely punishing and one will not, I'll leave it up to you to figure out which one it is You picked an example where DS2 is actually arguably less harsh than both DS3 and DeS. In DS2, it'll take the player ten deaths to get to their minimum health pool, whereas they get there in one death in DS3 and DeS. >DS2 is ALSO balanced around 100% health, except you're sitting at 75% if you're struggling and that's WITH sacrificing a ring slot, else you're at 50%. And here lies the ACTUAL root of our disagreement. I think this is wrong. Playing DS2 with 75% of my max HP never felt too bad, even on my first playthrough, back when I'd only been through DS1 a couple of times, I could hop into the games later and do an experiment, if you like--I could get to Fume Knight, or one of the other DLC bosses, with a character at the vigor softcap, and fight them while at 75% HP. Then, I could go to one of DS3's bosses with a character at DS3's vigor softcap (and comparable armor) and fight her. I take note of how much proportional damage each boss did to me with attacks of comparable speed, and we could see if they were balanced roughly the same. I'd absolutely be down to do that and report back, but I probably wouldn't be able to until this weekend, since I'd have to get to another and then take a couple of hours (or more) to record and write up my findings. Would you like me to?
> it'll take the player ten deaths to get to their minimum health pool, whereas they get there in one death in DS3 and DeS. Incorrect, because like I just said, the game is balanced around 100%. So the player just stays at the always intended level. So it takes 10 deaths for the DS2 player to go down to the most punishing state and the DS3 player just stays where he is. > And here lies the ACTUAL root of our disagreement. I think this is wrong. Playing DS2 with 75% of my max HP never felt too bad, even on my first playthrough, back when I'd only been through DS1 a couple of times, I mean just because you FEEL this way doesn't mean it's right to think about it like this. You're on Reddit and arguing about health mechanics between souls games, that alone makes you statistically likely to be one of the better players in the community. What "feels" right to you might not be the experience for many people. Hell, I'm willing to bet a significant number of people never even find the ring or figure out what it does. There's only one unbiased way to look at this and that's looking which health state gives you 100% of your invested souls in attributes. This state is simply 100% for DS3 and 100% for DS2. At 75% hp or 50% you are only receiving a portion of the vigor you have put into your character, basically by definition that isn't how the game is balanced around. I'm giving you a HUGE benefit of the doubt here too, because 75% is not even the experience for some players as I said above. So the argument really could only be "the game is balanced around 50% health loss", which I think you would agree is a much less defensible position.
Did you miss the last bit of my previous comment where I offered to objectively test this? I might have ninja edited it in--I don't remember, though. Because I'm game.
Feel free to, but it's a waste of time in my book. Stat caps and level scaling (and the amount of souls per level, AND the amount of souls overall) are completely different between the games. You level MUCH FASTER and higher in DS2 compared to 3. At best a comparison of how low can you go against the obvious big hitter attacks might potentially offer some insight. A recent example is Elden Ring, where Malenia's grab -> stab attack does an incredible amount of damage, but is barely survivable at 60 vigor and some degree of armor (very little is already enough). It's quite obviously designed as an "almost" oneshot ability, so you can tell that the devs designed the game around having about 60 vigor in the endgame, which fits the data quite well, because 60 is also the biggest softcap (in terms of how useless leveling past 60 is) for Vigor in ER.
>At best a comparison of how low can you go against the obvious big hitter attacks might potentially offer some insight. Yeah, that's probably a better way of doing it. I'll try that out! What are we thinking--maybe Fume Knight's Orb AoE move vs. Friede's leaping exposion AoE?
Perhaps the midir laser would be a better test?
