PvP and why it's bad currently

[NicV5203]

The only reason that it's currently bad is people aren't treating this like a "souls" game. anytime I get invaded no one waits for me to clear the area so it's a fair fight like the Previous games. Then there are the Umbral enemies. I LOVE getting the other person down to one shot, they kill me and then I get swarmed by the Stone Face MF's and smaller guys. There needs to be an arena so casual's such as myself don't have to get screwed over every time we run through a new area or are trying to farm for materials. yea yea yea Skill issue, Don't care, I get I'm not good at PvP but sometimes the area's are just too full of other things to worry about and the invader get's handed a win.

[NicV5203]

Originally posted by Chromatic:

I normally wait but if they start attacking me without clearing mobs then I kill them.

you're a good person, thank you.

[Sycler]

I can't tell if half the invaders are cheaters or pvp is really that broken. For example I had 4of 9 invasions on Brahmas castle. All four of them had 1 shot me and my buddy with crossbows.

I had 5 rad builds that shot through entire walls. Combine that with 40fps in that area, mobs everywhere, and I'm close to just DC'ing every time a hacker/bs player joins. That's something I would never do in Darksouls/Elden.

I've yet to see an actual skilled invader who knows who to roll, melee, and fight without the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

To those with cheese builds. You are actually terrible at combat.

[Kyutaru]

Originally posted by Sycler:

To those with cheese builds. You are actually terrible at combat.

If it's crossbows, they're most likely using what this patch just nerfed, the exploding bolts. People were even one shotting bosses by spamming crossbow bolts on them for mega damage. A triple-firing exploding crossbow is just too OP.

That said, if I gave you a choice between a Rusty Dagger that deals 2 dmg and a Longsword of Infinity Plus One that deals 9999 dmg, you are going to choose the sword unless You are actually terrible at math.

People playing optimally is what PVP always devolves into in any game. Play MMORPGs, play shooters, there is no honor, only the most effective tactics. Ambushes are common in SWAT games, headshots make sniper rifles OP and unfair (doubly so for the AWP), beating someone with raw stats is common in RPGs, and so on.

You won't find fair battles in other games yet people think Souls games are meant to be fair because months after launch when the majority of the playerbase has quit the game, the community that remains develops this arbitrary code of conduct that not everyone even follows. Yet when games launch, as with Elden Ring, you'll find people abusing glitches and instant-death effects and literal cheats to dominate in PVP.

Moral of the story is, it's not cheese builds that are the problem. Players will use whatever they discover to have the strongest chance of success, the highest chance of survival, because they aren't just PVPing randomly -- they're usually farming for items from it. The best way to speed up your farming is by ensuring you win by any means necessary. The more farmers there are, the more unfair tactics there will be, so until the game is months old and the majority have quit, the playerbase will result to whatever produces the most wins per hour until these Smart Chads move on and play a different game after they're done farming, leaving the community to decide whatever it wants to do with who is left.

Fact is, players are impatient and will use whatever strategies warrant victory. You can say they're bad at combat but they survived and you didn't so I don't think that's accurate.

[I_come_in_peace]

I don't see the appeal of this invading mechanic at all - okay, if the players were evenly balanced, not just levelwise but also in terms of build (magic or melee) it could be fun to have some duels, but as it is now I get invaded by guys a 100 levels above me who spam magic like crazy (I'm on a melee build) and who basically one-shot me. That's not fun - at least not for the one being slaughtered and if the ones who do the effortless slaughtering get something out of it, they should probably see a psychiatrist. I get co-op but not this invasion stuff.
So like in every other souls game I'll play offline again (in Elden Ring I also couldn't stand that every inch was plastered with nonsense advice - destroyed the visuals and atmosphere).

