Lack of incentives to invade

[Nakedkoops]

There has been a problem with invasion that I have only heard a select few people talk about, and that is the incentives to want to invade to begin with. While it may be a contentious issue (especially among the pve community) I think this is worth discussing and finding potental solutions for as this is something that bothers me from the previous souls titles and is much more evident in elden ring.

-Lack of incentive (in DS3)
In dark souls 3, you will have several methods to go about invading and about 3 or 4 possible ways to invade other worlds (not counting spear of the church). The first way is by finding the red orb from the darkraith in the Lothric dungeon, there you are able to initiate an invasion at almost any point in the game and invade any player that is roughly around your soul level base on a calculation that I don't have with me (sorry). You can invade both solo hosts and hosts with summons at anytime and as a reward you get both an ember, some souls depending on the hosts level, and your covenant item (mainly pale tongues). The other methods is through a special covenant called mound makers where you can access this through the npc with a cage on his back and he will send you to the mound makers shrine. There you can get the item that allows you to invade as a mound maker, and mound maker invasions are automatic without you doing anything you can invade as a mound maker within the area that you are in. The last is the watchdog and aldrich faithful covenants, like the previous one is automatic but puts you into a specific area of the game when triggered, specifically the upper Faron swamp and Irryithil after Pontiff. The rewards for the rest of these invasions are there covenant items and souls.

Before I go any farther I must talk about the punishment for failure, if you die as an invader or a mound maker you will lose all of your souls near the place you died as an invader (this doesnt happen for watchdog or aldrich maybe because they don't want players to go all the way to pontiff to get their souls while they were busy with something else).

Now lets talk about the usefulness of your rewards, the benefit of doing this is that if you are progressing through the level embers can be useful for getting through a particular area with increase hp. However you cannot use this during invasions unless you have been summoned by the host, so that means long term they are fairly useless. As for covenant items you only need about 30 or so to get all of the items that the covenant rewards you for completing the invasions. Depending on the item it can be situationally useful like the obscuring ring and wolf ring or useless on most builds like almost every single other convent item you get. Finally unless you or something else killed an overleveled phantom, the reward that you get in souls is flat out useless. And I have compared in Iyrrithil you get more souls as a phantom going through the level once than I have in about 20 or so invasion. Overall invasions are nothing to truly go for as a newer player unless you want to invade for the sake of invading.

-Lack of incentive (in ER)

Somehow Elden ring has even less incentives to want to bring players to invade than in dark souls 3. The first big issue is trying to get the invasion item, you need to find Varre in Liurnia and complete his side quest which has even more specific instructions to follow so almost no one looking up a guide will be able to easily find it. There is also another invasion item in Mt. Gelmer in the volcano Manor which is a mid game area.

Now the other big thing to mention is that there are no covenants anymore and the bloody and recusants finger are both virtually identical to eachother right down to their purpose and reward (unless people are willing to tell me otherwise).

The big change is that both fingers allow you to invade a world of either a host with a summon or a solo host with the taunter's tongue active. This means that you are more likely to be invaded to a gank or a host who is being carried by an overleveled phantom. There are some exceptions but that is the majority of what you will be facing especially in mid to high level. And the reward for victory is a rune arc (basically embers), finger remedies (also basically embers), and souls.

To put it simply you basically get nothing for invasions, the 2 invasion rewards are basically the equivalent of embers and serve essentially no purpose for the invader (especially the remedy since they are craftable). Leaving the only real reason for invasions being souls (or runes in this game), but once again the souls that you get is so few that it is hardly worth the effort to do any of it (especially since Mogh's grind in much more efficient).

Finally the lack of covenants is disappointing, especially when you consider the amount of possible covenants from various different factions in Elden ring like Godrick, Raya Lucaria, Ranni & Carian royal family, Mohg, Recusants, Lyndell, and the fire monks just to name a few. And the potental long term rewards for completeing invasions like smithing stones, crafting materials, talismans, weapons, and a highscore not just for invading but participating in any player & player interaction like coop or blue hunters.

