Dark Souls 2 invasion system

[joest01]

At high enough SM level the wait for an invader in Heide's is close to 0. You can get chain invasions there. Beats getting tokens for the arena.

But I have popped the disc out and retired. Was starting to get the old flame messages from players. I stopped playing Demon's because of the same thing. (for the record: pure melee, no shield, light armor, I am very beatable)

I still think they should completely anonymize pvp. i.e. no players met log. And provide a decent mechanism for tournaments.

Try the PC version, I've done a ton of invasions and never got a single message, as you have to add someone on Steam in order to message them

Lol, I spent too many hours of my youth tuning rigs. I stopped playing altogether at some point because it was just so tedious to keep up with the latest games. So I moved to PS3 and voila, smooth sailing On a completely unrelated note, I am leaning more and more Wii U for my next platform. Bayonetta, Xenoblade, Devils Third and lets not forget Razors Edge would not be here without it. Not really sure about the controler though XD

To get back on topic, if you want less invasions lets not forget you can burn effigies as well.

 

[Azure23]

The invasion system is... Kind of pointless. If you want to invade others as a Black Phantom, you gain nothing from doing so, other than a small portion of copied souls from the host, and perhaps a hate-mail from Yours Truly. Not to mention that is is not balanced depending on your Soul Level, but rather your Soul Memory, and the peak stops at 12m+ SM, meaning you can get invaded, or invade, people with 100 more levels than yourself, turning the PvP into a Prank n' Spank.

You could always try and invade someone as a Blue Sentinel, but it can take ages, and you'll most likely find people who fight more desperate than a pack of cornered wolfs and with the strength of oxes. Not exactly your normal preying run. In fact, most of the time, YOU become the prey. Quite counter-intuitive.
Also, the cracked orbs are real expensive, and only made for people in NG++/+, so invading under any earlier time can be a very limited experience.

The only way to fairly invade others is through the Red Soapstone, which acts as a Summoning Sign, meaning it will only reach out to players in your cycle, and of those between 20+ or 20- of your level. You'll only be invading others who WANT you to invade them as well, which is a plus.
It's also the most fun, especially when you put it on the bridge outside Fire Keep. People like to make Arenas there with no rules, just honor and fair judgment . It's the most fun to PvP there imo.

We Blood Brothers invade to spill blood for Nahr Alma! No but seriously pvp is the point, asymmetric pvp to be precise. A humanity would be nice, sure, but really I do it for fun. As for levels, they only do so much and with the incredibly diminished gains at higher levels, a hundred levels does much less than you think. I stick to the level 135-150 range because thats when I feel like a build is properly finished, with pros and cons and options, but if people want boring builds that an do everything in the game I'll gladly rip them apart with my bare hands. If only for the look i imagine a lvl 700 Havel monster has on its face when I've danced around for ten minutes and punched it to death, so satisfying.

I love the souls series pvp and I've tried every facet of it in all three games, from darkwraith to blood brother to sentinel to dragon disciple. It's not counterintuitive when you invade someone's world and they best you, that's just life, sorry if the blood bro sinners give you a harder time than randoms. And by the way, you have to be over the 12 mil point to be invaded by max levelers, and it takes forever to accrue that many through pvp, I should know, I've gotten the same character to rank 3 in both the sentinels and blood brothers and I barely broke nine million. And that's with the ridiculous amount of killing you have to do in those covenants.

I see the word "fairness" bandied about quite a bit in these pvp discussions, and I hate it. I consider myself a fairly honorable player, I always try to bow, or do a character appropriate gesture before the fight begins. But fairness really has absolutely no place outside of the arena, and even then its meant to be fair in that both players can be as cheap with Estus as they want. If I've invaded you, I don't know where you are, if you have phantoms hiding in wait, how willing you are to run away and heal, and I have ten minutes to hunt you down and kill you or else I've wasted either a pvp victory or like ten k souls. I'm going to do my level best to kill you, whether you consider it fair or not. If I've decided that this character uses avelyns (unlikely, they're ugly and I can't find good armor to go with them) then I'm going to shoot you with them and get a good laugh out of the hatemail, with no nevermind given to what you think is cheap. I've hosted fight clubs and participated in some that lasted hours, I've seen builds both creative and unique, and I've seen copy pasted faith and hex/dex builds in the hundreds, at the end of the day we're all getting together to kill each other and have fun. But sometimes honorable fight clubs get stale, sometimes you want to invade and fight people who actually have something on the line, sometimes you just don't want to fight on the iron keep bridge for the seven hundredth time.

You have some real grievances, soul memory is dumb, sure, but its hardly the pvp ruiner you make it out to be, as for the rest, well, "fairness" rubs me the wrong way. It's already a game, there are already rules in place. If I'm invading and not hacking, (which I'm not, buncha dumb bullshit) I'm already playing fair. I can't speak for other pvp fanatics (speak up though) but anytime i hear "fair" in relation to basic mechanics or specifically weapons, i get annoyed.

 

[A-D.]

We Blood Brothers invade to spill blood for Nahr Alma! No but seriously pvp is the point, asymmetric pvp to be precise. A humanity would be nice, sure, but really I do it for fun. As for levels, they only do so much and with the incredibly diminished gains at higher levels, a hundred levels does much less than you think. I stick to the level 135-150 range because thats when I feel like a build is properly finished, with pros and cons and options, but if people want boring builds that an do everything in the game I'll gladly rip them apart with my bare hands. If only for the look i imagine a lvl 700 Havel monster has on its face when I've danced around for ten minutes and punched it to death, so satisfying.

I love the souls series pvp and I've tried every facet of it in all three games, from darkwraith to blood brother to sentinel to dragon disciple. It's not counterintuitive when you invade someone's world and they best you, that's just life, sorry if the blood bro sinners give you a harder time than randoms. And by the way, you have to be over the 12 mil point to be invaded by max levelers, and it takes forever to accrue that many through pvp, I should know, I've gotten the same character to rank 3 in both the sentinels and blood brothers and I barely broke nine million. And that's with the ridiculous amount of killing you have to do in those covenants.

