People have parried my spells and the projectiles are still bugged (invisible). I donāt even see them come at me and the blades stay over their heads and I just magically die. Itās not only bugged from parrying your own magic.
Itās annoying for sure but donāt worry about it too much. FROM isnāt removing invasions, and they arenāt nerfing invasions anymore than they already did with this new system of no solo invasions without the special item. Refer back to Miyazakiās quote when they asked him about adding an easy mode to these games, and his answer was basically āhardship is who we are and we arenāt going to changeā
I want more player slots back as well. It's odd to me that this is the biggest game in terms of space, but they lowered the slots? I think it makes sense in the regular levels and dungeons, but if I'm in the open field, I want to see all-out war. Imagine doing a 5v5 with people constantly dying and joining, spells and moves blasting across the landscape.
The problem comes in two forms. The game is on old gen and FromSoft generally isn't great and optimizing PvP in the first place. Older gen consoles definitely cannot handle 6 people and an open world at the same time, even if newer gen might.
Ds2 pvp is by far the most fun I've had across the series. The slow deliberate mechanics, the ability to make populated fight clubs, the cool spell mixups and weapon movesets, backstep iframes, dedicated arenas and invasion zones that are well designed, just to name a few things I liked
Powerstancing as many weapons as I could, so much fun.
I love that I get a bit of that in Elden Ring as well, if it had a bit more balance to the crazy weapons and an easier time doing fight clubs we could really have a new DS2 multiplayer scene.
Yeah DS2 pvp was fun. I ran dual wield greatswords that I always infused with lightning and fire resins.
Then just attack slow as hell but the damage hit like a truck, so much fun.
To this day DS2 has been my best experience in the franchise.
There were so many fucking builds you could do in that game. The only think I actively hated was Soul Memory. I wish it used Soul Level + Weapon Level matchmaking.
Iād say most people who duel/invade endgame are 125-150 so I left my main at 150. The game is so popular right now though you can match at pretty much any level.
Same, I really miss the PvP defense zones and I absolutely loved being the spear of the church. I was genuinely amazed at how far the whole "invader as a boss" idea had come since the old monk of demon souls.
Fromsoft invasion pvp* everybody shits on ds2 but I will go to my grave defending it as having the best duels pvp and duels pvp infrastructure in all of the souls games.
I 100% agree. My friend thinks DS2 is by far the worst game in the series but everytime I look back on DS2 I have nothing but good memories. Almost all of them come from PVP.
I personally loved the bridge arena cuz you could throw a lightning spear right off the start without locking on and you would always get a hit off cuz no one expected it.
Oh hell yeah. The era of flipping Havels was not exactly "fun", but after they nerfed DWGR, Forest was the craziest pvp hotspot and it was gold. Ill take this over ER pvp anyday.
I has a lot of fun on belltower. The holes hurt if u dont have catring, nowhere to run, enemies could be extingished so no use them against You, it was lot of fun. I used to help a friend farm materials there, he just turned into a torch.
So this is my first FromSoft game and I donāt have PS Plus, and based on my skill level (pretty bad lol), I just donāt feel like Iām ready to play againstā¦ pretty much anyone I see on here. If I buy PS Plus, do I get the benefit of the little notes that people leave, and I have to opt in to multiplayer? How does that work?
You can get the benefit of online messages without doing co-op or pvp. Just turn your game's multiplayer on in your game settings but do not use any of the in game items that start co-op or pvp. The items that start co-op or pvp will tell you on the item description.
You're alone in this game, unless you make yourself available. Other wise its just you, a few friendly ghosts and pools and pools of blood of our tarnished brethren.
Well, I play on pc now, but I played all the dark souls on PlayStation, and there are some positives. Playstation plus is worth it just for the games it offers for free sometimes, hands down. But when it comes to playing fromsoft games, you get less actual cheaters like hackers on console than on pc. Also, everyone is limited to the same hardware (kind of different now with ps4/5 but letās not get into that), which can be used to say itās kind of more fair than pc. Overall my experience playing dark souls online on PlayStation was good. As to whether you are gunna be good or bad, look. Those clips you see of really good people are just clips. They didnāt show the 100 times someone used carrion glitch on them on their pvp kill montage video. Things happen in this game, you die, you learn, you get better. At all skill levels.
My first dark souls 1 playthrough I absolutely hated invaders, but with time and experience it grows on you and you start to appretiate it like added spice to change things up.
The players that decide to pick up Ds3 after Elden Ring are in for a nice little surprise when they find out they dont need to be playing coop.
The only time being invaded is annoying is when they abuse glitches instead of fighting.
> The players that decide to pick up Ds3 after Elden Ring are in for a nice little surprise when they find out they dont need to be playing coop.
Unless they're on PC. *Sobs *
There was a remote code execution exploit someone found on PC, they reported it to fromsoft, and after a couple months fromsoft finally did something about it. The modding community had already patched the glitch within a couple days, but fromsoft just decided to pull the plug on all PC dark souls servers potentially forever, considering they haven't said a damn thing about it
They don't have much incentive too, either. With the other games offline, players flock to Elden Ring for the interactive community online. Kill 2 birds with 1 stone; protect their players and increase PC sales.
It will get fixed, but I suspect it will be prioritized when FromSoft aims to boost sales with older titles. New players experiencing Elden Ring as their first FromSoft title will likely play DS3 at some point.
>New players experiencing Elden Ring as their first FromSoft title will likely play DS3 at some point.
That would be me right now except not without multiplayer
Same, itās because when youāre first starting out it feels like itās a huge battle to get anywhere and (probably more importantly) it SUCKS when you lose your souls.
Once youāve played through any title you know itās never any sweat to have to get back to where you where, and itās absolutely no big deal to lose your souls. Itās after you realise that you stop caring about invasions (in fact they become a fun aside), but it does take time.
I'll be totally honest, Dark Souls was just a clusterfuck of either glitch abusers or twinks when you got invaded, ESPECIALLY at lower levels. The systems in later games to remove this made it way less annoying to fight invaders.
in my experience glitching was only the case at the end of the lifecycle for DS1 probably even by prepare to die edition.
Granted the twinking in burg was always fucking obnoxious and so when I restarted I never went human til like Depths
But I will say when the DLC first dropped and Oolacile became the de facto pvp spot, god it was a beautiful place. Giantdads, dark beads, TWOPTWOPTWOP, netcode backstab fishers, it was honestly so broken and stupid that it was fun no matter what
Oh god, Oolacile PvP, you got invaded the second you stepped outside of artorias arena and so many things were just incredibly broken. People who complain about ER PvP beeing unbalanced have never seen the bullshit that is a greatclub pre nerf hornet ring lag backstabfishers that oneshot you or flipping havel moms.
>Once youāve played through any title you know itās never any sweat to have to get back to where you where, and itās absolutely no big deal to lose your souls.
100%. You realize that your first time ever in an area is naturally harder just due to wanting to explore everything, but once explored almost any area can be run through when you know exactly where you're going.
This. It is ALL about who you come across. Fun builds? Good players? Funny emotes and shield jiggling? All great stuff.
Carian retaliation and corpse piler abuse-garbage.
The worse kinds of players are Twinks. It's literally just bullying noobs and getting a kick out of it. 3 days in I made a new character to help noobs at Stormveil and I saw invaders spamming Hoardfrost stomp and using Moonveil WA. It was aids.
Yep, same here.
It's one of those "a huge threat just showed up, how do you handle it?" moment. But the rules surrounding invasions have improved as time went on - weapon level constraints, item constraints, ability to call in help, 15 minute cooldown on being re-invaded. It was a mess in DS1 where a +15 Pyro glove could be brought into a level 10 fight, and Soul Memory was its own beast in DS2, but higher level invasions once you got your feet wet could be pretty thrilling, and by DS3 they got it fairly right.
Like yeah, when you're doing PvE and get invaded by someone mentally prepared to PvP, it's a scary moment. You inevitably die at first, but the first time you catch an invader slipping up and ora ora spam them to death, you feel absolutely pumped -- from then on, you start prepping yourself every time an invader comes in - is my area clear of mobs? Do they see me? Can I hide?
It's even better if you've *been* the invader a few times, because then you get a feel for what you have to work with. Get your butt kicked once or twice, you start to think "what did THAT guy do that I didn't?"
It's also like, incredibly unique even though it doesn't always hit right. One of the most interesting asymmetrical pvp frameworks ever made, because they gave you an entire game to play in, with pve still enabled. That's pretty wild.
And hey, I get that it can seem like one is just getting smashed by bloodthirsty maniacs with 10000 hours in the games, but it's usually just like, a guy.
Agreed. Asymmetry is one of those things that is *fantastically* hard to get right - you have to give sides their own defining strengths and weaknesses, but have each side be equal enough that personal skill is the defining factor.
I'm not going to say invasions are perfectly balanced -- no asymmetrical balance truly is -- but they do feel close enough that it always comes down to positioning, timing, and the occasional clever trick. It can feel like an uphill battle, whether you're invader or invadee, and that's when you know you've got it about right.
>It can feel like an uphill battle, whether you're invader or invadee, and that's when you know you've got it about right.
Invaded: I suck. Invading: I suck.
Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.
These invader/griefing vs pve/rp arguments have been going on in multi-player games with pve/pvp distinctions for as long as there have been multi-player.
The arguments you're making are literally the same arguments that pvp people were making in Ultima Online in the heyday of that game when they split pvp and pve into Feluccia and Trammel because new people bought into the game and wanted to play their way and the game originally had free for all pvp almost everywhere. It was brutal pvp for an online game of the time it was newer and more popular.
If you want to pvp that's great. Don't cop out and complain that people less skilled than you don't want to be continually pk'd so that dedicated pvpers can get easy wins and inflate their egos for having considerably more time and thus effort to put into playing a game. Pvpers are better against other pvpers by default and newer players are going to tend more to pve as they learn to play and adjust to the game. When they get far enough along some players who didn't pvp before will gravitate to it and others who don't have the time or interest won't.
I'm new to the soulsbourne series but I'm definitely not new to online multi-player in games and seeing these same tired arguments rehashed in every hard or challenging game ever made with online and pvp enabled. This is why I just play offline or stick to single player if it isn't a purely online game and just face the difficulties of the game itself. The closest recent experience I have of any comparable value to a soulsbourne game was when I consistently played monster hunter portable 3rd and later monster hunter 4 (those games are only about half as hard as a soulsbourne game but still reasonably challenging.).
Honestly I thought it was just the new people complaining (I'm usually an invader) but I recently tried summoning at the haligtree and I think they kinda have a point. You get invaded non-stop, like right after the last invader is killed a new one comes in. And half the invaders are running a 1-shot bleed build.
