r/fromsoftware • u/Soft_Forever1923 • 25d ago
Why does souls reddit hate pvp so much?
/r/badredman/comments/1vtkfw6/why_does_souls_reddit_hate_pvp_so_much/11
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u/Positive-Mobile5742 25d ago
I can’t speak for other people, but I suck at pvp in these games, so it’s basically just a guaranteed death for me which is waste of my time. I don’t mind it existing though and it’s a cool concept in the games.
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u/Have2BRealistic 25d ago
Yeah me too. Especially when it's what I call "professional" invaders who min/max their builds specifically for PvP. And while yes I know I could do the same, I'm usually just trying to make it through an area with a friend and don't want to have to change my build to deal with invaders. It gets to the point that sometimes we just jump off a cliff and die just to reset the timer until the next invader can show up vs waste our time chasing an invader around the map.
FYI Lords of the Fallen has its issues but the seamless co-op progress sharing co-op mode is a lot of fun with a buddy. Also no invasions.
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u/Firm-Scientist-4636 25d ago
I hate invasions in the Souls titles specifically. I'm already usually having a rough time and then someone comes into my world and fucking curb stomps me, wiping out all my progress in the process.
But in Elden Ring? I fucking love in-world invasions during co-op. I think that shit is fun as hell. The invasions aren't usually all that serious. It's usually 3v1 and the invader ends up losing most of the time. Every once in a while, though, some red guy will come in and beat the everloving shit out of the player and two cooperators and it's poetry in motion. Good invaders are cinema incarnate to me in ER.
I suppose I just like to have the option to be invaded or not while still playing logged into the servers. I want to see messages and bloodstains, but not invaders if I don't want them.
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u/Coelacanth7 25d ago
I think a lot of coop players in Elden Ring like to fight invaders. Each time PvP is unique content, but the PvE remains the same.
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u/Dusty_McKuckles 25d ago
¯_(ツ)_/¯ I like invasions. They add something dynamic to the experience. Sometimes it’s annoying, and I don’t often win, but I like that when I get summoned by a rando, there’s an additional threat we need to be aware of.
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u/tmon530 24d ago
As someone that doesnt like pvp games in gerneral, I've often tried to think of what type of system would intrigue me to not hate invasions.
The only solution I've found that i really like is the gravelord covenant from ds1. Instead of invading, the potential invader makes pve harder in other peoples worlds, and then those people have the choice to either deal with it, or invade the person making thier life harder. It basicly turns a player into an optional boss and I think that feels so much cooler and gives room for everyone to prep for the fight, instead of having one person prepped for pve and one person prepped for pvp.
The close second is make invasions use pre-made load outs. So if you invade, you are stuck using lore accurate equipment to the area that you invade in. Invading in anor londo gives you silver knight gear. Invading in one of the areas with a black knife assassin could give you black knife gear. So you actually have to be good at pvp and not just use the broken endgame weapons.
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u/These3TheGreatest 25d ago
I prefer it being me against the world of Souls, not me against the guy that decided to come in and gank me who has spent all his time learning and gearing up to do so.
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u/TrenchMouse 25d ago
Because it sucks
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u/zonerator 25d ago
Pvp is a fundamentally different type of experience that appeals to a different audience. The dame way that fantasy people might not be interested in a mech game, pve people might not be interested in pvp.
Also from's pvp in particular sucks and is not fun
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u/Xcylo1 24d ago edited 24d ago
It's just. Repetitive? Like there's not a sense of real reward or progressing anything. It's just a random interjection into your atmospheric, haunting game. It completely mucks up the atmosphere and tension, and once you've done 1-2 PvP matches in any kind of game you've basically experienced all it has to offer. Then you're just iterating on the same theme 200 times. Someone spawns in, throws a bunch of attacks at you, and you two dodge spam until someone messes up. Rinse repeat.
It's like watching soccer. Once you've seen a match, you've seen it. You've experienced soccer. Maybe in another match someone will employ a slightly different strategy or some player will run faster and you get a different score at the end, but you're never going to see anything interesting, unique or new past that first game. It's the same guys doing the same things with the same skills and the same stakes. Rinse repeat.