I see the word "fairness" bandied about quite a bit in these pvp discussions, and I hate it. I consider myself a fairly honorable player, I always try to bow, or do a character appropriate gesture before the fight begins. But fairness really has absolutely no place outside of the arena, and even then its meant to be fair in that both players can be as cheap with Estus as they want. If I've invaded you, I don't know where you are, if you have phantoms hiding in wait, how willing you are to run away and heal, and I have ten minutes to hunt you down and kill you or else I've wasted either a pvp victory or like ten k souls. I'm going to do my level best to kill you, whether you consider it fair or not. If I've decided that this character uses avelyns (unlikely, they're ugly and I can't find good armor to go with them) then I'm going to shoot you with them and get a good laugh out of the hatemail, with no nevermind given to what you think is cheap. I've hosted fight clubs and participated in some that lasted hours, I've seen builds both creative and unique, and I've seen copy pasted faith and hex/dex builds in the hundreds, at the end of the day we're all getting together to kill each other and have fun. But sometimes honorable fight clubs get stale, sometimes you want to invade and fight people who actually have something on the line, sometimes you just don't want to fight on the iron keep bridge for the seven hundredth time.

You have some real grievances, soul memory is dumb, sure, but its hardly the pvp ruiner you make it out to be, as for the rest, well, "fairness" rubs me the wrong way. It's already a game, there are already rules in place. If I'm invading and not hacking, (which I'm not, buncha dumb bullshit) I'm already playing fair. I can't speak for other pvp fanatics (speak up though) but anytime i hear "fair" in relation to basic mechanics or specifically weapons, i get annoyed.

The thing is, if its ONLY about winning, then why are you bothering with PvP in the first place? What do you get? A token of spite if you invaded someone, maybe a couple souls, maybe a cracked orb from the arena? So you can repeat this ad infinitum, just to "win"? What do you get from that? Nothing really, you aint proving you are the better player, you aint proving you got more skills, or bigger balls, or how you are so uber-leet-haxxor-epic-skillzor that nobody stands a chance. Thats the ultimate problem with cheap builds, or as you call them "unfair".

Its not really about being fair, PvP isnt. If you are melee and im a caster, well there is no fairness, if i throw a sunlight spear in your face and it hits, you're toast, yes even with GMB, had Havel-scrubs with GMB trying to tank a Lightning DC+5 Sunlight Spear directly, those 1.2k damage didnt sit well with them. Course on the other hand, if you manage to dodge everything and i dont have any good melee options, im dead meat soon enough. Its not a level playing field there at all. However there are builds which are built specifically for the purpose of winning, in the form that requires the least amount of action on your part. If you could make a build, which can hit everything no matter what, do 2k damage per hit and as such kill everyone almost instantly, how is that "good" PvP? Its cheap as fuck, its not even PvP. Again you aint proving anything other than that you would be too lazy to bother actually fighting, and if you cant be bothered to fight, then dont do it at all.

PvP is supposed to be about fun, not about just winning imho. At least i consider it as a side-activity, i dont get mad if i lose, though i get mad if im invaded by the same cheap-ass build 20 times in the same zone, Havelyns, Havelmages, Hextanas, Dual Avelyns etc. Mind you this was before the recent nerf, but the point stands. If all you face is the same thing over and over its just boring and a chore, there is no fun involved, even if you manage to win. At the end of the day, you just beat Havel-scrub #2824812, whats the point? Also its 15 million, thats the last tier, which presents its own problem because if im 1 point over 15 million, some level 800 dude can now invade me, brilliant. Yes the benefit is less after the softcaps, but there is still a difference between having 99 STR or 40 for example even if the difference is very small, there should be more tiers at least.

FROM is taking steps in the right direction by at least balancing some things so its not utterly broken and everyone is using the same build. I rather fight 20 invaders with unique builds and lose, than fight one more invader thats just another build i've killed in the thousands and win. Plus i expect some basic decency from people. If i invade you, im at least going to bow, im not attacking you instantly, i'd love if people gave me the same courtesy (some actually do). I even on occasion guided an invader to a better PvP spot which worked well for both of us, instead of fighting cheaply in a tight hallway where i had the advantage due to using a spear.

 

[joest01]

The invasion system is... Kind of pointless. If you want to invade others as a Black Phantom, you gain nothing from doing so, other than a small portion of copied souls from the host, and perhaps a hate-mail from Yours Truly. Not to mention that is is not balanced depending on your Soul Level, but rather your Soul Memory, and the peak stops at 12m+ SM, meaning you can get invaded, or invade, people with 100 more levels than yourself, turning the PvP into a Prank n' Spank.

You could always try and invade someone as a Blue Sentinel, but it can take ages, and you'll most likely find people who fight more desperate than a pack of cornered wolfs and with the strength of oxes. Not exactly your normal preying run. In fact, most of the time, YOU become the prey. Quite counter-intuitive.
Also, the cracked orbs are real expensive, and only made for people in NG++/+, so invading under any earlier time can be a very limited experience.

The only way to fairly invade others is through the Red Soapstone, which acts as a Summoning Sign, meaning it will only reach out to players in your cycle, and of those between 20+ or 20- of your level. You'll only be invading others who WANT you to invade them as well, which is a plus.
It's also the most fun, especially when you put it on the bridge outside Fire Keep. People like to make Arenas there with no rules, just honor and fair judgment . It's the most fun to PvP there imo.

We Blood Brothers invade to spill blood for Nahr Alma! No but seriously pvp is the point, asymmetric pvp to be precise. A humanity would be nice, sure, but really I do it for fun. As for levels, they only do so much and with the incredibly diminished gains at higher levels, a hundred levels does much less than you think. I stick to the level 135-150 range because thats when I feel like a build is properly finished, with pros and cons and options, but if people want boring builds that an do everything in the game I'll gladly rip them apart with my bare hands. If only for the look i imagine a lvl 700 Havel monster has on its face when I've danced around for ten minutes and punched it to death, so satisfying.

