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[RPGam3r]

Okay, now you imagine there being one playlist in Halo, where you can't decide whether you want to play 16-player matches or 4-person arenas, where you have a 15% chance of getting SWAT rules, a 15% chance of getting Shotty Snipers, a 15% chance of getting Grifball, a 15% chance of getting matched up for the campaign, and the remaining 40% is split evenly between BR-starts and AR-starts. Where your party might be kept intact, or split up into Doubles, or even shattered to make room for a 16-player Lone Wolves match.



We're not talking about segmenting the Souls playerbase into fifty different communities, and it's a little ridiculous that you thought that was an apt comparison.

The Souls community is segregated into four camps:
1) People who play offline because they're unable to or don't want to play online.
2) People who play offline because it's the only 100%-reliable method of avoiding PvP, even though they'd rather play online for soapstone messages and/or co-op.
3) People who play online and don't like invasions and forced-PvP (Lumping in together people who dislike it but put up with it, people who dislike it and disconnect when they get invaded, people who dislike it and cheat to make it irrelevant, people who dislike it and so use mods that prevent invasions, etc).
4) People who play online and enjoy invasions.

A hypothetical PvP Toggle-enabled version of the Souls community would be segregated into three camps:
1) People who play offline because they're unable to or don't want to play online.
2) People who play online and don't like invasions and forced-PvP.
3) People who play online and enjoy invasions.

The first group is unaffected. The second group is desegregated into the third, and both of those groups are then allowed to have an experience that is substantially more enjoyable for them. The fourth group is only affected inasmuch as they will only be able to PvP with players who share their preference. They are no longer allowed to buoy and sustain themselves by essentially acting as a parasite on the third group, but their experience is made much more "pure" because they will only invade and be invaded by people who are interested in that sort of play, meaning far fewer botched invasions where the invadee disconnects or uses cheats/lag switches to avoid the encounter, and a far greater number of proper "fair fights" where neither player is a helpless, unprepared pushover to the other.


If the PvP-on portion of the community were large enough to comprise a healthy, active userbase, then everyone playing the game is happy except for people who literally, specifically, want to force people to stop enjoying themselves and to stop having fun playing the game they want to play.
If it isn't a large enough portion of the community to comprise a healthy, active userbase, then obviously invasions are not anywhere near as "crucial" to the game's success or identity as you'd like to believe.

This is so well said. Nicely done.

 

[aeolist]

booshka the problem with your idealistic argument is that things never actually work that way. i've put like 120 hours into DS1 on PC (not a lot compared to some people to be sure) and have been invaded maybe 5 times.

every single one of those invaders was hacking, and at no time did i have a co-op phantom present. each time i unhollowed to kindle a bonfire so i could have more flask charges, started a boss run, and then spent some time wishing physical violence on whoever didn't manage to work any kind of meaningful anti-cheat system into the game as i helplessly flailed against fast-rolling invincible havels with unlimited stamina and the ability to teleport.

when i heard that DS2 allowed invasions when hollowed i actually decided to skip it because of this, but then i heard that until you reach NG+ you basically never get invaded so i went ahead and picked it up. the mechanic is completely fucking broken and even in DS2 there's still ridiculous amounts of cheating. i don't know if it's the majority of the community or not but after the first few months pass and the majority of players move on it is far too large of a proportion of invaders.

so yeah, it'd be great if invasions mostly worked the way you describe them. they never do.

 

[Moongazer]

I'm not a fan of pvp in the Souls games and it isn't the main reason I play them.
I would personally just like being able to play with the ability to see messages and player ghosts without invasions. Basically like the hollow mechanic in Dark Souls 1. I thought that was a good compromise where you still got some of the online functionality with out being invaded but at the cost of being able to summon and coop and your character being undead.

I wouldn't mind invasions so much if they were closer to how From envisioned them or to how some "ideally" believe they play out most of the time but the whole invasion aspect at least in my experience seemed to amount to just trolling the host as much as possible. People tend to forget that some buy the game with the sole intent of griefing/trolling others and would drop the series in heartbeat if the mechanic that facilitates them to do so isn't available or limited in some fashion. Maybe for a lot people it works as intended but overall the getting invaded side of the game I haven't found particularly enjoyable.

