>>1593820 To expand on this a bit, this ego mismatch is probably the thing I hate the most in current online communities for pretty much any PVP game, because you need to constantly read the most retarded of opinions in regards to anything skill based in video games. Single player games are designed such that you're expected to win eventually, so they will trend to >50% winrate even for idiots, which builds their ego, then when they lose more often in online PVP, which is balanced to trend you towards 50% W/L, they blame the game rather than themselves and then come all over the internet to bitch and moan. The current generation of gamers is composed of a milion DSP-likes of blind, oblivious egotistical retards. I'd mostly have no issues with these people, provided they kept to themselves, but some-fucking-how there are so many of them and they're so loud that even games that should have NO ISSUES with the players are gutted because retards are just so fucking loud (games like Helldivers 2, for example).

>>1593831 >Doesn't DSR look the exact same? Not at all. There's a lot of textures that have been redone, but the biggest loss was the subtle filter that made the game look like a moving painting. A lot of VFX have lost all personality too, infamously the liquid fire of the bonfires was turned into a normal fire. It's not a Demon's Souls deal where you can say it's completely ruined, but it definitely looks worse overall.

>>1582464 >excluding retarded takes such as "2+2=4", am I insane for thinking this? If you actually care, spin up a private server for DS1 and invite friends, the Dark Souls Remastest mod guy had a guide on how to do it somewhere. >>1584565 >people don't pvp anymore Literally everyone above 90 IQ figured out that nowadays public PvP is the domain of nolife tryhards and cheaters, and sticks to SP or coop as a result. This isn't limited to FromSlop, which drove away its original userbase for reasons mostly unrelated to the multiplayer, you can see it especially in the AAA world: CoD going F2P should have been enough of a warning, but investors get upset when they hear that line might not go up so... >>1593820 >>1593838 >muh ego Retarded excuse, didn't save RTS and won't save invasions. >muh Helldivers 2 was fine and was ruined by casuals Max difficulty was literally nothing but avoidant gameplay, the devs literally refused to ever play it yet still tried to "balance" it blindly, all the while the vast majority of people who proved themselves capable of clearing it didn't like it: defending that kind of shitshow doesn't make you more skilled, it makes you a contrarian faggot.

>>1596212 It's all literally ego though, because it all revolved around difficulty levels. You're an example yourself from not understanding the root of the issue in that people were really just pissed off that they couldn't play at the highest difficulty BECAUSE it was the highest difficulty, and again, HD2 is the perfect example of this because you could always just lower the difficulty if you didn't like the way it was, but gamer dads couldn't take that they weren't the hugely skilled gamers that they thought. It's not even about "muh being more skilled" anyway, all of the options were literally right there, they could have just lowered the difficulty and played the game to the balance that they thought was right. "oh no there's like 5 chargers and 4 bile titans in this difficulty, I could play on difficulty 6 where there will be only one of each but I will piss and moan until it's difficulty 10 that has only one of each!!". The devs followed the very same design standards behind the original HD1, where the main focus of the game was avoiding triggering alarms at all costs and then having things spin out of control if you fucked up, nowadays it's just a snooze fest where you trigger alarms, throw the "I win fire barrage" stratagem on top of it and headshot whatever big bad comes out with a single shot from your support weapon, but the option to have that kind of gameplay was literally always right there. FYI, the most played difficulty in HD1 was difficulty 6. And that's a game where there was 15 difficulty levels, not 9 or 10. Why did they have to murder difficulty 10? I will tell you why, HD2 got too popular which led dumbasses into believing whatever bullshit some casual was spouting and moaning about on youtube, and them they rallied behind each other like a retard mob. Trust me when I say this, the issue is always casual retards having an opinion on balance. They don't know what they want, they just want to feel good and improve their social standing, nothing else.

>>1584565 >>1582464 It'd be fine if the penalties for loss weren't as bad.