I love the souls series pvp and I've tried every facet of it in all three games, from darkwraith to blood brother to sentinel to dragon disciple. It's not counterintuitive when you invade someone's world and they best you, that's just life, sorry if the blood bro sinners give you a harder time than randoms. And by the way, you have to be over the 12 mil point to be invaded by max levelers, and it takes forever to accrue that many through pvp, I should know, I've gotten the same character to rank 3 in both the sentinels and blood brothers and I barely broke nine million. And that's with the ridiculous amount of killing you have to do in those covenants.

I see the word "fairness" bandied about quite a bit in these pvp discussions, and I hate it. I consider myself a fairly honorable player, I always try to bow, or do a character appropriate gesture before the fight begins. But fairness really has absolutely no place outside of the arena, and even then its meant to be fair in that both players can be as cheap with Estus as they want. If I've invaded you, I don't know where you are, if you have phantoms hiding in wait, how willing you are to run away and heal, and I have ten minutes to hunt you down and kill you or else I've wasted either a pvp victory or like ten k souls. I'm going to do my level best to kill you, whether you consider it fair or not. If I've decided that this character uses avelyns (unlikely, they're ugly and I can't find good armor to go with them) then I'm going to shoot you with them and get a good laugh out of the hatemail, with no nevermind given to what you think is cheap. I've hosted fight clubs and participated in some that lasted hours, I've seen builds both creative and unique, and I've seen copy pasted faith and hex/dex builds in the hundreds, at the end of the day we're all getting together to kill each other and have fun. But sometimes honorable fight clubs get stale, sometimes you want to invade and fight people who actually have something on the line, sometimes you just don't want to fight on the iron keep bridge for the seven hundredth time.

You have some real grievances, soul memory is dumb, sure, but its hardly the pvp ruiner you make it out to be, as for the rest, well, "fairness" rubs me the wrong way. It's already a game, there are already rules in place. If I'm invading and not hacking, (which I'm not, buncha dumb bullshit) I'm already playing fair. I can't speak for other pvp fanatics (speak up though) but anytime i hear "fair" in relation to basic mechanics or specifically weapons, i get annoyed.

Without "Fairness" what do you get from your wins? If there are no rules to keep it balanced why bother. What I really read in your post is that you enjoy ganking on PVE players and they should shut up about it already.

p.s. how do you "try" to bow. I bow. If I die in the process so be it. I also bow at the end. No "character appropriate" gestures here. Well, except if you spammed estus on me I might shake my finger. But I usually die first because I just sigh and put the controller aside.

 

[Vrach]

Lol, I spent too many hours of my youth tuning rigs. I stopped playing altogether at some point because it was just so tedious to keep up with the latest games. So I moved to PS3 and voila, smooth sailing On a completely unrelated note, I am leaning more and more Wii U for my next platform. Bayonetta, Xenoblade, Devils Third and lets not forget Razors Edge would not be here without it. Not really sure about the controler though XD

Fair enough, just saying

Btw, my mate has a WiiU and the controller is awesome. It can act as a fifth player in couch co-op or allow one person the whole screen while the other has the controller screen if you're doing a 2 player co-op. I've played Injustice with him and despite a shared (big) screen, I preferred to lie back and look at the controller one most of the time, it's really well done.

That said, it does better as a couch co-op console (it absolutely rules for that over every other option imo) than what you'd expect of a console if you're going for mostly SP games. There aren't many games for it and the hardware is barely ahead of the PS3/X360, so it's not much of a next-gen console, though if you're a Nintendo fan like my mate is, you can squeeze a lot of good time out of it

 

[Vrach]

If you are melee and im a caster, well there is no fairness, if i throw a sunlight spear in your face and it hits, you're toast, yes even with GMB, had Havel-scrubs with GMB trying to tank a Lightning DC+5 Sunlight Spear directly, those 1.2k damage didnt sit well with them. Course on the other hand, if you manage to dodge everything and i dont have any good melee options, im dead meat soon enough

Tbh, the Sunlight Spears are easy to avoid and punish, anyone who can't avoid that has no chance winning a melee fight against someone of at least decent skill. I run a pure dexterity katana build (no Hexes, no bullshit, just a sword and board with Uchi or Washing Pole) and I don't think I lost once to a guy who was chucking spears, they're predictable, slow and once you're close enough, you can try to cast it all you want, I'll just keep run-stabbing you till you're dead.

On the other hand, the pure damage mages can dish out is nothing short of stupid. I was watching a boss video where the guy (who has 0 skill btw) just Sunlight Spears a boss down in 5 hits before the damn thing even gets close. I stab at the thing for at least 5 minutes and I have to dodge all its attacks, point blank AoEs etc. I prefer my build though, always liked being an in-your-face melee fighter, even before bleed made katanas ridiculously powerful in Dark Souls.

p.s. how do you "try" to bow. I bow. If I die in the process so be it. I also bow at the end. No "character appropriate" gestures here. Well, except if you spammed estus on me I might shake my finger. But I usually die first because I just sigh and put the controller aside.

You can interrupt an emote with a backstep or a roll (though honestly, I just do it from a distance 95% of the time). And thank fuck for that, I got sick of dying mid-bow in Dark Souls. I feel you on the "sigh and put controller aside", did that my share of times when people healed in the arena every chance they got (managed to hide behind a rock once and use a Black Crystal to get out, seemed to really piss off the guy who then ran to kill me and failed to break through my shield )

 

[A-D.]