It gets old when your working your way through a level for the first time and keeping getting killed by the same invader over and over while getting taunted each time you die or getting invaded by some jackass with weapons used for the sole intent of griefing (remember the Scraping Spear in Demon's Souls which would degrade your armour each hit or the Miridan Hammer which had a ridiculous stunlock attack where you could do fuck all). Its ok the first couple of times when some dude invades with some late game weapon or something highly exploitable and practically one shots you and kinda of laugh it off but it sucks the fun out of the game when you constantly see a large portion of invaders rocking the flavour of the week when your not extremely skilled at the game or up to date with what weapons or spells are currently being exploited. Its no surprise that people who get griefed (especially early on) don't want to deal with the invasions side of things and have to resort to playing offline and imo they shouldn't be forced into it or be at the whim of those who revel in the ruining of other peoples enjoyment. I know not everyone who does invasions plays that way but it would be a lie to pretend that everyone is looking for a fair fight.

 

[Giever]

They won't disconnect or kill themselves if they have Co op phantoms in their World, which is the entire reason an Invader would be in their game in the first place, as a counter to Co-op.

They still might, but in any case, it's easy to get invaded while trying to get to the summon sign you're after. They aren't always right by the bonfires.

Now, the netcode and online connections in general should be improved, so players aren't stuck with Failed Summons over and over while the Invader connects and kills them before they can get Co op help.

Yup, the netcode should be better, but that does absolutely nothing to address the fundamental disagreement we are having here.

Like I said, a mechanic that works, but needs tweaking. Choosing Co op without Invasion, completely breaks the game, that risk/reward needs to be there. Otherwise, the PvE is way too easy.

Again you're making this determination based off of what you think is best, or most enjoyable, for other players. There are only two arguments I've seen from you for not allowing a toggle (during character creation or something) to avoid PvP altogether:

1) It would segregate the player base. This has already been addressed wonderfully by other posters, but I'll just point it out again: the only players that would suddenly not be in PvP that were before would be people that fundamentally want nothing to do with PvP or invasions. From the perspective of the invader, unless they are a gigantic douche, there should be no desire to go after these people anyway. I know I would enjoy invading a lot more (and actually might do it, in fact) if I could be sure that I wouldn't be invading people that wanted absolutely nothing to do with it.

2) It's a better experience for the players themselves. This is just you making a subjective determination on what is best for other peoples' experiences. Do you get upset if other people play their older games on emulators so that they can use cheats or save states? Do you wish you could force them not to? Allow me to stress: what is the issue with allowing people to play the game the way they want to play it so long as it harms no one else? It is too presumptuous to argue that you know what's best for them.

 

[Veritigo_X]

What if From took a page out of Kojima's book and added a wearable item that would make things easier for people and prevent invaders. I'm picturing a helmet that looks similar to this:

I think that's a fair compromise. Co-op partners need to wear the hat too.

 

[Swhalen]

A friend of mine also hated the invasions in dark souls. He just unplugs his ethernet and plays offline.

 

[Astral]

I don't like invasions in the Souls games either. I feel like they break my pace. I don't like having to halt my progress just to fend them off so I either rush to the boss or I try to find the cheapest way to beat them.

 

[Rising_Hei]

How about you use this then instead of shitting on other people's game?

http://www.nexusmods.com/darksouls/mods/858/

Because he won't have an excuse if he does.

 

[Sami+]

I think I invaded nothing short of 30 people last time I played Demon's Souls. It's fun.

 

[KingJ2002]

A divide between the single player and multiplayer experiences is crucial. Sometimes the blending doesnt work well.

My issue with Destiny... for example... if i have to kill a certain enemy and someone else is ahead of me. I have to ensure i shoot the enemy at least onceso i get credit for the kill or else i'll have to run outside of the mission area, wait for it to respawn and try again... hoping no one else runs in.

Watch dogs is another one where random hackers invade your game and send you on a wild goose chase... it annoyed me so much I never wanted to play the multiplayer. I didn't want to fuck up someone else's gaming session.

Not a fun experience and I hope developers are figuring out ways to keep this balanced.

 

[R_thanatos]

I played nfs rivals and then the online only stuff was bad.
I couldnot enjoy the open world and thevrisk/reward system was flawed.

Then i setvthe session to offline and plat the game.
Imo its good to make people play together but i want to play at my own pace.
Losinf 600k of points because someobe swarmed a pursuit near you that yoy dont want to be a part off just annoyed me

 

[Gsnap]

It's not logical to deprive players of a choice.

Ugh. I hate this mindset. It's so horribly misguided. It's not logical to deprive players of choice? That's exactly what a game is. Games are defined by their limitations. It's all about the creator making the rules and the players abiding by the rules. Those are, by their nature, limitations. Which, by their nature, are depriving players of choice.

You can't move your pawns the same way you move your queen in chess. You can't use your hands in soccer. You can't look at another players hand in a card game. You can't summon a phantom in souls without the risk of invasion.