[Kyutaru]

Originally posted by I_come_in_peace:

I don't see the appeal of this invading mechanic at all - okay, if the players were evenly balanced, not just levelwise but also in terms of build (magic or melee) it could be fun to have some duels, but as it is now I get invaded by guys a 100 levels above me who spam magic like crazy (I'm on a melee build) and who basically one-shot me. That's not fun

It replicates the environment found in old PVP MMORPGs. You would roam the world doing quests or farming resources then along comes a lvl 60 epic equipment super rogue from the top guild and he just one shots you then proceeds to camp your corpse so you can't respawn. This became the norm on PVP servers, doing your best to dodge the roaming gankers while struggling to gain power yourself. Dark Souls just took that experience and localized it into a heavily singleplayer game. The concept of taking on elites who could dominate you easily was another carryover from MMOs like World of Warcraft or EverQuest where you would spend a lot of time farming group content as a solo player because of the sheer lack of willing party members online at the time, a problem that became more and more common when most of the playerbase had outleveled that content making these games Newbie unfriendly.

Ultima Online was even worse. Gankers would camp outside of mining caves waiting for people to leave with a full bag of resources only to jump them, kill them, and loot their bodies of all their work. Thankfully you can't full loot someone in LOTF but they could have gone that route as it's been done in games like Darkfall. This might not be your cup of tea but there were whole communities of players built around these types of games that wanted it, games like Shadowbane or EVE Online or more recently Escape from Tarkov. It's these game experiences that the invading mechanic simulates, trying to organically create encounters with players of higher or lower level to give people an opportunity to triumph or suffer at their hands, mimicking the old real encounters that happened on dedicated servers hosting thousands of players of differing combat powers.

[I_come_in_peace]

Originally posted by Kyutaru:

Originally posted by I_come_in_peace:

I don't see the appeal of this invading mechanic at all - okay, if the players were evenly balanced, not just levelwise but also in terms of build (magic or melee) it could be fun to have some duels, but as it is now I get invaded by guys a 100 levels above me who spam magic like crazy (I'm on a melee build) and who basically one-shot me. That's not fun

It replicates the environment found in old PVP MMORPGs. You would roam the world doing quests or farming resources then along comes a lvl 60 epic equipment super rogue from the top guild and he just one shots you then proceeds to camp your corpse so you can't respawn. This became the norm on PVP servers, doing your best to dodge the roaming gankers while struggling to gain power yourself. Dark Souls just took that experience and localized it into a heavily singleplayer game. The concept of taking on elites who could dominate you easily was another carryover from MMOs like World of Warcraft or EverQuest where you would spend a lot of time farming group content as a solo player because of the sheer lack of willing party members online at the time, a problem that became more and more common when most of the playerbase had outleveled that content making these games Newbie unfriendly.

Ultima Online was even worse. Gankers would camp outside of mining caves waiting for people to leave with a full bag of resources only to jump them, kill them, and loot their bodies of all their work. Thankfully you can't full loot someone in LOTF but they could have gone that route as it's been done in games like Darkfall. This might not be your cup of tea but there were whole communities of players built around these types of games that wanted it, games like Shadowbane or EVE Online or more recently Escape from Tarkov. It's these game experiences that the invading mechanic simulates, trying to organically create encounters with players of higher or lower level to give people an opportunity to triumph or suffer at their hands, mimicking the old real encounters that happened on dedicated servers hosting thousands of players of differing combat powers.

Thanks for elaborating! I guess it's just not for me then. I'm not the competitive type. Pity I won't be able to earn some extra chunks.

[Flowmad]

PVP just needs a complete overhaul, period. This is something Fromsofts Souls games also needed. Damage should be generalized regardless of Level and buffs should only give a slight increase and Melee should be favoured over Magic and Range attacks, making One Shots impossible. But most importantly it should not effect the PVE experience, its fun getting to the end and being really powerful, that should stay.

[OldSnake]

Originally posted by Ragnarok, World Destruction:

I'm fine with PVP as long as I don't run into cheaters.
This really ticks me.
The infinite heavenly vials. I mean, how can you use 30+ vials lol
Just... No.
And that insane defense.
Like seriously, doing 10 damage with a +10 Ravager Greatsword, buffed with Adyr's Damage shout and Radiant weapon.
Totally nonsensical.

