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John Murdoch
May 19, 2009

I can tune a fish.
I feel like I exist in an uneasy middle ground where I don't have a single absolute stance on invasions. Generally speaking, I am staunchly against PVP and I actively avoid multiplayer games like the plague. But over time across all three DS games and ER, my feelings have been tempered somewhat.

For me it tends to come down to a few basic things. One, some days I just flatout don't want to have to deal with invaders, regardless and independent of co-op. I have no specific answer to how a "I'm having a rough day could you please just gently caress off" toggle could or should be achieved, though DS2 had some ideas about it.

Two, if I am going to be engaging with PVP I want it to be relatively fair and not have my time wasted. Every time I've been invaded by someone of relatively comparable skill, it's been a fun little joust and then win or lose I move on without feeling like it was a huge imposition. Every time it's, say, a lagstabbing giant dad in DS1, I feel like alt+F4ing because there's no joy in it whatsoever. I'm just grist for someone else's mill. Balance issues obviously exacerbate this. The earlier you go in the games, the more map design and other quirks also make it worse. The sense of losing progress to an invader was way sharper in the early games compared to now. Each game also reinvents the wheel when it comes to what you need to pay to enter online, how easily you can regain it, or what you actually lose, or w/e.

Finally, three, I want it to be more interesting or have some kind of structure. DS3's post-Pontiff fight zone is actually probably my least favorite setup they ever did for PVP because it's just a big open territory where you will be ganked pretty much no matter what. Forest invasions in DS1 were more interesting to me because you could choose to join the covenant to get them off your back. And Bell Keepers benefited a ton from being sequestered to tiny basically-just-PVP-arenas placed within the game world. And I absolutely loved defending the church in DS3 because they fully committed to the player-as-boss gimmick. Where it's most relevant to ER is that the open world is godawful for invading and all of the fun wacky stuff that I like on the rare times I invade like using enemies to my advantage basically disappear. I like the idea of making invasions turned on for dungeons because it would give them a bit of an risk/reward edge of always having guaranteed good loot but making you vulnerable to fuckery. I wouldn't necessarily just slap that on top of ER as it is now, but as a concept it has legs. Beyond that, functional and viable blue cops would help a lot as well. Or, y'know, covenants in general.

Beyond those three preferences, I think I have two critical issues with From's approach to PVP:

1) The hard dichotomy between PVE and PVP. As in, your average player never actually learns how to PVP because it's basically an entire separate game from the PVE side. PVE runs on completely different assumptions and for as much as it can be challenging it's also a highly asymmetrical power fantasy. I think a big reason why invasions make a bad first impression is that reds blindside newbies who are still adjusting to PVE and have zero experience with PVP. NPC invasions might theoretically help bridge this gap but like a lot of things From's approach to them has been all over the place, with ER standing out for how hyper-aggressive and overtuned a lot of the invaders are. (My last playthrough, I had more trouble with Vyke than with most actual bosses.) And thanks to ER's multiplayer changes, those 1v1 NPCs don't actually resemble the 2v1 format of invasions anymore anyway, oops. Plus, even if you did get players more comfortable with fighting more symmetrical enemies, a lot of that will still fly out the window if the netcode is garbage. One small bit of praise is that at least ER finally made invading NPCs a thing again; it's still not ultra commonplace but at least it's not just a one-off gimmick anymore.

2) Population fluctuation. The single biggest weakness to any kind of complex, grandiose online ecosystem is that it will inevitably break down once the player population thins. That's sort of an upswing to ER's really awkwardly cut down PVP stuff, that when people have moved on to ER2 or whatever it's not like it'll massively impact anything. Meanwhile, looking at DS1 for instance, so much of that game seems to be a house of cards built on the notion that there will always be a healthy population to co-op, invade, blue cop, etc. (Or god forbid you need covenant drops in DS3.) Any solution that expands and deepens online stuff needs to also address what happens when, say, nobody feels like logging on in the vain attempt to blue cop anymore. Or whatever other wrinkle is being used to counterbalance everything just right.