If you are melee and im a caster, well there is no fairness, if i throw a sunlight spear in your face and it hits, you're toast, yes even with GMB, had Havel-scrubs with GMB trying to tank a Lightning DC+5 Sunlight Spear directly, those 1.2k damage didnt sit well with them. Course on the other hand, if you manage to dodge everything and i dont have any good melee options, im dead meat soon enough

Tbh, the Sunlight Spears are easy to avoid and punish, anyone who can't avoid that has no chance winning a melee fight against someone of at least decent skill. I run a pure dexterity katana build (no Hexes, no bullshit, just a sword and board with Uchi or Washing Pole) and I don't think I lost once to a guy who was chucking spears, they're predictable, slow and once you're close enough, you can try to cast it all you want, I'll just keep run-stabbing you till you're dead.

For that alone i would Emit Force you to death. The fun of magic is, you still have to dodge, try blocking it? Try tanking it? Not a wise move, it keeps them vulnerable and if i get the timing just right, you come out of your role to get a spear straight in the face point-blank. I once had a mage try something similar, with crystal homing soul mass on my BKH build, basicly goading me into a backstab, i did, he took off about 4/6ths of my health, i took away all of his, pretty funny all things considered.

But yes, if you play a pure magic build..you are pretty much screwed, you need to be at least decent in melee, especially rolling because switching out to shield and then back for a block is dumb. Its why no caster-build ever runs without the best possible weapon i can get them, my main rocks the Defender Greatsword for example, also got the Gargoyle Bident if i want to use thrust and the epic roll-overhead. As a caster you really just have to be lucky to hit, however the constant dodging of your opponent can create openings. I once had a guy dodge out of my GLS by rolling twice, mind you i rolled after his first to avoid him backstabbing me. Long story short, i rolled forward, he to the side, he got backstabbed by a greatsword (i blame lag for that one mostly).

I like miracles mostly because they require skill and timing, if you time it perfectly, even a almost death can instantly be turned around because your opponent didnt quite manage to kill you with his attack when he ate that spear and you are left standing at the end. Course i hate all katanas by default because they have ridiculous ghost-range.

 

[Vrach]

For that alone i would Emit Force you to death. The fun of magic is, you still have to dodge, try blocking it? Try tanking it? Not a wise move, it keeps them vulnerable and if i get the timing just right, you come out of your role to get a spear straight in the face point-blank.

I don't just constantly roll to an opponent chucking spears, just when I see them casting it (the timing's pretty easy to roll right below a spear). And one guy tried Emit Force on me, didn't work out too well for him. Although I know how irritating Crap of the Gods was in DS, so I can imagine what you could technically do with that. On the other hand, in DS2, I figure it's quite similar to dual-dagger spam and I've gotten through that fine.

I don't spam running stab all the time btw (especially as it's parriable as balls), but I'll go for it if someone's constantly running away from me (typically to heal, even mages don't spend all their time running).

But yes, if you play a pure magic build..you are pretty much screwed, you need to be at least decent in melee, especially rolling because switching out to shield and then back for a block is dumb. Its why no caster-build ever runs without the best possible weapon i can get them

That's the added ridiculousness, there are plenty of just amazing weapons for casters that pretty much outclass most non-mage melee weapons due to scaling with Int/Fai. I kinda feel gimped playing with no magic (it's kinda crap that they've made Pyromancy scale as well, loved having the glove as an option in DS), especially as a pure Dex, it just feels like everything else is, build-wise, stronger by miles.

Course i hate all katanas by default because they have ridiculous ghost-range.

You must really hate Washing Pole then (I don't play with it much truth be told, don't like the weight)
But really, most weapons have ridiculous ghost ranges, it's just that if you're a caster running away, katanas with their signature running stab are personally one of your greatest enemies (although I've found lances just as bad there or rather, much, much worse). For a melee, anything with ridiculous horizontal swings is much worse (and the ghosting is as present as it is with katanas, just horizontally)

 

[iLikeHippos]

The invasion system is... Kind of pointless. If you want to invade others as a Black Phantom, you gain nothing from doing so, other than a small portion of copied souls from the host, and perhaps a hate-mail from Yours Truly. Not to mention that is is not balanced depending on your Soul Level, but rather your Soul Memory, and the peak stops at 12m+ SM, meaning you can get invaded, or invade, people with 100 more levels than yourself, turning the PvP into a Prank n' Spank.

You could always try and invade someone as a Blue Sentinel, but it can take ages, and you'll most likely find people who fight more desperate than a pack of cornered wolfs and with the strength of oxes. Not exactly your normal preying run. In fact, most of the time, YOU become the prey. Quite counter-intuitive.
Also, the cracked orbs are real expensive, and only made for people in NG++/+, so invading under any earlier time can be a very limited experience.

The only way to fairly invade others is through the Red Soapstone, which acts as a Summoning Sign, meaning it will only reach out to players in your cycle, and of those between 20+ or 20- of your level. You'll only be invading others who WANT you to invade them as well, which is a plus.
It's also the most fun, especially when you put it on the bridge outside Fire Keep. People like to make Arenas there with no rules, just honor and fair judgment . It's the most fun to PvP there imo.

We Blood Brothers invade to spill blood for Nahr Alma! No but seriously pvp is the point, asymmetric pvp to be precise. A humanity would be nice, sure, but really I do it for fun. As for levels, they only do so much and with the incredibly diminished gains at higher levels, a hundred levels does much less than you think. I stick to the level 135-150 range because thats when I feel like a build is properly finished, with pros and cons and options, but if people want boring builds that an do everything in the game I'll gladly rip them apart with my bare hands. If only for the look i imagine a lvl 700 Havel monster has on its face when I've danced around for ten minutes and punched it to death, so satisfying.

You're not exactly typing towards Mr. Unexperienced here; I'm quite aware of the stat decline after 50 and how you gain almost squat per point, but it can snowball quite intensively, where 99 in all stats will allow you to do literally ANY-thing without a single damn flaw, a hundred times better and more effective than any "scrub" at lvl 150 or 220 could dream to compare to with their builds. It's a massive up-hill battle against these people and are just not fun when they are spammed by what feels to be the a good chunk of the playerbase.