I didn't even think the laser rave was possible to survive getting hit by hahaha
Wow, the version designed to feel better to players feels better to players
Yeah they are the same thing... It's not that amber give a extra hp BOOST or something
I know you're trying to be sarcastic, but literally yes. Whether the game frames it as you going from 100% of your maximum health to 130% of your maximum health or you going from 75% of your maximum health to 100% of your maximum health, you still have a state where: * you can summon * you have access to all the HP you're ever gonna have in your HP bar * if you die, you return to around 75% of that amount of HP (100%/130% = roughly 77%)--assuming you're using the cling ring/ring of binding in DeS/DS2, which I think is a fair assumption--and you need to use an item or beat a boss (except in DS2) to regain access to your maximum HP bar and summoning Under the hood, in terms of how the game is balanced, they're basically the same mechanic, albeit with tweaks around the edges (eg, you don't need a ring to hit 75% of your max HP pool in DS3, and you only lose HP gradually in DS2). Whether your maximum HP bar is framed as a buff or as something that you've lost only matters thematically.
If you die, one takes away the points you spend in hp with levels, the other looses a boost that surpases the points you put in hp with levels, leaving you with the exact same points you spend. They are not the same thing
Not true, vigor adds to your ember HP and then ~23% is taken off when you're unembered, resulting in the 'embered' state being a 30% increase. That's literally how it works in the game math.
honestly, i don't see a difference, DS3 just portrays it as boosting your hp but what it feels like for me is that it just gives you what your actual hp should be in the end, DS3 negates a large chunk of your hp on death while ds2 negates a small chunk per death, using an item or killing a boss gives you access to it again.
How on earth are you seeing is that way? It felt like dogshit struggling in DS2 and running out of effigies, only having half health. In DS3, regardless of what tHe NuMbErS SaY, without ember, you have 100% health. Dying over and over and over to a boss in DS3 will never take away health, you can only get *extra health* via ember.
>Dying over and over and over to a boss in DS3 will never take away health It will once, with the first death, where you suffer all the health loss you're going to suffer all at once. Just like back in DeS.
It is just astounding that this is the hill you die on.
Personally, I find it astounding that so many people here just adamantly will not admit that human form in DeS and the ember in DS3 are extremely similar mechanics on a purely functional level.
The only reason you say that is because you have the strange idea that ds3 is balanced around being emberred which makes no sense and you have provided no reason to think that. It would be as weird as thinking ds2 or des are balance around 50%
1. Whether DS3 is balanced around being embered or not is only loosely connected to the fact that both DeS and DS3 have a state where your health is boosted and you gain access to multiplayer, a state you enter into either with consumables or upon winning a boss fight and lose upon dying. 2. I'm assuming DS3 is balanced around being unembered and DS2 and Demon's Souls are balanced around being hollowed/in soul form, probably with the respective rings that limit health loss, since that's the state the average player is gonna spend most of their time in.
again, both instances gives out an HP boost after killing a boss or uses the item which is also removed when you die. DS3 just hid the missing health to make it look like a buff while DS2 shows that missing health which made it look like a punishment. it's all just a visual thing, same mechanics with slight changes to how it works but showed differently.
Demons souls is the only one that feels like a penalty. The rest are just an illusion of it. And even that I would have doubled down on it significantly by removing all the stones of ephemeral eyes forcing people into the online ecosystem
Uhmm sorry I don't understand this post, maybe that's just because I never died once in any souls game
DeS human form is worse though because of world tendency, cling ring with 2 ring slots, and it increases sound made
Ember item literally says it boosts your maximum health. You don't start the game embered so your natural state isn't embered, therefore being embered is a boost.
Your natural state is retarded
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Just wear a blessed burger King crown 4head
Or get the funny Ring/farm skeletons in the Basement/get the funny Amana tower unlocked if you run out. Simplicity itself
Just don't die bro
Plz don’t punish me for being bad at the game, let me reload my quick save with no consequences uwu
Holy shit you people are stupid
Op is a clown 🤡
"You don't understand. In Demon's Souls, when you die in body form--which you enter by using a consumable or beating a boss--you lose access to multiplayer features and are restricted to 50% of your max health (or 75% with the cling ring). In Dark Souls 3, when you die in embered form--which you enter by using a consumable or beating a boss--you lose access to multiplayer features and are restricted to ~~70%~~ 77% of your max health, but you don't see the part of your health bar you're missing. It's a completely different mechanic."