Previous games also repelled new players by making interacting with online a needlessly fussy, clunky, risky, or outright punitive process, which made a lot of the intricately balanced systems self-defeating. You can't both make online hostile and unforgiving to new players and maintain a healthy population, as basically every other online game ever can attest to. Though admittedly this is mostly water under the bridge because ER basically removed all of that cruft and made co-op the most accessible and easy to do as it's ever been (and props to DS3 for making covenants super simple to mess around with, certain issues notwithstanding). Ultimately I feel like it still being attached at the hip to invasions is some weird vestigial leftover from them slashing away everything else from DS3, where the matchmaking already prioritized invaders towards co-op players, rather than any deeply considered necessity.

John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 03:56 on Jan 19, 2024

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Bobby Deluxe
May 9, 2004

Question. I have a +16 Uchigatana. I used the Sacred blade ash of war to make it holy.

Does the sacred blade buff stack extra holy damage on top of the holy scaling, or not? Is it better to go keen and just keep buffing? I have 27 dex and 18 faith if this helps.

explosivo
May 23, 2004

Fueled by Satan

We finally broke into Leyndell today and I got the Long Horn on my first kill, lol. The Bubble Shower seems kinda weak at 40 Faith but I guess I haven't upgraded it yet? Also I haven't tried it on a boss which seems like maybe where it actually shines?

John Murdoch
May 19, 2009

I can tune a fish.
Oh, and I liked the idea of indictments on paper, but again in practice they didn't really work. Beyond the obvious and glaring problem of a lack of blue cops rendering them pointless (with even becoming a blue cop being an obtuse secret like most of the other covenants were), the victim doing the indicting just has to take on blind faith that their invader will somehow be punished down the line. Except siccing more players onto them is equally likely to be a reward; blue cops just a new source of people to clown on. This is how people have been using Gravelording during Return to Lordran - no hiding, no cat and mouse, just a big glowing invitation to come get reverse ganked.

I think what it really comes down to is that From could stand to explore *some kind* of skill-based matchmaking. Certainly doesn't need to be a super strict, codified MMR ladder like this is some esports poo poo, but maybe if you blitz down several other players in quick succession you get temporarily bumped up to a special matchmaking tier with other players that are also on a hotstreak. Or that can be what triggers extra blue cop invasions automatically. Idk.

I can't see any real downsides in finding ways to nudge the super sweaty tryhard career PVPers towards their own fellows and away from clueless newbies more often. Ultimately I agree with the folks who were saying there's a problem within the playerbase with wolves wanting a buffet of sheep and it's something other games struggle with as well. I don't think it's as bad as it can seem, but I will say that if there's one aspect of the PVP I have no interest in whatsoever it is that hardcore, win at any cost meta PVP, lol point down poo poo. Keep 'em away from me somehow and most of my, and I suspect most other folks', distaste for invasions would evaporate.

Something I inevitably think about w/r/t invaders is how one night I was bored and watching random DS3 streams. A streamer had clearly invaded two casuals just trying to do some co-op and when they started awkwardly flailing around trying to fight back, the streamer sneered that they weren't PVPing correctly, whatever that means. :rolleyes:

Epic High Five
Jun 5, 2004



Bobby Deluxe posted:

Question. I have a +16 Uchigatana. I used the Sacred blade ash of war to make it holy.

Does the sacred blade buff stack extra holy damage on top of the holy scaling, or not? Is it better to go keen and just keep buffing? I have 27 dex and 18 faith if this helps.

Yep, it's something like +90 damage per attack or something, it's really good for a long time

If you make it Sacred but don't have much faith the damage will suffer compared to making it keen with a whetblade, but that's mostly a bigger deal when you're hitting the softcaps

explosivo posted:

We finally broke into Leyndell today and I got the Long Horn on my first kill, lol. The Bubble Shower seems kinda weak at 40 Faith but I guess I haven't upgraded it yet? Also I haven't tried it on a boss which seems like maybe where it actually shines?

