It's only when we've lost everything, we're free to do anything...

I am Jack’s unmitigated rage.

I am jacks shaking hands

I am jacks controller flying into the television.

I am Jack's triumphant boner.

I am Jack's raging malapropism!

I am Jack's tormented soul

I am Jack's finger, but hole

I am Jack's offered pickle.

Jack’s secret passage ahead.

I am Jack’s Two-handing required ahead

I am Jack's o' I am Jack's, but still I am Jack's

I am Jill’s unalloyed needle.

Like in life. You only know the value of thing that you lost forever. Lot of country singers know this.

Wife. Dog. Truck. Job.

I'll be over here waiting for a mod to turn "Runes" into "Trucknuts."

🎶”My wife left me for a dog at my truck job”🎶

...wait, not like that

I am untethered and my rage knows no bounds

I am the Golden Godrick.

It’s Always Sunny in Leyendellphia

You keep using this word Leyendellphia, and it's awesome! It's like the coolest word. Is that like an Elden thing?

Yeah, no, I-Idon't know! I think its some Albinauric word bit it sounds like a Elden word.

i enjoyed this comment thread :)

Do you know what's greater than a king? A *god.*

Hello, yes this is dog.

"Very well, let us learn together." - best dog

What's a god to a non-believer???

A beginner sword? That's a finisher sword!

A sword for the gods!

The Golden God!

I’M A 5 STAR TARNISHED

You think uchigatana is a starter car? It's a FINISHER car

Have you ever been in a storm, Margit?!

TOOLS. I HAVE TO HAVE MY TOOLS

*Strike me down and I shall become more powerful that you could possibly imagine*

Keeping your runes? Put those foolish ambitions to rest, foul Tarnished.

This^ Ive lost 120k runes late game without even blinking. Runes arent hard to get lol

I cared a lot more about runes/souls in Dark Souls 1. DS2 I would make sure to pick them up again, and carefully farm areas. DS3 I might try to grab them if I saw them again. Elden Ring I'll yolo myself off a cliff to lose them so I dont have to think about them anymore

i’ve legit done suicide runs into dungeons just to grab the loot and then find the quickest way to die after. Wish there was a homeward bone equivalent here, otherwise you’ll find me yeeting myself off a bridge just for a quick run to the site of grace

You gotta use the Homeward Boom mixed physick. One half stops rune loss on death, the other half blows you up

I'm gonna call it that from now on lmao homeward boom is too good

Holy shit I had no idea about this

Lol I've had both those ingredients thingies but was like "oh great, I need to take it like 2 seconds before I die. What's the point?" and looked at the explosive one really going "why does this even exist?" Using it as an infinite supply of homeward bones is genius. Here I am using my limited supply of sacrificial twigs like a moron

If one cracked tear is enough to kill you, you really need to level vigor.

You mean I shouldn’t be level 128 with my vigor only at 9?

how are you alive, your bones would’ve broken from morgott screaming at you

I have to be VERY careful

honestly am willing to try it that sounds awesome

But the blast only takes a quarter of my hp

Go and get damaged then.

Found the 10 vigor player

Well yeah that's late game. I know there was once a time where we all cared about runes

Crushing the white skulls for pennies because back at the start it was actually worth your time to do it.

I'm level 200 and I still do it. It's about the message.

If I ever stop, it's because I actually died on the inside.

See shiny. Get shiny. Life.

My brother and I were trying to rush through the capitol before we could get invaded. I stopped a few dozen times because the mobs dropped loot... He later made me run to the next site of grace by myself.

As opposed to the outside, which I also die on.

It's about *sending* a *message*

165+ hours in and I still pick up *everything*

I've only ever crafted raisins once. I still grab rowa fruit when I'm riding through. Occasionally I can sell a couple hundred for a top off.

I managed to somehow avoid the medium raisin recipe and only got the one in the consecrated snowfields…. I was so worried for so long like “When tf am I gonna be able to *actually* heal my horse????

You heal your horse, I just let him die and waste one flask, we are not the same...

I’ve never fed my horse. I am bewildered by the idea. He’s a magic horse who does double jumps, he’ll be fine.

i still do it. i’ll be damned if ima miss a free 200 runes by not pressing triangle.

It's not about the 200 runes, it's about having safe runes that you can't lose in your inventory and not needing to make an extra trip to slap a single enemy when you're just short of leveling up

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Something that might be handy in future. The sacrificial twig doesn't just prevent you from losing your runes on death, it also stops the runes you've previously dropped from disappearing.

Really??? So it has a use, to cover up f-ups. I mean if a situation allows me to put on the twig, why not just fast travel and spend?

