Invasions: Pros and cons

[Kasic]

Having just completed a replay of DS1 with my brother (and having played all DS games multiple times), I am once again reminded how much I despise the standard sort of invasion mechanic implemented in these games. I find them entirely unwanted, interruptive, annoying, potentially dangerous to your save file via hackers, unfair, and terrible game design. In the interest of this not being me ranting and this thread not just becoming a troll fest, I'll do my best to objectively lay out my arguments and look at the whole picture about what is good and what is bad about invasions.

I'll also preface this with two things. I am not a bad player by any means. I am capable of defeating most invaders even when they're twinking, I have played through the games entirely solo with many different builds, and I am experienced with most weapons/items/spells in the games. I also do not, in any way, enjoy pvp in Dark Souls games (for reasons I'll get into) and have never invaded beyond what was required for some covenant rewards in areas where it is relevant, and I did not build my character for pvp exclusively so the fights were fair.

The pros of invasions:
1) Invasions get your heart beating faster. An enemy player is far more dangerous than any in-game mob. You do not know their build or playstyle, they can appear from anywhere at any time, and they are smart. They are the most dangerous thing in the game and if you want a challenge then a skilled invader is the biggest challenge you'll get in DS.
2) They break up monotony of areas and are unpredictable. Even if you've played the game dozens of times, having an enemy player somewhere in the map makes you have to rethink what you're doing. Are you going to wait in a good spot to fight? Are you going to rush to the boss? Are you going to hide? Are you going to try and clear towards something you've almost reached? Etc.
3) It offers people who are invading a challenge because (theoretically but pretty much never in practice) they are at somewhat of a disadvantage with less estus and only invading near/above their level.
4) Lore-wise it's part of the game.
5) The player being invaded can earn some souls/other drops depending on the game. The invader can earn souls/rewards depending on the game.

The cons of invasions:
1) The player being invaded is forced to deal with them. You cannot leave the area, rest at a bonfire, expel them from your world, etc. Some games have items that let you sort of turn the enemies against them for a bit, but it's not that effective.
2) It interrupts your game in an almost always unwanted manner.
3) Hackers. Do I need to say more?
4) Twinking. If you do this I don't care what reasons you give, you're a terrible person.
5) It disproportionately harms newer players that do not have experience/skill and are simply trying to learn the game/progress.
6) It's extremely annoying to have to reset the area because you needed to use healing items fighting an invader.
7) Lag ... regardless of if you enjoy pvp, it's never fun to have a guy in front of you and then lag teleport into backstabbing you the next frame.
8) Invaders almost always try to run into enemies to make it easier for them to win with the help of the mobs.
9) Most invaders KNOW they're exploiting every possible thing they can to get an advantage. They are not there for a fair fight.
10) An invader is built to pvp. A host player is probably not.
11) The host player doesn't stand much of anything to gain from defeating invaders. They are purely an obstacle to progress. In some areas of the game there are so many invaders the game becomes essentially unplayable, forcing you to either go offline or run through recklessly.
12) The potential for loss as a player being invaded is huge. Lost your souls and are trying to get them back and get invaded? The chances of retrieving them just dropped dramatically. Trying to clear a boss? Have fun now needing to run by the invader too.
13) It makes co-op play with friends more difficult. Not everyone wants to play a hardcore game solo. Some aren't that good, others just want to dink around and 2-hand a shield to fully tank Kalameet's focused breath attack while your mage partner does DPS. Co-op is part of the game just as much as invasion.


Whether you enjoy pvp or not, there are always times you don't want to be invaded. Sure you can go offline much of the time. In my playthrough with my brother which we just completed today there were plenty of invaders who repeatedly came after us in certain areas. When they didn't get the hint that we didn't want anything to do with them by alt-f4ing repeatedly, we killed them instead. Late game that was fine, but early game it was stupid to constantly be invaded by people who rushed Wrath of the Gods and could 1 hit everyone with a super fast cast AOE spell.

If you hack and pvp, you are trash.
If you twink and invade, you are a psychopath.
If you invade and fight fair, you are forcing that onto people who probably want nothing to do with you.

[dcy665]

Sir, turn you dissertation in at the Dean's office. This is Wendy's.

[kat998]

We all know it's completely impossible to avoid invasions right. Like, there isn't a single item in the game that could prevent you from getting invaded

[Vinyltavia]

Tl;dr.

[KOS-MOS Re:]

This reads an awful lot like a 10h story for what essentially is "I want through game with friend & make game easy, but bad red man killed me, no bueno."

[Vinyltavia]

Originally posted by Aether the QTpi:

This reads an awful lot like a 10h story for what essentially is "I want through game with friend & make game easy, but bad red man killed me, no bueno."

all i know is,"haha, red eye orb go shweem."

[Thermal Lance]

Originally posted by Aether the QTpi:

This reads an awful lot like a 10h story for what essentially is "I want through game with friend & make game easy, but bad red man killed me, no bueno."

I think it's something more along the line of dealing with invaders not being fun for him. Which is fine.