Damage scales a lot with weapon upgrade level, but at base faith to hold it it will still shred, the bigger the enemy the better but it's no slouch against anything. With high faith and gear and incants that buff weapon arts or holy damage, it fucks

There's good targets for it in Leyndell like the gargoyle nearby or the big boys hanging around

Jezza of OZPOS
Mar 21, 2018

GET LOSE❌🗺️, YOUS CAN'T COMPARE😤 WITH ME 💪POWERS🇦🇺

explosivo posted:

We finally broke into Leyndell today and I got the Long Horn on my first kill, lol

gently caress you!!!!

Tbf you still got a long grind for the double doot, aka God's chosen faith build

RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

quote:

I think what it really comes down to is that From could stand to explore *some kind* of skill-based matchmaking. Certainly doesn't need to be a super strict, codified MMR ladder like this is some esports poo poo, but maybe if you blitz down several other players in quick succession you get temporarily bumped up to a special matchmaking tier with other players that are also on a hotstreak.

The fast track special to a redbar superstar backstabbing you from across the map lmao

Jezza of OZPOS
Mar 21, 2018

GET LOSE❌🗺️, YOUS CAN'T COMPARE😤 WITH ME 💪POWERS🇦🇺
Is there a comprehensive list of the pve vs PvP balance differences anywhere? I wanna try some PvP but I tend to do a lot of lazy broken builds in pve BC I'm bad but I wanna try to take an arcane build into PvP and I'm not sure what to go with BC katanas and blood were gutted ages ago and that's what I'm doing early game

War Wizard
Jan 4, 2007

:)

Bobby Deluxe posted:

Question. I have a +16 Uchigatana. I used the Sacred blade ash of war to make it holy.

Does the sacred blade buff stack extra holy damage on top of the holy scaling, or not? Is it better to go keen and just keep buffing? I have 27 dex and 18 faith if this helps.

The holy buff is a flat amount of holy damage that gets added to the right column of the damage chart. Scaling doesn't affect it. However if you keep the Sacred modifier the bullet effect will be slightly improved and the holy damage will stack to a respectable amount.

If you keep it keen then the buff will provide a more minimal effect since split damage gets eaten up by split defense. But it'll still work wonders against skeletons.

verbal enema
May 23, 2009

onlymarfans.com
Radahn's Lion Bow loving rules

doomrider7
Nov 29, 2018

verbal enema posted:

Radahn loving rules

Yes.

Bonus picture of Radahn and Leonard.

goblin week
Jan 26, 2019

Absolute clown.

John Murdoch posted:

the victim doing the indicting just has to take on blind faith that their invader will somehow be punished down the line.

Perhaps the same can be said of all cops

John Murdoch
May 19, 2009

I can tune a fish.

doomrider7 posted:

Yes.

Bonus picture of Radahn and Leonard.



Extremely blessed.

Fruits of the sea
Dec 1, 2010

Holy poo poo, that's good

RBA Starblade posted:

The fast track special to a redbar superstar backstabbing you from across the map lmao

Yeah, that's gonna punish the average player for attempting to engage with pvp, so its only pro players invading :shepicide:

Some kind of soft ELO system or similar would probably be good. Just dear god, don't make it too visible (like the ladder in DS1) or it'll become mostly cheaters.

It would also be cool if there were some mild rewards in combination with matchmaking. Something to incentivize less skilled folks or people who just want to roll with a fun gimmick instead of a meta build. So there's a larger pool of "average" invaders. Because yeah, like folks said, its cool to be able to engage in a somewhat evenly matched fight against an invader instead of getting absolutely wrecked.

Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 09:47 on Jan 19, 2024

Lord_Magmar
Feb 24, 2015

"Welcome to pound town, Slifer slacker!"


l feel like Soul Memory is not a terrible answer to this question if it wasn't designed like rear end (as in kept track of all souls you ever gained rather than only the stuff you actually currently have available in terms of expenditure).

That and a tighter level banding for PvP mixed with a playtime component.

John Murdoch
May 19, 2009

I can tune a fish.

Fruits of the sea posted:

It would also be cool if there were some mild rewards in combination with matchmaking. Something to incentivize less skilled folks or people who just want to roll with a fun gimmick instead of a meta build. So there's a larger pool of "average" invaders. Because yeah, like folks said, its cool to be able to engage in a somewhat evenly matched fight against an invader instead of getting absolutely wrecked.

I agree, but it can be a thorny problem to tackle. If the rewards aren't good enough to compel people to PVP, nothing changes. If the rewards are too good, suddenly PVP feels like a mandatory part of the game. I was struggling to think of what carrot you put on that stick, but once again DS2's been there and done that - Bell keeping rewarding you with upgrade materials was pretty much perfect. It'd even slot into place with ER's weird material availability.

But that still only feels like one side of the coin. You'd still need to find other ways to normalize PVP such that interacting with it at all doesn't feel like a weird, scary other world. Honestly that's probably why I lean towards structured PVP stuff, because there's a certain comfort in having tangible rules of conduct. "Stay out of these woods or get invaded" feels like a more informed choice and a way for someone to dip their toes into PVP without feeling like there's a constant, oppressive cloud of invaders hanging over the entire game. So perhaps the trick there is to keep invasions locked to one or more specific locations in the early game and then as progress is made take the blinders off and begin to allow invasions anywhere. Throw in some wacky bespoke Fromsoft secret path so veteran players can turn invasions on ASAP to keep those folks happy.

Or other structure changes - different PVP objectives beyond murder, time limits for survival-based PVP?, limited respawns of some kind? Nothing that would be applied universally across all PVP, but stuff that might change up the formula enough to entice people. Sort of like how Grave of Saints can be played out as an obstacle course race to the boss fog - "all I need to do is make it to the exit" feels a bit more approachable than "I need to defeat this red man in an honorable 1v1".

I've also wondered if "mandatory" PVP could possibly work, like at all. Continuing to use the Forest Guardians as an example, if entering the forest was just as likely to abduct you and send you to kill somebody else as it was to have somebody come try and kill you. Would people accept that premise or just throw themselves off the nearest cliff the second they loaded in.

Also maybe just tone down the characterization of invaders being bloodthirsty evil dark murder bad guys. That honestly might help. gently caress off, Varre, you creep.

Lord_Magmar posted:

l feel like Soul Memory is not a terrible answer to this question if it wasn't designed like rear end (as in kept track of all souls you ever gained rather than only the stuff you actually currently have available in terms of expenditure).

The weird thing is that I think soul memory ended up working a little better than most people thought because despite being poorly designed between the wide matchmaking bands and people intentionally playing around it by making low SM builds it basically leveled out such that it stopped being a big deal.

Though also maybe it's just cuz it's 4am but I'm struggling to visualize what a "fixed" soul memory system would actually accomplish that would be different from the level + weapon level style matchmaking we have now.

John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 10:44 on Jan 19, 2024

Elden Lord Godfrey
Mar 4, 2022
Tighter banding on pvp matchmaking is a bad thing, because anything that restricts activity reduces the viability of the game mode.

And yes, tragically enough, that means filters on latency or even a soft ELO cuts off huge portions of the playerbase from matchmaking.

Lord_Magmar
Feb 24, 2015

"Welcome to pound town, Slifer slacker!"


I think I wrote that backwards, Soul Memory as originally designed basically tracked every soul you ever earned, even the stuff you lost from dying, I'm suggesting a system that only tracks "currently spent" souls would've been better. But I might be remembering Soul Memory very wrong.