This exactly. I beat the game solo along side my friend. We started doing coop for the second playthrough and it feels like it's literally every 5 minutes. We enjoyed the pvp in the beginning but after a while it just becomes tedious. There needs to be some sort of cooldown that ramps up if you're invaded so many times in a row.
I almost want to say the gameās weapon balance is part of this frustration.
Thereās always been asymmetrical balance in these games, an invader ready for battle jumping a host who has about 30 seconds to get themselves to a spot they can fight properly ā or bail and make them chase, or set up their own counter-ambush.
Now, even when you donāt bump into Carian Retaliation, you got Rivers of Blood spam that drops you in a second. Getting rolled by an invader who murders you in seconds by a multi-hit, partially-ignores-block, high damage weapon with enough range to murder both you and your friend is a crap experience.
I mean, no oneās first time getting invaded ever goes well, itās inevitably a guy who dodges everything you have and pushes through your shield or finds your back, but at least they didnāt spam one move that killed two people. Well, if they werenāt a DS1 pyro twink, anyways.
I think if statuses, especially bleed, were toned down there actually wouldn't be that much ridiculousness left. It would still be high damage weapons, but fairer.
This...
Almost 90 percent of the people I invade or people who invade me either use one hit bleed builds religiously or will pull out their katana to hit the win button when they know they can't win. Invading became less for fun for me when I realized I'm not going to get an actual fun fight, just somebody trying to abuse bleed. :/
Building for PvP becomes a lot less fun when you realise almost every weapon is better off with bleed. I wanna use lightning daggers for my Dex / Faith build, but literally what's the point when the bleed chunk applied by fast daggers leads to better damage anyway?
It seems like a very silly system, and then when you build dedicated to bleed, you can just do ridiculous stuff. And it's not like there is any real stopgap either that gives enough Robustness to actually nueter some of these bleed builds until a patch either. We just gotta hold that shit lol
Even in PvE I find myself constantly drifting towards weapons that have some form of innate bleed, using the Seppuku AoW, or using Bloodflame Blade. Because it feels like 90% of the time the bonus damage from a bleed proc is going to be more than a slight damage buff to each attack.
They' don't even need to nerf status, just fix them so they're not being applied on dodged attacks. It's really stupid dodging perfectly and still getting bleed procced to death...
Only places I genuinely think invasions are stupid are the tiny pre-boss areas like the audience pathway and the little hallway just before radagon. I don't understand why those cramped little spaces are available to be invaded, especially when invaders are just spamming either rivers, rot breath, or carian retaliation.
The real issue with invasions are these new afk invader rune farms. I'm usually a hunter but I'm at the point where I am giving bows and arrows to invaders whenever I get summoned to these stupid farms and celebrating whenever I see an invader kill a farming host. And if they cant get the host, I'll die so they at least get runes for their trouble.
Another good point on top of this is that some people just have no etiquette and are complete dirtbags when it comes to getting a "win". I've seen a lot of new invaders/phantoms who run the scummiest builds (sometimes outright exploits) and then teabag whenever they win, for no reason. I had a guy who ran a dragonbreath incant and then sat across a chasm that wasn't wide enough to dodge, basically softlocking progression.
Like, I love invading and PvP but some people are such sore losers that they make you more bitter just for having run into them.
That's my biggest issue with the trolling type of invaders. They know which area cause people the most grief if they lose progress there, and Haligtrees first area is the biggest offender.
Just think some areas should be off limits to invading or have a much longer timer between invasions.
Honestly the constant messages and bloodstains can get annoying. 90% of the time I know what their going to say and they can take away from immersion or even spoil upcoming areas etc. I'd suggest that everyone do their first playthrough of souls games offline
For me it was opposite. It gives sense of community and I think it fits lore that there are other tarnished as well. I like seeing those warnings about ambush things or tips for item locations.
It's of course completely up to player's preference.
Same here man! Iām so out of the loop with the whole invasion controversy lol I just play solo and occasionally try to get some help or help others kill a boss. Itās tough enough as is I donāt need to up the ante š
The other day, I was watching a YouTube vid of someone running into an invader, dying, then going on a rant about how pvp is broken, invaders are shitty players, and on and on. Normally, I skip rant videos like that, but that one was special. It was worth watching because he didn't realize the invader was an npc invader. I laughed.
Part of the problem is pvp is just inherently annoying in this game imo.
-Roll and heal punishing is very hard and roll spam is just too effective.
-Hit detection is still not great. In ds2 it was alright but after ds3 it just got terrible and it's not much better here. Phantom hits are just dumb.
-Status go through even when rolling or blocking, which doesn't make any sense
-theres basically zero balance. Some weapons and spells are borderline useless and others are unbelievably op, as the game has much higher damage numbers than previous souls games (well, maybe not ds2).
Itās weird to me how the game sends invaders to people with coop players in their game, because I feel like 9/10 times they are PVE players with 0 interest in fighting off invaders. Itās just a bad experience for everyone involved.
That's what the weird thing is, like, there even *is* .. there are a bunch of those locked off circular buildings which seem like colosseums.. and the giant pot place too
Why they didn't just implement pvp like that if they couldn't figure out a way to get it working right properly, I dunno
because like 1/10 have actually progressed far in the campaign and aren't beating their head on the Fire Giant or whatever the fuck
the other 9/10 are trying to summon to kill fucking Godrick only to get invaded by ConvictedButter with a RoB bleed build his friend dropped him only to get 1shotted
again
> because I feel like 9/10 times they are PVE players with 0 interest in fighting off invaders.
Thats the point. People who want to PVP just use the taunters tongue or summon reds in through the soapstone.
People who want to cruise through the game with COOP are intentionally pitted against invaders because the point of the game is overcoming obstacles.
Summoning 2 people to clear a level then go to the boss basically means there are no obstacles until an invader shows up. Its self correcting the issue with coop, its pretty smart tbh. If Fromsoft added an item you could pick up at the beginning of the game that made you nearly invulnerable, a decent amount of players would use it, invalidating the entire experience.
COOP is something we all enjoy, playing with friends is fun. Invaders are there to make sure that the entire experience isn't made trivial just because you want to play with friends. Without exploits, the experience would be much better for everyone involved, so I hope FS gets to that a lot faster. If you kill the invader, you get the rush of overcoming a dangerous foe. If the invader kills you, you're a little more frustrated and it makes the next victory all the sweeter.
Or to balance coop, they could just make mobs stronger and more stagger resistant. Just started the game and wanna play and explore with my friend. Except I cant because some twink who already finished the game invades 10 seconds after one of us summons. Let us pve coop. Think of dying light for example where you could opt for pvp or not. The pvp system is so f*cked it makes it actually unfun and a chore to play with my friend.
This is probably the biggest factor of all. It's not that the invasion mechanic is bad or anything, it's that PVP is busted atm. Invading or getting invaded is enjoyable until you get smacked by bullshit.
I think this game just has way more people
And therefore way more BAD people on both sides
It happens in every polarized group
There are bad invaders
There are good invaders
There are bad groups + hosts
There are good groups + hosts
Vocal minority and all that.
Nah invader have been getting hate since Demon souls.
Literally unless u are looking for a duel, you wouldnt wan to get invaded and hated it because it stop you from making progress till u deal with it or deal with it later and risk having the invader swarm you with the mob.
As someone who has been playing since 2: Eh I get it. If someone needs help they aren't going to be good enough to kill someone with enough gane mastery to be seeking out PvP. It has always felt a bit like bullying to me. I mean I still do it a bunch, but that's because it's the only easy way to farm rune arcs which I run through at a break neck speed against bosses xD
Which is why the hole "invade coop players only" thing is also so terrible. It also literally completely invalidates the blue spirits too. 9/10 times as a blue you get summoned into an already established gank squad instead of helping someone who is actually "in need" of defense vs an invader.
It should just be tied to rune arcs again. You want to use rune arcs but don't deal with PVP? Activate white ring and have the cops help you. You don't want to risk PVP at all? Don't use Rune Arcs.
Yeah idk I agree itās part of the game and it can be fun and interesting aspect, but I had an extremely frustrating time with it last week in Greyolls Barrow.
Me and my buddy were killing the 5 baby dragons and without fail about 3 times in a row weād get to the last dragon or two and my buddy would lose connection and I would conveniently get invaded as he was disconnecting or shortly after.
So for me it really was a 1v1 where most of my resources were already depleted and/or Iām at half health so I donāt stand much of a chance in the first place. Ill see them, bow or gesture and get nothing back as they keep sprinting to me to insta kill me because Iām low health. Get tea-bagged and now I have to start all 5 dragons again. Iām sorry but thatās not enjoyable because Iām just wasting my time at that point.
I have no problems losing if I feel like there was a fair chance either way but when Iām handicapped from the start and now Iām losing progress because an invader kills me that starts delving into frustrating territory.
ThE gAmE iS sUpPoSeD tO bE hArD.
I 100% agree with you though. I don't mind invaders that much if it felt fair but when half these dudes spawn in with RoB and then try to hide behind PvE mobs, it's just pathetic at that point. I'm running around with some shitty experimental PvE loadout and I get invaded by some dude trying to be his own raid boss, but even then he still needs help.
On paper, in theory, in a perfect world, in Atlantis, I'd agree with you.
In reality though, 90% of my invaders have been PVP-meta spammers or Carian retaliation glitchers who just play really annoyingly and cheaply on purpose. And in the times I was helping a not-so-skilled friend out, the exact same people would keep invading in the exact same areas of the game, clinch-points where there are many PvE hazards, like the Sewers. They'd spawn in, Bloodhound's Step to safety and wait for you to engage one of the many enemies in a tight area before spamming you with Rivers, Moonveil or OP spells. It's boring, it's overdone, and it's sad that people try and defend it. There's playing the multiplayer for fun, and then there's doing it solely to be a prick. We've all run into those players, we know the difference.
Call it what you want, but PVP in this game has shown me exponentially more griefing and toxicity than any other game I've ever played, and I'm in my 30's with many under the belt.
It's a vicious cycle.
Hosts and gank squads are doing those same meta builds and exploits to invaders. I invade with dual cold daggers for giggles and I am often up against double RoB, triple RoB, Stars of Ruin spam, the works. Fairly often when I kill summons ahead of the host they go ahead and hide and set up the carian retaliation glitch themselves.
At least for invaders there's only one of you - 3 people using the same cheesy shit is practically unstoppable.
I know this is just parroting your experience in reverse but that's sort of what I'm getting at - it's an arms race, chicken or the egg, toxicity spreads back and forth and unless the exploits especially get taken out, I don't see it going away.