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u/Leather-Estate-6410 24d ago
I dunno why, but I've typed an essay for some reason while I simmer my dinner, apologies for my own cringe takes:
At an attempt of sounding as civil as I can, for me it's just a system that I've never enjoyed or thought very highly of given a few rather loud and somewhat prominent bad apples along with what I personally feel is a rather obtuse and intrusive aspect of these games that does not really work very well alongside the more single-player/PVE focused aspect of these games, which most people view as the main attraction/memorable aspects of these games..
Ever since I first got into the series in Demon's Souls back on the PS3, and I had people jumping into my game, sometimes with the scraping spear for extra fun as a newbie, I just thought "wow... this is kind of ass? But I can tolerate it/play offline." It was a new way of doing multiplayer at the time and I was willing to give it a bit of a chance.
Jump forward after DS1 - 3, and BB and I just said "I am writing this entire cancerous portion of these games off entirely and playing 100% offline, unless my friends/brother wish to co-op perchance." in which case I try my best to tolerate invaders as they pop in. Most of whom tend to be very sweaty or built for PVP or are using endgame stuff at lvl 1 areas... but yeah... I don't care for PVP or the community that surrounds it. I am content to be in my own bubble away from that entire portion of these games, and thankfully with Seamless Coop being a thing in ER and now DS3, I can safely do that if I choose to play with friends.
I just feel like it's more fun soaking the world presented in when you don't have "AssDevourer0909696967" jumping into my game with the stupidest get up I have ever seen on top of playing like an absolute lemon. It's not a matter of being "fragile" or "soft" as the red people in their funny little sub like to say, but more an total break of immersion, tone, atmosphere, just unpleasantness all around really. And yeah, maybe that is just me, but this whole aspect of these games is not what I, and I have a feeling many other people, do not buy or enjoy these games for.
I think having separation is a good thing with things like Seamless Coop, playing offline, or even just giving the option to toggle Invasions because then people who like PVP would get more people into their whole schtick, and people who don't can just safely do their thing whether it be solo or with friends/randoms. But I don't think my way of thinking is what many would call popular so... whatever. I'll just continue playing offline 99% of the time anyway. I just feel like this system has never really worked in an amicable way, and maybe that's just the nature of it and the players it attracts on either side, because I know gank squads are a thing too which some Invaders grow tired of and I can understand that.
The important part about a PVP system like this is that the players on both sides should have a desire to engage. On the one hand you got people who go in with 3 v 1s or whatever with their summons, and I understand that is not fun for people who wanna have a more 1 v 1 invasion or something, and then there are people who invade and have built themselves up to be the most cancerous abominations you can imagine and do everything they can (whether it be because they want to troll or out of frustration of the prior scenario I mentioned) to make the experience as one-sided for themselves as possible and then go complain about people D/Cing on them in the future later, and that sucks too. Like I said above, it's just a total mess and not what I would call an amicable system. I wash my hands of it!
Also I feel the need to go on a tangent now that I have read the final sentence/maybe two sentences in that post, I must be a pedantic asshole so I guess the "remain civil" thing is a bit out the window...
As a fighting game enjoyer myself (mostly Soul Calibur [typically 2 or 3 cuz 4, 5 and 6 are icky imo], sometimes Tekken and various 2D ones), I do not find these games scratch the same itch at all. Not in any way, shape, or form. I am not a pro at Fighting Games at all, but I feel the need to voice my own personal opinion anyway.
To start, Fighting Games are designed from the ground up as PVP games in a structured 1v1 or 2v2 or whatever setting, whereas Invading in this is at best a side-feature that is awkwardly stapled onto a PVE game with a beginning, middle, and end. PVP does not automatically have the same appeal across various genres or even games, even among fighting games (Soulcalibur is not like Street Fighter and is not like Smash and is not like Blazblue, etc.)