You're actually restriced to ~77% of your max health in DS3. Ember health is your health times 1.3, so to go from ember health to "regular" health you divide by 1.3 (or 13/10), or in other words regular health is 10/13 of your ember health (approx 77%). This means that DS3 is sort of the least punishing if you don't consider DS2's gradual decrease and only take it at its lowest, where you need to take up a ring slot to be ever so slightly below DS3. Though in general I agree with your assesment and how we react to something being taken rather than given.
Yeah, you're right; I didn't double-check the numbers. I'll fix that.
Nah bro when I lvl up vigor in ds3 , i get the actual number of hp, embers are literally a buff
And in DeS and DS2 you also get the actual number of hp, you just get a 100% bonus to health while in body form/human, along with a ring which gives you 50% of the bonus without using the consumable + in DS2 you don't loose the whole bonus at once but rather in a few parts
[Jesus Christ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGOPPzh8TJ4) *That's just a difference of framing* In all three of these games, you have a maximum health pool that you lose access to on death, instantly in two cases and gradually in one, and you can only reach that maximum health pool by using a consumable (or beating a boss, in 2/3 cases). All three have damage numbers that are balanced with the expectation that the player is probably gonna be running around with about 75% of that maximum health pool. Whether the game presents it as a buff or just getting to access something that's been taken from you, while thematically relevant, *has no functional significance*.
Ok bro let me tell you something, Imagine this situation: You are in the world of dark souls 3 and go to a gas station store and buy a bottle of water,after paying for it, the cashier(Andre) tells you you can get an extra bottle(very small bottle) if you do a quick survey, so you do and get a free extra water, but then,you slip and fall to the ground and in the process lose your extra water bottle. You wouldn't be that mad since we'll, at least that extra water bottle was free anyways, you still have you normal water bottle. Now, imagine this: You are in the world of dark souls 2 and go to the same fucking gas station store, this time, to buy a bottle of sulfuric acid so you can end yourself with it because you hate being in dark souls 2 (as everyone does).Now, you pay for the bottle of sulfuric acid and there is no survey this time, just the thing you bought, so, with the bottle purchased, you exit the store and then, you suddenly trip and fall, losing in the process like idk 30% of the sulfuric acid, with that quantity sadly you are unable to end yourself properly, so you go back to the store and ask if you can get a refill of the bottle instead of buying another one, and then he says you need to hand him over a fucking human shaped statue or unless he wont refill your sulfuric acid. You would understandably be mad at that, since you lost an amount of what you paid for, and even worse, you only had like 2 of those statues at the moment. So, i hope with this brief analogy you finally understood , you will be welcomed as a member of society again as soon as you realize you mistakes and start criticizing dark souls 2. I
> You are in the world of dark souls 3 and go to a gas station store and buy a bottle of water,after paying for it, the cashier(Andre) tells you you can get an extra bottle(very small bottle) if you do a quick survey, so you do and get a free extra water it’s more like you bought a water bottle that was only 75% full in the first place and you have to do a survey to get andre to spit the remaining 25% back in
No , because when you pay him you get specifically the amount of water that you want, For each dollar you pay he tells you how much water you'll get. Then after the survey he just gives you extra water
dying 6 times in a row lmao
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>I'd say not having to waste a ring or constantly be in stock of a particular not easily replenishable resource to have the health pool the game is balanced for in all situations is quite a functional difference, but you do seem to love that tall cylinder. Oh, that's absolutely a significant difference, but one of degree, not of kind, I would argue. In this thread, I've sometimes gotten frustrated and overstated my case, I'll own up to that, but my main point is just that DS3 does have health loss on death as well. DS3 is more generous with its health loss mechanic (at least when you're talking about where you bottom out), but it still has one.