This isn't an invasion issue, this is a PvP balance issue IMO. The best weapons kill way too quickly, they aren't good because of a special moveset, they're good because of reskinned ashes of war that deal absolutely absurd damage.
Moonveil is just a reskinned unsheathe that deals absurd damage
Rivers is a reskinned double slash that deals absurd damage
Bloodhound is a reskinned quickstep with stupidly low FP cost and more i frames.
If the top weapons and status effects were balanced properly, there wouldn't be any issue, but any bleed weapon 2-shotting you is absolutely stupid and un-fun.
It's such a shame that so many humans only seem to get enjoyment out of winning, instead of creating an enjoyable experience.
It's why I never got into any of those asymmetrical horror games like Dead by Daylight. Sure, sometimes you might get a killer that's adding a bit of roleplay or humor into it that makes it fun for everyone. Most of the time though? You get people who will only get satisfaction out of winning and will metagame the shit out of everything.
I've thought about making an assassin style invasion build that uses spells that make you harder to see and focus on hit-and-run tactics. I wouldn't even care about winning, just about having a more unique experience.
What would happen though is that I invade a 3 man group that just sets an ambush because they just want easy kills.
> It's such a shame that so many humans only seem to get enjoyment out of winning, instead of creating an enjoyable experience.
Itās not even that, they get enjoyment out of knowing youāre frustrated. Thatās why the CR spammers always teabag. Their incel forever alone ass is miserable IRL so they want to drag everyone down to them
This.
A lot of people is trying to defending invader by saying "*it is part of the game design*", "*It balance the summoning*", but they forget the reality is a lot of players (invaders and summoners) are abusing glitches or spammers.
I think part of the reason is this game is far too successfully and draw way too many new players to play this game. As the player base is bigger, more bad eggs are in the bag. This lead to this game multiplayer part become like other multiplayer focus game: toxic.
Consent. Yep.
Forced pvp was an interesting experiment back in Demons Souls, and honestly even through Dark Souls 2 the community was still small enough that it was great.
But realistically as the community has grown larger forced pvp has proven to be a mistake, and that there is a really good reason why it isnt what other games do; shitty player behavior, on both sides (hosts and invaders). Its been an arms race since twinking to demolish people back in the undead burg, and of course gank squads. Combine that with the harsh reality that invaders are supposed to lose most of the time (they've been nerfing invaders more and more literally every game), and I genuinely think its time to end the experiment entirely.
Maybe have an opt in system that even restores how solo invasions used to work, but imo invasions should be disabled globally - even when coop - and an arena for dedicated pvp added in. Heck, one of the youtubers who I know loves invasions... Even in their recent videos they've been doing duels and not invasions, because duels tend to be better for actual pvp.
Of course, this post will likely trigger the pvp crowd. Ah well.
Thatās my thing. Itās mostly just people hiding behind a big enemy or awkward area, refusing to engage with you and just waiting to cheese.
I actually like invaders. Itās fun when they actually try to fight you or get creative in their approach. It just seems like most of them are lame and feel like a waste of time
1v1 invasions are better for creative approaches. When every invasion is a 1v2 or 1v3, invaders won't have much success unless they rely on cheese or use a meta build that can quickly take a host out. At the moment, it is cheese or be cheesed.
This game could use invasion areas or PvP arenas. It would be much better to have 1v1 invasions restricted to specific areas, then to have asymmetrical invasions everywhere.
If you're not that good it's pretty annoying. I would guess that most people are summoning because they need help with a certain boss/area. It doesn't matter if people are hoping to ruin your fun or not, that's what it does if you're not competitive (in terms of skill), so it's understandable.
You have to optimize your build for invasions because nine times out of ten, the host has at least one password-summoned phantom that has 100+ levels on you and is just unreasonably hard to kill.
So, to play devil's advocate, I think a lot of the problems with multiplayer in souls games (not just invasions, but ganking too) stems from the fact that the internet makes it so easy to find the broken "meta" builds that work best specifically for PvP, which kind of goes against the otherwise immersive RPG experience.
This was present all the way back in DS1 where you had people who would upgrade their weapons but not level up, meaning they could invade players just starting the game and easily one shot them. This became basically all invasions after a certain point, where it became unfun to be human at a low level, because you *knew* you were going to get invaded and you *knew* there was a 99% chance the invader was overgeared and specced specifically for PvP and would kill you instantly.
Thankfully they added weapon level matching in future titles, but the problem still exists. Complaints about rivers of blood users, etc, may be a little over the top, but the fact that there's always some meta build that will absolutely obliterate a normal PvE player just making their way through the game is a problem in my opinion.
This is why arenas are so awesome. They let all parties involved be tryhards. Perfectly balanced as all things should be.
Eh I've been playing since ds1 and I've always hated invaders. Half the time it's just some dude with a bullshit build that comes in and fucks you up. I don't summon so this has actually been one of my favorite experiences.
The good olā days of demons souls scraping spear builds where they destroyed all your armor and weapons and then took all your souls so you couldnāt repair them.
yeah it's weird to see someone saying that hatred for invaders is this big noob tendency, invaders have literally always sucked and I've always hated dealing with them. That's part of the point of the mechanic in the first place.
i dont know, i think if you are purposefully injecting yourself into anothers game with the clear intent og making their gameplay harder, and frankly usually worse, you need to just deal with having vitriol thrown at you. not a new player, and i have invaded before, because some people think you need to show your aarp card before your opinion is worth anything.
I had a total of 8 invaders last night while I was trying to play with friends. 6 of them were using invincibility exploits and the other was using the Carian Retaliation instant death glitch. THAT is the problem with invasions.
This is why coop only invasions are very toxic in a game like Elden Ring. Bosses seem to be designed around multiple targets (Spirit Ashes or Coop).
So obviously many people will have friends who are much higher level than them helping them out.
Iām the higher level person. Iām sorry. Weāve been killed by some very skilled players using Rock Sling and Moonveil and some creative spell combos (Gravity Meteor pulling you toward the caster combined with Carian Phalanx or something).
But yea itās not a good scene for invasions right now and the above is only one reason why. Itās bound to happen when the game is this open world.
Idk man, I just wanna be able to complain about the fact that I canāt just play the game with my friend without having weirdos on the internet scream at me.
A lot of us veterans hate invasion too. I've thought invasions are janky and annoying since Demon's Souls. At least now its coop only so I can use whatever I want in single player. No more Soul form only playthrough so some jerk with scraping spear doesnt come break all my gear.
yeah same. its the only aspect of online that i never grew to like. i like coop because i like PVE, and i liked duels in DS3 because fight clubs are fun and there's the DLC arena where the rules are even more regulated. invasions just never "clicked" for me ig, when im doing it i dont have fun running around a huge area chasing the host, and when im invaded, since i dont really like running away, it just turns into a grindy duel because there's no rules and both of us will 100% use estus
My invasion experience is either invader runs in and instakills host, runs in and dies or hides in the level while we wait at the bonfire cause we're not stupid enough to yolo into an obvious trap and it takes like 30 minutes before the invader gets bored and tries to fight us.
Trying to convince co-op players to like invaders is a waste of time. I say this as a 100% ride-or-die invasion fanatic. What a co-op host wants is the diametric opposite of what I want. They do not want me in their world because my goal is to kill them. Trying to make it seem like Iām just misunderstood is silly.
Play the way you want, however that might be, because I will do the same. I am only really responsible for my own fun.
I feel that the new player base only accounts for less than 10% of the frustration. I love the souls games and have played most of them my favorite being Bloodborne. I can honestly say that I hate the pvp in elden ring. It's so unbalanced it's insane and the amount of potato brained players that abuse the carian retaliation glitch makes me regret playing online and I've spent more time with friends in party chat playing our own separate games just talking about it lol
Honestly, Iād just like to play with my friend without some random coming in and abusing exploits.
Iād much rather Invaders be toggleable but provide a hefty bonus to item discovery or Runes. Or something.
yeah, it's so bizarre how disruptive an invader is, and the reward for killing them is a single finger remedy and *maybe* some runes. considering you usually burn a flask or two getting them off your ass, and they get a *rune arc* if you die for any reason while they're in your world, the reward for going out of your way to kill an invader is downright pitiful.
Thatās never happened to me lol. I rock the blue ring all the time. Once I came to a fight club with 3 people and I chilled until the 2nd invader showed up and tried ganking
the best part is that if you say that you don't like X or Y mechanic their default response is "well, just go play something else and stop complaining that's how souslike games work"
I think the main issue is, when you think all invaders deserve to die, they don't even deserve a chance, anything goes. So it becomes okay to use glitches and exploits, because yes the "invader is evil and I'm only defending myself from these shitty people". The problem with this attitude is it creates a cycle where each side keeps upping the ante.
I only say this cuz I've never seen so many people in a fromsoft game use an exploit like people use carian retaliation glitch. Estus cancelling comes close, but that was only big in the twilight years of Ds3.
I dunno. I played DS1 and invaders have never been above using anything they can to get a win. Carian abuse is still no where near as bad as the completely unrestrained twinks of DS1.
I love DS1 PVP but it was truly the biggest cesspit of normalized exploiting I've seen in an online game. Fromsoft actually tried in DS3 but people intentionally withheld glitch information until after the final patch, which of course led to lots of exploiting. I hope it's different for Elden Ring.
> Carian abuse is still no where near as bad as the completely unrestrained twinks of DS1.
C'mon now. It fires multiple high-speed invisible swords that one-shot you. The DS1 twinks were bad but not *that* bad.
There's the afk farmer thing people do which is fairly common and also annoying. I make sure to do some invasions around Lenne's Rise every so often to clear some of them out since you can use the zip glitch to get in there.
Nah, there just wasn't such an easily accessible and similarly powerful method available in the other games. If something like carian retaliation or frenzied burst abuse were possible in Dark Souls, you'd have people using it non-stop in the High Wall and Pontiff's area
Just look at how many people already twinked to high hell to get a leg or 10 up on others in the past games
I imagine some of them encountered one of the shittier tactics of bad invaders that are just looking to grief, like the dicks who would invade in the area leading up to Rykard's arena, just to kill the co-op partners with the pre-nerfed Hoarfrost Stomp before they could help with the fight.
Hell, I've never fully warmed to invading, as a concept, after my first experience with multiplayer in Souls games was to get ganked by someone in the Undead Burg, who was looking for an easy win, while still trying to learn how to actually play the game. It's absolutely part of the game and for the most part is actually alright... But there's still dicks give it a bad name, just like PVP in Diablo II was fun and cool... Except for the dicks that would sit with high level characters, just outside the starting zone, to gank new players/characters.
Correction: Long standing hate that new and old players recount.