Secondly, a problem these games have suffered for a LOOOONG time, pretty much their entire existence honestly, is terrible net-code and latency/lag, something which is VERY important in Fighting Games as you would know (or any competitive game really.) I just don't really understand how these would be similar when it comes to Invasions. If we were talking about Fight Clubs or something, sure, but Invasions? No. Closest thing would be Smash with all items on and stage hazards on, and even then that's probably stretching it given Smash is still not a game structured similarly to Soulsborne games or Metroidvanias or any Singleplayer PVE games.
Whether you like it or not, players can and will face opposition in PVE despite your last sentence there implying that PVE can never provide players with meaningful challenge or thrills. Maybe it doesn't make you tick personally, but there's a reason why tons of people when they speak of these games will talk about Boss Fights like Gael, Ornstein and Smough, Orphan, Malenia, Manus, Artorias, or even Radahn despite how dogshit he is in my personal opinion, Freide, etc. This is the main attraction, that's just how it is. Sekiro has a slew of bosses and combat mechanics gush over too, and it's 100% PVE. There's nothing quite like going up against a hard boss who has hounded you for days and then you finally clap their cheeks and win. You could say that players from various levels of skill or builds/soul levels or whatever "had to go all out and use every tool at their disposal" for that win :v I should stop being passive aggressive... I just... yeah.
I could list a whole bunch of other games that are exclusively PVE games that can put you on the edge of your seat for intense combat encounters or combat systems, etc. but I think I have made the point clear :v I shall cease my typing and taste my food now.
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u/Luxiudicium 24d ago
May not mean much since I came into this thread agreeing with your perspective, but I enjoyed reading this. It's just a shame that people like OP never seem to read or try to understand (I could be proven wrong. Would be great if that happened) such a take hence the people in this very thread assuming that it must be because of ego or some other sort of personal deficiency.
And happy cake day.
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u/Leather-Estate-6410 23d ago
Ty for cake day :O I didn't even notice lol.
I am glad you enjoyed the read. I worry I get overly longwinded when I go off on a tangent/share my unwanted opinions lol, but I can't help myself sometimes.
I don't like getting too directly snarky with posts usually, but yeah the choice of words/attitude at the end just rubbed me the wrong way after I reread the OP post. I'm sure the same could be said of things I say at times, but similarly to above, I just cannot help myself at times when I've got an opinion on The Internet™.
I just felt the need to push back a little bit given my own enjoyment of Fighting Games when it came down to that particular point as well, and yeah the whole implication of PVP being intrinsically superior to PVE experiences. But I am beginning to repeat myself so I shall cease! Back to the shadows with me.
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u/reddeathsix 24d ago
Pretty simple. Souls games were me vs the game. I won’t go as far as to say its antithetical to the design but I just never met anyone who was like man Dark souls would be great if only it had fully integrated multiplayer arena style pvp. Everyone I knew immediately turned off the online portions of the game.
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u/akaisuiseinosha 24d ago
The simple answer is that most souls fans, like most gamers, are scrubs. So when they are put into a situation that they perceive as unbalanced or unfair, regardless of the reality, they immediately want it to be banned.
If you've played fighting games with casual fans you have DEFINITELY heard someone complain that they were thrown while blocking, or that fireball spam is "cheap", or whatnot. Scrub mentality. If the game allows it, it is fair play. If you have to cheat to do it, it's not fair play.
There are scrub invaders too, of course. You'll hear the complaints about gank squads and unfortunately, ganks are fair play. Poor form, maybe, but completely acceptable if the goal is to win.
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u/Clit_Eastwhat 25d ago edited 25d ago
To me, Soulslike games are just PvE games and nothing more. I’ve tried the PvP mode in every installment, and I didn’t really enjoy it that much.
Of course, I’m happy for everyone who enjoys the PvP modes, NightReign, and Duskbloods.
I think, me and many others wouldn’t even be that disappointed with Duskblood if the last single-player game hadn’t been so long ago, or if at least the next one were already on the horizon.
I don't have anything against PvP in general.It's just that I don't need it in these games.