Also, you're not going to defeat a high lvl Havel with nothing but fists, since he is most likely using the latest cheap weaponry to take you out faster than you can say 'fuck', while all you're doing is dealing, at best I imagine, 50 dmg or so each hit, since he is also using Numbness and GMB. I must regrettably call bull, unless your enemy was not as high leveled as you thought; In which case, easy pickings I agree.

I love the souls series pvp and I've tried every facet of it in all three games, from darkwraith to blood brother to sentinel to dragon disciple. It's not counterintuitive when you invade someone's world and they best you, that's just life, sorry if the blood bro sinners give you a harder time than randoms. And by the way, you have to be over the 12 mil point to be invaded by max levelers, and it takes forever to accrue that many through pvp, I should know, I've gotten the same character to rank 3 in both the sentinels and blood brothers and I barely broke nine million. And that's with the ridiculous amount of killing you have to do in those covenants.

I've come to expect a harder time from facing sinners than randoms, but it can get really ridiculous at times, where a fight is drawn out to 9 minutes because your enemy is garbage and can't kill you, only whittle you down slowly but surely as they chug estus behind any wall they can run behind in time. Even if I land a LLoyd's, they can just run around until it wears off and then heal once more. It's not a huge deal, but these people tend to drag things out FAR MORE than it needs to. Most of the time, the victory is decided on whether I can parry them or not, and if it instantly kills them or not. If it fails, they can just run and heal and there's little I can do about it until they emerge again from their hiding place, making this less of a fight, than a sadistic merry-go-round event.


I'm not armed with any statistics, so I can't say for certain, but I like to believe the majority of players tend to like drifting between PvP and PvE, making you go towards the 12 mil roof quite rapidly if you are an intense player or like specializing with one character at a time.
There probably are quite a bunch of players who make characters specialized in lvl 150 that have as low SM as possible, but sooner or later you will gain a great deal of SM, and at that point, you'll get two options; reroll or level as high as you can. Any other action will cradle you in dust, figuratively speaking.

I see the word "fairness" bandied about quite a bit in these pvp discussions, and I hate it. I consider myself a fairly honorable player, I always try to bow, or do a character appropriate gesture before the fight begins. But fairness really has absolutely no place outside of the arena, and even then its meant to be fair in that both players can be as cheap with Estus as they want. If I've invaded you, I don't know where you are, if you have phantoms hiding in wait, how willing you are to run away and heal, and I have ten minutes to hunt you down and kill you or else I've wasted either a pvp victory or like ten k souls. I'm going to do my level best to kill you, whether you consider it fair or not. If I've decided that this character uses avelyns (unlikely, they're ugly and I can't find good armor to go with them) then I'm going to shoot you with them and get a good laugh out of the hatemail, with no nevermind given to what you think is cheap. I've hosted fight clubs and participated in some that lasted hours, I've seen builds both creative and unique, and I've seen copy pasted faith and hex/dex builds in the hundreds, at the end of the day we're all getting together to kill each other and have fun. But sometimes honorable fight clubs get stale, sometimes you want to invade and fight people who actually have something on the line, sometimes you just don't want to fight on the iron keep bridge for the seven hundredth time.

You have some real grievances, soul memory is dumb, sure, but its hardly the pvp ruiner you make it out to be, as for the rest, well, "fairness" rubs me the wrong way. It's already a game, there are already rules in place. If I'm invading and not hacking, (which I'm not, buncha dumb bullshit) I'm already playing fair. I can't speak for other pvp fanatics (speak up though) but anytime i hear "fair" in relation to basic mechanics or specifically weapons, i get annoyed.

Not to be rude or to put words in your mouth-- err, chatbox... whateveritis, I think if we switched the word "Fairness" to "Common Courtesy", it'd fill out the exact same statement that you're trying to make. Just because you can abuse the shit out of the game doesn't mean you should. I don't know how better I can explain this, but to have a sense of honor where most of us are just trying to have fun, and these little annoyances stands in the way of it.
Healing with estus, using overpowered gear and SL with SM, just serves to take away most of the fun and the competitive spirit, rather than enhance.

 

[cikame]

2 and a bit playthroughs and i've been invaded about 8 times, that's 84 hours according to Steam. I do have the region limited and live in the UK which may be less populated than where you live, but so far invasions have been a hectic diversion rather than something i ever worry about, i don't look for PvP.

 

[Azure23]

The invasion system is... Kind of pointless. If you want to invade others as a Black Phantom, you gain nothing from doing so, other than a small portion of copied souls from the host, and perhaps a hate-mail from Yours Truly. Not to mention that is is not balanced depending on your Soul Level, but rather your Soul Memory, and the peak stops at 12m+ SM, meaning you can get invaded, or invade, people with 100 more levels than yourself, turning the PvP into a Prank n' Spank.

You could always try and invade someone as a Blue Sentinel, but it can take ages, and you'll most likely find people who fight more desperate than a pack of cornered wolfs and with the strength of oxes. Not exactly your normal preying run. In fact, most of the time, YOU become the prey. Quite counter-intuitive.
Also, the cracked orbs are real expensive, and only made for people in NG++/+, so invading under any earlier time can be a very limited experience.

The only way to fairly invade others is through the Red Soapstone, which acts as a Summoning Sign, meaning it will only reach out to players in your cycle, and of those between 20+ or 20- of your level. You'll only be invading others who WANT you to invade them as well, which is a plus.
It's also the most fun, especially when you put it on the bridge outside Fire Keep. People like to make Arenas there with no rules, just honor and fair judgment . It's the most fun to PvP there imo.

We Blood Brothers invade to spill blood for Nahr Alma! No but seriously pvp is the point, asymmetric pvp to be precise. A humanity would be nice, sure, but really I do it for fun. As for levels, they only do so much and with the incredibly diminished gains at higher levels, a hundred levels does much less than you think. I stick to the level 135-150 range because thats when I feel like a build is properly finished, with pros and cons and options, but if people want boring builds that an do everything in the game I'll gladly rip them apart with my bare hands. If only for the look i imagine a lvl 700 Havel monster has on its face when I've danced around for ten minutes and punched it to death, so satisfying.