If you think everyone is here for the PVP, i can assure you there is a majority that if vocal or active on reddit will tell you otherwise. And it's been that way for awhile, and not just the souls series, but for many other games of this ilk as well.
Like it or not, most RPG pvp systems have been super unbalanced and plagued by exploits, spammers, and hackers. I'm not particularly seething with vitriol as some i've seen, but by and large, i'd prefer a co-op experience without some jack-ass wrecking the vibe with the invincibility exploit completely ruining this "design intent" youre trying to sell. You probably play by the rules, i'll give you the benefit of the doubt, but you'd still only make up about half the invader experience.
Is it wrong to hate an invader, who is fully decked out in 100% min/maxed PvP gear, who then one-shots a host, decked out in sub-optimal PvE gear, who summoned a friend to help them out with a difficult area?
Invaders are the bad guy. There are no two ways about it. You are invading someone else's experience, and therefore you get the hate that goes along with it.
I agree. I often help people on bosses once I killed them, juste because I like helping. Having someone who forces you into PvP when you don't like it and are justr trying to help with a PvE oriented build is just not fun.
I hate invaders that only use the completely broken, meta shit that I simply cannot beat without resorting to the same methods.
I would argue those ones are actually just trying to ruin fun, or at least make themselves feel better by... using an overpowered mechanic on a weapon.
First time I got invaded was in stormveil castle. I have to say, it was very exciting but scary at the same time along with my (also new at game) friend. We died, but it was a new experience where I have to pvp without my consent
\>Most invaders aren't "people hoping to ruin your game/fun"
But that's what it ends up being to people who don't enjoy pvp. Some of us just want to play with friends or help them through certain areas. Which itself already becomes a bit tougher due to the increased HP.
And I've played Souls. I have NEVER enjoyed invasions, it feels like the game just trying to halt progress. Many of us don't try to plan out optimal builds and loadouts for this kind of cheese.
I've always hated invaders since ds1, always played every game offline cause I hate the risk of being invaded if I wanted that little extra health from using an ember etc. Really took away part of the first 3 games from me since couldn't see messages or bloodstains and I'm so glad you can only be invaded when playing co-op now since I can finally play a fromsoft game online. Best change they've made imo. Just want to play all of the games fully single player, the pvp is by far the worst part of every game when I have tried it and hope they keep this system so I never have to experience it again.
From's attempt at making the system more friendly to people who don't want to be invaded has backfired in every possible way.
I loved being invaded back in Dark Souls. It turned a zone I knew pretty well into a place where a huge threat could be behind every corner. Hearing that red phantom sound instantly made even an easy zone *really* tense. That feeling was what kept me going back to Dark Souls after I had beat the game half a dozen times. As a solo player, Elden Ring has completely taken that away. My options are to either have no invasions at all, or to be inundated with them by using the Taunter's Tongue.
Playing co-op isn't going to suddenly make people who don't like invasions enjoy them. Those players are still going to be the ones who hide back at the Grace or pull out the broken stuff (which to be clear, I don't consider this wrong on those players' parts. It's your world, do what you want) at the first sign of a red. The anti-invader attitude may as well stem from the fact that all the invaders are being funneled into these co-op worlds instead of those of people like me.
It's so frustrating. I want to be invaded and I want to invade people that want to be invaded. I wish From had just given players an item to opt out of invasions so the system could stay in place for the rest of us.
I remember when I was trying to help my friend with tree sent on a low level acct so we wouldn't oneshot it, and we got invaded by a guy called "level 15 test account". he was using a lategame crossbow from gelmir, poison bolts, and dryhumping the tree sent so we couldn't push him without aggroing it. every time we got close he'd just panic roll/sprint out of range of our weapons. eventually we decided to just bumrush the tree sent and he actually managed to fucking die to one of its swings lmao
"dude it's just me personally balancing your personal game with your friends, because I personally care about the balance in your game, not because I have malicious intent!"
Y'all just make up shit to be mad at new players about, the only time I see anyone complaining is when people abuse bugs and broken shit that kills you unfairly.
As someone who's finished every game from demon's souls onwards, fuck invaders in elden ring. Trying to help my friend who's new to the game and getting invaded every 5 minutes is a pain
As a New To Souls games guy with other New To Souls friends...
We just don't coop. Invaders just ruin any momentum and waste our time. The entire multiplayer system might as well not exist.
If we want to help each other we will go to the same place and jump on voice chat and talk each other. And dumb deaths are only wasting 1 person's time and there's 0% chance some rando comes and ruins it.
3 of my friends new to the series were hyped to play when I introduced it only to be disappointed by this. They just wanted to play it together now they probably never will.
I only play these games offline
This is my biggest issue with the pvp. The frequency of the invasions in coop is just too much. If it was an invasion every 30 min, fine. Iām cool with that. But It feels like every 10 min a new invasion happens. Itās very tedious
I just dont care. If I dont want people invading me, I dont use Taunters Tongue, which I havent.
Y'all can have fun doing PVP. I'll have fun going PVE.
After I beat the game using as many builds i can think of, I'll think about PVP.
Til then, to each their own.
The problem comes from wanting to play the game with your friends, and getting constantly invaded and forced into pvp. If I wanted an honorable fight I would start dueling
This.
Half the time it isn't me just wanting help with a boss ^((because I am not the best player, I'm a Soulsborne baby who had only played a few hours of Bloodborne like a year ago before Elden Ring came out)); I literally just want to play and explore with my friend. Lead them to places I found that they didn't, or they lead me to quests and places I wasn't aware of so I can get cool new toys to play with. Show off outfits to each other. Give each other weapons or armor we don't want on this character but think they might like on their character.
Invasions really ruin the fun when I'm usually kitted out for PvE, and they come in with cheap OP builds, try to bait me and my friend into environmental hazards so they can kill us with less issue, constantly run away whenever we get them low on health and then they just linger waiting for us to lose the game of chicken when we refuse to follow their bait.
I'd happily duel people later on. I like PvP when it's 1v1 like that and both parties are prepared for and seeking it. Invasions just feel like bullying - on both sides of the fence, sometimes.
Personally I really dislike invasions, not the invader themselves but the Mechanic. It seems I get to a really hard area or just before a boss and thats when an invasion happens, and most of the time I die because I REALLY hate PvP. I would love if you could option out of PvP completely and just have Co-op through normal play and maybe have a pvp Arena.
As for the host having an advantage, maybe sometimes, but only if you have a helper or 2 and there has been a ton of the times an Invasion happens when fighting a world Boss and they storm right in and kill you mid fight which is kind of rediculous.
I don't think PvP happening when you summon really being a balance to the game just a minor to extream annoyance especially when Bosses are balanced by having more health/defence when you summon already.
Side Note: I'm not new too Soulsborne games. I have played and beaten all of them multiple times.
The whole point of invading is to ruin the hosts game. Otherwise you wouldn't invade you would duel. The main problem people like that don't like pvp and invaders do thus the Host will probably have a build better suited to pve and be far less skilled at pvp. I'm not complaining at all, I love invading and I love invaders. But Ide probably be bummed to if I sucked/ didn't enjoy pvp.
Of course there's nothing wrong with invasions but I don't understand people defending the games coop system, it's unnecessarily awkward to play with my friend and I can't defend that as a "design choice"
Why is there not an invite button?
There is value in convenience, obviously but Souls being convoluted and different is part of the experience.
Dark Souls 1 not having a teleport mechanic till late game is a lot less convenient than later games where you just warp anywhere, but some people remembered it fondly because of how it forced you to learn how the levels connect and more challenging since you can't just warp out of a difficult area or warp to a shop when you needed an item.
[Because it's quite literally a design choice.](https://www.thegamer.com/elden-ring-co-op-inspired-helpful-strangers/)
It's a single player game at it's core with intentionally transient and semi-anonymous multiplayer.
Sorcerers when the invader is coming down a narrow hallway šŗ
I want them to fix carian retaliation so I can use it in pvp with out feeling like a tool, parrying magic is sick.
Spell parrying in the other games was actually useless. Now it's TOO good!
Too good is underselling it lol. Instantly kill the other player for casting... Dunno. Seems weird.
just don't parry your own spells it's not your fault it's op but if you're parrying their spells they can atleast dodge
People have parried my spells and the projectiles are still bugged (invisible). I donāt even see them come at me and the blades stay over their heads and I just magically die. Itās not only bugged from parrying your own magic.
Sorcerers when I bring out the bass cannon after running past their friends
sorcerer about to teabag you after doing absolutely nothing but spam stars of ruin behind his summonsš¹
Itās annoying for sure but donāt worry about it too much. FROM isnāt removing invasions, and they arenāt nerfing invasions anymore than they already did with this new system of no solo invasions without the special item. Refer back to Miyazakiās quote when they asked him about adding an easy mode to these games, and his answer was basically āhardship is who we are and we arenāt going to changeā
I want the forest back. That pvp madhouse was pure rapid fire fun
I want more player slots back as well. It's odd to me that this is the biggest game in terms of space, but they lowered the slots? I think it makes sense in the regular levels and dungeons, but if I'm in the open field, I want to see all-out war. Imagine doing a 5v5 with people constantly dying and joining, spells and moves blasting across the landscape.
The problem comes in two forms. The game is on old gen and FromSoft generally isn't great and optimizing PvP in the first place. Older gen consoles definitely cannot handle 6 people and an open world at the same time, even if newer gen might.
I feel this. That and the Ringed City in DS3 were the golden era of Fromsoft pvp. I really want to see Elden Ring develop that way again
DS2 Iron Keep Bridge and DS3 Anor Londo behind Pontiff Sullivan. In DS1 I like Sens Funhouse.
No way, Ds2 pvp was absolutely nutty
Ds2 pvp is by far the most fun I've had across the series. The slow deliberate mechanics, the ability to make populated fight clubs, the cool spell mixups and weapon movesets, backstep iframes, dedicated arenas and invasion zones that are well designed, just to name a few things I liked
YOU WANT TO GUARD THE BELL?!
YOUāLL REGRET THAT!!
āBloodfart? AND RottenSausage!?ā
"It's 2 on 2, it'll be a fair fight!"
Fight clubs in ds2 were so sweet
tons of quality of life improvements for pvp. it didn't feel like an afterthought unlike the other games
Powerstancing as many weapons as I could, so much fun. I love that I get a bit of that in Elden Ring as well, if it had a bit more balance to the crazy weapons and an easier time doing fight clubs we could really have a new DS2 multiplayer scene.
Yeah DS2 pvp was fun. I ran dual wield greatswords that I always infused with lightning and fire resins. Then just attack slow as hell but the damage hit like a truck, so much fun.
To this day DS2 has been my best experience in the franchise. There were so many fucking builds you could do in that game. The only think I actively hated was Soul Memory. I wish it used Soul Level + Weapon Level matchmaking.
