Play offline if invasions bother you or alternatively, if you want to play online with a friend, tell them to use the soapstone outside the boss room, then pop your effigy there. The PVE in this game is dirt easy due to lifegems. Oh and most importantly, don´t be scummy by first having a normal duel with the invador and then disconnecting right before you get killed. This happens waaaaayyyy to much from my experience.

Can you get softbanned for save-scumming? Not doing anything too game breaking, just hate the Soul Memory system that much.

false info on the banning(at least in my experience) i dont have an option to go offline in Sotfs, so i alt f4 anytime i get a player invader(cause you cant really stop the npc invaders from coming). never got softbanned ever. Although i would prefer a softban so i dont get invaded by players.