The defense is so high because they are at lvl 200k or something like that and the game sadly does scale defenses higher than 100 per stat.

[AlmaDarkSpell]

Multiplayer in general is bad because the lag is unbearable every time you connect to a host. That said, PVP at this point it should be optional. Not everyone wants to deal with that BS.

By the way, in more than 10 years that I have played souls games, I can tell you that the players who invade and wait for an honorable duel are in the minority. If you wait to have that every time, you will always find a very frustrating experience in any of these games.

[lilgirlcharlotte]

just get gud and your problems will be solved. if you want this cusual place turn off online

[Flowmad]

Originally posted by lilgirlcharlotte:

just get gud and your problems will be solved

How do you Git Gud against one shot spells and crossbow shots?

[lilgirlcharlotte]

the main thing that makes pvp very bad is the anoying screens that say disconnected from host every single matchmake putting you in new loading screen for no reason. Also its very rare to find matches without lag. then there are cheaters that are almost immune to every type of dmg.

[Aetrion]

Originally posted by Δpollo Dorito:

Invaders do not get damage reduction, that specific invader was just smart and built up enough holy resistance to reduce the damage of what I'm assuming is that holy laser spell you used. Also, you may not be aware but even with 50 points invested in vigor you only get 800 hp. So the fact that a spell can even do 1000 damage in PVP is inherently broken and unbalanced. Also, and I say this with all due respect, but if you have to lean on that spell to win an invasion, you shouldn't be mad when you lose to a better player.

I'm fine with the damage being tuned down to where it doesn't one-shot people, but 90% resistance is absurd in a game where you can heal yourself several times and dodge most of the incoming damage.

This also isn't "Someone was smart enough" this is every single invasion I've ever experienced. If the only way to ever PvP is to have a cheese build that is effectively immune to all forms of damage the game's balance is simply broken.

[Δpollo Dorito]

Originally posted by Aetrion:

Originally posted by Δpollo Dorito:

Invaders do not get damage reduction, that specific invader was just smart and built up enough holy resistance to reduce the damage of what I'm assuming is that holy laser spell you used. Also, you may not be aware but even with 50 points invested in vigor you only get 800 hp. So the fact that a spell can even do 1000 damage in PVP is inherently broken and unbalanced. Also, and I say this with all due respect, but if you have to lean on that spell to win an invasion, you shouldn't be mad when you lose to a better player.

I'm fine with the damage being tuned down to where it doesn't one-shot people, but 90% resistance is absurd in a game where you can heal yourself several times and dodge most of the incoming damage.

This also isn't "Someone was smart enough" this is every single invasion I've ever experienced. If the only way to ever PvP is to have a cheese build that is effectively immune to all forms of damage the game's balance is simply broken.

The real problem is the damage system the game built, there isn't enough viable build diversity. The devs clearly favored Holy damage, all the spells and weapons with this damage type are all over performing and are still over performing after 2 patch nerfs. So it's really easy for a PVP focused person to build defense against this one damage type that nearly 90% of the people playing this game are using. The other problem is with the other damage types, you do not need nearly as much fire resistance to mitigate the damage that comes from infernal spells or weapons, same for umbral. So you're right in saying it's not a matter of "someone isn't smart enough" and I will admit that was mostly an unnecessary back handed comment, to which I apologize. I agree PVP in this game is a joke, and over all bad. It's made worse by toxic and casual players taking advantage of the devs huge oversight of PVP mechanics and using broken builds to dominate unsuspecting players. Hopefully this will eventually get fixed in the future but for now these toxic and casual players are going to lean heavily on them. I can tell you from my experience that once these broken mechanics fail these players they are VERY easy to dispatch.

[Megatard]

PVP is and always been garbage in any soulslike game. This one is one of the worst.