Interestingly I’d say Elden Ring is the most forgiving when it came to the “death penalty” you mention compared to all the other titles. There were far more rest points and things were so much more interconnected so you can stroll through/around most of the enemies to get back to where you died. Not always but a lot of times.

Also I found that really using your summons (especially mimic!) really helped with the difficulty. Also using magic makes life way easier. A lot of people just tend to go for the pure melee build which is making life really hard for yourself.

Death is another obstacle in all the soulslike I've tried. I've learned to not put so much stock in valuing souls/xp as they come and go, but more important is upgrading gear/learning move sets

Dying and losing your runes in Elden Ring isn't as big a deal as you think. The runes you collect from general enemies throughout the game areas are mostly inconsequential across the whole length of the game. The bulk of your rune income is earned by killing bosses, and there's almost always a grace to spend those runes after you down a boss.

I used to get the same anxiety as you when playing Souls-likes. Once I accepted that losing my runes a few times is inevitable when navigating an area for the first time, that anxiety lifted and I could focus on just exploring and having fun.

Dark souls 1 or the remaster is still worth playing. The map design is once-in-a-lifetime good. There is a pretty hefty penalty like in other souls games, but it's just getting hollowed and losing some souls. DS3 is also good, maybe a more refined version of 1, but I personally don't think the world is as cohesive with the loading screens.

The trick is to just get used to being hollowed all the time and spending souls asap when you get them. You don't lose gear when you die, and gear is pretty important. The real progress comes from learning how to deal with each enemy though, and that comes from dying. I guess it sort of boils down to "git gud", even though that wasn't what I was trying to say here lol.

Try celeste and super meat boy if you want a skillful platformer with low penalty.

You can even get an item in Elden Ring called the Twiggy Cracked Tear about a third of the way through that lets your Physick flask grant the same effects as a Sacrificial Twig for 3 minutes. Once you get that, the stress of losing Runes can be greatly diminished.

Simply drink it prior to crossing a fog wall or at a difficult point on the path to Rune retrieval.

If that's not enough, and you're on PC, you can download a simple mod off Nexus which eliminates Rune loss on death entirely.

If you are looking for "learn fight, get better, epic win" without much of a death penalty, maybe look at Monster Hunter?

It's not the same as a Souls game - not much world exploration, not much plot, zero gothiness - but it is 3D Fantasy Boss Fights: The Game. With 14 genuinely different weapon classes to choose from.

And if you faint three times and fail the quest, all you've lost are the consumables you spent on the attempt. (If you give up early and bail, you haven't even lost that.)

Maybe you would like Tunic, it's souls-like but you do not lose all your currency on death and you can adjust the difficulty in several ways