You're not exactly typing towards Mr. Unexperienced here; I'm quite aware of the stat decline after 50 and how you gain almost squat per point, but it can snowball quite intensively, where 99 in all stats will allow you to do literally ANY-thing without a single damn flaw, a hundred times better and more effective than any "scrub" at lvl 150 or 220 could dream to compare to with their builds. It's a massive up-hill battle against these people and are just not fun when they are spammed by what feels to be the a good chunk of the playerbase.

Also, you're not going to defeat a high lvl Havel with nothing but fists, since he is most likely using the latest cheap weaponry to take you out faster than you can say 'fuck', while all you're doing is dealing, at best I imagine, 50 dmg or so each hit, since he is also using Numbness and GMB. I must regrettably call bull, unless your enemy was not as high leveled as you thought; In which case, easy pickings I agree.

I love the souls series pvp and I've tried every facet of it in all three games, from darkwraith to blood brother to sentinel to dragon disciple. It's not counterintuitive when you invade someone's world and they best you, that's just life, sorry if the blood bro sinners give you a harder time than randoms. And by the way, you have to be over the 12 mil point to be invaded by max levelers, and it takes forever to accrue that many through pvp, I should know, I've gotten the same character to rank 3 in both the sentinels and blood brothers and I barely broke nine million. And that's with the ridiculous amount of killing you have to do in those covenants.

I've come to expect a harder time from facing sinners than randoms, but it can get really ridiculous at times, where a fight is drawn out to 9 minutes because your enemy is garbage and can't kill you, only whittle you down slowly but surely as they chug estus behind any wall they can run behind in time. Even if I land a LLoyd's, they can just run around until it wears off and then heal once more. It's not a huge deal, but these people tend to drag things out FAR MORE than it needs to. Most of the time, the victory is decided on whether I can parry them or not, and if it instantly kills them or not. If it fails, they can just run and heal and there's little I can do about it until they emerge again from their hiding place, making this less of a fight, than a sadistic merry-go-round event.


I'm not armed with any statistics, so I can't say for certain, but I like to believe the majority of players tend to like drifting between PvP and PvE, making you go towards the 12 mil roof quite rapidly if you are an intense player or like specializing with one character at a time.
There probably are quite a bunch of players who make characters specialized in lvl 150 that have as low SM as possible, but sooner or later you will gain a great deal of SM, and at that point, you'll get two options; reroll or level as high as you can. Any other action will cradle you in dust, figuratively speaking.

I see the word "fairness" bandied about quite a bit in these pvp discussions, and I hate it. I consider myself a fairly honorable player, I always try to bow, or do a character appropriate gesture before the fight begins. But fairness really has absolutely no place outside of the arena, and even then its meant to be fair in that both players can be as cheap with Estus as they want. If I've invaded you, I don't know where you are, if you have phantoms hiding in wait, how willing you are to run away and heal, and I have ten minutes to hunt you down and kill you or else I've wasted either a pvp victory or like ten k souls. I'm going to do my level best to kill you, whether you consider it fair or not. If I've decided that this character uses avelyns (unlikely, they're ugly and I can't find good armor to go with them) then I'm going to shoot you with them and get a good laugh out of the hatemail, with no nevermind given to what you think is cheap. I've hosted fight clubs and participated in some that lasted hours, I've seen builds both creative and unique, and I've seen copy pasted faith and hex/dex builds in the hundreds, at the end of the day we're all getting together to kill each other and have fun. But sometimes honorable fight clubs get stale, sometimes you want to invade and fight people who actually have something on the line, sometimes you just don't want to fight on the iron keep bridge for the seven hundredth time.

You have some real grievances, soul memory is dumb, sure, but its hardly the pvp ruiner you make it out to be, as for the rest, well, "fairness" rubs me the wrong way. It's already a game, there are already rules in place. If I'm invading and not hacking, (which I'm not, buncha dumb bullshit) I'm already playing fair. I can't speak for other pvp fanatics (speak up though) but anytime i hear "fair" in relation to basic mechanics or specifically weapons, i get annoyed.

Not to be rude or to put words in your mouth-- err, chatbox... whateveritis, I think if we switched the word "Fairness" to "Common Courtesy", it'd fill out the exact same statement that you're trying to make. Just because you can abuse the shit out of the game doesn't mean you should. I don't know how better I can explain this, but to have a sense of honor where most of us are just trying to have fun, and these little annoyances stands in the way of it.
Healing with estus, using overpowered gear and SL with SM, just serves to take away most of the fun and the competitive spirit, rather than enhance.

Sorry, I should clarify; I have a couple unarmed pvp build that use the ring of blades+2, the stone ring, and the vanquishers seal. At 40 str I get around 375 AR on each hand and they do 25 poise damage per hit. With 40 stamina I can stunlock a Havel monster for a bit. Gmb doesn't do anything against my pure physical damage build, also I don't think I've ever seen anyone use numbness in pvp, but even if they did, it lasts like twenty seconds. I should also mention that every one of those cheap weapons has an easy counter, that are pretty easy to utilize. You can roll forward through all six dual avelyn shots with adp of 30, Santiers spear R1 is ridiculously easy to parry with even a bare fist. I used to see that shit all the time pre patch, you learn the counters and the cheap weaponry of the day can't do shit.

I should also address that "fairness" thing. I didn't mean to imply that Havelyns or whatever were in any way balanced. I don't use Havels, because I think its ugly and fashion souls is the most important thing in the end, I do have a hex dex over character though, and a faith character. You see, I think the word "fair" is disingenuous here. Fair is playing by the rules of the game as laid out by the devs. Common courtesy is a much more applicable term here, glad you brought it up. I mean I've put together fight clubs and guess what the fight rules were? No Havels, no avelyns. I just don't expect everybody to follow my rules outside of a tournement that I organized. Sure, I'd love it if the community as a whole self regulated on these issues, and was courteous, as you say, but I just don't see it happening. Certainly I believe I'm a courteous player, I do my best to make fun builds that will stand out (my favorite is the unarmed build up there, but with the red eye ring, vengarls helm, red lion cape, engraved gauntlets, and executioners leggings, just looks so cool).