"Give players choice in everything" and "options are always better" are some of the most misguided ideas ever when it comes to games. Why the hell would there even be multiple games if every game can just be whatever the hell people want them to be? The argument can be made that the souls games don't have the best implementation of its invasion system. But the argument cannot be made that it is an inherently bad idea and that players should always have the option to get exactly what they want all the time.

 

[Dr. Buni]

Invasions in Dark Souls 2, since you can't avoid them by staying hollow anymore. It fucking sucks, I love helping people in co-op and now I am obligated to deal with annoying invaders. I am not going to play offline, because as I said, I love co-op as well as the other online features (bloodstains, messages and stuff). Sadly I love the game, otherwise I would have dropped it because of this 'little' issue.

I don't mind 'forced' invasions in specific PVP and optional locations, like Belfry Luna/Sol, Door of Pharros, etc... But everywhere? No thanks.

 

[Zafir]

Yeah, I didn't particularly appreciate it in the Souls games. I played through the entirety of Demon's Souls in soul form so no one would invade me. If I killed a boss, I'd jump down the gap in the Nexus to get myself back into Soul form. Saved me the trouble of having to disconnect PSN every time I played the game.

I also really didn't appreciate that multi-player bullshit that they forced you to do in Mass Effect 3 if you wanted the best ending. Sure, even the best ending was bad, but that's besides the point!

 

[Soodanim]

It's an absolute joke that one of the arguments concerning Dark Souls is "B-b-b...but it won't be as hard as the developers intended!". Do you know why co-op is referred to as easy mode? Because games have been including difficulty modes, one more often than not being called "Easy", since the dawn of fucking time. And games are often designed around one of those difficulty modes, so none of the others give the experience as the developers intended. Games often even say that when selecting your difficulty. It being having competitive multiplayer elements is irrelevant, because that's explicitly what people wish to forego.

"Play another game" is an equally ridiculous argument.

Ugh. I hate this mindset. It's so horribly misguided. It's not logical to deprive players of choice? That's exactly what a game is. Games are defined by their limitations. It's all about the creator making the rules and the players abiding by the rules. Those are, by their nature, limitations. Which, by their nature, are depriving players of choice.

You can't move your pawns the same way you move your queen in chess. You can't use your hands in soccer. You can't look at another players hand in a card game. You can't summon a phantom in souls without the risk of invasion.

"Give players choice in everything" and "options are always better" are some of the most misguided ideas ever when it comes to games. Why the hell would there even be multiple games if every game can just be whatever the hell people want them to be? The argument can be made that the souls games don't have the best implementation of its invasion system. But the argument cannot be made that it is an inherently bad idea and that players should always have the option to get exactly what they want all the time.

Two statements:
"I want to be able to enable/disable select features of a game to customise my experience."
"I want to play Dark Souls with an infinite ammo rocket launcher because I want to do as I please."

The first one is the choice people want. The second is the sort of choice you are pretending people want.

---

Choosing to bypass PvP would not ruin the game, because you can already bypass it with offline mode. Not everyone does it, and nor would they all play without invasions. The very fact that people want to invade means there are people that want to play online.

 

[Gsnap]

Two statements:
"I want to be able to enable/disable select features of a game to customise my experience."
"I want to play Dark Souls with an infinite ammo rocket launcher because I want to do as I please."

The first one is the choice people want. The second is the sort of choice you are pretending people want.

---

Choosing to bypass PvP would not ruin the game, because you can already bypass it with offline mode. Not everyone does it, and nor would they all play without invasions. The very fact that people want to invade means there are people that want to play online.

Both of those statements are equal as far as I'm concerned. There are some games that allow customization and there are some games that don't. Claiming that the game that doesn't give the player those options is bad simply because "players should always have options" is stupid because every game will deprive the player of options in one way or another. That's he nature of games. Some examples are simply more extreme or more unwise than others. Dark souls is extreme and unique. It has its own set of rules and co-op/invasions fall under those rules. It's not a failing of the game that it doesn't let the player co-op without the risk of invasion. That's simply the way it is. Don't like it? Too bad, you still shouldn't cheat your way out of it and ruin other peoples experience.

 

[arhra]

Watch dogs is another one where random hackers invade your game and send you on a wild goose chase... it annoyed me so much I never wanted to play the multiplayer. I didn't want to fuck up someone else's gaming session.

I felt that Watch Dogs handled it fairly well - IIRC it scaled your chance of being invaded based on how actively you were engaging in the pvp parts of the game yourself, so if you just ignored the multiplayer parts, you'd mostly be left alone. I think I saw a grand total of two invasions in the entire time I played the game, despite leaving it enabled the whole time and playing enough to finish the main story and pretty much all of the singleplayer side content.