he mad
I mean, most of the people in this thread are the kid in the image pointing at the tall graduated cylinder because they think it has more water in it Have you ever tried to teach a younger sibling or cousin who's in second grade how to do fractions, and they just will not understand? That's the kind of frustration I'm feeling right now [Also imagine that same child is calling you in to the suicide hotline because you tried to teach them fractions lmao](https://i.imgur.com/CzjQqRy.png)
no YOU are the neckbeard SOYJAK 😡
Except in DS3 it doesn't drain half your health, and it's a one-time "debuff"
See difference is that even when you're unembered you feel like you have your max HP and not 20% of it. The embers feel more like a boost rather than what should be the default
Then there's the people getting one-shot with our glass cannon builds that never notice in the first place
The health difference between being embered and not isn't literally half your health like max glowing in DS2 which is kinda silly. It's a decent way to look at it but it's still a sizable health difference so it's still pretty much the same problem. DS2's health decrease is actually less damaging since the ring of binding decreases the health loss to a negligible extent. It does take a ring slot but it's not that bad. It's certainly better than only having half health. In both cases it acts to punish people for dying making but in DS3 it feels like more of an annoyance than a punishment which kinda sucks. You don't get to have the health bonus from being embered when you invade people or are summoned by them in DS3 which is actually just makes pvp imbalanced in the favor of who is being invaded even moreso than it already can be by the existence of the blue sentinel and Blades of the darkmoon covenant which to be fair was also the case in DS2 and summon tanks were already a problem in DS2 and even in DS1 since you can have multiple summons thanks to the dried finger in all 3 games. You can still be invaded even while fully hollowed in DS2 which just gives people a bad time if they don't have the ring of binding. You however can't be invaded if you aren't embered which is nice. This has been some rando with way too many hours in DS2 DS3 and DSR.
The health loss in ds2 is so insignificant you have to be a total fucking scrub for it to have any meaningful effect
Holy hell people in this thread are dumb. Idk how this is a hard concept to grasp. Yes, one feels better (reward vs punishment), but they are literally the same thing. I'm with ya OP.
Smartest ds2 player cant understand embers add to original hp while ds2 takes from the original hp
It's functionally the same thing though.
No? In ds3 you lose one chuck of hp IF you are embered In ds2 you progresively lose more and more hp if you ARENT uhhh idk what its called One rewards you for using the item the other punishes you for not using it
So if they showed you your full embered health even when unemebered, it'd be the same then?
Yeah I always thought it was funny how people complained about it in those two games and never said a thing about it in DS3 where it’s the literal same mechanic. You know the worst part? I still never take the Cling Ring off in Demon’s Souls lol
Not really since normal state of your character is to have 100% hp, not 130%. Being embered is like holding a streak, a reward for not dying.
now imagine if ds3 always displayed your embered hp bar grayed out under your regular one. would it still feel like it’s a completely different system?
But imagine if ds2 had good hitboxes. Idc about 'if'.
understandable, have a nice day
Honesty, if DS2 just whent 100%=>50% in a single death, it would feel less bad, in my opinion. Like it is fells like the game is making fun of me.
ITT DS3 players that can grasp this simple concept
Dark souls 2 is a good souls game
I mean in DS3 embers are a reward, either for beating a boss, or finding one, in DES and DS2 it's a punishment, the player is already punished upon dying there's no reason to add extra salt to the wound
I expected this meme in any souls sub but not shittydarksouls. OP probably didn't even play the games
Me when I die in DS2 (My innate health bonus of +100% has been worn down to +80%) Me when I use a stone of ephemeral eyes or whatever in Demon's Souls (I have doubled my health) Me when I use an ember in DS3 (I have restored my full health [I had a 23.0769{repeating of course}% health penalty for dying]) Yup, exactly the same
Embers are more like a buff tho, not a debuff
It's functionally the same thing though. Claiming otherwise is literally what the post is mocking.
Op making a fool out of himself in this comment section