Here's what I believe, that the recent nerf to aveylns was needed, that making buffs dependent on a stat was ingenious because buffs should exist to give casters a fighting chance, they shouldn't make casters better at melee than dedicated melee builds, that havels could use a phys def nerf. I also believe that the scrubs using Havelyns aren't being unfair, rude and annoying and unoriginal, but not unfair. They're scrubs, no matter the game some people are gonna take the path of least resistance, and if they want to press L1 and win all day thats their business. I know they know it's boring, I also know I'm having more fun than them. And at the end of the day everyone knows those builds are boring, playing just to win is boring, the pvp won't become homogenized because the majority of players won't use those easy, dull tactics, especially as devs respond to the community feedback, the recent Avelyn nerf is proof of this.

Also yes I am one of those people that steamroll the pve as quickly and with as low sm as i can to get my pvp build ready, you got me. I like a nice long period where I can fight normal players before having to reroll once I hit the threshold, because you are right, fighting max level toons is annoying, and I don't want to go to max level.

 

[Azure23]

The invasion system is... Kind of pointless. If you want to invade others as a Black Phantom, you gain nothing from doing so, other than a small portion of copied souls from the host, and perhaps a hate-mail from Yours Truly. Not to mention that is is not balanced depending on your Soul Level, but rather your Soul Memory, and the peak stops at 12m+ SM, meaning you can get invaded, or invade, people with 100 more levels than yourself, turning the PvP into a Prank n' Spank.

You could always try and invade someone as a Blue Sentinel, but it can take ages, and you'll most likely find people who fight more desperate than a pack of cornered wolfs and with the strength of oxes. Not exactly your normal preying run. In fact, most of the time, YOU become the prey. Quite counter-intuitive.
Also, the cracked orbs are real expensive, and only made for people in NG++/+, so invading under any earlier time can be a very limited experience.

The only way to fairly invade others is through the Red Soapstone, which acts as a Summoning Sign, meaning it will only reach out to players in your cycle, and of those between 20+ or 20- of your level. You'll only be invading others who WANT you to invade them as well, which is a plus.
It's also the most fun, especially when you put it on the bridge outside Fire Keep. People like to make Arenas there with no rules, just honor and fair judgment . It's the most fun to PvP there imo.

We Blood Brothers invade to spill blood for Nahr Alma! No but seriously pvp is the point, asymmetric pvp to be precise. A humanity would be nice, sure, but really I do it for fun. As for levels, they only do so much and with the incredibly diminished gains at higher levels, a hundred levels does much less than you think. I stick to the level 135-150 range because thats when I feel like a build is properly finished, with pros and cons and options, but if people want boring builds that an do everything in the game I'll gladly rip them apart with my bare hands. If only for the look i imagine a lvl 700 Havel monster has on its face when I've danced around for ten minutes and punched it to death, so satisfying.

I love the souls series pvp and I've tried every facet of it in all three games, from darkwraith to blood brother to sentinel to dragon disciple. It's not counterintuitive when you invade someone's world and they best you, that's just life, sorry if the blood bro sinners give you a harder time than randoms. And by the way, you have to be over the 12 mil point to be invaded by max levelers, and it takes forever to accrue that many through pvp, I should know, I've gotten the same character to rank 3 in both the sentinels and blood brothers and I barely broke nine million. And that's with the ridiculous amount of killing you have to do in those covenants.

I see the word "fairness" bandied about quite a bit in these pvp discussions, and I hate it. I consider myself a fairly honorable player, I always try to bow, or do a character appropriate gesture before the fight begins. But fairness really has absolutely no place outside of the arena, and even then its meant to be fair in that both players can be as cheap with Estus as they want. If I've invaded you, I don't know where you are, if you have phantoms hiding in wait, how willing you are to run away and heal, and I have ten minutes to hunt you down and kill you or else I've wasted either a pvp victory or like ten k souls. I'm going to do my level best to kill you, whether you consider it fair or not. If I've decided that this character uses avelyns (unlikely, they're ugly and I can't find good armor to go with them) then I'm going to shoot you with them and get a good laugh out of the hatemail, with no nevermind given to what you think is cheap. I've hosted fight clubs and participated in some that lasted hours, I've seen builds both creative and unique, and I've seen copy pasted faith and hex/dex builds in the hundreds, at the end of the day we're all getting together to kill each other and have fun. But sometimes honorable fight clubs get stale, sometimes you want to invade and fight people who actually have something on the line, sometimes you just don't want to fight on the iron keep bridge for the seven hundredth time.

You have some real grievances, soul memory is dumb, sure, but its hardly the pvp ruiner you make it out to be, as for the rest, well, "fairness" rubs me the wrong way. It's already a game, there are already rules in place. If I'm invading and not hacking, (which I'm not, buncha dumb bullshit) I'm already playing fair. I can't speak for other pvp fanatics (speak up though) but anytime i hear "fair" in relation to basic mechanics or specifically weapons, i get annoyed.

Without "Fairness" what do you get from your wins? If there are no rules to keep it balanced why bother. What I really read in your post is that you enjoy ganking on PVE players and they should shut up about it already.

p.s. how do you "try" to bow. I bow. If I die in the process so be it. I also bow at the end. No "character appropriate" gestures here. Well, except if you spammed estus on me I might shake my finger. But I usually die first because I just sigh and put the controller aside.

Did you actually read my post? Because i don't really see how that's what you could have gotten out of what I said.

