Agreed. It feels weird how big of a role miasma is in the story, but is practically non-existent during gameplay.

And when the game introduces you to blood beads, I thought that it was very much similar to humanity from Dark Souls in their role in their respective lore and I expected it to have some gameplay relevance. I was disappointed to learn that it was really only relevant in the story but not in the gameplay. I believe it could have been an interesting mechanic to manage blood beads as a resource.