[Thermal Lance]

Originally posted by Palaiologos:

I think invasions are great for balancing co-op. The game becomes too easy with 2 or more people since it wasn't really designed for it. The only downsides are hackers and twinks but that wasn't as much of a problem when the game was in its prime.

Yeah, Absolutely true.

[KOS-MOS Re:]

Originally posted by Thermal Lance:

Originally posted by Aether the QTpi:

This reads an awful lot like a 10h story for what essentially is "I want through game with friend & make game easy, but bad red man killed me, no bueno."

I think it's something more along the line of dealing with invaders not being fun for him. Which is fine.

Sí

[Vinyltavia]

Originally posted by Palaiologos:

I think invasions are great for balancing co-op. The game becomes too easy with 2 or more people since it wasn't really designed for it. The only downsides are hackers and twinks but that wasn't as much of a problem when the game was in its prime.

invader invades.
Gets killed by 3 people.
Acquires equipment better suited to dealing with the situation.
Invader destroys 3 people.
3 people cry about the effort going into making said twink.
3 People twink and gank.
The cycle continues.
As for "In it's prime" oh we still had a twinking problem.
Take your pick between the ascended pyro flamers with great combustion spam, the lightning/chaos rapier fishers, or anyone who had 10 humanity and quelaag's furysword early.
Good times; i miss them.

[Thermal Lance]

Originally posted by Vinyltavia:

Originally posted by Palaiologos:

I think invasions are great for balancing co-op. The game becomes too easy with 2 or more people since it wasn't really designed for it. The only downsides are hackers and twinks but that wasn't as much of a problem when the game was in its prime.

invader invades.
Gets killed by 3 people.
Acquires equipment better suited to dealing with the situation.
Invader destroys 3 people.
3 people cry about the effort going into making said twink.
3 People twink and gank.
The cycle continues.
As for "In it's prime" oh we still had a twinking problem.
Take your pick between the ascended pyro flamers with great combustion spam, the lightning/chaos rapier fishers, or anyone who had 10 humanity and quelaag's furysword early.
Good times; i miss them.

Having played the game on release with my PS3 back in the days... No, whatever you're describing here I didn't encounter on my original playthrough.

Either I am exceptionally lucky or there wasn't as much problematic people back then. And given how many time I was invaded, I tend to believe the later.

[Vinyltavia]

Originally posted by Thermal Lance:

Originally posted by Vinyltavia:

invader invades.
Gets killed by 3 people.
Acquires equipment better suited to dealing with the situation.
Invader destroys 3 people.
3 people cry about the effort going into making said twink.
3 People twink and gank.
The cycle continues.
As for "In it's prime" oh we still had a twinking problem.
Take your pick between the ascended pyro flamers with great combustion spam, the lightning/chaos rapier fishers, or anyone who had 10 humanity and quelaag's furysword early.
Good times; i miss them.

Having played the game on release with my PS3 back in the days... No, whatever you're describing here I didn't encounter on my original playthrough.

Either I am exceptionally lucky or there wasn't as much problematic people back then. And given how many time I was invaded, I tend to believe the later.

so you didn't deal with people who ring of fogged and couldn't be locked on nor the people who utlitized the crystal ring shield special attack based on the weapon in the right hand? Pretty sure there's a fair decent chunk of things you should recall from those times.

[Thermal Lance]

Originally posted by Vinyltavia:

Originally posted by Thermal Lance:

Having played the game on release with my PS3 back in the days... No, whatever you're describing here I didn't encounter on my original playthrough.

Either I am exceptionally lucky or there wasn't as much problematic people back then. And given how many time I was invaded, I tend to believe the later.

so you didn't deal with people who ring of fogged and couldn't be locked on nor the people who utlitized the crystal ring shield special attack based on the weapon in the right hand? Pretty sure there's a fair decent chunk of things you should recall from those times.

Mostly people running at me with a claymore. If they did try some shenanigans, I was too busy fending them off to notice.

But, no, unlike today, I don't remember any situation that made me think it was unfair.

[Vinyltavia]

Originally posted by Thermal Lance:

Originally posted by Vinyltavia:

so you didn't deal with people who ring of fogged and couldn't be locked on nor the people who utlitized the crystal ring shield special attack based on the weapon in the right hand? Pretty sure there's a fair decent chunk of things you should recall from those times.

Mostly people running at me with a claymore. If they did try some shenanigans, I was too busy fending them off to notice.

But, no, unlike today, I don't remember any situation that made me think it was unfair.

well dark souls isn't about fair; that's one of it's points.

[Thermal Lance]

Keep in mind I played close to release. Guides were still in the work by then. And I didn't overstayed my welcome since I only did a single playthrough at the time.

It really felt like everybody was on equal footing at all time and this is what peak dark souls was for me and I have fond memories of it.

Beating a twink might be fun for some. But the biggest joy I had were the long and elaborate duels between 2 players equally intimidated by eachother. Might not be dark souls for you and I can respect that but, to me, it was one of the greatest experience I ever had.

[Gerg From Woolies]

Being invaded is not meant to be fun.