I get different things out of every win. I if wipe a gank squad (most people with phantoms in the pvp hotspots at lvl140 aren't doing pve smart guy) i get a sense of accomplishment at having killed two or three players without healing (pure physical build, no warmth). If I chase a player down and kill him while doing pve, I might feel a little bad, but I don't want to waste the orb and I never, once again, never jump in and attack with the enemies (unless I'm outnumbered in which case honor flies out the window as its no longer a duel). If I fight a duel, win or lose, I'm going to have fun, because a good duel is its own reward. For me pvp is the endgame, the thing that I collected all those souls and items for. What I was trying to say in my post (that you misinterpreted so heroically) is that the devs are the ones who determine what is fair and what isn't, like how the buffed mgs was op, so they nerfed it, same with avelyn, same with havels. Sure, we as the community have a voice, thats partly why those nerfs happened, but hearing at voice ***** and moan all the goddamn time about faith + dex being cheap? Fucking annoying. Learn the counters, infuse your shields and be ready to switch them as the opponent dictates, get some adp.

I'm not a "PvE ganker" whatever that is, I don't summon for PvE because the majority of my characters are in the covenant of champions, so I can't summon. And when I said "try" I meant that I'm human, sometimes I forget, sometimes two players are waiting at the spawn point and start swinging immediately. As for character appropriate gestures, I meant I have a fencer who uses ricards and an off hand regular scimitar who uses the duel bow, I have a fanatical fist fighter who does a war cry before and after every fight, my grim reaper build does decapitate, stuff like that.

 

[joest01]

Not sure what your point is, but have fun "hunting down" players in pvp hot spots. Lol.

 

[iLikeHippos]

Sorry, I should clarify; I have a couple unarmed pvp build that use the ring of blades+2, the stone ring, and the vanquishers seal. At 40 str I get around 375 AR on each hand and they do 25 poise damage per hit. With 40 stamina I can stunlock a Havel monster for a bit. Gmb doesn't do anything against my pure physical damage build, also I don't think I've ever seen anyone use numbness in pvp, but even if they did, it lasts like twenty seconds. I should also mention that every one of those cheap weapons has an easy counter, that are pretty easy to utilize. You can roll forward through all six dual avelyn shots with adp of 30, Santiers spear R1 is ridiculously easy to parry with even a bare fist. I used to see that shit all the time pre patch, you learn the counters and the cheap weaponry of the day can't do shit.

I should also address that "fairness" thing. I didn't mean to imply that Havelyns or whatever were in any way balanced. I don't use Havels, because I think its ugly and fashion souls is the most important thing in the end, I do have a hex dex over character though, and a faith character. You see, I think the word "fair" is disingenuous here. Fair is playing by the rules of the game as laid out by the devs. Common courtesy is a much more applicable term here, glad you brought it up. I mean I've put together fight clubs and guess what the fight rules were? No Havels, no avelyns. I just don't expect everybody to follow my rules outside of a tournement that I organized. Sure, I'd love it if the community as a whole self regulated on these issues, and was courteous, as you say, but I just don't see it happening. Certainly I believe I'm a courteous player, I do my best to make fun builds that will stand out (my favorite is the unarmed build up there, but with the red eye ring, vengarls helm, red lion cape, engraved gauntlets, and executioners leggings, just looks so cool).

Here's what I believe, that the recent nerf to aveylns was needed, that making buffs dependent on a stat was ingenious because buffs should exist to give casters a fighting chance, they shouldn't make casters better at melee than dedicated melee builds, that havels could use a phys def nerf. I also believe that the scrubs using Havelyns aren't being unfair, rude and annoying and unoriginal, but not unfair. They're scrubs, no matter the game some people are gonna take the path of least resistance, and if they want to press L1 and win all day thats their business. I know they know it's boring, I also know I'm having more fun than them. And at the end of the day everyone knows those builds are boring, playing just to win is boring, the pvp won't become homogenized because the majority of players won't use those easy, dull tactics, especially as devs respond to the community feedback, the recent Avelyn nerf is proof of this.

Also yes I am one of those people that steamroll the pve as quickly and with as low sm as i can to get my pvp build ready, you got me. I like a nice long period where I can fight normal players before having to reroll once I hit the threshold, because you are right, fighting max level toons is annoying, and I don't want to go to max level.

Actually, I anticipated that you would have those items on you with barefists. That's why I said 50 damage at best - without them, you'd do 1-2 damage or perhaps less.
The ultra-defence players with Mastodon Halberds and Helix Halberds are on the rise. Be wary my friend, for they are tougher than any boss in the game if you fail to parry them.

 

[SGT_Noobnuts]

This is especially weird since I died a significant number of times in Dark Souls 2 and during my entire play through I was never, repeat NEVER invaded by a red phantom at any point in the game.

The only occasions that I was ever invaded was when I was going through the Bell Towers, and even then It was because I wanted to fight other people.

 

[Souplex]

If you are being invaded too often, join the Way Of Blue. We Sentinels will protect you.

Unless, of course, you are a sinner. In which case we will fuck you up. Or at least attempt to.

Im on NG+ and not getting invaded that often. Where are you?

I have never been able to counter-invade in Way O' Blue.
How the hell did you mange it?
My main problem with the PvP is the same one as OG Dark Souls:
Lagstabs.
When the game calculates if a backstab will happen, it calculates from the stabbers game, not the stabee's game. That means if I lag slightly and it looks like I'm not moving to the other guy, he's free to backstab me, and suddenly I'm backstabbed even if I was facing the dude and blocking.

 

[AntiChri5]

If you are being invaded too often, join the Way Of Blue. We Sentinels will protect you.

Unless, of course, you are a sinner. In which case we will fuck you up. Or at least attempt to.

Im on NG+ and not getting invaded that often. Where are you?

I have never been able to counter-invade in Way O' Blue.
How the hell did you mange it?
My main problem with the PvP is the same one as OG Dark Souls:
Lagstabs.
When the game calculates if a backstab will happen, it calculates from the stabbers game, not the stabee's game. That means if I lag slightly and it looks like I'm not moving to the other guy, he's free to backstab me, and suddenly I'm backstabbed even if I was facing the dude and blocking.

Just wait around in a PvP heavy area while human and wearing the ring.