>>1596304 >if you disagree you actually prove me right Faggot behaviour. >people were really just pissed off that they couldn't play at the highest difficulty BECAUSE it was the highest difficulty False, people who could win at 10 thought it was stupid and unfun and repetitive, so they went and bitched to the devs about it. The vast majority of players didn't even touch 7-8 let alone 9-10, and thus felt no need to bitch about problems they were not experiencing in the slightest: players sticking to the middle difficulties forever is not a surprise, 40% of DRG players stick exclusively to Haz 1 and 2 and less than 10% regularly play Haz 5. >The devs followed the very same design standards behind the original HD1 Those standards were shit, if you want to make a stealth game you do so from the ground up instead of slapping half-assed stealth mechanics and penalities for combat on top of a game entirely built around combat: same exact thing that killed GTFO, you advertise a shooter and then people refund when they see it's 90% red light green light stealth. And besides, not even the devs themselves cared about those standards, since they refused to play according to them. And even if you decided to tolerate that inexcusable lack of principles, changings things up because "players are having fun wrong" is always a recipe for disaster and I refuse to feel an ounce of pity for anyone clueless/arrogant enough to do so. >muh casuals, muh social standing Yeah right, surely the casuals were the ones keeping tabs on online drama around difficulties they weren't playing, it's not like casuals generally play a couple hours each weekend and that's it. Face it, you're asshurt because you enjoyed something most players didn't, and you got shafted since you bought an online-only GaaS so you can't just stick to old versions, private servers, or modded lobbies. Serves you right, for all that bitching and moaning about casuals lapping up AAA garbage you fell for the same memes as them. By the way, your screencaps are bad and you should feel bad: imagine trying to pin gender inclusiveness and journo nonsense on the same casual crowd that by and large refused to buy Concord, Veilguard, AC Shadows...

>>1596507 <>if you disagree you actually prove me right >Faggot behaviour. Yes? Yes it does, it exactly does especially when you dismiss ego as the keystone for that, when ego stroking has been the core design tenet of all game design for the last 10 years, lmao. >False, people who could win at 10 thought it was stupid and unfun and repetitive, so they went and bitched to the devs about it. Like who? The very same idiots who thought there was a meta? That you had to pick specific weaponry to make it through difficulty 10? That couldn't deal or didn't know how to deal with all the enemies that the highest difficulty tossed at you? Because it was always perfectly manageable, you just had to not play like an idiot in the highest difficulty. A lot of complaints from weapon balancing stemmed from the fact that people are just idiots and wanted to kill everything with 0 effort, case in point being all that argument about "using overpowered weaponry" being in the game's case, when yes, you DO use overpowered weapons, quite a lot in fact. You're a single soldier killing upwards to 500 enemies, how is that not overpowered? >The vast majority of players didn't even touch 7-8 let alone 9-10, and thus felt no need to bitch about problems they were not experiencing in the slightest: There is always is a lot of bitching man, and they were indeed trying to touch it, but it's a mob cycle where people fan each other's fire, again, your included, without really understanding things deeply enough. They lack self reflection. >Those standards were shit, if you want to make a stealth game you do so from the ground up It never was a fucking stealth game, you didn't have to run or hide 24/7, you just had to avoid walking into more reinforcements and losing control when you were already engaged in a fight, which yes, it is hard, intentionally so at the highest difficulty the game had, but we had a lot of bitching and moaning until they inevitably killed all the originality the game had. Go play Helldivers 1 and tell me that's a stealth game. HD2 was literally the same fucking shit. >those standards were shit Right, you're a moron. Nevermind. >And besides, not even the devs themselves cared about those standards, since they refused to play according to them. Absolutely not, the devs cared a lot for the way they were doing things, and they played up to difficulty 6 which was their comfort zone AND THEY LOVED THEIR OWN GAME. They WANTED the harder difficulties to be fucking hard, but people bitched and moaned to no end. The game had a lot of depth in understanding all the enemies weaknesses, the small details, how each stratagem worked very well. Now you just vomit whatever you have on top of the blob of enemies and move on to the next. >Face it, you're asshurt because you enjoyed something most players didn't Yes? I know that. Do you think I'm disagreeing from that? Good game design is fucking dying because casuals have been deliberately worsening the industry's expectations for the last 20 years, why do you assume I would have no issue with that? >Serves you right, for all that bitching and moaning about casuals lapping up AAA garbage you fell for the same memes as them. Does it? Launch HD2 was pretty fun, I took my fill of it when it lasted. Arrowhead made some decent games before that I still enjoy even through their reddit humor. The fact that I trusted a new game to keep being fun afterwards says nothing about me other than the fact that I might be gullible for the things that I like, but says everything about casuals once again ruining everything they touch. >By the way, your screencaps are bad Caps are from 2015 to 2018 when this shit was just starting up. And you're an absolute retard because those are the games that are extremely woke, everything else that is only barely or slightly pozzed, people still eat up with 0 issues, see also: BG3, Cyberpunk, KC2, etc.

>>1596564 >ego stroking has been the core design tenet of all game design for the last 10 years The absolute state of PvPfags.