John Murdoch
May 19, 2009

I can tune a fish.

Elden Lord Godfrey posted:

anything that restricts activity reduces the viability of the game mode.

Okay but then why do the existing matchmaking rules not count?

Like I get that very literally, anything that divides the playerbase up is going to shrink the available matchmaking pool(s) a non-zero amount, and I know in games with actual rigid ranking structures it turns into a shitshow for players at the top to actually find consistent play. But "reduces viability of the game mode" reads like a very vague and weasel-y phrase and I'm not clear how doing literally anything to it whatsoever would instantly "cut off huge portions of the playerbase from matchmaking".

Lord_Magmar posted:

I think I wrote that backwards, Soul Memory as originally designed basically tracked every soul you ever earned, even the stuff you lost from dying, I'm suggesting a system that only tracks "currently spent" souls would've been better. But I might be remembering Soul Memory very wrong.

Yeah I was gonna say it seemed like you had it backwards but I still understood what you were getting at. I think. The problem is that as I understand it soul memory was really just a clumsy response to people SL1 invading with endgame gear in DS1 (with pyromancy purely scaling off of soul investment being a big contributor). The current matchmaking rules are basically a better version that's more universally and more sensibly applied, helped by them also getting away from weird bespoke progression mechanics. But neither really solve the problems we've been talking about.

John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 11:43 on Jan 19, 2024

LazyMaybe
Aug 18, 2013

oouagh

Jezza of OZPOS posted:

Is there a comprehensive list of the pve vs PvP balance differences anywhere? I wanna try some PvP but I tend to do a lot of lazy broken builds in pve BC I'm bad but I wanna try to take an arcane build into PvP and I'm not sure what to go with BC katanas and blood were gutted ages ago and that's what I'm doing early game
The obvious extremely good(as in, so good other players will hate you for using it, it's banned amongst 'serious' pvp groups, etc) option is dual bleed spears, ideally cross naginatas.
Don't have a master list onhand but you can assume that all +X% more damage or damage resist buffs are nerfed. Doesn't make them useless, but I think stuff like scorpion charms are pretty dubious.

Lord_Magmar posted:

I think I wrote that backwards, Soul Memory as originally designed basically tracked every soul you ever earned, even the stuff you lost from dying, I'm suggesting a system that only tracks "currently spent" souls would've been better.
But how would that be any better than level+weapon level matchmaking?

Lord_Magmar
Feb 24, 2015

"Welcome to pound town, Slifer slacker!"


LazyMaybe posted:

The obvious extremely good(as in, so good other players will hate you for using it, it's banned amongst 'serious' pvp groups, etc) option is dual bleed spears, ideally cross naginatas.
Don't have a master list onhand but you can assume that all +X% more damage or damage resist buffs are nerfed. Doesn't make them useless, but I think stuff like scorpion charms are pretty dubious.

But how would that be any better than level+weapon level matchmaking?

It more or less is the current system, but I could see some argument for tying it more directly into Runes Spent rather than the results might be worthwhile. Otherwise well, yeah banding it better could help, particularly if playtime was used in the calculation (since that's probably the biggest sign of an invader who shouldn't be sent after new players if that's the thing you want to "fix" not that I necessarily agree with it but from a game dev/design perspective it's how I'd do it if I was told to).

LazyMaybe
Aug 18, 2013

oouagh
My take is that no matter how well you tune soul memory, it's going to feel bad to have souls spent tracked and used to exclude matches. Especially since some build types just naturally spend more souls than others-spend souls buying consumables like crab? That'll add up over time. Play a caster who's buying up all the spells available to try them out? That's more souls spent than a typical melee build.

I don't think a more restrictive matchmaker is the answer, I think the core system of invading would need to be different to actually eliminate these issues. Hard to imagine something that removes the gripes while also keeping the things that are compelling about invasions, though. Part of me thinks that the only way it would happen is by letting the antagonistic player take control of enemies/traps through a level and play a sort of "dungeon master" role, but that's obviously basically totally different.