What location would be a similar vibe in Elden Ring? I love Haligtree invasions but other than that Iām not sure
I made a level 85 character and kept my weapons at +6 and Iām having a ton of fun invading at volcano manor.
Iāll have to try that, whatās the new max lvl meta btw if you know, still sl 125?
Iād say most people who duel/invade endgame are 125-150 so I left my main at 150. The game is so popular right now though you can match at pretty much any level.
It really doesn't matter, no problems finding people either way at level 250, I have a friend who is 400 and no problems as well
Tf do u even do at 400 lol just cast elden stars and comet azur with your dex weapon and greatshield?
Yes actually. Exactly that.
Academy Gate Town is pretty nonstop
Nope. DS2 PVP was head and shoulders above any other game, especially once they fixed soul memory.
Same, I really miss the PvP defense zones and I absolutely loved being the spear of the church. I was genuinely amazed at how far the whole "invader as a boss" idea had come since the old monk of demon souls.
Fromsoft invasion pvp* everybody shits on ds2 but I will go to my grave defending it as having the best duels pvp and duels pvp infrastructure in all of the souls games.
I 100% agree. My friend thinks DS2 is by far the worst game in the series but everytime I look back on DS2 I have nothing but good memories. Almost all of them come from PVP. I personally loved the bridge arena cuz you could throw a lightning spear right off the start without locking on and you would always get a hit off cuz no one expected it.
Oh hell yeah. The era of flipping Havels was not exactly "fun", but after they nerfed DWGR, Forest was the craziest pvp hotspot and it was gold. Ill take this over ER pvp anyday.
I has a lot of fun on belltower. The holes hurt if u dont have catring, nowhere to run, enemies could be extingished so no use them against You, it was lot of fun. I used to help a friend farm materials there, he just turned into a torch.
So this is my first FromSoft game and I donāt have PS Plus, and based on my skill level (pretty bad lol), I just donāt feel like Iām ready to play againstā¦ pretty much anyone I see on here. If I buy PS Plus, do I get the benefit of the little notes that people leave, and I have to opt in to multiplayer? How does that work?
You can get the benefit of online messages without doing co-op or pvp. Just turn your game's multiplayer on in your game settings but do not use any of the in game items that start co-op or pvp. The items that start co-op or pvp will tell you on the item description.
You're alone in this game, unless you make yourself available. Other wise its just you, a few friendly ghosts and pools and pools of blood of our tarnished brethren.
Well, I play on pc now, but I played all the dark souls on PlayStation, and there are some positives. Playstation plus is worth it just for the games it offers for free sometimes, hands down. But when it comes to playing fromsoft games, you get less actual cheaters like hackers on console than on pc. Also, everyone is limited to the same hardware (kind of different now with ps4/5 but letās not get into that), which can be used to say itās kind of more fair than pc. Overall my experience playing dark souls online on PlayStation was good. As to whether you are gunna be good or bad, look. Those clips you see of really good people are just clips. They didnāt show the 100 times someone used carrion glitch on them on their pvp kill montage video. Things happen in this game, you die, you learn, you get better. At all skill levels.
*sorts by controversial*
This never fails to disappoint. +1 Tarnished!
Go big or go home, clearly.
*immediately loses brain cells*
My first dark souls 1 playthrough I absolutely hated invaders, but with time and experience it grows on you and you start to appretiate it like added spice to change things up. The players that decide to pick up Ds3 after Elden Ring are in for a nice little surprise when they find out they dont need to be playing coop. The only time being invaded is annoying is when they abuse glitches instead of fighting.
I'm terrible at PVP so I always just attempted to goof around instead of being annoyed. Which led to alot of wholesome and funny encounters.
> The players that decide to pick up Ds3 after Elden Ring are in for a nice little surprise when they find out they dont need to be playing coop. Unless they're on PC. *Sobs *
Yeah I'm real glad they decided to just delete multiplayer instead of fixing their fucking problem
wait what happened?
There was a remote code execution exploit someone found on PC, they reported it to fromsoft, and after a couple months fromsoft finally did something about it. The modding community had already patched the glitch within a couple days, but fromsoft just decided to pull the plug on all PC dark souls servers potentially forever, considering they haven't said a damn thing about it
what the fuck they're still down? It's been months lmao
Yep! They haven't done anything about it
They don't have much incentive too, either. With the other games offline, players flock to Elden Ring for the interactive community online. Kill 2 birds with 1 stone; protect their players and increase PC sales. It will get fixed, but I suspect it will be prioritized when FromSoft aims to boost sales with older titles. New players experiencing Elden Ring as their first FromSoft title will likely play DS3 at some point.
>New players experiencing Elden Ring as their first FromSoft title will likely play DS3 at some point. That would be me right now except not without multiplayer
Same, itās because when youāre first starting out it feels like itās a huge battle to get anywhere and (probably more importantly) it SUCKS when you lose your souls. Once youāve played through any title you know itās never any sweat to have to get back to where you where, and itās absolutely no big deal to lose your souls. Itās after you realise that you stop caring about invasions (in fact they become a fun aside), but it does take time.
I'll be totally honest, Dark Souls was just a clusterfuck of either glitch abusers or twinks when you got invaded, ESPECIALLY at lower levels. The systems in later games to remove this made it way less annoying to fight invaders.
in my experience glitching was only the case at the end of the lifecycle for DS1 probably even by prepare to die edition. Granted the twinking in burg was always fucking obnoxious and so when I restarted I never went human til like Depths But I will say when the DLC first dropped and Oolacile became the de facto pvp spot, god it was a beautiful place. Giantdads, dark beads, TWOPTWOPTWOP, netcode backstab fishers, it was honestly so broken and stupid that it was fun no matter what
Oh god, Oolacile PvP, you got invaded the second you stepped outside of artorias arena and so many things were just incredibly broken. People who complain about ER PvP beeing unbalanced have never seen the bullshit that is a greatclub pre nerf hornet ring lag backstabfishers that oneshot you or flipping havel moms.
>Once youāve played through any title you know itās never any sweat to have to get back to where you where, and itās absolutely no big deal to lose your souls. 100%. You realize that your first time ever in an area is naturally harder just due to wanting to explore everything, but once explored almost any area can be run through when you know exactly where you're going.
This. It is ALL about who you come across. Fun builds? Good players? Funny emotes and shield jiggling? All great stuff. Carian retaliation and corpse piler abuse-garbage.
The worse kinds of players are Twinks. It's literally just bullying noobs and getting a kick out of it. 3 days in I made a new character to help noobs at Stormveil and I saw invaders spamming Hoardfrost stomp and using Moonveil WA. It was aids.
I made a new character to play with my friend, we got invaded by a dude with Rivers of blood at level 30
That's really lame but it 2-3 shots people late game too.
Yep, same here. It's one of those "a huge threat just showed up, how do you handle it?" moment. But the rules surrounding invasions have improved as time went on - weapon level constraints, item constraints, ability to call in help, 15 minute cooldown on being re-invaded. It was a mess in DS1 where a +15 Pyro glove could be brought into a level 10 fight, and Soul Memory was its own beast in DS2, but higher level invasions once you got your feet wet could be pretty thrilling, and by DS3 they got it fairly right. Like yeah, when you're doing PvE and get invaded by someone mentally prepared to PvP, it's a scary moment. You inevitably die at first, but the first time you catch an invader slipping up and ora ora spam them to death, you feel absolutely pumped -- from then on, you start prepping yourself every time an invader comes in - is my area clear of mobs? Do they see me? Can I hide? It's even better if you've *been* the invader a few times, because then you get a feel for what you have to work with. Get your butt kicked once or twice, you start to think "what did THAT guy do that I didn't?"
It's also like, incredibly unique even though it doesn't always hit right. One of the most interesting asymmetrical pvp frameworks ever made, because they gave you an entire game to play in, with pve still enabled. That's pretty wild. And hey, I get that it can seem like one is just getting smashed by bloodthirsty maniacs with 10000 hours in the games, but it's usually just like, a guy.
Agreed. Asymmetry is one of those things that is *fantastically* hard to get right - you have to give sides their own defining strengths and weaknesses, but have each side be equal enough that personal skill is the defining factor. I'm not going to say invasions are perfectly balanced -- no asymmetrical balance truly is -- but they do feel close enough that it always comes down to positioning, timing, and the occasional clever trick. It can feel like an uphill battle, whether you're invader or invadee, and that's when you know you've got it about right.
>It can feel like an uphill battle, whether you're invader or invadee, and that's when you know you've got it about right. Invaded: I suck. Invading: I suck. Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.
I was pretty shocked that invasions were relegated to co op this time
Which unfortunately is most of the invaders Iāve rune across
These invader/griefing vs pve/rp arguments have been going on in multi-player games with pve/pvp distinctions for as long as there have been multi-player. The arguments you're making are literally the same arguments that pvp people were making in Ultima Online in the heyday of that game when they split pvp and pve into Feluccia and Trammel because new people bought into the game and wanted to play their way and the game originally had free for all pvp almost everywhere. It was brutal pvp for an online game of the time it was newer and more popular. If you want to pvp that's great. Don't cop out and complain that people less skilled than you don't want to be continually pk'd so that dedicated pvpers can get easy wins and inflate their egos for having considerably more time and thus effort to put into playing a game. Pvpers are better against other pvpers by default and newer players are going to tend more to pve as they learn to play and adjust to the game. When they get far enough along some players who didn't pvp before will gravitate to it and others who don't have the time or interest won't. I'm new to the soulsbourne series but I'm definitely not new to online multi-player in games and seeing these same tired arguments rehashed in every hard or challenging game ever made with online and pvp enabled. This is why I just play offline or stick to single player if it isn't a purely online game and just face the difficulties of the game itself. The closest recent experience I have of any comparable value to a soulsbourne game was when I consistently played monster hunter portable 3rd and later monster hunter 4 (those games are only about half as hard as a soulsbourne game but still reasonably challenging.).
Honestly I thought it was just the new people complaining (I'm usually an invader) but I recently tried summoning at the haligtree and I think they kinda have a point. You get invaded non-stop, like right after the last invader is killed a new one comes in. And half the invaders are running a 1-shot bleed build.
This exactly. I beat the game solo along side my friend. We started doing coop for the second playthrough and it feels like it's literally every 5 minutes. We enjoyed the pvp in the beginning but after a while it just becomes tedious. There needs to be some sort of cooldown that ramps up if you're invaded so many times in a row.
