Board Thread:Dark Souls II/@comment-188.106.78.113-20160116172143/@comment-4511886-20160117030239

I think you've misunderstood how the mechanic works. Using souls has no effect on your Soul Memory. Once you get them, they're there no matter what you do with them. Also, if you don't want to fight players with higher levels, go into one of the arenas. They match based on Soul Level.

On topic:  Soul Memory is a great mechanic, in theory. The issue comes with the execution, which was lackluster at best. Soul Memory ended up rewarding those that manipulated it, and punished those who didn't.

The base of Soul Memory is that all players should have a similar possibility of being powerful, which is fair. The addition of the Soul Vessel would further build upon this, as you wouldn't be punished for having a sub-optimal stat distribution. The issue, as I said, isn't the mechanic itself, but the fact that one can work around it through simple calculations. The fact that it disregards what the souls went into is also a minor issue, along with the fact that the difference between the minimum and maximum souls per tier get far too big too quickly.

TL;DR: Soul Memory was a gamble on From's part, and it didn't pay off. As such, you have to go to one of the arenas if you want to fight people on equal terms.