Cuckchan thread is shit and this should've just been in the souls thread, so sageposting, but I will contribute. I think the biggest problem with solo invasions and why they don't feel as fun in ER and DS3 compared to past games is the rise in popularity of net-decking when it comes to builds and all that. Following clickbait youtubers or looking up "most efficient PVP invasion build" and just following that. Ends up making things very stale in the long run since all the invaders end up feeling the same or just rushing to the most OP bullshit and not experimenting. That practice makes PVE discussions more boring too and leads to people skipping a layer of engagement when it comes to buildcrafting in these kinds of games, such as in Remnant 2 where 90% of people you'd encounter would be running one of the same few clearly-guide-made builds, but this shit hurts the PVP side the most by removing a lot of variety and thus the invaders get stale fast. Look at the launch of DS:Remastered compared to the launch of the original when it comes to invaders and the experience from such and the difference was massive. Like, I've been doing an ER run with taunter's tongue on and 95% of the invaders were using the bloodhound's fang and the same min-maxxed armor set in the earlygame. It's just fucking tiresome. I was so happy when I finally fought a guy using a poison sword and board even if it was a deadlier build (since no poison cures that early unless you route for them) it was a much more fun fight. Or when I ran into a bleedmaxer using an uchi and a nagakiba once I got past Godrick. I remember back in DS2 where nearly every invader would be on some wacky bullshit and there was a lot of build and fashion variety, but now everyone has a stick up their ass about meta, twinking, netdecking, and minnmaxing. DS3 was bad about that shit too, and I despised it, but at least you'd occasionally see some cool shit.

>>1597102 I remember better times when a large part of /v/ talked shit on QTEs and sony movies, nowadays you refuse to observe reality for what it is.

>>1596212 > spin up a private server for DS1 and invite friends

>>1598241 Don't you guys have friends?

>>1598261 No________ __ _ ______________

>>1597328 >blaming the players for netdecking How about you blame FromSoft for rewarding guidefags at every step while trolling honest players with nonsense quests, lolrandom loot distribution, and so much more? And that's before getting into PvP specific issues, such as players being intended to manipulate matchmaking via level/upgrade brackets. >I remember back in DS2 where nearly every invader would be on some wacky bullshit and there was a lot of build and fashion variety GEE, I WONDER WHY DS2 HAD BETTER INCENTIVES FOR GOING OFF-META, WHAT THEY COULD HAVE POSSIBLY INCLUDED TO STOP REDDITORS FROM PUSHING THEIR BELOVED UNOFFICIAL LEVEL CAPS THAT JUST SO HAPPEN TO REWARD THEIR OWN MINMAXED BUILDS, IT PROBABLY STARTS WITH "S" AND ENDS IN "OUL MEMORY" >>1597383 >only play shit full of pandering >complain everything is shit and full of pandering >get mad when people tell you to stop playing shit full of pandering If you wanted recs for games released in the last 10 years that don't coddle your ego, you could have just asked, have a few I played recently: AI War Fleet Command (yes it was more than 10 years ago, no I don't care, fucking play it) Cryptark HOLE Recursed The Final Station Nuclear Option (actually passable PvP)

>>1598261 Why do you think I'm here?

>>1598241 >almost 20 years of PvP >no group of friends to play together This is why matchmaking is cancer: it teaches you that you don't need to look for someone to play with because a machine will do it instead, and when the machine stops working you're helpless.

>>1599456 One could also cease being a faggot misanthrope and look for an active community wherever it is

>>1599323 It's not just fromsoftware's fault, blaming them alone for the netdecking issue is dumb. Yeah these games can be cryptic but that's half the fun, figuring it out for yourself and experimenting. Most people nowadays don't have interest in doing that though, and that's a problem across a lot of games, not just souls. I think it has something to do with normalfaggots not wanting to fuck around as much and something related to crowd appeal but I can't be sure. Oddly enough I think you have a point with the soul memory thing, the only games that netdecking/lack of variety wasn't an issue in that I've played lately were Lords of the Fallen (2023) and Salt and Sacrifice. Both had basically nonexistent level matchmaking and scaled invaders up or down instead. They still had their "metas" mind you but just like the Demon Souls, DS1, and DS2 days you barely saw them and instead found a fair bit of variety. Salt and Sacrifice was greatly helped by its covenant system though, with several different types of invaders and co-op summons with varying goals, another comparison you can make to earlier vs later Dark Souls games with covenants being lamer in 3 and then gone in ER. Of course Remnant 2 serves as a counterexample to the matchmaking thing regarding netdecking, however, since there is literally no matchmaking there, just world scaling with host's numerical power level (derived from weapon upgrades and archetype level). Remant 2 is a strange fucking anomaly in that regard as a whole though, it's pure PVE so you think people would be willing to experiment more, but you barely see any experimentation and you see EVEN LESS of such at lower difficulties, where you think you'd see people using wackier and less optimal builds and use off-meta weapons more. The netdecking thing with Elden Ring is also strange. As a guy who does a ton more jolly co-op than invasions/duels you see tons of variety in the PvE builds people run, minus the 110-150 range where most PVP builds are, but invaders have notably less than hosts. I think people running specific anti-gank setups could be a reason but I doubt it's the whole story. Duelists are even fucking worse and it gets to a point you feel like you're fighting the same ten or so people over and over due to the lack of variety. PVE builds still have their meta, I'd be a filthy rich if I got paid for every quad-buffing Varre-bullgoat/Varre-raptorcloack bleed build or every "haha comet azur go brr" build I saw after all, but you don't see clearly "I looked this build up on the internet" shit nearly as often.