 

[Booshka]

I have no problem with people playing Souls offline, or Solo in Hollow form, but when they go Human form to Co-op, the risk of Invasion needs to be there. It's a counter, Co op adds HP to the boss, but it doesn't make the enemies in the level more difficult, that is the Invader's job. Invader is designed to punish a player for using co op, trying to eliminate the Host, their phantoms, or at least exhaust some of their resources to make their run to the boss a bit more difficult. It's a unique aspect of the Souls games, that I don't think exists anywhere else, making it optional does a huge disservice to the mechanic.

It's a player choice that I think the Devs shouldn't allow be turned off, similar to how they can't change the Difficulty on the fly in menu, pause, etc. Invasions are a balancing mechanic for Co-op. Dark Souls 2 screwed that up by making Hollow Invasions a thing, but then again, Dark Souls 2 screwed up a lot of things, so I am not even going to argue for it.

 

[RandomSeed]

Play another game is one of the stupidest comments I've read on here. There is a full, enjoyable single player game here (offline), and all some people want is to add coop to that experience. People that opt in for invasions could go at it like rabbits and everyone would be happy, but I think there is this annoying elite status that some put on Dark Souls. I just shake my head when someone types get good or fithy casual in a serious way.

 

[paragonpro]

The only time it really annoyed me was mass effect 3, I couldn't get the best ending because i didn't use Xbox live at the time (compared to most I'm pretty new to online gaming in general)

 

[Aesnath]

Dark Souls 2 screwed that up by making Hollow Invasions a thing, but then again, Dark Souls 2 screwed up a lot of things, so I am not even going to argue for it.

Hate soul memory? It's existence is likely due to the devs trying to balance some of the problems inherent with previous system in that players familiar with the game could focus on getting great gear while limiting their soul level (one of the great parts about DS games is their ability to be beaten at low soul levels). This led to a (pretty undesirable imo) situation where truly new players were paired with experienced PvPers--which just trolls those new players. By seeking to limit explicit multiplayer options, they developed a system that accounted for such tactics--and ruined the established multiplayer conventions of the previous games.

None of that crap would be required if PvP was opt-in in some way other than miss-lots-of-features.

 

[gogosox82]

Count me in as one of those who had a problem with invasions in Souls games.

In Dark Souls 1, I solved it by simply staying hollowed for most of the game. If I needed help with a boss and needed to summon someone or an NPC, I went human and dealt with the risk to get a reward. I'm fine with that. It's a perfectly understandable situation, if you ask me.

My main issue was with Dark Souls 2, which has areas where you more than likely will get invaded (that tower or the part with the rats), regardless of whether you are in human or hollowed form. It's extremely frustrating that I cannot advanced in the game simply because someone who is clearly more powerful and experienced than me decided to drop in uninvited and kill me. I got stuck in those sections for many hours, until I decided to quit the game altogether, even though I was (somewhat) enjoying the rest of it.



I would sometimes summon someone if I was having problems with a boss, but most of the time I would first try to tackle it on my own. That's because I had the option to approach the game like I wanted. The hypotetical toggle will not destroy anything. It is there for people like me, who would not engage in PvP if given the option. Those who would, on the other hand, would be completely unaffected. Options are good. Otherwise, having the option to summon or not another player or an NPC before a boss fight would be used by everyone, whether they want it or not, and that's clearly not the case.

Agree to disagree. I like the way the systems function for the most part. I want to see them get better. Adding a pvp mode (which is what the toggle function is) will not improve it. It will still have the same issues and won't be improved. This is why I think its a bad design decision. Having it included in the main game gaurantees that will have to constantly tweak or alter it to make it better. If its this side thing that no one else really plays than its easier to not fix the problems.

This is just straight up false.

People like playing Deprived, people burn Bonfire Ascetics, people joined the Company of Champions, etc, etc.

There is more than one way to eat a Reese's.

True. I misspoke there my apologies. I was referring to newer players first start playing the game. Most ( not all) will use the methods that help them succeed first.

booshka the problem with your idealistic argument is that things never actually work that way. i've put like 120 hours into DS1 on PC (not a lot compared to some people to be sure) and have been invaded maybe 5 times.

every single one of those invaders was hacking, and at no time did i have a co-op phantom present. each time i unhollowed to kindle a bonfire so i could have more flask charges, started a boss run, and then spent some time wishing physical violence on whoever didn't manage to work any kind of meaningful anti-cheat system into the game as i helplessly flailed against fast-rolling invincible havels with unlimited stamina and the ability to teleport.

when i heard that DS2 allowed invasions when hollowed i actually decided to skip it because of this, but then i heard that until you reach NG+ you basically never get invaded so i went ahead and picked it up. the mechanic is completely fucking broken and even in DS2 there's still ridiculous amounts of cheating. i don't know if it's the majority of the community or not but after the first few months pass and the majority of players move on it is far too large of a proportion of invaders.

so yeah, it'd be great if invasions mostly worked the way you describe them. they never do.