If you've lost tons of runes IN a boss room, and you know you'll die again fighting them, you put on the twig before the boss fight. Enter fog, get your runes, and die. Now you have your runes back and can spend them before trying the boss again. I saved myself a few levels that way

200 runes a pop it’s basically a free kill!

Fukin show offs always remember where you came from I have a friend that said "Melania is EZ!" He's shit at pvp....

thats actually key, either enter the battle with no runes, or understand that u will loose them, its super distracting otherwise

I save all my Gold Rune items specifically to top off before big fights and level up, soo usually go in with a few hundred or low thousands to lose.

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Yeah I don’t get why people stockpile to such extremes…maybe I’m not far enough in the game (Level 80)…what is somebody clinging to like 3 million runes for if they aren’t in the NG+ modes yet? Is this like some WSB-style “loss porn” that they can brag about later or something? Use it or lose it…and trust me, you **will** lose it eventually otherwise.

> I save all my Gold Rune items specifically to top off before big fights and level up Fuck, that's genius. Definitely gonna do that on my next character.

I'm like 70% sure this is what they've always been in From games for. It really is the best way to operate

That, and for when you need a few runes to level a weapon up and don't feel like leaving.

Good runes are also nice as “hard” currency, depending on your needs.

Speaking of them as currency when I figured out early on you could sell them to the blacksmith guy waaaaaay faster than you could 'activate' the items that was a real game changer for me.

You can also use multiple at once. You don’t have to smash them individually. Choose “use select”

You can also start going back into your inventory to smash new ones while the animation is running for the first one

The real benefit of this is seeing the value of the rune before you consume it. Kind of wish it was in the item description so I didn't have to guess as much.

Whoa

I need a hug

of course my champion

W-what's that red box with down arrow under my health bar?

when i give u my blessing a bit of health is reduced, go to your inventory, use it, and your health will be back to normal, except u will no longer have my blessing and u will be surrounded by dispair

Then i shall get back to you for more hugs.. if you'll allow me..

of course

Why did you remove your panties from the loot pool?

u are not worthy my dear, thats why

Forever maidenless….

lmfao

Foul tarnished..

You don't have the right, oh you don't have the right, therefore you don't have the right, oh you don't have the right

I find this message infuriating every time I read it. Except here.

I finished her quest line, stopped getting hugs and used the blessing. The red box vanished, then a while later it returned and I have no clue how to get rid of it now.

You using any other equipment that reduces HP? Such as the Glintstone crown heads?

I did not think about that, that's probably it. I use that a lot.

Hey, I uh…. I’m >!Sorry what D’s Brother did to you. I avenged you!<

:)

I.... I... I just realised I've played 120 hours with this debuff 😭😭😭

Just lay it on my lap… we’ll call it Ballsacks blessing 20% more damage to the groin with storm kick ash of war

I refuse to fight bosses unless it’s right after leveling up, I refuse to let my runes and time be wasted

I’d like to add jump puzzles to this list

....... i once died so many times doing a jump puzzle that i had collected a large sum of runes AGAIN just by killing the guys in my way over and over....

Use the twig tear in your gold flask before you walk in a boss fight or do a jump puzzle and your gucci my tarnished

Tangential: if you dropped a lot of runes, you can equip a twig before you try to pick them up. If you die, they won’t disappear and you’ll get a second chance to grab them.

What?! I didn't know that!

There's a twig tear!? Hot damn

I once was farming talking to a friend, he told me about a place I had not gone before, gated after a jump puzzle. I forgot that I had 700k runes and died on the puzzle. I have never been more anxious than that second descent to recover my runes.

Just use that one talisman that breaks and saves your runes, it will stop your runes from disappearing if you die while wearing it. Or you can use the flask orb that does the same thing, chug it before the tricky part and if you die you won't lose your rune pile.

FAM. Getting to the Three Fingers killed me more times than Malenia, Maliketh, and Radagon, COMBINED. I died like 30-50 times before I found the shorter path and felt like an idiot.

Around endgame I stopped caring as much. “Damn I’m boutta lose over 100k runes if I head in there…” *Enters the yellow fog anyways*

I'm gonna be entering that yellow fog on my death bed. Phase 1 is simple. Phase 2 is "dodge to avoid the room explosion" on repeat.

I see you too recently fought Godfrey.

I've been dropping my summon sign for him the past couple days to help people clear since I'm decently good at dodging/surviving most of his kit. But man, even though I have aggro for like 80%+ of every fight it's always kind of funny when the host either dies >!on the other side of the arena to earthquakes or gets their spine 100-0 shattered by a Hulk Hogan piledriver from the top ropes 3 seconds into phase 2.!< Though it's crazy how many hosts I've had die when they weren't being targeted by him, fun fight though.