>>1598241 >>1599456 can't tell if you guys are fucking with me, but to spell it out, obviously the entire point of random invasions is that neither player knows what they're going to get the whole fun of it is seeing what kinda builds and playstyles other people are cooking up, and maybe you see something you like and try to pivot into that, or make a mental note to try it on a different character if you're just playing with a small group of friends it'll stagnate very quickly This is such an effective tool to lengthen playtime, World of Warcraft for example keeps buffing and nerfing classes/specs on a carousel every 3 months so people get oneshot by an ele shaman and go "man I wanna play that" and make an alt, which is another 30h+ of gameplay to get ready, 1 of those being for leveling you really think none of these MMOs can figure out a fucking DPS sim that 90% of the playerbase uses and balance accordingly? kinda went off topic, but you get what I'm saying, running into randoms is more fun and more effective at stimulating organic replayability

>>1582464 Nope. Souls PvP was never good and twinks were a huge problem. No wonder the majority of players either played offline or were running around in hollow form (which breaks immersion, since the lore encourages you to preserve your humanity instead of running around looking like a freak).

>>1582955 Your second point was further proven right recently with the Lords of the Fallen PvP update that disables invasions by default. Now it's all gankers vs sweatlords and all casual PvPers quit. The PvP population took a nosedive and you'll only get matched with the same couple of cancerous players spamming meta shit with infinite heals.

>>1777864 >No wonder the majority of players either played offline Cowards >or were running around in hollow form A perfectly reasonable stratagem.

>>1777864 >and twinks were a huge problem you've never ran into a single one, you just watched them on youtube the time and effort to make one of those characters + the fact that they can never progress + the fact that you're curbstomping people without any challenge makes them a very rare occurrence you are more likely to run into a cheat engine kid than a twinked out character on DS1

>>1582464 Not just invasions, but it seems everyone suddenly turned against the From way of doing multiplayer. The truth is that Dark Souls is not a multiplayer game like Monster Hunter or Diablo. It was always a single player game where you'd occasionally teamed up with or got invaded by a complete stranger, with the rest of the player interactions being indirect such as with the ghosts or the messages. But thanks to the normalfag masses and the Seamless co-op mod, that's on its way out and the next game will likely be generic friendslop that your coworkers will watch their favorite streamer play live. >>1596304 is right. Modern game design is about not making the player feel bad in any way and constantly stroking his ego (as the anon above said), which is why PvP is falling out of style and people throw a bitchfit when a game like Silksong comes out that doesn't just spoonfeed progression to the player.

>>1582464 I would if most invaders I had to deal with weren't annoying turbofaggots hellbent on wasting as much of my time as possible. The moment they get any kind of pushback they would immediately start running all over the place, hiding behind enemies and other shit like that. There's a reason why invaderfags get all pissy once you remind them that arena duels are a thing if they're such hardcore PvPgods that just want to challenge other players. Invaders don't want fun and honest fights, they just want to bully retards and the moment they can't they start seething and wasting everyone's time out of spite.

>>1831417 the reason you get fags instead of normal people trying to fight is because of the changes they've made to how invasions work in DS1 there was gear you could get by doing invasions, so any normal player going through their playthrough would set aside 2-3h to invade here and there and it was organic and fun but if you can only invade into a team of 3, nobody normal is going to do that. The only players who would engage with that system are people who want to waste your time, and twinking fags. Nowadays if they put any gear behind invasions people would piss and shit themselves on reddit and start posting guides detailing how to get around it with cheat engine. Covid absolutely raped videogames and anime, the most retarded niggers ever are sharing the space now and it sucks.