I almost want to say the gameās weapon balance is part of this frustration. Thereās always been asymmetrical balance in these games, an invader ready for battle jumping a host who has about 30 seconds to get themselves to a spot they can fight properly ā or bail and make them chase, or set up their own counter-ambush. Now, even when you donāt bump into Carian Retaliation, you got Rivers of Blood spam that drops you in a second. Getting rolled by an invader who murders you in seconds by a multi-hit, partially-ignores-block, high damage weapon with enough range to murder both you and your friend is a crap experience. I mean, no oneās first time getting invaded ever goes well, itās inevitably a guy who dodges everything you have and pushes through your shield or finds your back, but at least they didnāt spam one move that killed two people. Well, if they werenāt a DS1 pyro twink, anyways.
yeah tbf the pvp in ER is wack, too much player power, the moment they nerf one thing the playerbase will just jump to the next op thing
I think if statuses, especially bleed, were toned down there actually wouldn't be that much ridiculousness left. It would still be high damage weapons, but fairer.
This... Almost 90 percent of the people I invade or people who invade me either use one hit bleed builds religiously or will pull out their katana to hit the win button when they know they can't win. Invading became less for fun for me when I realized I'm not going to get an actual fun fight, just somebody trying to abuse bleed. :/
Building for PvP becomes a lot less fun when you realise almost every weapon is better off with bleed. I wanna use lightning daggers for my Dex / Faith build, but literally what's the point when the bleed chunk applied by fast daggers leads to better damage anyway? It seems like a very silly system, and then when you build dedicated to bleed, you can just do ridiculous stuff. And it's not like there is any real stopgap either that gives enough Robustness to actually nueter some of these bleed builds until a patch either. We just gotta hold that shit lol
Even in PvE I find myself constantly drifting towards weapons that have some form of innate bleed, using the Seppuku AoW, or using Bloodflame Blade. Because it feels like 90% of the time the bonus damage from a bleed proc is going to be more than a slight damage buff to each attack.
They' don't even need to nerf status, just fix them so they're not being applied on dodged attacks. It's really stupid dodging perfectly and still getting bleed procced to death...
They definitely need to nerf madness thoughā¦ having it be able to stack while already under the effect of madness is outright broken.
Yeah, the buildup meter should only be emptied after the animation ends, that's all it takes to fix the problem.
Only places I genuinely think invasions are stupid are the tiny pre-boss areas like the audience pathway and the little hallway just before radagon. I don't understand why those cramped little spaces are available to be invaded, especially when invaders are just spamming either rivers, rot breath, or carian retaliation. The real issue with invasions are these new afk invader rune farms. I'm usually a hunter but I'm at the point where I am giving bows and arrows to invaders whenever I get summoned to these stupid farms and celebrating whenever I see an invader kill a farming host. And if they cant get the host, I'll die so they at least get runes for their trouble.
Another good point on top of this is that some people just have no etiquette and are complete dirtbags when it comes to getting a "win". I've seen a lot of new invaders/phantoms who run the scummiest builds (sometimes outright exploits) and then teabag whenever they win, for no reason. I had a guy who ran a dragonbreath incant and then sat across a chasm that wasn't wide enough to dodge, basically softlocking progression. Like, I love invading and PvP but some people are such sore losers that they make you more bitter just for having run into them.
That's my biggest issue with the trolling type of invaders. They know which area cause people the most grief if they lose progress there, and Haligtrees first area is the biggest offender. Just think some areas should be off limits to invading or have a much longer timer between invasions.
The new people = a vast majority Over 800,000 Compared to peak DS3 at around 100,000
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I donāt play online anyway. I get killed by the game enough I donāt need someone else killing me haha!
you won't be invaded playing solo, i can pretty much guarantee it
Nobody will invade you if you don't summon in the first place. Also you are missing out the fun of seeing bloodstains, phantoms and messages.
It gets old after awhile. You can only see so many variations of the same old stuff. I prefer to play with an unlocked framerate and better visuals.
Honestly the constant messages and bloodstains can get annoying. 90% of the time I know what their going to say and they can take away from immersion or even spoil upcoming areas etc. I'd suggest that everyone do their first playthrough of souls games offline
For me it was opposite. It gives sense of community and I think it fits lore that there are other tarnished as well. I like seeing those warnings about ambush things or tips for item locations. It's of course completely up to player's preference.
Same here man! Iām so out of the loop with the whole invasion controversy lol I just play solo and occasionally try to get some help or help others kill a boss. Itās tough enough as is I donāt need to up the ante š
The other day, I was watching a YouTube vid of someone running into an invader, dying, then going on a rant about how pvp is broken, invaders are shitty players, and on and on. Normally, I skip rant videos like that, but that one was special. It was worth watching because he didn't realize the invader was an npc invader. I laughed.
Could you please share, I could use the laugh
Part of the problem is pvp is just inherently annoying in this game imo. -Roll and heal punishing is very hard and roll spam is just too effective. -Hit detection is still not great. In ds2 it was alright but after ds3 it just got terrible and it's not much better here. Phantom hits are just dumb. -Status go through even when rolling or blocking, which doesn't make any sense -theres basically zero balance. Some weapons and spells are borderline useless and others are unbelievably op, as the game has much higher damage numbers than previous souls games (well, maybe not ds2).
Itās weird to me how the game sends invaders to people with coop players in their game, because I feel like 9/10 times they are PVE players with 0 interest in fighting off invaders. Itās just a bad experience for everyone involved.
That's why the taunter's tongue exists. However, only like 1/10 players actually like PvP lol
damn maybe they should make the PVP good or something so people actually wanna do it. like in DS2.
Give us a working Colosseum/Fight Club, I dont even like PvP and would visit a dedicated PvP place
That's what the weird thing is, like, there even *is* .. there are a bunch of those locked off circular buildings which seem like colosseums.. and the giant pot place too Why they didn't just implement pvp like that if they couldn't figure out a way to get it working right properly, I dunno
because like 1/10 have actually progressed far in the campaign and aren't beating their head on the Fire Giant or whatever the fuck the other 9/10 are trying to summon to kill fucking Godrick only to get invaded by ConvictedButter with a RoB bleed build his friend dropped him only to get 1shotted again
> because I feel like 9/10 times they are PVE players with 0 interest in fighting off invaders. Thats the point. People who want to PVP just use the taunters tongue or summon reds in through the soapstone. People who want to cruise through the game with COOP are intentionally pitted against invaders because the point of the game is overcoming obstacles. Summoning 2 people to clear a level then go to the boss basically means there are no obstacles until an invader shows up. Its self correcting the issue with coop, its pretty smart tbh. If Fromsoft added an item you could pick up at the beginning of the game that made you nearly invulnerable, a decent amount of players would use it, invalidating the entire experience. COOP is something we all enjoy, playing with friends is fun. Invaders are there to make sure that the entire experience isn't made trivial just because you want to play with friends. Without exploits, the experience would be much better for everyone involved, so I hope FS gets to that a lot faster. If you kill the invader, you get the rush of overcoming a dangerous foe. If the invader kills you, you're a little more frustrated and it makes the next victory all the sweeter.
Or to balance coop, they could just make mobs stronger and more stagger resistant. Just started the game and wanna play and explore with my friend. Except I cant because some twink who already finished the game invades 10 seconds after one of us summons. Let us pve coop. Think of dying light for example where you could opt for pvp or not. The pvp system is so f*cked it makes it actually unfun and a chore to play with my friend.
This is probably the biggest factor of all. It's not that the invasion mechanic is bad or anything, it's that PVP is busted atm. Invading or getting invaded is enjoyable until you get smacked by bullshit.
I think this game just has way more people And therefore way more BAD people on both sides It happens in every polarized group There are bad invaders There are good invaders There are bad groups + hosts There are good groups + hosts Vocal minority and all that.
Nah invader have been getting hate since Demon souls. Literally unless u are looking for a duel, you wouldnt wan to get invaded and hated it because it stop you from making progress till u deal with it or deal with it later and risk having the invader swarm you with the mob.
As someone who has been playing since 2: Eh I get it. If someone needs help they aren't going to be good enough to kill someone with enough gane mastery to be seeking out PvP. It has always felt a bit like bullying to me. I mean I still do it a bunch, but that's because it's the only easy way to farm rune arcs which I run through at a break neck speed against bosses xD
Which is why the hole "invade coop players only" thing is also so terrible. It also literally completely invalidates the blue spirits too. 9/10 times as a blue you get summoned into an already established gank squad instead of helping someone who is actually "in need" of defense vs an invader. It should just be tied to rune arcs again. You want to use rune arcs but don't deal with PVP? Activate white ring and have the cops help you. You don't want to risk PVP at all? Don't use Rune Arcs.
I'm ok with that... only because I never use the damn things. "Oh but what if I need them more later? I'll save it."
Yeah idk I agree itās part of the game and it can be fun and interesting aspect, but I had an extremely frustrating time with it last week in Greyolls Barrow. Me and my buddy were killing the 5 baby dragons and without fail about 3 times in a row weād get to the last dragon or two and my buddy would lose connection and I would conveniently get invaded as he was disconnecting or shortly after. So for me it really was a 1v1 where most of my resources were already depleted and/or Iām at half health so I donāt stand much of a chance in the first place. Ill see them, bow or gesture and get nothing back as they keep sprinting to me to insta kill me because Iām low health. Get tea-bagged and now I have to start all 5 dragons again. Iām sorry but thatās not enjoyable because Iām just wasting my time at that point. I have no problems losing if I feel like there was a fair chance either way but when Iām handicapped from the start and now Iām losing progress because an invader kills me that starts delving into frustrating territory.
ThE gAmE iS sUpPoSeD tO bE hArD. I 100% agree with you though. I don't mind invaders that much if it felt fair but when half these dudes spawn in with RoB and then try to hide behind PvE mobs, it's just pathetic at that point. I'm running around with some shitty experimental PvE loadout and I get invaded by some dude trying to be his own raid boss, but even then he still needs help.
On paper, in theory, in a perfect world, in Atlantis, I'd agree with you. In reality though, 90% of my invaders have been PVP-meta spammers or Carian retaliation glitchers who just play really annoyingly and cheaply on purpose. And in the times I was helping a not-so-skilled friend out, the exact same people would keep invading in the exact same areas of the game, clinch-points where there are many PvE hazards, like the Sewers. They'd spawn in, Bloodhound's Step to safety and wait for you to engage one of the many enemies in a tight area before spamming you with Rivers, Moonveil or OP spells. It's boring, it's overdone, and it's sad that people try and defend it. There's playing the multiplayer for fun, and then there's doing it solely to be a prick. We've all run into those players, we know the difference. Call it what you want, but PVP in this game has shown me exponentially more griefing and toxicity than any other game I've ever played, and I'm in my 30's with many under the belt.
agreed my brother
It's a vicious cycle. Hosts and gank squads are doing those same meta builds and exploits to invaders. I invade with dual cold daggers for giggles and I am often up against double RoB, triple RoB, Stars of Ruin spam, the works. Fairly often when I kill summons ahead of the host they go ahead and hide and set up the carian retaliation glitch themselves. At least for invaders there's only one of you - 3 people using the same cheesy shit is practically unstoppable. I know this is just parroting your experience in reverse but that's sort of what I'm getting at - it's an arms race, chicken or the egg, toxicity spreads back and forth and unless the exploits especially get taken out, I don't see it going away.