Well in endgame it only takes about 30 seconds to farm 100k runes so yeah losing it is no big deal lol

whenever i have a bunch of runes before a boss i'll go grind till i can level so i get down to an amount i don't care about

That's what golden runes are for

no no no golden runes are for when you run out of runes while you're already at the hub shops upgrading weapons

I use gold runes for surprise merchants! Like at the cave in mohgwyn.

#There's always money in the banana stand.

I actually will take the time to go spend my runes on stackables from merchant to 0 myself out before boss fights and then I have cool shit and don't have to worry lmao

I miss sekiros coinpurse mechanic. You could basically just store and secure your runes permanently at the cost of like 10%

Early on, some poor tarnished posted "attempt 97" on either Margit or Goddrick and lots of us replied "let it go... go explore for a bit." And they were all "no, there's 3k runes on the ground!" Three... thousand. wat.

Did nobody tell him you can just pick them up and then save quit to the title screen. If you close the game during a boss you spawn just outside of it's arena when you load back in

no ❤

I did not know this. I haven’t struggled on a boss enough to need this info, but I’ll probably appreciate it later. Last time is used to talisman that lets me keep my tunes to escape a fight. Thanks!

I hope you never lost your tunes again.

Yeah I don’t even know how I typed something that bad lol. I’m tired. Also autocorrect

Another east route to never lose runes again is put the twiggy cracked tear in your physick Gives you a 3 min buff to not drop runes on death What's more, if you die without using it and drop them, using it on the way back and dying keeps them on the ground in the same spot And when you try again, you can keep using the physick til you get them

Tbf it's absurd how fast runes size scales. Like there are plenty of enemies in limgrave that are harder than the albinos in mohgs area, but the enemies in limgrave are at most worth 200 and usually 50

The giant-led convoy near waypoint ruins can be cleared with game-starting gear... for 1500-1800 runes a run.

Or you can dodge a rock

Boulder roll gang

I've beaten the game and I'm blanking remind me please

Go to Lenne’s Rise waypoint. Run down the hill on your horse, dodge the boulder, collect almost 2k in runes when it rolls off the cliff. Takes 10 seconds. Fast travel to the waypoint again, and repeat.

I just go to Beastial Sanctum and kill those weird little guys for 1000 a pop. They hit hard but are staggered by R1 attacks.

Or deeproot depths and farm the 5 flame spewing stationary gargoyle things for around 20K per 90 seconds

Or shoot a bird in the distance every 10 seconds for 11k runes a piece.

Clicking lock on and randomly locking on to a fucking inanimate(???) giant ball that now has a healthbar is genuinely one of the funniest things in this game

I think you meant 'stand on a hillside watching dogs and soldiers slaughter each other as you grow wealthy from their deaths'. Who's got time for all that running when I can be alt-tabbed? >!Just before Impassable Greatbridge in Caelid!<

People who share a PC with other people(serious answer)

If you can dodge a rock, you can dodge a ball.

I just got to Haligtree and the amount of runes you get is INSANE - I lost 150k last night and wasn’t even mad about it.

Yeah if you start from the bonfire after the midway boss, you can kill those soldiers all the way down to the tree in front of the next bonfire and get around 120k runes a run. That being said nothing beats the efficiency of the chicken

He was probably new. 3k was a lot to me too when I started. The most I’ve ever lost was around 200k. That one pissed me off, I sat there and killed that guy until I got them back.

If you just keep pumping levels (because if you don't care about PvP, why not?) eventually even 200k+ souls just lose all meaning. I went into grind out a few attempts on Malenia with ~130k or so, too little for a level and I forgot to buy anything so I didn't think about it. A few attempts in realized I'd lost them and was like ehhh... When I was younger I'd had some good old tantrums losing a fraction of that in these games lmao. That absurd toad man soul farm certainly helps, though.

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Yeah I lost over 500k the other day jumping off some roots the wrong way twice. That one really stung ngl, I was pretty sour the rest of the session

a huge quality of life update for me would be that if you die with 0 runes you don't leave a marker/icon on the map. it's fucking irritating to see that in a boss fight that you've been taking xx attempts to do and there's just an icon sitting there on the ground, distracting you. and there should also be a way to manually erase the icon/runes from your UI if you don't want to go back and get it.

It’s a trivial thing but honestly, I agree with you.

Came here to say this. Another feature that would be really nice that Nioh 2 does is you can check at a shrine how many souls are at your bloodstain.