Saying "make the game itself teach pvp fundamentals" makes sense on paper, but actually doing that to a meaningful degree would mean making enemies that are way more aggressive, way more punishing, and way more unpredictable than they currently are, as well as having much more symmetrical game systems(eg: enemy poise and stagger working the same as player poise and stagger.) Your average fromsoft player does not actually want to play that game.

Annath
Jan 11, 2009

Batatouille is a great and funny play on words for a video game creature and I love silly words like these
Clever Betty

Elden Lord Godfrey posted:

Tighter banding on pvp matchmaking is a bad thing, because anything that restricts activity reduces the viability of the game mode.

And yes, tragically enough, that means filters on latency or even a soft ELO cuts off huge portions of the playerbase from matchmaking.

I'd rather see invasions straight up removed rather than see them more often in the form the system currently has.

I liked my idea of invaders being perma-flagged for invasion by both red and blue phantoms because it gave invasion an actual consequence.

As it currently exists, there is absolutely zero risk to an invader. They invade and win? Great, here's your reward! Invade and lose? You have to go pick up your runes, but you respawn at the spot you invaded, which may very well be close to your runes, AND you get to keep your rune arc.

And for people ostensibly invading for the PVP rather than the rewards, the dropped runes matter less, so there's even fewer downsides.

Bisse
Jun 26, 2005

I adore what From is going for with their PvP and loved getting ganked when first playing DS1 and Elden Ring. They were surprising and tense moments that fit well into the world and melded with my single player experience very neatly.

However I find it very hard to get into because of all the myriad of items and rules and factions, and the items are limited so if I misunderstood something I maybe wasted a vital item, etc etc. I feel discouraged to even get started because I might do it 'wrong'.

Then the colosseum is a perfect addition but it is so badly designed. In theory, you can choose arena, choose playstyle, etc. However, you ONLY match with people who have EXACTLY the same settings as you. And the game doesn't tell you how many players are available, or which level range, etc. So the right thing to do to get matches is just pick default settings. Also you need to sit and wait in the roundtable, instead of say, applying for a match and being able to run around the world until you get matched up.

Basically Elden Ring commits the PvP sin of taking a huge player base and making it seem really small by dividing it up into a multitude of little sections ands barriers between the people playing so even though maybe thousands of people are playing at the same time, you wait 10min for a match because right at this moment there was noone waiting for specifically a level 90 1on1 time limited night time winter match in ShitHole Town with red sprinkles but no blue pinatas allowed.

SF6 I think is a gold standard for PvP. Three is only Ranked and Unranked, matchmaking happens in the background everywhere in the entire game, and if it's crowded you will get similar skill levels, if it's sparse you will match up with whoever the gently caress from wherever the gently caress. So what I do is turn on matchmaking, hang around in training mode practicing combos but you can also do arcade mode, challenges, etc, and within 20-30 secs it's match time baby. Battle Hub is also really good because it tells you how many are in each hub so you can tell 'aha i'm getting no matches because this particular hub was empty *switches hubs*' or 'aha I can actually see that all hubs are empty because noone's playing at 6PM on christmas eve, mind blown'

Bisse fucked around with this message at 12:37 on Jan 19, 2024

LazyMaybe
Aug 18, 2013

oouagh
It should be said that for people who want duels, there's a mod that provides a far better experience than the colosseum:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYWEGFVJ07g

Aside from the mentioned amount of time that it takes to get into a fight again, the biggest thing this improves is the arenas. I don't know why, but Fromsoft has always made pvp arenas which are way, way too big in these games, which leads to passive play with longer range pokes being very dominant.
because you're never going to get backed into a corner.

Elden Lord Godfrey
Mar 4, 2022
I like invading and getting invaded so much that I run all my content with Taunters Tongue turned on.