But that's just your experience though. I mean, I played on pc and yeah there were cheaters but no more than there were on the ps3. Booskha is probably in a similar boat as me and has probably played DS1 for at least 1,000 hours so I'm sure he knows about the griefing and the ganking others players do. Hell, he's probably been ganked himself a ton ( as have I). He's probably dealt with people with 99 divine blessings when you can only get 5 or 6 a playthrough. We all know these things happen. Unfortunately, DS1 wasn't ever intended to be on pc so when it got ported, no anti cheat system was in the game and certain players took advantage. I agree that it was silly that from decided to use the "honor system" instead of having some sort of anti cheat method in the game. And while you can't control other players actions, you can make consequences for their actions. They do have an system in place in DS2 where they vac ban you from online play if they catch you and from what I've seen, it has made some difference. It doesn't appear to be as bad as DS1 was. So it seems like they are making progress on that front.

The way co op/invasion works in DS2 I believe is response to players saying they didn't want to be invaded. So in your first playthrough, unless you join the covenant of champions, things are just much easier for the player. You rarely have to worry about being invaded (unless you go to Belfry luna or Belfry Sol online), bosses are for the most part easier, they even nerfed the damage criticals do in new game so if you get back stabbed or parried it probably won't kill you if you have some decent armor on. I think they wanted new game to be more forgiving so they did all of these things to make it easier on the player, which I didn't agree with but it is what is.

Tl; DR version From is trying to address some your complaints and From doesn't explain its systems very well to the player hence why it seems that its broken.

 

[TeddyShardik]

Play another game is one of the stupidest comments I've read on here. There is a full, enjoyable single player game here (offline), and all some people want is to add coop to that experience. People that opt in for invasions could go at it like rabbits and everyone would be happy, but I think there is this annoying elite status that some put on Dark Souls. I just shake my head when someone types get good or fithy casual in a serious way.

These people want to play football with the other team not being allowed to touch the ball.
It doesn't work that way. Games are designed with rules. The rule in Dark Souls is you can have up to two players helping you by accepting the risk of being invaded.
It's really that simple.

On another note, it's really overblown how frequent invasions are and how much progress you lose. I get invaded maybe up to 5 times in a playthrough (that means invasions I'm not actively seeking out obviously) and each is over in a matter of minutes.

You don't rewrite the rules of a game for something like that. It's silly whining, nothing else.

 

[Booshka]

Hate soul memory? It's existence is likely due to the devs trying to balance some of the problems inherent with previous system in that players familiar with the game could focus on getting great gear while limiting their soul level (one of the great parts about DS games is their ability to be beaten at low soul levels). This led to a (pretty undesirable imo) situation where truly new players were paired with experienced PvPers--which just trolls those new players. By seeking to limit explicit multiplayer options, they developed a system that accounted for such tactics--and ruined the established multiplayer conventions of the previous games.

None of that crap would be required if PvP was opt-in in some way other than miss-lots-of-features.

You should read more of my posts in this thread. Soul memory was a bad way to try and solve the problem of OP Invaders. I've come up with a more complex, but more comprehensive way of solving that problem. The bigger issue with Dark Souls 2 is how hard they made it to get Red Orbs in NG, PvP is a major pain in the ass on New Game in Dark Souls 2.

 

[Giever]

You can't move your pawns the same way you move your queen in chess. You can't use your hands in soccer. You can't look at another players hand in a card game. You can't summon a phantom in souls without the risk of invasion.

One of these things is not like the others. In all of the examples except for the Souls example, giving the player those options negatively impacts the experiences of other players. Something that would actually be analogous in Souls with those examples would be like "You can't transform other players into immobile chickens and shove them off edges against their will." But giving players the option to play cooperatively without dealing with invasions doesn't affect anyone outside of those two players choosing to do so. It's like telling a family that they can't choose to play Monopoly with different rules for landing on free parking even though they bought the game and that's the way they want to play it.

From Software isn't under any obligation to give players an option to play this way, but choosing to forego such an option is clearly open to valid criticism, and they're only limiting their audience by doing so.

 

[jimi_dini]

They do have an system in place in DS2 where they vac ban you from online play if they catch you and from what I've seen, it has made some difference. It doesn't appear to be as bad as DS1 was. So it seems like they are making progress on that front.