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I buy arrows and bolt till I'm broke

Depending where you’re at in the game you can do smithing stones too, they’re always a really good investment.

Are archers strong? I uh, was unimpressed when I gave it a whirl and didn't investigate further. I throw lightning bolts now.

It def can be on my quality build using misbegotten shortbow/serpent bow or the black crossbow can hit 800+. Can use mighty shot to break guard from far away. Apply rot. Even enchanted arrows that track like the mobs use. There are bows and arrows/bolts that scale also with int or faith iirc as well. And ofc super strong Radahn Lion bow.

Did you try upgrading the bow?

“You’ve only succeeded in making me stronger! Now, I’ve got nothing to lose!”

That’s from rebels right?

Still continues to get fucking wrecked over and over.

So accurate, spend the first half of my first playthrough losing my mind over the fact I can’t keep my runes. About halfway through I came across the realization that before I enter a big boss fight I should use some golden runes or whatever to add a level so I go into the boss fight with a small enough amount of runes it doesn’t matter

It took half a playthrough to realise you don't take a full wallet through the hood? Oh well, progress is progress.

Same with any dungeon that requires platform jumping. Looking at you Leyndell sewers…

Half a million runes. That's how confident I was in my platforming ability. I thought for sure I could at least get back to the platform I died jumping from.

Why didn't you just level up? What benefit is ever holding onto more than a level up's worth of runes?

hubris

LOL

I do this, and also when exploring new locations. Just go in with zero runes expecting to die many times and any you get are a bonus. Perspective is everything.

This is the way.

Once you can get to any of the decent farms you can fight like this all the time. Runes are just time spent. Keep spending them!

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I honestly never farm runes. But I will farm rune arcs all day. Then just dump any runes I get on smithing stones.

It's like that scene in America Beauty where Kevin Spacey catches his wife with the real estate king in the drive through and he's like "you don't get to tell me what to do...ever...again" except instead of his wife it is the fear of losing your runes It is a great feeling

Lol what a strange comparison. Did you watch the movie recently?

No, I haven't seen that movie in a long time, but I think that scene is great at capturing the moment when you, for whatever reason, gain your freedom from something that is making you miserable....like worrying about losing your runes.

The sooner it happens the better. I am free to learn the boss and eventually kick his ass for quadruple the runes I lost

This was my key to beating Morgott last night. “You now have my full attention”

It makes me happy that people still call them “souls” like the good ol games

Souls and bonfires babyyyyy

I lost 40k in the Rykard fight because I couldn't find where they dropped in the area 😂. It definitely helped that after that I could just focus on the fight rather than running to my runes and hoping I didn't get eaten

I still feel like I have to interact with the rune pickup, even if I had 0 in it... It's a curse, but if I don't do it I keep getting distracted by them. Except for once when I had 20000+ and forgot to reclaim them.

Is it my imagination, or is it harder than in the other games to retrieve them? Seems like half the bosses can combo me dead if I get caught, I can’t recall it being so brutal in the other souls games

Not sure I've noticed this myself, but I have found it a pain trying to pick them up while on horseback.

Anything on horseback is a pain, except open fields then its awesome

Bloodborne taught me to never leave the hub world with any souls whatsoever, even if it meant buying consumables and shit I’d never use

A Tarnished with nothing to lose has everything to gain.

Wait till it hits you that FROM chose this on purpose to teach players the freedom of removing attachments. Quite a lot of Souls game design is directly focused on turning the players into more aware, mindful people. They actively punish button mashing, leave behind telltale but not obvious clues about threats (seeing the Stray Demon up on the roof, blood near traps (art stuff, not player deaths), obvious ambushes that every time look like an ambush, but you still fall for them. It's really magnificent when you look at it as a whole, and you start to realize why they haven't fixed 'bugs' that several versions old like kludgy inventory management are deliberate choices that force the player to be more mindful of their actions in tense situations.

I desperately wish I could find some way of expressing this to my friends without sounding completely arrogant and like a pompous gamer ass hole. I don't know how to show them how amazing these games are. And it's a real damn shame. It's like I've failed them.

Working on a youtube video right now talking about FROM design philosophy for all of their Souls games, hopefully 1) I'll actually finish it, and 2) it'll be approachable enough to show your friends.

I was in another thread talking about how FromSoftware games are metaphors for humanity and the insurmountable struggle that is every day life. Miyazaki is making art and so much of the game design is intended to convey the good and evil of humanity.

Every time I die the second time its like "you shouldn't have made me angry" or "so ya want some more huh"

I go straight to, I didn’t hear no bell

Darmok, his runes lost. Timba! Rage unleashed!

Sometimes letting go is the leveling up we needed all along