As sad as it might seem I would like to see what people's take on the issue is. And whether people want not just invasions but any PVP stuff rewards us with something more meaningful than just a stupid rune arc or remedy.

Corrections:

Moundmakers need the red eye orb to invade, it isn't automatic.

[i killed god]

Rune arcs are a pretty big incentive. Case closed. Didn't read.

[Omastar]

For me the incentive of invading is Gitting Gud.

[mpcgannon]

Originally posted by Omastar:

For me the incentive of invading is Gitting Gud.

I always thought the souls' were about a challenge and what's more challenging than another human, who has more life and more healing potential? Invasions are pvp on hard mode, summons are intermediate, hosting is easy mode.

[Omastar]

Originally posted by mpcgannon:

Originally posted by Omastar:

For me the incentive of invading is Gitting Gud.

I always thought the souls' were about a challenge and what's more challenging than another human, who has more life and more healing potential? Invasions are pvp on hard mode, summons are intermediate, hosting is easy mode.

[goyim slayer]

Didn't read, i invade because i want to ruin someone's fun

[LongParsnip]

Originally posted by ShotgunShine:

Rune arcs are a pretty big incentive. Case closed. Didn't read.

Rune arcs would have to be one of the best consumables in a souls game thus far.

IMO the only thing missing from invasion incentives are covenant rewards as well as arena rewards (I want my scary Red Aura back).

[Einstine]

For most invaders that are salty their motivation is they want to gank solo players easily, and since they neutered your ability to do that we get see your wordy editorials on all the ways to fix PvP and invasions.

[Smoking Chihuahua]

Originally posted by LainPilledFemcel:

Didn't read, i invade because i want to ruin someone's fun :praisesun:

At least you are honest about it have an award.

[Percent]

The only reason people have ever invaded is to kill other players; ruining their progress, losing them souls, and aggravating them. Invaders are completely mentally unhinged people.

[ReBootXD]

The call of battle is our incentive

[Einstine]

Originally posted by Percent:

The only reason people have ever invaded is to kill other players; ruining their progress, losing them souls, and aggravating them. Invaders are completely mentally unhinged people.

Like the classic Undead Rogue in WoW. Vast majority are angsty young boys who need to get outside and burn some energy. Like your Grandma's Chihuahua, always trying to hump your leg.

[Daliena]

Originally posted by Sgt. Thundercok:

Originally posted by Percent:

The only reason people have ever invaded is to kill other players; ruining their progress, losing them souls, and aggravating them. Invaders are completely mentally unhinged people.

Like the classic Undead Rogue in WoW. Vast majority are angsty young boys who need to get outside and burn some energy. Like your Grandma's Chihuahua, always trying to hump your leg.

Damn, y'all need therapy.

[Smoking Chihuahua]

Originally posted by csand:

Originally posted by Percent:

The only reason people have ever invaded is to kill other players; ruining their progress, losing them souls, and aggravating them. Invaders are completely mentally unhinged people.

Nothing like broad, nonsensical, unfounded and completely unprovable assertions to really reveal yourself.

So are all whiners like you tepid-intellect wielding, anime body pillow clutching manchildren?

I guess so, since you act like one that must they all are!

You just proved his point lul reported

[Soth]

The joy of pestering another player group is pretty good on it's own, tbh. It would be great to see a flip of their formula in another game and have an open-world, more multiplayer leaning game, with interweaving factions / 16 covenants, with leader boards akin to OG DeS

[LongParsnip]

Originally posted by Percent:

The only reason people have ever invaded is to kill other players; ruining their progress, losing them souls, and aggravating them. Invaders are completely mentally unhinged people.

If you think most people are benevolent you are sorely mistaken, you and I and my invader bros are most definitely malevolent we are just honest about it.