Well in DS2 invasions were completely broken simply because you needed an item to do it and you couldn't easily get those items. I think they patched that, but I played before that patch and I was invaded maybe 10 times in total during my 3 playthroughs. I don't like getting invaded at all, but instead of disconnecting, I simply cast Chameleon and stay at some place. If I remember correctly in DS2 invaders are sent to their homeworld after 10 minutes or so and I actually enjoyed wasting the time + item of those people (possibly as much as those people enjoy ruining the game of others).

Hackers were also existant in DS1 on PS3 thanks to PS3 getting hacked and thus people were able to create hacked save files and there also was the item box glitch, where you could effectively get fully upgraded endgame equipment with freshly created level 1 characters. The glitch was patched, but people, that used it before the patch, were of course still able to use those items+weapons. Sure, a player could get those items regulary while being a level 1 character, but beating the game as a level 1 character takes an insane amount of skill and it seems most highly skilled people would rather help other players out instead of fucking things up in other people's games.

But sure, I'm pretty sure that it's way worse on PC.

The bell keepers in DS2 were horribly designed. I mean the DS2 areas are linear already, but the first bell keeper area is even worse - it's so badly designed. There is only one way up. Then you have to climb a really long ladder. And within 1 minute, there are 2 people against you, a fog behind you and almost no way to even somewhat summon a coop player. And then there are also quite a few AI enemies as well. Unless you have really good equipment, you will almost always get killed unless you are lucky and the first spawn isn't that competent and you are able to rush through the boss fog. I disconnected myself from the internet after a few tries and managed to get through the boss fog on first try. It's just laughable.

 

[Gsnap]

One of these things is not like the others. In all of the examples except for the Souls example, giving the player those options negatively impacts the experiences of other players.

From Software isn't under any obligation to give players an option to play this way, but choosing to forego such an option is clearly open to valid criticism, and they're only limiting their audience by doing so.

They are all alike in that they are the rules of the game. I'm not talking about only one player being able to move their pawns as queens. Neither player can. Because that's the rules. Only goalies can use heir hands in soccer because thats he rules. Neither player can see the other players hand in a card game. Because that's the rules. That's what all these things have in common. They are the rules. Someone could make a game where both player can see the other players hands because then it would be The rules. Dark souls has its rules and that's the way it is.

So to the guy who said that it's illogical that the game doesn't give the player the choice, all they're really saying is that it's illogical that the game has rules and doesn't let them do whatever hey want whenever they want. And that's a stupid mindset because games are defined by rules.

 

[Booshka]

Well there is a save file for PS3 and Xbox 360 with 10 character slots of different classes with every item in the game fully upgraded. Most of the players that use them aren't cheaters, they just got tired of grinding out builds, so they use them for new Dueling builds, but plenty of people use them for low level Twinks as well.

PC has Cheat Engine so you can do whatever the fuck you want, but there are plenty of actual cheaters on all platforms. Cheaters have impossible stats, impossible gear, or they lagswitch like motherfuckers.

This is all Dark Souls 1 related btw, I don't play DkS2 anymore.

 

[Soodanim]

Both of those statements are equal as far as I'm concerned. There are some games that allow customization and there are some games that don't. Claiming that the game that doesn't give the player those options is bad simply because "players should always have options" is stupid because every game will deprive the player of options in one way or another. That's he nature of games. Some examples are simply more extreme or more unwise than others. Dark souls is extreme and unique. It has its own set of rules and co-op/invasions fall under those rules. It's not a failing of the game that it doesn't let the player co-op without the risk of invasion. That's simply the way it is. Don't like it? Too bad, you still shouldn't cheat your way out of it and ruin other peoples experience.

Your viewpoint seems to be based around the idea that games are infallible, when really they are, especially Dark Souls, far from perfect. If a game mixes offline and online gameplay, the way in which it does that isn't ideal just because the game is coded that way. If someone's enjoyment of a game is interrupted by a bad mini-game, it's the games fault. Same with shit water levels, broken bosses, and flawed online features.

The main flaw in the logic is thinking that because games have limits, all limits are fine and shouldn't be questioned. Limits are only there because the developers didn't add more past that point, and whether a limit is there by design or because of a lack of time/money is irrelevant. If a game's limits shouldn't be questioned, the thousands of Elder Scrolls mods are all abominations. But they're not. The nude mods are, but that's a different discussion.

And you can't compare chess to video games. They simply aren't the same. Dark Souls is a single player game with multiplayer elements, and the rest of the games you mention are multiplayer games. That's the essential difference. If someone wants to customise a single player game, that's fine. All people want here is an option to choose which elements of multiplayer someone wants in their game. To not participate in PvP is not a request that ruins anyone else's experience.