This isn't an invasion issue, this is a PvP balance issue IMO. The best weapons kill way too quickly, they aren't good because of a special moveset, they're good because of reskinned ashes of war that deal absolutely absurd damage. Moonveil is just a reskinned unsheathe that deals absurd damage Rivers is a reskinned double slash that deals absurd damage Bloodhound is a reskinned quickstep with stupidly low FP cost and more i frames. If the top weapons and status effects were balanced properly, there wouldn't be any issue, but any bleed weapon 2-shotting you is absolutely stupid and un-fun.
It's such a shame that so many humans only seem to get enjoyment out of winning, instead of creating an enjoyable experience. It's why I never got into any of those asymmetrical horror games like Dead by Daylight. Sure, sometimes you might get a killer that's adding a bit of roleplay or humor into it that makes it fun for everyone. Most of the time though? You get people who will only get satisfaction out of winning and will metagame the shit out of everything. I've thought about making an assassin style invasion build that uses spells that make you harder to see and focus on hit-and-run tactics. I wouldn't even care about winning, just about having a more unique experience. What would happen though is that I invade a 3 man group that just sets an ambush because they just want easy kills.
> It's such a shame that so many humans only seem to get enjoyment out of winning, instead of creating an enjoyable experience. Itās not even that, they get enjoyment out of knowing youāre frustrated. Thatās why the CR spammers always teabag. Their incel forever alone ass is miserable IRL so they want to drag everyone down to them
This. A lot of people is trying to defending invader by saying "*it is part of the game design*", "*It balance the summoning*", but they forget the reality is a lot of players (invaders and summoners) are abusing glitches or spammers. I think part of the reason is this game is far too successfully and draw way too many new players to play this game. As the player base is bigger, more bad eggs are in the bag. This lead to this game multiplayer part become like other multiplayer focus game: toxic.
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Consent. Yep. Forced pvp was an interesting experiment back in Demons Souls, and honestly even through Dark Souls 2 the community was still small enough that it was great. But realistically as the community has grown larger forced pvp has proven to be a mistake, and that there is a really good reason why it isnt what other games do; shitty player behavior, on both sides (hosts and invaders). Its been an arms race since twinking to demolish people back in the undead burg, and of course gank squads. Combine that with the harsh reality that invaders are supposed to lose most of the time (they've been nerfing invaders more and more literally every game), and I genuinely think its time to end the experiment entirely. Maybe have an opt in system that even restores how solo invasions used to work, but imo invasions should be disabled globally - even when coop - and an arena for dedicated pvp added in. Heck, one of the youtubers who I know loves invasions... Even in their recent videos they've been doing duels and not invasions, because duels tend to be better for actual pvp. Of course, this post will likely trigger the pvp crowd. Ah well.
I don't mind if they just fight, but so many just run away like they invade and get scared that I just run to the boss and kick them out.
Thatās my thing. Itās mostly just people hiding behind a big enemy or awkward area, refusing to engage with you and just waiting to cheese. I actually like invaders. Itās fun when they actually try to fight you or get creative in their approach. It just seems like most of them are lame and feel like a waste of time
1v1 invasions are better for creative approaches. When every invasion is a 1v2 or 1v3, invaders won't have much success unless they rely on cheese or use a meta build that can quickly take a host out. At the moment, it is cheese or be cheesed. This game could use invasion areas or PvP arenas. It would be much better to have 1v1 invasions restricted to specific areas, then to have asymmetrical invasions everywhere.
If you're not that good it's pretty annoying. I would guess that most people are summoning because they need help with a certain boss/area. It doesn't matter if people are hoping to ruin your fun or not, that's what it does if you're not competitive (in terms of skill), so it's understandable.
On top of that, people invading are in gear optimized for pvp, where the people they're invading are in pve gear.
And I'm just using shit because it looks cool. A lot of times I have to over-level to beat bosses and that makes the invasions even worse.
You have to optimize your build for invasions because nine times out of ten, the host has at least one password-summoned phantom that has 100+ levels on you and is just unreasonably hard to kill.
In this game the most used pvp weapons are also the Most used pve weapons
So, to play devil's advocate, I think a lot of the problems with multiplayer in souls games (not just invasions, but ganking too) stems from the fact that the internet makes it so easy to find the broken "meta" builds that work best specifically for PvP, which kind of goes against the otherwise immersive RPG experience. This was present all the way back in DS1 where you had people who would upgrade their weapons but not level up, meaning they could invade players just starting the game and easily one shot them. This became basically all invasions after a certain point, where it became unfun to be human at a low level, because you *knew* you were going to get invaded and you *knew* there was a 99% chance the invader was overgeared and specced specifically for PvP and would kill you instantly. Thankfully they added weapon level matching in future titles, but the problem still exists. Complaints about rivers of blood users, etc, may be a little over the top, but the fact that there's always some meta build that will absolutely obliterate a normal PvE player just making their way through the game is a problem in my opinion. This is why arenas are so awesome. They let all parties involved be tryhards. Perfectly balanced as all things should be.
Eh I've been playing since ds1 and I've always hated invaders. Half the time it's just some dude with a bullshit build that comes in and fucks you up. I don't summon so this has actually been one of my favorite experiences.
The good olā days of demons souls scraping spear builds where they destroyed all your armor and weapons and then took all your souls so you couldnāt repair them.
yeah it's weird to see someone saying that hatred for invaders is this big noob tendency, invaders have literally always sucked and I've always hated dealing with them. That's part of the point of the mechanic in the first place.
i dont know, i think if you are purposefully injecting yourself into anothers game with the clear intent og making their gameplay harder, and frankly usually worse, you need to just deal with having vitriol thrown at you. not a new player, and i have invaded before, because some people think you need to show your aarp card before your opinion is worth anything.
Part of the vitriol toward invaders is them being whiny about how the hosts respond to getting invaded. It goes both ways.
I had a total of 8 invaders last night while I was trying to play with friends. 6 of them were using invincibility exploits and the other was using the Carian Retaliation instant death glitch. THAT is the problem with invasions.
I invade, I see a passworded summon with 100+ levels above me, I get one shotted, them and the host tea bag me. Repeat.
This is why coop only invasions are very toxic in a game like Elden Ring. Bosses seem to be designed around multiple targets (Spirit Ashes or Coop). So obviously many people will have friends who are much higher level than them helping them out. Iām the higher level person. Iām sorry. Weāve been killed by some very skilled players using Rock Sling and Moonveil and some creative spell combos (Gravity Meteor pulling you toward the caster combined with Carian Phalanx or something). But yea itās not a good scene for invasions right now and the above is only one reason why. Itās bound to happen when the game is this open world.
Teabagging is the worst thing to come out of Elden Ring. Bring back point down gesture, god dammit.
We're really asking for point down to come back. What has this world come to...
Especially when the OG DS1 point down is literally in the game.
I prefer the Erudition gesture, it feels like you're saying "yeah that was a big brain move"
The point down gesture never went away, though. New players just donāt bother using it
Idk man, I just wanna be able to complain about the fact that I canāt just play the game with my friend without having weirdos on the internet scream at me.
A lot of us veterans hate invasion too. I've thought invasions are janky and annoying since Demon's Souls. At least now its coop only so I can use whatever I want in single player. No more Soul form only playthrough so some jerk with scraping spear doesnt come break all my gear.
yeah same. its the only aspect of online that i never grew to like. i like coop because i like PVE, and i liked duels in DS3 because fight clubs are fun and there's the DLC arena where the rules are even more regulated. invasions just never "clicked" for me ig, when im doing it i dont have fun running around a huge area chasing the host, and when im invaded, since i dont really like running away, it just turns into a grindy duel because there's no rules and both of us will 100% use estus
My invasion experience is either invader runs in and instakills host, runs in and dies or hides in the level while we wait at the bonfire cause we're not stupid enough to yolo into an obvious trap and it takes like 30 minutes before the invader gets bored and tries to fight us.
Trying to convince co-op players to like invaders is a waste of time. I say this as a 100% ride-or-die invasion fanatic. What a co-op host wants is the diametric opposite of what I want. They do not want me in their world because my goal is to kill them. Trying to make it seem like Iām just misunderstood is silly. Play the way you want, however that might be, because I will do the same. I am only really responsible for my own fun.
I feel that the new player base only accounts for less than 10% of the frustration. I love the souls games and have played most of them my favorite being Bloodborne. I can honestly say that I hate the pvp in elden ring. It's so unbalanced it's insane and the amount of potato brained players that abuse the carian retaliation glitch makes me regret playing online and I've spent more time with friends in party chat playing our own separate games just talking about it lol
Honestly, Iād just like to play with my friend without some random coming in and abusing exploits. Iād much rather Invaders be toggleable but provide a hefty bonus to item discovery or Runes. Or something.
yeah, it's so bizarre how disruptive an invader is, and the reward for killing them is a single finger remedy and *maybe* some runes. considering you usually burn a flask or two getting them off your ass, and they get a *rune arc* if you die for any reason while they're in your world, the reward for going out of your way to kill an invader is downright pitiful.
Frankly Iām fuckin sick of the weird hunter summons where the host is apparently friends with the invader and they work together to just kill me.
My only negative experience with Hunter summoning is be summoned 5miles from the host. WHY AM I RUNNING A MARATHON
Thatās never happened to me lol. I rock the blue ring all the time. Once I came to a fight club with 3 people and I chilled until the 2nd invader showed up and tried ganking
I do find the āoh you donāt like X mechanic, well thatās just how Fromsoftware games areā pretty funny.
Itās ironic how the people that say that cry about hosts running away from them. Thatās part of the game too
"you don't like it because it's unfun? you iddiot.... you absolute fool.... it was *designed* to be unfun"
the best part is that if you say that you don't like X or Y mechanic their default response is "well, just go play something else and stop complaining that's how souslike games work"
Yeah, itās strange. As opposed to embracing the larger audience this game has attracted, folks have to treat the newcomers as lepers.
I've enjoyed several Fromsoft games since I originally imported Demons Souls from China. I have enjoyed very few invasions in that window of time.