The normal PvE is piss easy. The only places that make me even slightly tense are Haligtree and Farum Azula, which have the highest enemy scaling and mob densities in the game.

The Little Kielbasa
Mar 29, 2001

and another thing: im not mad. please dont put in the newspaper that i got mad.
The last thing this game needs is a reward system designed to encourage more griefers.

No Dignity
Oct 15, 2007

The real Elden Ring is reading all these incredibly dumb posts

John Murdoch
May 19, 2009

I can tune a fish.

LazyMaybe posted:

Your average fromsoft player does not actually want to play that game.

Hmmmm. :thunk:

John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 14:25 on Jan 19, 2024

LazyMaybe
Aug 18, 2013

oouagh

The Little Kielbasa posted:

The last thing this game needs is a reward system designed to encourage more griefers.
What post is this meant to be responding to? If the game was made to be anywhere near challeging enough to compare to dealing with invaders(and it would need to be, in order to teach those skills), it would require the normal game experience to be like facing off against Vyke, but smarter and more aggressive. You'd lose a huge amount of the playerbase that way.

Annath posted:

I liked my idea of invaders being perma-flagged for invasion by both red and blue phantoms because it gave invasion an actual consequence.
That's a reward, not a detriment. Which is a "consequence", strictly speaking, but I'm not sure if that's your intent.

LazyMaybe fucked around with this message at 14:26 on Jan 19, 2024

No Dignity
Oct 15, 2007

Shadow of the Erdtree, save us from this dreadful spectacle...

John Murdoch
May 19, 2009

I can tune a fish.
FWIW I never said anything about trying to teach PVP fundamentals, just complained about the lack of it. I consider it an essentially unsolvable problem for exactly the reasons you said.

But also I just find the conclusion of "if every enemy was an invader nobody would want to play the game at all" really funny in the context of trying to get people to stop hating PVP with a fiery passion.

Yorkshire Pudding
Nov 24, 2006



Elden Lord Godfrey posted:

The normal PvE is piss easy. The only places that make me even slightly tense are Haligtree and Farum Azula, which have the highest enemy scaling and mob densities in the game.

Woah, badass!

JBP
Feb 16, 2017

You've got to know, to understand,
Baby, take me by my hand,
I'll lead you to the promised land.
From PvP enjoyers are demented imo

Guillermus
Dec 28, 2009



Godrick the Grafted posted:

I like invading and getting invaded so much that I run all my content with Taunters Tongue turned on.

The normal PvE is piss easy. The only places that make me even slightly tense are Haligtree and Farum Azula, which have the highest enemy scaling and mob densities in the game.

JBP posted:

From PvP enjoyers are demented imo

Drone_Fragger
May 9, 2007


I like duel pvp. I am not so keen on invasions in elden ring because of the invader disparity they're forced to just bait the players into accidently triggering world bosses or piles of dogs or whatever.

In ds1-3 it felt a lot more like people were actually going to just fight you since it was usually 1v1 rather than 3v1.

exquisite tea
Apr 21, 2007

Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."


JBP posted:

From PvP enjoyers are demented imo

That's what I'm getting from all these posts, truly hollowed mentality.

Drone_Fragger
May 9, 2007


exquisite tea posted:

That's what I'm getting from all these posts, truly hollowed mentality.

Correction, maidenless behaviour

LazyMaybe
Aug 18, 2013

oouagh
it's fun to roll around and hit each other with your swords actually. and to bounce people off platforms with the jar cannon

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Obligatum VII
May 5, 2014

Haunting you until no 8 arrives.
Where From PvP really shines is massive goofy brawls. 2v2ing my way through DS3 with a buddy I roped into doing the run with me and the dried finger constantly active was a ton of fun.

In theory I could do the same thing in Elden Ring with the taunter's tongue, although it'd only really be worthwhile activating in the legacy dungeons. Catacombs and caves are too short to be interesting and trying to do it in the open world segments is just stupid. Was never able to find a partner in crime for it though.

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