 

[Gsnap]

Your viewpoint seems to be based around the idea that games are infallible, when really they are, especially Dark Souls, far from perfect. If a game mixes offline and online gameplay, the way in which it does that isn't ideal just because the game is coded that way.

First of all. Of course I can compare video games to chess. When speaking of games and rules I can compare them because they are games and they have rules.

But anyway, no of course I'm not saying that games are infallible. The post I originally replied to said that it was illogical to not give the players the choice to opt out. I disagree. There's nothing illogical about it. It's just the rule. Video games are fallible, certainly. But rules aren't. Not really. It's only the implementation of the rule that could be a problem. As many people have brought up, souls implementation has some issues, but the rule itself, "to play co-op, you must take the risk of being invaded" is not inherently a bad rule, even if it deprives the player of choice, which seems to be some peoples biggest problem with it.

And yeah I take issue with it. Figure out how to make it better. Don't say it is inherently bad and it should be scrapped because it doesn't give players choice. Don't call it illogical. It's just not. That's the only thing I take issue with.

Well anyway. I'm outta here. As always, these discussions go nowhere. Oh well.

 

[gogosox82]

Well in DS2 invasions were completely broken simply because you needed an item to do it and you couldn't easily get those items. I think they patched that, but I played before that patch and I was invaded maybe 10 times in total during my 3 playthroughs. I don't like getting invaded at all, but instead of disconnecting, I simply cast Chameleon and stay at some place. If I remember correctly in DS2 invaders are sent to their homeworld after 10 minutes or so and I actually enjoyed wasting the time + item of those people (possibly as much as those people enjoy ruining the game of others).

Hackers were also existant in DS1 on PS3 thanks to PS3 getting hacked and thus people were able to create hacked save files and there also was the item box glitch, where you could effectively get fully upgraded endgame equipment with freshly created level 1 characters. The glitch was patched, but people, that used it before the patch, were of course still able to use those items+weapons. Sure, a player could get those items regulary while being a level 1 character, but beating the game as a level 1 character takes an insane amount of skill and it seems most highly skilled people would rather help other players out instead of fucking things up in other people's games.

But sure, I'm pretty sure that it's way worse on PC.

The bell keepers in DS2 were horribly designed. I mean the DS2 areas are linear already, but the first bell keeper area is even worse - it's so badly designed. There is only one way up. Then you have to climb a really long ladder. And within 1 minute, there are 2 people against you, a fog behind you and almost no way to even somewhat summon a coop player. And then there are also quite a few AI enemies as well. Unless you have really good equipment, you will almost always get killed unless you are lucky and the first spawn isn't that competent and you are able to rush through the boss fog. I disconnected myself from the internet after a few tries and managed to get through the boss fog on first try. It's just laughable.

Yeah i didn't like the way the pvp covenants were designed in DS2 at all. Bellfry Luna was just ridiculous at launch. You had to either run for the switch and then the door or just go offline. Its just a horrible way to introduce pvp to players.

 

[RandomSeed]

These people want to play football with the other team not being allowed to touch the ball.
It doesn't work that way. Games are designed with rules. The rule in Dark Souls is you can have up to two players helping you by accepting the risk of being invaded.
It's really that simple.

On another note, it's really overblown how frequent invasions are and how much progress you lose. I get invaded maybe up to 5 times in a playthrough (that means invasions I'm not actively seeking out obviously) and each is over in a matter of minutes.

You don't rewrite the rules of a game for something like that. It's silly whining, nothing else.

It's not whining. There is no need to put such a negative spin on it. If you don't complain, things don't improve, and enough people obviously love Dark Souls but hate the PvP in it. This isn't some competitive multiplayer game, it's a game that is fully (minus some covenant rewards) playable solo with multiplayer thrown on. IMO what you are thinking of as some hard rules is what I think are some not very well thought out features. And for the football analogy...not everyone that plays football plays in the NFL. Some people want to just toss the ball, or play touch football, and some want full contact. It's all football, yet different rules that suit what the group of people desire and agree on.

WOW is a game designed from the ground up as a multiplayer game and even that has plenty of pve servers BTW.

 

[Giever]

They are all alike in that they are the rules of the game. I'm not talking about only one player being able to move their pawns as queens. Neither player can. Because that's the rules. Only goalies can use heir hands in soccer because thats he rules. Neither player can see the other players hand in a card game. Because that's the rules. That's what all these things have in common. They are the rules. Someone could make a game where both player can see the other players hands because then it would be The rules. Dark souls has its rules and that's the way it is.