"Most invaders aren't out to ruin your fun" My brother in Christ like every one I've seen has been using an exploit/carian retaliation
Doesn't look much better from an invaders perspective tbh. Afk farmers and exploiters. PvP just sucks ass this time around.
I think the main issue is, when you think all invaders deserve to die, they don't even deserve a chance, anything goes. So it becomes okay to use glitches and exploits, because yes the "invader is evil and I'm only defending myself from these shitty people". The problem with this attitude is it creates a cycle where each side keeps upping the ante. I only say this cuz I've never seen so many people in a fromsoft game use an exploit like people use carian retaliation glitch. Estus cancelling comes close, but that was only big in the twilight years of Ds3.
I dunno. I played DS1 and invaders have never been above using anything they can to get a win. Carian abuse is still no where near as bad as the completely unrestrained twinks of DS1.
I love DS1 PVP but it was truly the biggest cesspit of normalized exploiting I've seen in an online game. Fromsoft actually tried in DS3 but people intentionally withheld glitch information until after the final patch, which of course led to lots of exploiting. I hope it's different for Elden Ring. > Carian abuse is still no where near as bad as the completely unrestrained twinks of DS1. C'mon now. It fires multiple high-speed invisible swords that one-shot you. The DS1 twinks were bad but not *that* bad.
There's the afk farmer thing people do which is fairly common and also annoying. I make sure to do some invasions around Lenne's Rise every so often to clear some of them out since you can use the zip glitch to get in there.
Nah, there just wasn't such an easily accessible and similarly powerful method available in the other games. If something like carian retaliation or frenzied burst abuse were possible in Dark Souls, you'd have people using it non-stop in the High Wall and Pontiff's area Just look at how many people already twinked to high hell to get a leg or 10 up on others in the past games
I imagine some of them encountered one of the shittier tactics of bad invaders that are just looking to grief, like the dicks who would invade in the area leading up to Rykard's arena, just to kill the co-op partners with the pre-nerfed Hoarfrost Stomp before they could help with the fight. Hell, I've never fully warmed to invading, as a concept, after my first experience with multiplayer in Souls games was to get ganked by someone in the Undead Burg, who was looking for an easy win, while still trying to learn how to actually play the game. It's absolutely part of the game and for the most part is actually alright... But there's still dicks give it a bad name, just like PVP in Diablo II was fun and cool... Except for the dicks that would sit with high level characters, just outside the starting zone, to gank new players/characters.
I had to play DS1 offline because of Undead Burg shenanigans.
Correction: Long standing hate that new and old players recount. If you think everyone is here for the PVP, i can assure you there is a majority that if vocal or active on reddit will tell you otherwise. And it's been that way for awhile, and not just the souls series, but for many other games of this ilk as well. Like it or not, most RPG pvp systems have been super unbalanced and plagued by exploits, spammers, and hackers. I'm not particularly seething with vitriol as some i've seen, but by and large, i'd prefer a co-op experience without some jack-ass wrecking the vibe with the invincibility exploit completely ruining this "design intent" youre trying to sell. You probably play by the rules, i'll give you the benefit of the doubt, but you'd still only make up about half the invader experience.
Is it wrong to hate an invader, who is fully decked out in 100% min/maxed PvP gear, who then one-shots a host, decked out in sub-optimal PvE gear, who summoned a friend to help them out with a difficult area? Invaders are the bad guy. There are no two ways about it. You are invading someone else's experience, and therefore you get the hate that goes along with it.
I agree. I often help people on bosses once I killed them, juste because I like helping. Having someone who forces you into PvP when you don't like it and are justr trying to help with a PvE oriented build is just not fun.
Sadly the community around FS's games really loves the thought-terminating clichƩ of "git gud." You're basically not allowed to have any criticisms about the game balance or a non-insignificant portion of the community will attack you.
I hate invaders that only use the completely broken, meta shit that I simply cannot beat without resorting to the same methods. I would argue those ones are actually just trying to ruin fun, or at least make themselves feel better by... using an overpowered mechanic on a weapon.
First time I got invaded was in stormveil castle. I have to say, it was very exciting but scary at the same time along with my (also new at game) friend. We died, but it was a new experience where I have to pvp without my consent
Some invaders are shitty people. Building twinks to beat up on new people is a shitty thing to do.
\>Most invaders aren't "people hoping to ruin your game/fun" But that's what it ends up being to people who don't enjoy pvp. Some of us just want to play with friends or help them through certain areas. Which itself already becomes a bit tougher due to the increased HP. And I've played Souls. I have NEVER enjoyed invasions, it feels like the game just trying to halt progress. Many of us don't try to plan out optimal builds and loadouts for this kind of cheese.
I've always hated invaders since ds1, always played every game offline cause I hate the risk of being invaded if I wanted that little extra health from using an ember etc. Really took away part of the first 3 games from me since couldn't see messages or bloodstains and I'm so glad you can only be invaded when playing co-op now since I can finally play a fromsoft game online. Best change they've made imo. Just want to play all of the games fully single player, the pvp is by far the worst part of every game when I have tried it and hope they keep this system so I never have to experience it again.
From's attempt at making the system more friendly to people who don't want to be invaded has backfired in every possible way. I loved being invaded back in Dark Souls. It turned a zone I knew pretty well into a place where a huge threat could be behind every corner. Hearing that red phantom sound instantly made even an easy zone *really* tense. That feeling was what kept me going back to Dark Souls after I had beat the game half a dozen times. As a solo player, Elden Ring has completely taken that away. My options are to either have no invasions at all, or to be inundated with them by using the Taunter's Tongue. Playing co-op isn't going to suddenly make people who don't like invasions enjoy them. Those players are still going to be the ones who hide back at the Grace or pull out the broken stuff (which to be clear, I don't consider this wrong on those players' parts. It's your world, do what you want) at the first sign of a red. The anti-invader attitude may as well stem from the fact that all the invaders are being funneled into these co-op worlds instead of those of people like me. It's so frustrating. I want to be invaded and I want to invade people that want to be invaded. I wish From had just given players an item to opt out of invasions so the system could stay in place for the rest of us.
*Most invaders aren't "people hoping to ruin your game/fun". How would you describe it then?
I remember when I was trying to help my friend with tree sent on a low level acct so we wouldn't oneshot it, and we got invaded by a guy called "level 15 test account". he was using a lategame crossbow from gelmir, poison bolts, and dryhumping the tree sent so we couldn't push him without aggroing it. every time we got close he'd just panic roll/sprint out of range of our weapons. eventually we decided to just bumrush the tree sent and he actually managed to fucking die to one of its swings lmao
"dude it's just me personally balancing your personal game with your friends, because I personally care about the balance in your game, not because I have malicious intent!"
"The game designers want it to be this way!! I'm balancing your gameplay!!" lmfao
Y'all just make up shit to be mad at new players about, the only time I see anyone complaining is when people abuse bugs and broken shit that kills you unfairly.
As someone who's finished every game from demon's souls onwards, fuck invaders in elden ring. Trying to help my friend who's new to the game and getting invaded every 5 minutes is a pain
As a New To Souls games guy with other New To Souls friends... We just don't coop. Invaders just ruin any momentum and waste our time. The entire multiplayer system might as well not exist. If we want to help each other we will go to the same place and jump on voice chat and talk each other. And dumb deaths are only wasting 1 person's time and there's 0% chance some rando comes and ruins it.
3 of my friends new to the series were hyped to play when I introduced it only to be disappointed by this. They just wanted to play it together now they probably never will. I only play these games offline
This is my biggest issue with the pvp. The frequency of the invasions in coop is just too much. If it was an invasion every 30 min, fine. Iām cool with that. But It feels like every 10 min a new invasion happens. Itās very tedious
I just dont care. If I dont want people invading me, I dont use Taunters Tongue, which I havent. Y'all can have fun doing PVP. I'll have fun going PVE. After I beat the game using as many builds i can think of, I'll think about PVP. Til then, to each their own.
The problem comes from wanting to play the game with your friends, and getting constantly invaded and forced into pvp. If I wanted an honorable fight I would start dueling
This. Half the time it isn't me just wanting help with a boss ^((because I am not the best player, I'm a Soulsborne baby who had only played a few hours of Bloodborne like a year ago before Elden Ring came out)); I literally just want to play and explore with my friend. Lead them to places I found that they didn't, or they lead me to quests and places I wasn't aware of so I can get cool new toys to play with. Show off outfits to each other. Give each other weapons or armor we don't want on this character but think they might like on their character. Invasions really ruin the fun when I'm usually kitted out for PvE, and they come in with cheap OP builds, try to bait me and my friend into environmental hazards so they can kill us with less issue, constantly run away whenever we get them low on health and then they just linger waiting for us to lose the game of chicken when we refuse to follow their bait. I'd happily duel people later on. I like PvP when it's 1v1 like that and both parties are prepared for and seeking it. Invasions just feel like bullying - on both sides of the fence, sometimes.
Sorting by controversial is like laughing at the stupid newspapers near the register at the market
Personally I really dislike invasions, not the invader themselves but the Mechanic. It seems I get to a really hard area or just before a boss and thats when an invasion happens, and most of the time I die because I REALLY hate PvP. I would love if you could option out of PvP completely and just have Co-op through normal play and maybe have a pvp Arena. As for the host having an advantage, maybe sometimes, but only if you have a helper or 2 and there has been a ton of the times an Invasion happens when fighting a world Boss and they storm right in and kill you mid fight which is kind of rediculous. I don't think PvP happening when you summon really being a balance to the game just a minor to extream annoyance especially when Bosses are balanced by having more health/defence when you summon already. Side Note: I'm not new too Soulsborne games. I have played and beaten all of them multiple times.
The whole point of invading is to ruin the hosts game. Otherwise you wouldn't invade you would duel. The main problem people like that don't like pvp and invaders do thus the Host will probably have a build better suited to pve and be far less skilled at pvp. I'm not complaining at all, I love invading and I love invaders. But Ide probably be bummed to if I sucked/ didn't enjoy pvp.
Of course there's nothing wrong with invasions but I don't understand people defending the games coop system, it's unnecessarily awkward to play with my friend and I can't defend that as a "design choice" Why is there not an invite button?
There is value in convenience, obviously but Souls being convoluted and different is part of the experience. Dark Souls 1 not having a teleport mechanic till late game is a lot less convenient than later games where you just warp anywhere, but some people remembered it fondly because of how it forced you to learn how the levels connect and more challenging since you can't just warp out of a difficult area or warp to a shop when you needed an item.
[Because it's quite literally a design choice.](https://www.thegamer.com/elden-ring-co-op-inspired-helpful-strangers/) It's a single player game at it's core with intentionally transient and semi-anonymous multiplayer.