No because I work a wholeass fulltime job now, and I have a entire house to take care of. The cooking, dishes, laundry, and yardwork ain't gonna do itself. After all of that I don't have the time or energy to deal with some meta build following minmaxed faggot absolutely destroying me in the minuscule scraps of game time I have to play before exhaustion drags me to bed. If I wanted to deal with some failed abortion being annoying as shit and wasting my time I'd work overtime at my job and atleast get paid extra for it. Back in DS1 I used to enjoy messing with invaders alot so I can see where invasions are fun at times, but I'm too damn tired for that shit these days.

>>1837801 >Back in DS1 I used to enjoy messing with invaders alot >complains about getting insta-shrekt by invaders nowadays lolz

>>1837801 >I work a wholeass fulltime job now, and I have a entire house to take care of. The cooking, dishes, laundry, and yardwork AHHH PLEASE KILL ME OH GOD MAKE IT STOP sir this is vidrogames wow sily invader is gonna extend your playtime by 1 hour the kids are gonan fuckin die

I'm just here to say that Bloodborne had the best invasion system. Shame thst the covenants were unfinished.

>>1837801 >I'm too damn tired for that shit these days. Low test faggot. Your wife is ready for the bull.

Souls invasions don't work now because they were invented in the context of body form/soul form white tendency/black tendency. The further they have strayed from this the less sense it has made. I'm guessing though they're sort of trapped by their own success and can't just enforce their original design intent. This is why I think ER has blue phantoms even though there is no fucking reason for them to exist ether mechanically or in the narrative. Their only hope is to pull a Sekiro and do Souls adjacent games that are completely different and allow them to experiment again. Both the people who think Souls games are fighting games AND the people who think they are Hobbit walking parties need to be put in a corner for the sake of everyone else and for genre integrity. I personally want a Souls game with NO conventional PVE or PVP (i.e. no reds nor whites/golds). I want mad phantoms. I want gravelording. I want vileBloods vs ExeCriptioners starting shit with each other on sight and then have a HunterXHunter come in and tard wrangle them both for you. I want area invasion covenants. I want to invite people to my magical realm just to try and make ratdaddy happy. I want crypt spelunking buddies who've sworn a oath to kill centipedes. I want to be another players boss fight, or have them be mine. I want thing's I haven't even thought of.

>>1583464 I agree anon, it was a lot better back then even though it was more "unbalanced". I was one of the few people to actually do a SL9 run in PtDE on PC in order to max out my twink pvp toon as much as possible. The reward for accomplishing a difficult low SL run to invade others was really cool and easily gave me another 50 hours of gameplay. Maybe it was just a different time, but a lot of "noob stomper" invaders were actually pretty chill. I RP'ed as a darkwraith with the full set and a +0 scythe. I would fight with fair gear against any noobs I came across, but kept a +15 half-zatoishi in the back pocket for other twinks who would bait my invasions. I feel like I gave a lot of good memories to new players who got to experience a dynamic challenge instead of the same boss run over and over and over again. Soul level and gank squads ruined later game's pvp and turned it into a gay ass 3D fighting game. I pvped less and less with every installment. I barely touched pvp in elden ring despite it being filled with players who didn't know what they were doing at all. Modern players just aren't cut out for ANY friction in their game design. I miss boss runbacks so much, but if you look at online discourse over similar games like silksong, "gamers" can't STAND spending 45 seconds to get to a fucking boss. Pathetic really.

>>1582464 Remastered has invasions but they fucked with the matchmaking so if you pick up some magic items or level up your weapons too much you can't bully noobs that easily anymore but it's also harder to get summoned for co-op on lower levels and if you don't understand the system. If anything they should have try and figure out how to make the pvp good and not just a retarded side game filled with bugs they won't fix.

>>1839999 >they fucked with the matchmaking so if you pick up some magic items or level up your weapons too much you get matched to your level* tftfy, killer of fun

>>1839672 >I miss boss runbacks so much, but if you look at online discourse over similar games like silksong, "gamers" can't STAND spending 45 seconds to get to a fucking boss. Pathetic really. God I wish gaming would go back to being a niche thing. I can't stand these casuls and the current gay ass generation complaining the second they hit any kind of wall they need to overcome. Invasions were one of the best thing about dark souls and even though I like DS2 a lot, I can't deny that soul memory was the most retarded concept out there. Speaking of, when are they gonna make invading as a boss minion a thing again? Destroying people trying to make it past the mirror knight was very funny