So to the guy who said that it's illogical that the game doesn't give the player the choice, all they're really saying is that it's illogical that the game has rules and doesn't let them do whatever hey want whenever they want. And that's a stupid mindset because games are defined by rules.

There are card games where nobody can see anyone else's cards. There are slightly modified versions of those card games that people decided on, and play, where you can see some of each others' cards. This modification can be a totally fun and viable way to play a slightly varied version of the game in question. Since it is just a card game, it's fairly trivial to just decide the rules amongst yourselves and play that way. With video games, it's not quite that simple.

If a player wants to play a slightly modified version of the default Dark Souls experience, what are their options? Is the game, as it is, "sacred"? Can they not opt to alter the experience in some way, tailor it to their interests? People have been doing that with games of all sorts for millennia. As far as I can tell, a player could: a) Petition From Software to include simple options that would appeal to said player, b) Attempt to figure out a way to modify the game slightly to work the way the player would like, or c) Build a Dark Souls clone from the ground up in such a way that it meets this one minor criterion that the player wishes for. One of these options seems more feasible than the others.

Finally, electing to change some of the rules of a game is different than saying something like 'games should not have rules'. Being opposed to certain absolutely fixed design choices is not the same as saying that all games ought to be the same limitless paradise of options wherein the player's boundless agency allows him/her to do whatsoever he/she chooses.

 

[Fimbulvetr]

This is a really interesting subject when it comes to the Souls games. I won't be the first to praise Coxswain's big post a while back, but I think the arguments in it aren't quite perfect.

The problem is the assumption that people who don't enjoy PVP in general will never willingly choose to partake in it. I think it's possible that even people who are averse to PVP on a basic level will sometimes still participate under the right circumstances. For example, if they catch sight of the invader and see that they're using an interesting or non-ganking build, or if the invader is able to communicate that they have good intentions in some other way. Or the player might just be curious; it's unlikely that every PVP-averse player is so utterly against PVP that they never even consider it in the slightest. They might give it a shot just because, and if they do that they might end up enjoying it. These happenings are unpredictable and likely rare, but they probably do happen, simply because players are exposed to invaders. If PVP-averse players are given the option to disable PVP completely and take it, these weird bits of spontaneity would have no chance of occurring. In other words, the game would indeed lose something if a PVP disable feature was implemented, and thus I understand the perspective of people like Booshka to an extent.

However, I think that if such a feature were implemented there would still be a vibrant invasion scene for those that love PVP to enjoy, making this a minor and ultimately acceptable loss. The human element that a lot of the Souls zeitgeist is based on would still be mostly intact, but I can see why some dedicated players would mourn for this. I'm for the idea of a PVP disable feature, but I don't think there's a perfect solution here. Even with the most stringent rules there can never be an absolute guarantee that you'll have a positive experience in adversarial multiplayer in general, but in giving players the option to avoid adversarial multiplayer in order to eliminate negative experiences completely you may also eliminate a small, strange subset of positive ones as well, because they're both created by the same chaotic force of human interaction.

 

[Freshmaker]

This is just straight up false.

People like playing Deprived, people burn Bonfire Ascetics, people joined the Company of Champions, etc, etc.

There is more than one way to eat a Reese's.

No. There is only one way to play Dark Souls. Anything less than doing it so the game is as difficult as possible is obscene cheating.

That is what the counter argument sees to boil down to. Anything that diminishes difficulty is a direct threat to how they get to play the game in future installments so squash that talk hard.

 

[Gator86]

No. There is only one way to play Dark Souls. Anything less than doing it so the game is as difficult as possible is obscene cheating.

That is what the counter argument sees to boil down to. Anything that diminishes difficulty is a direct threat to how they get to play the game in future installments so squash that talk hard.

Basically. Any potential alteration or suggestion as to changes the Souls series could make presents an existential threat to the existence of the series altogether apparently. Look at this thread, the Souls pause button thread, or any of the other dozens of threads that eventually devolved into people screaming that every try-hard scrub who wants a hand-holding, spoon-fed experience should go play a different game and leave Souls the fuck alone.

The mere idea that someone could enjoy the online components of Souls (messages, ghosts, co-op, etc.) without wanting to pvp is inconceivable. As I mentioned before, the messages and ghosts make the game world more immersive and alive, enhancing my enjoyment of the game. Being invaded by ProBluntz420xxx does the exact opposite. It doesn't have anything to do with difficulty for me because I feel similarly about co-op.

In the end though, none of this matters because every Souls thread will inevitably become the same polarized "More people could enjoy the series with these tweaks" versus "Not every game is for you. Go play something else, you filthy casual."