When you die, you're health is lower than before and your hollowed green face snarles. Everytime death "cheats" you and a respawn happens your face gets uglier, your health lowe, as your body and mind decay. BUT there is a limit to how far down your health can go. This is fine BUT why do you Never actually go Hollow? This is always reffered to as a threat but it only serves as a difficulty spike. What if you actually had to wory about the limited Efifgies in one playthru, and actually going Hollow...
....and watching your character go insane, unresponsive to your contolls eventually aking you go insane an having to start over. We all make several character types and ive beaten the game with two, and im at the castle with three others and the first time I beat the game was actually with the third or fourth character I created.
PVP deaths would not factor in BUT winning a PVP match would grant you a "Complete Soul" which you could use to resurrect your self, then immediately be taken by the curse and starting in a NG+ difficulty until yout deafeat the boss of the area in which you finally hollowed without an effigy to save yourself or by killing he next boss or any worthy boss. Or really the rest of the fleshing out of this mechanic has plenty of options. (NOT NG+ just the difficulty)
After you've hollowed out, if you have an effigy, it would automatically be used and you'd spawn at the Far Fire. But if you have NO effigies then as you respawn a HOLLOW then you would hear a fading irregular heartbeat (or not because maybe you didn't have one as a regular undead) or effect like the svcreen turning red and getting redder and redder untill you shriek and its all over. Untill then you have a last chance to find an effigy, evade attacks from your once friendly crowd of outcasts as they recognize your hollowing, but if melentia likes you then she'll give you an effigy and tell the others to back off (only if youve spend the amount of souls with her in the first place otherwise she'll just laugh and strike you down if you try to approach her. Also, you could try a few desperate secrets that may be the key to your second or last chance. Like the Enchante, perhaps praying at the altar before saulden slalys you. If youve rescued the Petrified girl or fought in enough boss fights witha certain companion while they survived the boss fights, then they might show up out of nowhere with an efigy or a final stumbling run back to strowen or the altar you started at would bring you back from the void/abyss. Each of these choices would not be spelled out for you but knowledge of the lore and game would have you guessing and certain conditions would hae to be met OR certain sacrifices like sacrificing your soul or promising your soul to some mysterious character if they gave you back your sanity /unhallowed you.
This would of crated a meaning to death and a sense of danger previously absent because eventually you can evive yourself/unhollow yourself in a certain area by praying and Human effigies become availablefrom merchants and other sources.
I just kept thining about this kind of dynamic whenever I would decide to just blast or slash thru the enemys towards a boss or towards my souls after dying for the umpteenth time (I hardlyused effigies as most areas became quite easy except for parts of the Iron Kingdom, obviously the Depths, and Sinners hollw or Lost Ballisa and the Earhen peak or areas around thie. While some of the areas in bwteen zones or travel areas where easy and the castle was easy until the annoing and long dragging segment in the area with the water and the random drop offs. That was a neat little trick but for an entire area it just got beyond challenging and became a frustration cuz I didn't want to have to keep checkigwith my torch to see if I could explore a certain area.
Sorry for the typhos I suck at laptop keyboards because the letters are so close together while the keys are to flat
Maybe you could use a new ability called PRAY (it could be in the orm of a gesture that you have to learn in oder to be able to use it) and another player from another world might drop you an effigiy
....and watching your character go insane, unresponsive to your contolls eventually aking you go insane an having to start over. We all make several character types and ive beaten the game with two, and im at the castle with three others and the first time I beat the game was actually with the third or fourth character I created.
PVP deaths would not factor in BUT winning a PVP match would grant you a "Complete Soul" which you could use to resurrect your self, then immediately be taken by the curse and starting in a NG+ difficulty until yout deafeat the boss of the area in which you finally hollowed without an effigy to save yourself or by killing he next boss or any worthy boss. Or really the rest of the fleshing out of this mechanic has plenty of options. (NOT NG+ just the difficulty)
After you've hollowed out, if you have an effigy, it would automatically be used and you'd spawn at the Far Fire. But if you have NO effigies then as you respawn a HOLLOW then you would hear a fading irregular heartbeat (or not because maybe you didn't have one as a regular undead) or effect like the svcreen turning red and getting redder and redder untill you shriek and its all over. Untill then you have a last chance to find an effigy, evade attacks from your once friendly crowd of outcasts as they recognize your hollowing, but if melentia likes you then she'll give you an effigy and tell the others to back off (only if youve spend the amount of souls with her in the first place otherwise she'll just laugh and strike you down if you try to approach her. Also, you could try a few desperate secrets that may be the key to your second or last chance. Like the Enchante, perhaps praying at the altar before saulden slalys you. If youve rescued the Petrified girl or fought in enough boss fights witha certain companion while they survived the boss fights, then they might show up out of nowhere with an efigy or a final stumbling run back to strowen or the altar you started at would bring you back from the void/abyss. Each of these choices would not be spelled out for you but knowledge of the lore and game would have you guessing and certain conditions would hae to be met OR certain sacrifices like sacrificing your soul or promising your soul to some mysterious character if they gave you back your sanity /unhallowed you.
This would of crated a meaning to death and a sense of danger previously absent because eventually you can evive yourself/unhollow yourself in a certain area by praying and Human effigies become availablefrom merchants and other sources.
I just kept thining about this kind of dynamic whenever I would decide to just blast or slash thru the enemys towards a boss or towards my souls after dying for the umpteenth time (I hardlyused effigies as most areas became quite easy except for parts of the Iron Kingdom, obviously the Depths, and Sinners hollw or Lost Ballisa and the Earhen peak or areas around thie. While some of the areas in bwteen zones or travel areas where easy and the castle was easy until the annoing and long dragging segment in the area with the water and the random drop offs. That was a neat little trick but for an entire area it just got beyond challenging and became a frustration cuz I didn't want to have to keep checkigwith my torch to see if I could explore a certain area.
Sorry for the typhos I suck at laptop keyboards because the letters are so close together while the keys are to flat
Maybe you could use a new ability called PRAY (it could be in the orm of a gesture that you have to learn in oder to be able to use it) and another player from another world might drop you an effigiy